Eloy de la Iglesia
| Eloy de la Iglesia | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Eloy Germán de la Iglesia Diégue 1 January 1944 Zarautz, Spain |
| Died | 23 March 2006 (aged 62) Madrid, Spain |
| Occupation | filmmaker |
| Years active | 1966–2003 |
Eloy de la Iglesia (January 1, 1944 – March 23, 2006) was a Spanish screenwriter and film director.
De la Iglesia was an outspoken gay socialist filmmaker who is relatively unknown outside Spain despite a prolific and successful career in his native country. He is best remembered for having portrayed urban marginality and the world of drugs and juvenile delinquency in the early 1980s. Part of his work is closely related to the phenomenon popularly known in Spain as quinqui films, to which he contributed with several works. His film are an example of commitment to the immediate reality. They were made with honesty and great risk, against the conformist outlook of most movies of its time. Beyond their debatable aesthetic merits, his film served a document of the Spanish marginality of the late seventies and early eighties, and they have the stamp of his strong personality. Many of this films also deal with the theme of homosexuality.
Born in Zarauz, Guipúzcoa into a wealthy Basque family, he grew up in Madrid. His desire to follow a career in filmmaking was initially thwarted. He attended courses at the prestigious Parisian Institut des hautes études cinématographiques, but he could not enter Spain’s national Film School because he wasn't yet 21, the minimum age required for admission. Instead, he began to study philosophy and literature at the Complutense University of Madrid, but on his third curse he abandoned it to direct children’s theater. By age twenty he had already written and directed many works for television sharpening his narrative skills. He established himself as a writer of children's television programs for Radiotelevisíon Española in Barcelona.
De la Iglesia made his debut as film director when he was only twenty-two years old with Fantasia 3 (Fantasy 3 ) (1966), adapting three children’s stories: The Maid of the Sea, The three hairs from the devil and The Wizard of Oz. While doing mandatory military service, he wrote the script of his second film, Algo Amargo en la Boca (Something Bitter Tasting) (1968).Algo Amargo en la boca, a sordid melodrama, and de la Iglesia’s next film, Cuadrilatero (Boxing Ring) (1969), a boxing story, faced problems with the Francoist censors and failed at the box office. His films did not attract widespread notice until his fourth effort, the critically acclaimed thriller El Techo de Cristal (The Glass Ceiling) (1970).
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