Fernando Leon de Aranoa

Fernando Leon de Aranoa was born in Madrid in 1968. With a degree in Image Sciences from Madrid’s Complutense University, it seems that he always knew that he wanted to be a screenwriter and film director. “I approach movies out of curiosity, to understand the world,” the director told me in an interview. And in effect, his cinema supposes a look at society and the problems that afflict it, but always a look at specific, normal, ordinary people in their daily lives. In this sense, his is a humanist cinema, and he does not like the label that he “makes social cinema”, although he can understand it. In person, with his traditional T-shirt, abundant hair tied up in a ponytail and beard, he is frank in his treatment, direct in his answers, willing to explain what interests him, in the cinema, and in life.

What has been said does not mean that León de Aranoa is not a professional, and in fact his first steps in the audiovisual world led him to work for others, either in the television contest program “Un, dos, tres” by Narciso Ibáñez Serrador , and in the comic sketches of “Tuesday and thirteen”. In television fiction, he would also contribute his scriptwriting wisdom to Turno de oficio , and in cinema he would work extensively on comedies by Antonio del Real such as ¡Finally alone! (1994), Men always lie (1994), Crazy Heart (1997) and Cha-cha-chá (1998). When he was already a director developing his own projects, he was not averse to collaborating withChus Gutiérrez –Insomnia (1998)–, Antonio Cuadri – La gran vida (2000)–, La Fura del Baus – Fausto 5.0 (2001)– and Uruguayan cinema – The Last Train (2002)–. Although from 2002 and his greatest success, Los lunes al sol , he will not sign scripts for others.

His first job as a director was a short film, Sirenas (1994), and it would not take long, two years, for him to sign his first feature film, Familia , produced by Elías Querejeta. It was quite a surprise, the original and surprising way of pointing out that we all need the love of a family, and it is not surprising that it received a Goya for best new director, and that the film was sold around the world, since its essence was universal. Already in this debut he showed that he was good at directing actors, perhaps because he understood how people and characters are, all at the same time.

Following his custom of titling films in a minimalist way, one word is enough, came later Barrio (1998), a look during the summer at three unemployed boys from a Madrid sweep, with the typical concerns of adolescence, the particular environment of each home , and a certain fatalism that would be present again in his filmography.

The absolute consecration would come with Mondays in the Sun (2002), Golden Shell at the San Sebastián Festival and Goya for Best Film. It starred Javier Bardem about to make the Americas, and the approach to the problem of unemployment, through a group of comrades without work, was very human, with some rather ironic humorous notes, rather dominated the bitter aftertaste. The film was co-produced with Mediapro, and the association with producer Jaume Roures continues to this day. Although yes, León de Aranoa decided to create his own production company, Reposado, in 2004, from which he develops his projects. The first would be Princesses(2005), a risky look at the world of prostitution in Spain. The title already speaks of the intention to humanize women, they are people clothed with dignity, despite their trade, but the danger, which the director does not avoid, is the naive look, from a “fairy tale”, never better said.

The concern for the director’s childhood was reflected in the collective documentary film Invisibles (2007). In his segment On Him Goodnight Ouma , he echoed the dire plight of child soldiers in Uganda. It was not the first time that he tackled this genre, since in 2001 he signed Caminantes , about the Zapatistas in Mexico, awarded at the Havana Film Festival, and had co-written the screenplay for La espalda del mundo (2000).

Five years has taken Fernando León de Aranoa to return to directing a fiction feature after Princesses. Amador is not a movie about immigration, or it is not just about immigration. Actually it talks about the loneliness of people, and the need that we all have to fit the pieces of our lives to achieve happiness. He does it through an extreme situation where there is no lack of considerations about old age, and the magnitude of people’s problems, which is none other than what each one sometimes gives them in an exaggerated way.