Celebrity Biographies
Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
In his days as a short filmmaker he was already attracting the attention of Hollywood. From the first moment it has been clear that Fresnadillo had come to the Seventh Art to stay and that he is called to make great films. He combines entertainment cinema with very human characters and his particular vision of the world.
Born in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, on December 5, 1967, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo has always been interested in cinema, and tried to enroll in the Image career. But he did not get the note by two tenths and he ended up in Sociology. For this, he left the Fortunate Islands to go to the Complutense University of Madrid. In the capital of Spain he ended up studying at the TAI school, where he shoots a short short as his final year project.
In 1996, in his hometown, he filmed his first official short film in black and white –almost a medium-length film as it lasts 24 minutes–, Handcuffs , for which he had established actors such as Pedro Mari Sánchez and Anabel Alonso . A jinxed husband (Sánchez), eager to murder her wife (Alonso), sees her criminal instincts heighten when she wins the lottery. Little did he know that it was going to be one of the most important shorts ever shot in Spain, as it won 40 national and international awards.
One day he found out that any short film that had won an international competition could be eligible for an Oscar. Since his had triumphed at the Gijón Festival, it met the requirements, so he didn’t even think twice. “I put the can in an envelope and sent it to Los Angeles.” He had almost forgotten about it when someone called him to tell him about the small detail that he had been nominated for an Oscar. Since he didn’t quite believe it, he himself phoned Los Angeles, the Film Academy, for clarification.
Despite this curious candidacy, the first for a Spanish short at the Oscars, Fresnadillo was slow to get his first feature film, Intacto , from 2001 up and running. ‘, is something that a priori gives vertigo. I have tried to turn that into an ally, and that this pressure would help me to focus even more on myself, in giving my best, and in giving myself time, in looking for the best possible project for that coming-out. It took me almost five years to make another film, but it was about digging inside myself until I was fully convinced of what I wanted to do”, commented the filmmaker.
The script, by Fresnadillo himself, focuses on Federico ( Eusebio Poncela ), a specialist in discovering people who have the gift of luck, and for some obscure reason, tries to recruit Tomás ( Leonardo Sbaraglia ), the only survivor of a plane crash. The film won the Goya for Best New Actor, for Sbaraglia, and for Best New Director, Fresnadillo himself.
But due to his style, indebted to the best American cinema, the Tenerife native was destined to leap beyond the Spanish borders. He ended up recruited to direct the sequel to 28 Days Later , with which Danny Boyle gave a twist to the hackneyed zombie movie. It was a much bigger challenge than it seemed at first, as his film would have to withstand comparisons to the original. However, he was right to take the tape to the human terrain, and focus on the description of the characters, a father ( Robert Carlyle ) who tries to survive the zombies with his children.
For his next job, Fresnadillo has recruited a top actor, Clive Owen , who heads the cast of Intruders , shot in English. It marks a return to the thriller, the genre he proved to know so well in his short film. “ Intruders is a very ambitious and very personal project that vindicates my love for the visual universe that is born from the most hidden, from the ghosts that are buried in our unconscious”, comments Fresnadillo.