Filmmaker José Luis García Sánchez dies at 85

One of the most unique personalities in Spanish cinema has left. José Luis García Sánchez, awarded the Golden Bear in Berlin for The Trouts, an excellent screenwriter and figure of the school that emerged in the Transition, has died at the age of 85. His work ironically addressed the contradictions of society, power relations and the cultural and political changes in Spain.

In its beginnings it was linked to the theater. Already in cinema, in 1975 he directed El love ferocious or When children play at love, followed by Colorín colorado (1976).

His consecration came with The Trouts (1978), a choral satire on hierarchies and collective behaviors that won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival. This international recognition consolidated his artistic personality and his ability to combine absurd humor, social criticism and an incisive look at Spanish reality. From then on, he developed a personal filmography, far from the most traditional narrative conventions and attentive to the transformations of the society of his time.

During the following decades, he directed fundamental films of his career, including La Corte del Faraón (1985), a film adaptation of the famous zarzuela; Divine words (1987), based on the work of Ramón María del Valle-Inclán; Tirano Banderas (1993), inspired by the novel by the same author; and Tranvía a la Malvarrosa, adaptation of the work by Manuel Vicent. His affinity with the Spanish literary tradition, especially with the grotesque, the picaresque and satire, became one of the features of his cinema.

As a screenwriter he won two Goya awards: best original screenplay for Belle Époque (1992), directed by Fernando Trueba, and best adapted screenplay for Tirano Banderas. In his later stage he continued exploring the Spanish tradition through films such as Lázaro de Tormes (2001), María querida (2004), dedicated to the philosopher María Zambrano, and Los Muertos No Se Tocan, Nene (2011), an adaptation of a work by Rafael Azcona. In 2017 he received the Honorary Golden Spike from the Valladolid International Film Week (Seminci) in recognition of his career.

"Cinema is the most beautiful job in the world: it is not a permanent job; colleagues change, they are not always the same; and, sometimes, they pay you," declared García Sánchez in the tribute dedicated to him by the Film Academy Foundation.

Nobody defined it better.