Quotes

You become a filmmaker the day you feel this special feeling - love for the Cinema and all its roles. A guy working in an office who suddenly feels the excitement to buy a camera and shoot his kids on his free time is already a Filmmaker. Anyone who makes something with a camera is a filmmaker. There are people who are happy just dreaming of it, while others (like Frank Capra said) are brave enough to make movies.

If you think about it, every time we watch a film, what we are actually seeing is the Director's point of view on the world around us. Once a Screenwriter has handed over the script to a Director, a new project begins, as a child being born, the director becomes as a new father, ready to breathe life into a new being and thus transmit his mindset, his thoughts, his ideals, his religion... essentially his way of looking at life.

Nowadays young people have a lot more possibilities to travel and learn that we are not just isolated and alone in our respective neighborhoods but instead that we share one world with different thoughts and points of view about life. Maybe that's the reason why I want to be a Film Director. I think that movies could help bring people closer together.

Each film I make is a piece of my life, because every film I've made belongs to a chapter of my memories.

Inspiration. Sometimes, all I need to start off with is a song in order to imagine a basic plot for my next script. Alicia Keys' Piano & I inspired me to create my film Connie (2004), also based on events from my personal life. As a general rule, each person's life story is always interesting enough to inspire a script. Oliver Stone chose Vietnam, a relevant topic in his youth. Me, I never had a girlfriend in my teenage years. With the memory of conflict and failure still fresh in my mind, I feel I'll always be searching for this lost youth in all the stories I have yet to tell.

I'm Catalan, but actually I've always felt more like a citizen of the world.

I started making my first films on Super 8 and analog video at the age of 15. Since then, I've never stopped producing my own films.

My role in the context of a production: I have written and produced all projects which appear in my filmography as a Director, while alternating titles in other productions, whether in the Director's department, the Production department and/or a parallel career as a camera operator and electrical technician.

I have been initiating my own projects as a Director and as a Producer starting from when I was a teenager, all the way up to the present as an activity which I have always combined with additional academic training such as 3 different film schools along with a series of retraining courses, always in the same area of communication and visual arts. The fact that I rotated between directing my own features and working on other productions allowed me to further my knowledge of the film industry, and even created a need to keep 5 separate résumés each corresponding to the 5 different departments I have experience in: Production, Directing, ENG, Camera and Electrical Department(s), not to mention a résumé exclusively detailing my own filmography as a Director.

Currently, becoming a teacher has also been added to my list of professional goals, as I continue to plan and look forward to future projects.

I began directing my first films when I was 15, always alone behind the camera, working all roles: not only as Producer-writer-Director, but also as Cinematographer, Camera Operator, Gaffer, Grip, Production Designer and Sound. I worked in this way, during my whole teenager hood, before beginning my film studies, when my only filmmaking experiences were the amateur films I made before that: little movies in Super 8 with my family and friends as my Cast & Crew.

Then, in 2000, at once I began my film studies in the school Micro Obert in Barcelona. As my first-year final project in this school, my teachers gave my first chance, to direct my first "professional" Short film, Mohamed (2001), in 2001. I mentioned "professional" because Mohamed (2001) was to me, in a lot of aspects, my first time in a lot of things: not only I left of filming in Super 8 to filming in 16 mm, but also I could say that was my first "real" contact with a professional filming. Cause I also left of being me alone the Camera, to have a Crew. I left of being my own Camera Operator, for instance, and both Torrella, una vida pel cinema (1997) and Mohamed (2001) are already a chapter in my career, which these filming memories I'll remember while I'm still growing old. Torrella, una vida pel cinema (1997) was my first feature film (made at the age of 18) and Mohamed (2001) was the first film as Director when I left to be alone behind the camera, which experience made me learn a lot for the following films I made till nowadays. Mohamed (2001)'s filming, as the young film student I was, seemed to me as hard as Apocalypse Now (1979)'s. Maybe because I found new experiences, which we will never learn none in a classroom none in the best book.

This Short was filmed in Barcelona, on 1st. and 2nd. June 2001. And, when I back from my Summer Holydays, Micro Obert gave me the new that this film was selected, to compete in Sitges '01 XXXIV Catalonian International Film Festival. But then, this festival was just the beginning of further International Film Festivals, and which won him, among other awards, a scholarship to further my film studies at the New York Film Academy. Then: Mohamed (2001) was also my first critical success.

My work is always available on internet, but to me it's not enough: I'm still sending my films to Film Festivals all over the world.

The 5 most important things regarding your job:

1. Faith. Believing in phrase "I'll get it" makes me work hard.

2. Talent & Hardworking. I put these 2 things together because it's not enough having talent if you don't work hard. On the other hand, if you're not that gifted but you work hard, I'm still having this faith you may get to somewhere, somewhere good for sure!

3. Humility It's a skill I sincerely hope I never lose, especially if I'm never to become another Barry Levinson.

4. Thinking that you've never stopped learning.

5. Love what you do.

My body of work is often created with melodrama as its' backdrop, filled with visual portraits of environment and moods, almost always without following the accepted classic structure of a script by elaborating and then assembling brief sequences like pieces to a handmade puzzle inside of which impossible romances, farewells and open endings have all proven to be recurring themes in the various works of me.

The parallel phase of my career as a filmmaker reflects my work creating documentaries. Starting off with a simple interview, each project quickly becomes a catalyst for an explosion of seemingly unconnected ideas. Only during production and later during post-production do they slowly find their place in the form of a script.

In addition to all of its' potential, the internet will become the center for the museums and the film archives of tomorrow. Authors and filmmakers alike will have the opportunity to share the work we do on the internet. Our art will never grow old, nor erode over time and will therefore live on forever.

At present, in view of already seeing the faces of the actors when I write a new script, now my greatest source of inspiration is the illusion of the new actor or actress that I will want as the protagonist in my new project. To the point where my scripts have already become love letters to my actors, even though I want to consider myself, above all else, a director of actresses.