Spanish actress, film director and screenwriter
In this
Spanish name
, the first or paternal
surname
is
Bollain
and the second or maternal family name is
Perez-Minguez
.
Iciar Bollain
|
---|
|
Born
| Iciar Bollain Perez-Minguez
(
1967-06-12
)
12 June 1967
(age 56)
|
---|
Occupations
| - Director
- screenwriter
- actress
|
---|
Years active
| 1995?present
|
---|
Iciar Bollain Perez-Minguez
(born 12 June 1967) is a Spanish filmmaker and actress.
[1]
[2]
[3]
She is best known for directing
Te Doy Mis Ojos
(
Take My Eyes
), which won 7 Goya Awards.
[4]
Bollain has won other awards for acting and script-writing, as well as for directing.
Early life and education
[
edit
]
Iciar Bollain Perez-Minguez was born in Madrid on 12 June 1967.
[5]
She was one of twin girls to a father who was an
aeronautical engineer
and a mother who was a music teacher. She grew up in a liberal household in which each member was allowed to follow their own inclination. Iciar and her twin sister Marina showed an early interest in the arts; Iciar was inclined towards filmmaking while her sister studied to become an operatic singer. Bollain was cast in
Victor Erice
's
El Sur
(1983), for her acting debut.
[6]
Career
[
edit
]
Since then Iciar Bollain has acted in fourteen films. At age 18, with her twin sister Marina, she was cast by their uncle Juan Sebastian Bollain in two films:
Las dos orillas
(1987); several years later the twins appeared in
Dime una mentira
(1992). Iciar Bollain also took roles in films directed by Felipe Vega,
Manuel Gutierrez Aragon
and
Jose Luis Borau
. Her red hair was partly what led
Ken Loach
to choose her for his film,
Land and Freedom
(1995), about the
Spanish Civil War
. Her experience working with Loach led her to write the book:
Ken Loach: un observador solitario.
[7]
Bollain at age 23 formed a production company which she named
La Iguana,
and made two short films:
Baja Corazon
(1992) and
Los Amigos del muerto
(1994). With support from
Fernando Colomo
, she made her first feature film as director:
Hola, ¿estas sola?
(
Hi, are you alone?
in English) (1995), a story about two young girls who dream of finding an earthly paradise and undertake a long trip towards the sea.
Her second feature film was
Flores de otro mundo
(
Flowers from another world
in English) (1999), which she co-wrote with
Julio Llamazares
. It is the story of three women who travel to rural Spain with the hopes of finding love.
Her film
Te Doy Mis Ojos
(
Take My Eyes
) (2003) won seven
Goya Awards
, including Best Film and Best Director.
[4]
Starring
Luis Tosar
and
Laia Marull
, the movie is about a man's abuse of his wife during their marriage, and their struggles to change the pattern of their lives.
[8]
[9]
Her 2010 film
Even the Rain
(
Tambien la lluvia
)
[10]
was selected as the Spanish entry for the
Best Foreign Language Film
at the
83rd Academy Awards
.
[11]
In January 2011, the film made the final nine shortlist.
[12]
A film within a film, it is set in the Bolivian highlands in 2000. A Spanish film company's work on Columbus' arrival in the New World gets caught up in local violence related to current exploitation of peasants. It stars
Gael Garcia Bernal
as the director and
Luis Tosar
as the film producer. Carlos Aduviri, an
Aymara
who plays a native leader in the "film," takes the lead in organizing a resistance to water privatization; he was nominated for a Best Newcomer Award at the
Goya Awards
. In 2020, she was invited to membership in the
AMPAS
.
[13]
Representative films
[
edit
]
Flowers from Another World (Flores de otro mundo) (1999)
[
edit
]
This movie can also be seen as a means of instruction for foreign students. It shows several key aspects of both the history of
Spain
and the socio-cultural evolution of the country. It tells the story of three women, Milady, from Cuba, Patricia, from the Dominican Republic and Marirrosi, from Bilbao. They have several existential problems and concerns regarding their future. These problems are similar to those suffered by three young men from Santa Eulalia, a village from the
Province of Guadalajara
, which is an unimportant small town without marriageable women. Damian, Alfonso and Carmelo (these young men) come into contact with the three women at a party organized by single people of the village. There they got to know each other and this gives place to a bittersweet story.
This cinematographic work is useful from an academic point of view, not only for its historical value, but also because it is presented as an open window that allows the viewer to take the place of the characters, suffering with them the same surprises and impressions, since the point of arrival of the women to Santa Eulalia. Other essential aspects of the film are that it offers the opportunity to understand one of the main points of the novel: the problems of the Spanish countryside. At the same time, Iciar Bollain preserves the classic stereotypes of the typical Spanish town, where the bar is the most important forum for meetings and ideological defenses. But Bollain doesn't leave behind the important issue of the leading sexism of the time, and she is also concerned to mitigate it largely by introducing characters like Dona Gregoria, who is the mother of one of the young men and also the reflection of the rural matriarchy.
Foreignness is another key point in this story. At the beginning of the film, with the arrival of the three women to the village, the feeling of strangeness and rejection towards the foreigners appears. However it starts disappearing with the development of loving relationships between them and the young men of Santa Eulalia. This is a clear solution to the problem of foreignness. Iciar Bollain doesn't present a problem without the corresponding solution, introducing an integrative ideology that breaks with cultural and racial barriers, which is another important pillar of the film that is a recognized pedagogical intention.
Bollain sets the film during the
Spanish property bubble
to reflect the issues and consequences that even today directly affect Spanish society. Flowers from Another World analyses not only the racial issue but also the role of women at that time. This can even be compared to other similar cases in which women start a movement for social integration, as in the case of the Mexican immigrant women in the
United States
. Everything is portrayed through the figures of the three women who star in this story.
Take my eyes (Te doy mis ojos) (2003)
[
edit
]
Source:
[14]
[15]
This film is characterized for introducing a new element: the
Painting
. The use of pictorial art enriches the staging and the story itself, analyzing the narrative function that the works of this style can have within the Cinematography. While the painting does not carry a major role in the story of Pilar, a victim of
domestic violence
, it is crucial to the development of the main character. Thus, the Painting may be seen as a connector rather than a main narrative axis.
Somehow, through the painting, it is observed throughout the film how Pilar gets rid of the chains of the violence and abuse made by her husband. As Iciar Bollain said, "Pilar meets art and thus begins to grow up emotionally and as a result she escapes from her difficult situation".This could be taken as an example for all the women who have the same problem, so that they can stop the abuse and free themselves from those chains as Pilar does in the movie. Throughout the film different pictures (mainly
Mythology
ones) are used to reflect the development of the main character on a personal and social level.
Even the Rain (Tambien la lluvia) (2010)
[
edit
]
This film by Iciar Bollain could be perfectly defined as a "film within a film" because it uses two storylines to tell the tense situation that exists in Bolivia. All related to the heritage and colonial legacy. On the one hand, in this film, there is a low budget film about
Christopher Columbus
and the Discovery of America in 1492 being recorded. While, on the other hand, the famous
Water War
(Bolivia) of Cochabamba (April 2000) is taking place. What Iciar Bollain tries to represent using a historiographical discourse and filmic fiction, is the intersectionality between the European conquest and colonialism of 1492, the rise of
neoliberalism
in impoverished nations in the late 20th and early 21st century (in Bolivia the privatization of public resources, like water). Added to this analysis is the irony that the film company that is creating a revisionist historical drama, intended to bring light to the rape, enslavement, and genocide of Caribbean indigenous peoples by Columbus, is perhaps perpetuating
neocolonialism
through a process of film-making that commodifies indigenous peoples of Bolivia. Contributing to their poverty and oppression, directors of the film refuse to pay them a living wage while acting in their film. At the same time, indigenous populations revolt due to said privatization. However, by the end of the film, the director realizes his mistake and in a moment of compassion, and at the risk of his own life, saves the daughter of his star actor. The director uses creative license to create a historical drama that fictionalizes characters and narrative details, while presenting a broader historical truth.
Filmography
[
edit
]
As director
[
edit
]
As actress
[
edit
]
Year
|
Title
|
Notes
|
2005
|
La noche del hermano
|
|
2003
|
La balsa de piedra
|
|
2002
|
Nos miran
|
|
2002
|
Sara, una estrella
|
|
2000
|
Leo
|
|
1997
|
Subjudice
|
|
1997
|
Nino nadie
|
|
1996
|
Menos de cero
|
|
1995
|
El techo del mundo
|
|
1994
|
Land and Freedom
|
[23]
|
1993
|
Jardines colgantes
|
|
1993
|
Tocando fondo
|
|
1993
|
Dime una mentira
|
|
1992
|
Entretiempo
|
|
1992
|
Un paraguas para tres
|
|
1991
|
Sublet
|
|
1990
|
Polvo enamorado
|
|
1990
|
Doblones de a ocho
|
|
1990
|
El mejor de los tiempos
|
|
1989
|
Venecias
|
|
1989
|
Malaventura
|
|
1987
|
Mientras haya luz
|
|
1987
|
Al acecho
|
|
1986
|
Las dos orillas
|
|
1983
|
El Sur
|
|
Music Videos
[
edit
]
Awards
[
edit
]
Bibliography
[
edit
]
- Bollain, Iciar (1996).
Ken Loach, un observador solitario
. El Pais-Aguilar.
ISBN
8403597347
.
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Santaolalla, Isabel (2012-08-15).
The Cinema of Iciar Bollain
. Manchester University Press.
ISBN
978-0-7190-8058-6
.
- ^
Noriega, Jose Luis Sanchez (2021).
Iciar Bollain
(in Spanish). Catedra.
ISBN
978-84-376-4203-1
.
- ^
"Iciar Bollain"
.
TVGuide.com
. Retrieved
2023-03-25
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
"Goya Awards 2004"
.
www.premiosgoya.com
. Retrieved
2023-03-25
.
- ^
"Iciar Bollain consigue el Premio de la Semana Internacional de la Critica con "Flores de otro mundo"
"
.
El Mundo
. 21 May 1999.
- ^
"Iciar Bollain aboga por el cine con mensaje y sin etiquetas"
.
Cadena COPE
. 24 October 2018.
- ^
Ken Loach : un observador solitario
. Worldcat.org.
OCLC
806994448
.
- ^
a
b
"Spanish protest over Basque film"
. 2004-02-01
. Retrieved
2023-03-25
.
- ^
a
b
"Spain hits back at abuse culture"
. 2004-11-10
. Retrieved
2023-03-25
.
- ^
a
b
Holden, Stephen (2011-02-17).
"Discovering Columbus's Exploitation"
.
The New York Times
.
ISSN
0362-4331
. Retrieved
2023-03-25
.
- ^
"Bollain's Even the Rain joins Oscar race"
.
cineuropa
. Retrieved
2010-10-09
.
- ^
"9 Foreign Language Films Continue to Oscar Race"
.
oscars.org
. Retrieved
2011-01-19
.
- ^
Goodfellow, Melanie (1 July 2020).
"Festival chiefs, 'Parasite' team, Adele Haenel among 400 new international Academy members"
.
ScreenDaily
.
- ^
a
b
Loach, Ken (2004-11-14).
"All film students should see this woman's work"
.
The Observer
.
ISSN
0029-7712
. Retrieved
2023-03-25
.
- ^
a
b
Dargis, Manohla (2006-03-17).
"Inside the Mind of an Abusive Husband"
.
The New York Times
.
ISSN
0362-4331
. Retrieved
2023-03-25
.
- ^
"
"Mataharis" : femmes et detectives prives"
.
Le Monde.fr
(in French). 2008-04-01
. Retrieved
2023-03-25
.
- ^
King, Susan (2011-01-19).
"Nine foreign-language films continue in Oscar race"
.
Los Angeles Times
. Retrieved
2023-03-25
.
- ^
Mathieson, Craig (2012-11-14).
"Spanish actress does nice line as action woman"
.
The Sydney Morning Herald
. Retrieved
2023-03-25
.
- ^
Bradshaw, Peter (2017-03-16).
"The Olive Tree review ? captivating Spanish drama"
.
The Guardian
.
ISSN
0261-3077
. Retrieved
2023-03-25
.
- ^
Hopewell, John (2016-03-07).
"Iciar Bollain Talks About 'The Olive Tree,' Spain's Crisis and Natural Beauty"
.
Variety
. Retrieved
2023-03-25
.
- ^
Clarke, Cath (2019-04-11).
"Yuli: The Carlos Acosta Story review ? unflinching biopic of a ballet superstar"
.
The Guardian
.
ISSN
0261-3077
. Retrieved
2023-03-25
.
- ^
Szalai, Scott Roxborough,Georg; Roxborough, Scott; Szalai, Georg (2021-01-18).
"Netflix Drama Leads Spain's Goya Awards Nominations"
.
The Hollywood Reporter
. Retrieved
2023-03-25
.
{{
cite web
}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link
)
- ^
"LAND AND FREEDOM"
.
Le Monde.fr
(in French). 2010-01-30
. Retrieved
2023-03-25
.
External links
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]
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