He achieved his greatest success with “Cria cuervos”, which won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes in 1976 and whose original music became a hit.
Spanish filmmaker Carlos Saura died on Friday February 10 at the age of 91, the Spanish Academy of Cinema announced. “The Cinema Academy deeply regrets to announce the death of Carlos Saura (…), one of the fundamental filmmakers in the history of Spanish cinema, who died today at his home at the age of 91, surrounded of his loved ones”she announced on Twitter.
His latest film was released last Friday
“His last film, Las paredes hablan (the walls speak)was released on Friday, proof of his tireless activity and love for his profession until his last moments“, she said again.
The filmmaker was to receive an honorary Goya on Saturday at the Spanish cinema awards ceremony held in Seville. A tribute will be paid to “the memory of an irreplaceable creator”, continued the Academy.
Social realism and love of music
Director in 1975 of cried cuervos, allegory of the dictatorship that suffocated his country, jury prize at Cannes and nominated for the César for best foreign film, Carlos Saura first placed his work under the sign of social realism before favoring musical films, particularly on flamenco .
Cria Cuervos
Cria Cuervos Trailer VO
Born on January 4, 1932 in Huesca (north) into a family of artists, Saura, who made a total of fifty films, had obtained his first international recognition in 1966 in Berlin (Silver Bear for The hunt).
65 years of career, 46 films, 7 awards
Prolific, Saura was a filmmaker of the game and the imagination, with a sophisticated aesthetic, a style that was both lyrical and documentary, centered on the fate of the most disadvantaged. He often depicted characters from the bourgeoisie, tormented by their past, floating between reality and fantasy.
But, from the death of Franco (1975) and the democratic transition that followed, this music and dance madman gradually moved on to something else: hymns of love to tango and fado, Argentine folklore and the jota, a dance from his native Aragon, at the opera and, above all, at his beloved flamenco, becoming, somewhat in spite of himself, an ambassador of Spanish culture.
Several times married and the father of several children, he had notably been in a relationship with Geraldine Chaplin, his muse with whom he had had a child.