Isabel Coixet
Isabel Coixet
Director, screenwriter
Isabel Coixet Castillo (born 9 April 1960) is a Spanish film director. She is one of the most prolific film directors of contemporary Spain, having directed twelve feature-length films since the beginning of her film career in 1988, in addition to documentary films, shorts, and commercials. Her films follow a departure from traditional national cinema of Spain, and help to “untangle films from their national context, ... clearing the path for thinking about national film from different perspectives. ”The recurring themes of “emotions, feelings, and existential conflict” coupled with her distinct visual style secure the “multifaceted (she directs, writes, produces, and acts)” filmmaker's status as a “Catalan auteur. This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Isabel Coixet started filming when she was given a 8mm camera on the occasion of her First Communion. After obtaining a BA degree in History at Barcelona University, where she majored in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century History, she worked in advertising and spot writing. She won several accolades for her spots. In 1988, Coixet made her debut as a scriptwriter and director in Demasiado Viejo Para Morir Joven ("Too Old to Die Young"). For this movie, she was nominated at the Goya Awards as a Best New Director. In 1996, she made her first feature in English: Things I Never Told You (Cosas que nunca te dije). In this moving drama, the cast was made up of American actors led by Lili Taylor and Andrew McCarthy. Coixet received her second nomination at the Goya Awards for Best Original Screenplay. In 1988, in association with a French production company, Coixet came back to a script in Spanish to direct the historical adventure A los que aman. In 2000, she founded her own production company Miss Wasabi Films. The 2003 drama My life without me (Mi vida sin mi, 2003), based on Nancy Kincaid’s short story won her international success. In the film Sarah Polley plays Ann, a young mother who decides to hide her terminal cancer from her family. This Spanish/Canadian coproduction was praised at the Berlin International Film Festival. Coixet continued to work with Polley in a new movie: The Secret Life of Words (La Vida Secreta de las Palabras, 2005), with Tim Robbins and Javier Cámara as costars. This movie was the recipient of four Goya Awards: Best Film, Best Director, Best Production and Best Screenplay. In 2005, Coixet joined eighteen other international filmmakers, among them Gus Van Sant, Walter Salles and Joel and Ethan Cohen, to make the groundbreaking collective project "Paris, je t’aime", in which each director explored a different Paris quarter. Coixet also made documentaries centered on issues of humanitarian concern such as Viaje al corazón de la tortura, which was shot in Sarajevo during the Balkan Wars and awarded a top prize at the October 2003 Human Rights Film Festival, or Invisibles, about Doctors Without Borders selected by the 2007 Berlin Film Festival Panorama section.In 2008 Coixet released Elegy, which was filmed in Vancouver and produced by Lakeshore Entertainment. Based on Philip Roth’s novel The Dying Animal, the screenplay was written by Nicholas Meyer. It starred Penélope Cruz and Ben Kingsley. Elegy was introduced at the 58th Berlin International Film Festival. In 2009, Coixet's' 'Map of the sounds of Tokio (Mapa de los sonidos de Tokio) was released at the Cannes International Film Festival as part of the Official Selection. It was shot in Japan and Barcelona, and starred Rinko Kikuchi, Sergi López and Min Tanaka; the script was written by Coixet herself. In same year, she inaugurated From I to J at the Santa Mònica Art Center, an installation based on and an homage to John Berger, for which she received the Fine Arts Golden Medal. Also, Coixet was named a member of the jury at the 59th Berlinale. In 2010, she took on the content in one of the three Spanish Pavilion lounges for the Expo Shangai China. In addition, she inaugurated the exhibition “Aral. El mar perdido,” where an homonymous documentary about Uzbekistan in 2009 was shown. In 2011, Coixet released "Escuchando al Juez Garzón"("Listening to Judge Garzón") at the Berlinale Specials, a section of the Berlin International Film Festival. In the documentary, Judge Garzón is interviewed at length by writer Manuel Rivas. The film earned the Goya Award for Best Documentary.
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