Quick Facts
Biography
José Luis Guerín (born 1960) is a Spanish filmmaker and educator.
Style and influences
As a young cinephile, Guerín attended many film screenings, made films on Super 8 and 16mm and sought out and befriended many of the filmmakers he admired, including Robert Bresson, Raoul Ruiz and Philippe Garrel. Guerín's films are often described as being influenced by the Lumière Brothers, Howard Hawks, Yasujiro Ozu and John Ford (Guerín went so far as to shoot a film in Innisfree, the setting of Ford's The Quiet Man).
Guerín is known for his meditative and intellectually curious work in both documentary and narrative filmmaking. Describing Guerín in an introduction to a series of his films, the programmers of the Harvard Film Archive wrote: "Guerín's films purposefully confound narrative and documentary traditions, discovering rich narrative threads woven into the tapestries of his real life subjects and unraveling mysteries without solutions that nevertheless leave the viewer deeply satisfied."
Filmography
- Berta's Motives (1985)
- Souvenir (1986, Short)
- City Life (1990)
- Innisfree (1990)
- Tren de sombras a.k.a. Train of Shadows (1997)
- En construcción a.k.a. Work in Progress (2001)
- Tren Estrasburgo-Paris/ Mujer esperando al tranvia (2006, Short)
- Unas fotos en la ciudad de Sylvia (2007)
- In the City of Sylvia (2007)
- Guest (2010)
- Correspondences: Jonas Mekas - J. L. Guerin (2011)
- Dos cartas a Ana a.k.a. Two Letters for Ana (2011, Short)
- Recuerdos de una manana a.k.a. Memories of a Morning (2011)
- L’Accademia delle muse a.k.a. The Academy of Muses (2015)
Awards
His film Under Construction (En construcción) won the Special Prize of the Jury in the San Sebastián Film Festival in 2001 and the Goya Prize for Best Documentary in 2002.