José Luis Garci

On holidays in England with his family. [November 2006]

Daughter, with actress Andrea Tenuta, born in 1998.

Top ten favorite films (Nickel Odeon, 1997): Sunrise (1927), Casablanca (1942), The Searchers (1956), Vertigo (1958), The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather: Part II (1974), Le Trou (1960), Manhattan (1979), Double Indemnity (1944), An Affair to Remember (1957), Strangers When We Meet (1960).

Has not made a movie set in the present since Asignatura aprobada (1987).

After his Oscar win in 1983 for Best Foreign Language Film with Volver a empezar (1982), he received three further nominations in that category with Sesión continua (1984), Asignatura aprobada (1987) and The Grandfather (1998), making him the most-nominated Spanish director in that category.

His film Volver a empezar (1982) was the first Spanish entry to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film, although Garci was not the first Spanish director to win that award. Luis Buñuel had won the prize in the same category ten years before with The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), but the film was a French entry, as Buñuel had had to exile from Spain during the Spanish Civil War, in 1936.

He has left a distinguished talent in his successful movies throughout the years: La Cabina (1972), Las Verdes Praderas (1979), El Crack (1981), Volver a empezar (1982), Canción de cuna (1994), La Herida luminosa (1997), El Abuelo (1998), Tiovivo c.

Born on January 20th of 1944 in Madrid, Spain, José Luis Garci is without a doubt one of the most influential film personalities in the history of film in Spain and perhaps the best known writer in the country.