Hans Burmann

Hans Burmann Sánchez (born 9 August 1937) is a German-born Spanish cinematographer. His career in the Spanish film industry began in the early 1950s and progressed from camera assistant and camera operator to director of photography. He photographed films by directors including Mario Camus, Pilar Miró, José Luis Cuerda, Luis García Berlanga, Imanol Uribe, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Alejandro Amenábar. Among his best-known credits are La colmena, The Holy Innocents (1984), Thesis (1996), Open Your Eyes (1997) and The Blind Sunflowers (2008).

Burmann received five nominations for the Goya Award for Best Cinematography, for Werther (1986), La rusa (1987), The Dumbfounded King (1991), The Sow (1992) and The Blind Sunflowers (2008).

Early life and career Burmann was born in Bad Honnef, Germany, to the German-born set designer Sigfrido Burmann and a Spanish mother. His family settled in Madrid, where he grew up in the Ciudad Lineal district near the CEA film studios. His younger brother, Wolfgang Burmann, became a film and theatre art director.

Burmann entered the industry at the age of 15, when his father found him work as a trainee in the camera department of Condenados (1953). He subsequently worked as a camera assistant on Pedro Lazaga's Cuerda de presos (1956).

In the 1970s, Burmann combined popular feature films with television work. His credits included the series Los camioneros (1973–1974) and Curro Jiménez (1977–1978), as well as Miró's La petición (1976) and Camus's Los días del pasado (1978). He also photographed Miró's The Cuenca Crime (1980). The film's release was delayed for nearly two years after it was seized by the Spanish military authorities, which also initiated proceedings against Miró.

Burmann developed a particularly sustained collaboration with Mario Camus. Their work together included Los pájaros de Baden-Baden (1975), Los días del pasado, La colmena, The Holy Innocents, La vieja música (1985), La rusa and The Field of Stars (2007). Following Camus's death in 2021, Burmann participated in the Spanish Film Academy's tribute to the director.

During the 1990s Burmann worked on Spanish productions and international co-productions, including Miguel Littín's Sandino (1991), Uribe's The Dumbfounded King, Cuerda's The Sow, Gutiérrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabío's Guantanamera (1995), and Amenábar's first two feature films, Thesis and Open Your Eyes. Burmann recalled that Amenábar initially feared that the much more experienced Hans and Wolfgang Burmann would disregard the young director's decisions, but that the brothers quickly recognised his command of filmmaking.

His later work included several Spanish–Latin American productions, among them Tabío's Waiting List (2000), Diego Arsuaga's The Last Train (2002), Sergio Cabrera's The Art of Losing (2004) and Tabío's Horn of Plenty (2008). He also continued his collaboration with Cuerda on The Education of Fairies (2006), The Blind Sunflowers and All Is Silence (2012), his last feature-film credit as director of photography.

Approach to cinematography Burmann has described the director and the story as the determining elements of a film's visual design. In discussing his working methods, he recalled experimenting with reflected light and with deliberate variations in film exposure and processing to reduce colour saturation and create a greyer image. He later took part in a 2021 Spanish Film Academy discussion on the craft, where he characterised Berlanga's camera movements as being at the service of the story rather than displays of technique.

Selected filmography Year Title Director(s) 1970 Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Fifth Floor Neighbour Ramón Fernández 1975 Los pájaros de Baden-Baden Mario Camus 1976 La petición Pilar Miró 1978 Los días del pasado Mario Camus 1980 The Cuenca Crime Pilar Miró 1980 Nightmare City Umberto Lenzi 1982 La colmena Mario Camus 1983 El pico Eloy de la Iglesia 1984 The Holy Innocents Mario Camus 1986 Werther Pilar Miró 1987 La rusa Mario Camus 1991 Sandino Miguel Littín 1991 The Dumbfounded King Imanol Uribe 1992 The Sow José Luis Cuerda 1995 Guantanamera Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabío 1996 Thesis Alejandro Amenábar 1997 Open Your Eyes Alejandro Amenábar 1999 Paris-Timbuktu Luis García Berlanga 2000 Waiting List Juan Carlos Tabío 2002 The Last Train Diego Arsuaga 2004 The Art of Losing Sergio Cabrera 2006 The Education of Fairies José Luis Cuerda 2007 The Field of Stars Mario Camus 2008 The Blind Sunflowers José Luis Cuerda 2008 Horn of Plenty Juan Carlos Tabío 2012 All Is Silence José Luis Cuerda

Awards and nominations Year Award Category Work Result 1987 Goya Awards Best Cinematography Werther 1988 Goya Awards La rusa 1992 Goya Awards The Dumbfounded King 1993 Goya Awards The Sow 2009 Goya Awards The Blind Sunflowers