José Luis Borau

José Luis Borau Moradell (8 August 1929 – 23 November 2012) was a Spanish producer, screenwriter, writer, and film director. He won the Goya Award for Best Director in 2000 for Leo.

Borau was born in Zaragoza. In addition to directing, he acted in some films, including Everyone Off to Jail in 1993.

He was president of the Spanish Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (1994–1998), and member of the jury at the 41st Berlin International Film Festival in 1991. In February 2008 he was elected to the B seat of the .

Borau died on 23 December 2012 aged 83 in Madrid from a throat cancer.

Career Borau was born in Zaragoza. During the Spanish Civil War he was kept from school by his overprotecting parents. From an early age, Borau had great love for literature and films. Following family pressure, he studied law in his native Zaragoza and worked at Madrid's Ministry of Housing in 1957. He began his career working for the regional newspaper Heraldo de Aragón as film critic. He pursued his interest in filmmaking by moving to Madrid enrolling in the national film school IIEC (Instituto de Investigaciones y Experiencias de Cinematografia) where he specialized in film direction. He graduated with the short film En el Río (1960).

Borau followed this with a series of shorts and commercials for Spanish television. His first feature film was a genre film: Brandy (1963), a low-budget Western starring Alex Nicol and Robert Hundar. Brandy was followed the next year by Crimen de doble filo Double edged crime (1964), a brooding psychological thriller. These two films were received as just two commercial projects. In 1966, Borau launched his television career for the Spanish network TVE working on episodes of Dichoso Mundo (What a World), which starred stage actress Conchita Montes.

From 1962 until 1970, Borau taught screenwriting at the national film school EOC. Some of his students became the next generation of notable Spanish filmmakers including Antonio Drove, Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, Pilar Miró and Ivan Zulueta. Set in a fictitious Latin American country, Hay q matar a B was a political thriller clearly inspired by Francoist Spain. In 1975 Borau made the film for which he is best remembered Furtivos (Poachers) (1975). The plot, set in the woodlands of Segovia, is a stark story of violence incest and matricide.

Actor YearTitleRoleNotes 1965 El juego de la oca Cliente del café Uncredited 1970 Un, dos, tres... al escondite inglés Tío Prudencio Uncredited 1972 My Dearest Senorita Médico Uncredited 1975 Furtivos Gobernador 1975 La adúltera Médico 1978 Sonámbulos Director de la biblioteca 1981 Cuentos para una escapada 1988 Malaventura Alcántara 1993 Todos a la cárcel Capellan 1996 Ilona llega con la lluvia Alcántara (final film role)

Novels Camisa de once varas, 2003 Tigre Juan Award winner for narrative Navidad, horrible navidad