Miguel Picazo

Miguel Picazo de Dios (27 March 1927 – 23 April 2016) was a Spanish film director, screenwriter and actor. He is best known for his first feature film La tía Tula (Aunt Tula).

Career Born in Cazorla (Jaén), Picazo was raise in Guadalajara and studied law. Interested in filmmaking, he entered Spain's national film school, Intituto de investigaciones y Experiencias Cinematográficas, graduating as director in 1960 with a practice film entitled Habitación de alquiler (Rented Room). He then became a teacher in the newly restructured Escuela Oficial de Cine (EOC) and eventually he was able to direct his first film, La tía Tula (Aunt Tula) (1964).

Meanwhile, Picazo devoted his creative energy to scripting and directing a series of short films for Spanish television, including children's films and adaptations of literary works, making more than seventy programs for Spanish television. He returned to directing with El hombre que supo amar (The Man Who Knew Love) (1976) a biopic of John of God that was produced by the saint's religious order which also backed the film's distribution. Nevertheless El hombre que supo amar fared poorly commercially. Picazo's fourth film, (Los claros motivos del deseo) (The clear motives of Desire) (1976), about adolescence life in the provinces, fared no better at the box office. The film, starring Aurora Bautista as tyrannical mother superior of a convent of sexually repressed nuns whose authority is challenged by two younger women, played by Mercedes Sampietro and Carmen Maura. Extramuros became Picazo's last film.

Besides being a film director, Picazo played some small roles as an actor in few films, most notably in Víctor Erice's The Spirit of the Beehive (1973) and Alejandro Amenábar's Thesis (Tesis) (1996). After his retirement, Picazo was a juror in many film festivals and received an Honorary Goya Award for his life’s work in 1997.

Filmography as director YearEnglish titleOriginal titleNotes 1964 Aunt Tula La tía Tula Based on the eponymous novel by Miguel de Unamuno Best Spanish Language Film and best director at the San Sebastián International Film Festival. 1967 Dark dreams of August Oscuros sueños de agosto 1976 The Man Who Knew Love El hombre que supo amar 1976 The clear motives of desire Los claros motivos del deseo 1985 Outside the Walls ExtramurosBased on a novel by Jesús Fernández Santos