Bigas moon

José Juan Bigas Luna (Barcelona, March 19, 1946-La Riera, Tarragona, April 5, 2013), artistically known as Bigas Luna, was a Spanish film director and screenwriter.

Biography

Offer of flowers to Our Lady of the Pilar of Zaragoza. Bigas Luna modified the altruistic offering.

Bigas Luna led the reopening of the Cabaret El Plata in Zaragoza.

Coming from interior design and industrial design. Delta de Oro ADI/FAD Award 1970. He entered the world of cinema in the mid-1970s, shooting in small formats. In 1976 he shot his first feature film, Tattoo , but it was in 1978 when he gained notoriety with Bilbao , which would be selected for the Cannes Film Festival.

He filmed mainly in Spanish, although he also filmed in Catalan and even in English in the case of the films Angustia (1987) and Renacer (1981), always with a personal stamp loaded with high levels of eroticism in all his films, often related to food, towards which, according to what he confessed, he felt a great passion.

His friend Luis Alegre Saz said that Bigas Luna was:

a great disfruton, a man who liked pleasures, eroticism, women, fetishist and with a great ability to turn every moment into something exciting.

He was the discoverer of great stars such as Ariadna Gil, Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz, Verónica Echegui or Jordi Mollà. In several of his films he had famous foreign actors: Dennis Hopper, Stefania Sandrelli, Valeria Marini, Anita Ekberg, Francesca Neri, Olivier Martinez, Peter Coyote, Zelda Rubinstein, Maria de Medeiros, Benicio del Toro, Stefano Dionisi...

His maternal ancestors were from Zaragoza. His wife, Celia Orós, was also from Zaragoza. The couple attended the flower offering of the Fiestas del Pilar for many years. In May 1998 he brought up his idea of changing the setting of the Offering to make it more spectacular. He explained it to Pilar Soria, the consistory's press officer, and to Juan Bolea, then Councilor for Culture of the Zaragoza City Council, and he accepted it. Bigas Luna revolutionized the offering by separating it from the temple and placing the image of the Virgin in the center of the Plaza del Pilar with a much larger structure.

He directed the reopening of the cabaret show El Plata in Zaragoza with its owner Joaquina Laguna.

He died of cancer (leukemia) on April 5, 2013 at his home in Can Virgili de La Riera de Gaià in the province of Tarragona.

Latest works

He left the film Second Origin in preparation, based on the novel Typescript of the Second Origin by the writer Manuel de Pedrolo. The producer of this film was Carles Porta, who said in an interview on the Catalan radio station La Xarxa that he intended to shoot it as a posthumous tribute to the deceased.

One of Bigas Luna's most unknown issues was the filming and direction for Spanish cities and festivals in 2008 and 2009 for the projection of the Spanish pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai Expo. In the final projection they also contributed their works Isabel Coixet and Basilio Martin Patino. In that shoot, the longest shot of the running of the bulls of San Fermín ever filmed was achieved thanks to a technique provided by Bigas Luna that allowed for a straight shot recorded with six cameras to be projected on an 85-meter screen.

Acknowledgments

• Pregonero de las Fiestas del Pilar de Zaragoza in 2001.
• Pregoner of the Monegrillo Festivals.
• Adoptive son of Monegrillo.

Filmography

• Tattoo (1976), Director
• Unlawful stories (1977), Director
• Bilbao (1978), Director
• Caniche (1979), Director
• Renacer (1981), Director
• Lola (1986), Director
• Angustia (1987), screenwriter and director
• The ages of Lulu (1990), screenwriter and director
• Ham, ham (1992), screenwriter and director
• Gold eggs Director (1993)
• The tit and the moon (1994), director
• Lumière and company (1995), director of one of the shorts
• Bámbola (1996), Director
• The waitress of the Titanic (1997), screenwriter and director
• Volavérunt (1999), Director
• They are sea (2001), Director
• Fly Necklace (2002), director (cortometraje)
• I am the Juani (2006), director
• With the heart (2007), director (cortometraje)
• Di Hollywood (2010), Director

Awards and distinctions

San Sebastian International Film Festival

Medals of the Film Writers Circle

Venice International Film Festival

Huesca International Film Festival

Other awards

• Premio María Honorífica del Festival de Cine de Sitges (2011)
• Catalonia National Film Prize (1998)
• Castillete Gold Award of the Festival of Cante de las Minas de La Unión (2012).