Pilar Miro

Pilar Mercedes Miró Romero (Madrid, April 20, 1940 - ibidem, October 19, 1997) was a renowned Spanish film, theater and television director. Considered one of the pioneers of the audiovisual sector in Spain, she was General Director of Cinematography (1982-1985) and the first woman to direct Spanish Radio Television (1986-1989).

Among his most famous films are The crime of Cuenca (1980), Werther (1986), Beltenebros (1991) or El perro del hortelano (1996). Throughout his career he received 11 nominations and 12 awards, among which two from the Círculo de Escritores Cinematográficos, two Goya awards, two Ondas awards and one award stand out. Silver Frames.

Biography

She studied Journalism and Law, also graduating from the Official Film School, where she was also a teacher. She worked at Spanish Television since 1960, initially as an editorial assistant and later as a director, being the first woman to perform that role.

"His obsession was to be on television, get jobs on television, run television... and then he was very fighting for the things he wanted."

Monica Randall (RTVE, October 17, 2022) [1]

Among the programs she made include Women's Magazine and her first drama, Lili, a five-part soap opera. Later, the programs A designated date, Hora 11, Estudio 1, Novela or Danza macabra would stand out. On occasions it has been revealed that her work as a director during the second The mid-1970s made her a precursor of the introduction of democratic and progressive values in her works for television, especially in the episodes for which she was responsible for the series Curro Jiménez and Los books.

"I knew Pilar in 1966 when I went to work in Spanish Television and I remember the emotion I felt when I saw that there was a woman in Spanish Television who was a filmmaker."

Marisol Carnicero (RTVE, October 17, 2022) [2]

From the small screen he jumped into the world of cinema writing and directing several films. Her debut as a director was with the film The petition (1976), played by Ana Belén, Emilio Gutiérrez Caba, María Luisa Ponte and Eduardo Calvo in their main roles, obtaining the revelation award from the Círculo de Film Writers. Its plot, an adaptation of the short novel For a Night of Love by Émile Zola, focuses on a woman from a wealthy family, very free and with a great personality, but who behaves cruelly while exploring the horrors and pleasures of sadomasochism.

His next film, The crime of Cuenca (1979) based on real events that occurred at the beginning of the century XX, took more than a year and a half to be released due to the opposition of the then Minister of Culture Ricardo de la Cierva, which led to a subsequent military court martial. The film remains as the only film that was censored after the official abolition of film censorship in Spain in 1977. Performed by Amparo Soler Leal, Héctor Alterio, Daniel Dicenta, José Manuel Cervino, Mary Carrillo and Guillermo Montesinos in their roles The film was a commercial success, earning more than 2,500,000 spectators at the Spanish box office.

"The first impression I had when censorship was to think that we were all wrong, or that we were being deceived. ‘How could this happen?’, we wondered. We put into question many things we started to believe in. Then, I felt logically manipulated, with the impression of becoming a kind of crossroads of hero and victim."

Pilar Miró (Cinemania, 17 August 2021) [3]

Gary Cooper You Are in Heaven (1980), an unusual and risky dramatic film whose script was prepared before 1978, was interpreted by film critics as a kind of confession public of Miró's personal experiences. With a cast made up of Mercedes Sampietro, Agustín González, Amparo Soler Leal and Carmen Maura, Sampietro won awards for best actress at the Moscow Film Festival and the Fotogramas de Plata.

In 1981 she reported having suffered sexual harassment on Spanish Radio Television.

"I was very discouraged that men would want to bond with me permanently. I didn't take it as something offensive, but it bothered me, it made me so much more difficult. When you don't expect anything, it's very uncomfortable and it's got a series of bad interpretations, or people who later went by not to talk to you or make you war."

Pilar Miró (RTVE, 17 October 2022) [4]

In 1982 she was appointed General Director of Cinematography, a position she held until 1985, and from which she promoted a structural change in Spanish film creation which sought to increase the quality of productions but which had an impact negative opinion on the number of films produced. Commonly called 'Miró Law', formally a Decree Law that came into force at the end of 1983, it was a controversial law that modified the production aid system cinematographic and imposed, following the French model, advance subsidies conditional on box office returns. Also from this responsibility Miró played a decisive role in the recovery of category A of the FIAPF by the San Sebastián International Film Festival, to which he diverted a good part of the state subsidies directed to other Spanish film festivals.

"It was a very controversial law but it came to order a little the panorama and to favor a kind of cinema with which we later won many festivals out there."

Victor Manuel (RTVE, October 17, 2022) [5]

After her resignation as General Director of Cinematography, and a second heart surgery, she returned to film, directing Werther released in 1986. Romantic drama, free adaptation of the book Las penas of the young Wertherwritten by Goethe, featured Eusebio Poncela and Mercedes Sampietro in its main roles.

In 1986 she was appointed general director of Spanish Radio and Television, being the first woman to hold that position. She remained there until 1989 when she resigned after being prosecuted by the Madrid Court for an alleged crime of embezzlement of public funds, of which she was acquitted in 1992. Among her most important milestones at the head of the public corporation are the inauguration in 1988. the audiovisual production center called Estudios Buñuel or the renewal of the programmatic lines of television channels with advanced and more modern programs. However, it is also considered that she pressured Lolo Rico, director of the program The Crystal Ball , and its scriptwriters to stop criticizing the president of the government Felipe González, causing the program to cease in 1988.

"I always watched the program Friday afternoon in a Prado King's cabin before the spectators saw it at home on Saturday, to make sure everything was okay. But that day I decided to see him at home as he was broadcasting, and I found that they had cut off that little piece, with my refusal and without my authorization. The next day I went and resigned. I understood that if I admitted to censoring me, they were also censoring the team, and I was not willing to become a censor of my own people."

Lolo Rico (agenciasinc.es, 04-10-2014) [6]

After his time as director of RTVE Miró returned to direct new films. Beltenebros (1991), adaptation of the novel of the same name by Antonio Muñoz Molina, is an international co-production that was presented as a film noir film, shot in locations in the United Kingdom and Poland, with a cast that includes the presence of Terence Stamp, Patsy Kensit and José Luis Gómez. It won a Silver Bear at the Berlin Festival and 10 nominations and 3 Goya awards for photography, editing and special effects.

"The only thing I want to do now, after a year of work in the preparation of this project, is a good job that, perhaps, is the only way to be able to tell the public, that so many things have heard from me: here I am and this is what I know to do"

Pilar Miró (moon shadow, March 21, 2014) [7]

His next film, The Bird of Happiness (1993), had a script by Mario Camus for a plot in which a restaurateur after suffering an attempted rape and after the indifference shown by her boyfriend, she decides to take refuge in her solitude, throwing herself into her work, moving to a rented house in the south of Spain in search of her past. The cast is headed by Mercedes Sampietro, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, José Sacristán and Carlos Hipólito in their main roles and the film, in addition to being screened at the Cannes Festival, won a Goya Award for best photography (José Luis Alcaine) and a Waves for best actress (Sampietro).

"No matter what character he is, man or woman, they will always say that at the bottom it is me. And I don't deny it."

Pilar Miró (Diario El País, 17 April 1993) [8]

She was the television director of the weddings of the Infantas Elena de Borbón and Jaime de Marichalar (1995) and Cristina de Borbón and Iñaki Urdangarín (1997), the latter being her last professional job since she died of a heart attack a few years later. days of this last broadcast. He left more than 200 productions for film and television. Furthermore, the same year of her death he directed the play El anzuelo de Fenisa by Lope de Vega.

Private life

She had a son, Gonzalo, born on February 13, 1981, although she never wanted to reveal the name of the father. Instead, she appointed guardians for her son before a notary in case something happened to her.

A fan of bullfighting, she worked as a bullfighting critic.

Miró was in delicate health and underwent two open heart operations in 1975 and in 1985.

Directed films

• The request (1976)
• The Crime of Cuenca (1979)
• Gary Cooper, you're in heaven (1980)
• We talked tonight. (1982)
• Werther (1986)
• Beltenebros (1991)
• The bird of happiness (1993)
• The Hortelane Dog (1996) (7 Goya Awards)
• Your name poisons my dreams (1996)

Scripts

• The mourning girl (1964)
• The game of the oca (1966) (collaboration)
• The request (1976)
• The Crime of Cuenca (1979)
• Beltenebros (1991)
• Your name poisons my dreams (1996)

Television

• Living room (1963)
• Magazine for Women (1963)
• Forum TV (1963)
• An item for discussion (1965)
• Tele-club (1965-1966)
• Novel (1967-1977)
• Study 1 (1968-1979)
• Small study (1968)
• Ritmo 70 (1970)
• Midnight Monica (1973)
• Silence, let's premiere (1974)
• Tales and legends (1975)
• Objective us (1975)
• Curro Jiménez (1977)
• The books (1977)
• I sing (1977)

Awards and nominations

Goya Awards

Medals of the Film Writers Circle

• Award for the best script of the National Spectacle Union (1976).
• Award to the best director at the Cartagena de Indias Film Festival (1980).
• Silver Bear of the Berlin Festival (1992)
• Award for the Best Film The Hortelane Dog at the 1996 Mar del Plata International Film Festival.

Tributes

In 1987 she was awarded the Golden Drum awarded by the city of San Sebastián.

In 2011 he obtained a star on the Madrid Walk of Fame.

Since 2017, Calle de Fernández Ladreda in Valladolid was renamed Calle de Pilar Miró.