José Luis Borau

Directing

José Luis Borau

Born 1929-08-08 · Zaragoza, Aragón, Spain

Spanish film director and producer, born in Zaragoza. He studied law in his hometown and debuted as a film critic in the newspaper El Heraldo de Aragón. In Madrid, he joined the Instituto de Investigaciones y Experiencias Cinematográficas. He exerted great influence on the medium from his teaching at the Escuela Oficial de Cinematografía. In 1967 he founded the production company El Imán, Cine y Televisión, with which he has financed his own projects and those of other filmmakers. Of his personal work, two films stand out: Furtivos (1975), Golden Shell at the San Sebastian Festival and a great success for its opposition to the limits of censorship at the beginning of the Spanish Transition, and Leo (2000), which won the Goya for best director. However, both his initial commissions, such as the spaghetti western Brandy (1964) and the crime film Crimen de doble filo (1965), and the controversial later films Tata mía (1986) and Niño Nadie (1996), have had little repercussion. Between 1994 and 1998 he was president of the Academia de las Artes y las Ciencias Cinematográficas de España (Spanish Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences). In 2001 he was elected full member of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando and in 2002 he was awarded the Premio Nacional de Cinematografía.

Acting credits

Ilona Arrives with the Rain poster
6.9

Maqroll, Ilona, and Abdul all share a common dream: to sail the world in a tramp-steamer. But who could afford such a thing? Over the years they have become separated. Alone in Panama City, smuggler Maqroll is finding neither great success nor happiness — until the tropical rains come, bringing Ilona: friend, lover, and partner in crime. Abdul, in Morocco, has found a steamer to suit them. In Panama, Ilona and Maqroll begin a new scheme, in search of impossible wealth. But fate has further twists in store.

Ilona Arrives with the Rain

1996

La adúltera poster
7.0

With more than thirty years, Malena Fonseca is a spinster and provincial woman who, after coincidentally meeting a Frenchman named Lucien, also a thirty-something bachelor like her, decides to marry him. However, after that, and having moved to Madrid in the company of her unbearable and possessive mother-in-law, Malena will gradually discover that her husband is a very rational man whose zero interest in sex despairs her, making the woman feel attracted to the pharmacist in the corner and the hunky bread delivery man.

La adúltera

1975

My Dearest Senorita poster
6.8

A woman living in a small town discovers after fifty years that she is actually a man. Will she change her sex and suffer the reaction of a narrow-minded society?

My Dearest Senorita

1972

Un, dos, tres, al escondite inglés poster
5.7

A band of young musicians will do the impossible to boycott a song they didn't like that's supposed to represent Spain in a famous musical contest.

Un, dos, tres, al escondite inglés

1969

Everyone Off to Jail poster
6.3

A prison in Valencia hosts an event recognizing political prisoners jailed during Franco’s reign. The reunion proves more raucous than the organizers intended.

Everyone Off to Jail

1993

Poachers poster
5.5

The relationship between a poacher and his domineering mother in rural Spain is upended when he falls for an escapee from a reform school.

Poachers

1975

Arrebatados: recordando a Iván Zulueta poster
6.0

A portrait of the film director Iván Zulueta and his film Arrebato. It features contributions from friends and people who worked with him such as José Luis Borau, Pedro Almodóvar, Antonio Gasset and Julio Médem.

Arrebatados: recordando a Iván Zulueta

2010

Por la gracia de Luis poster
5.0

A walk through the work of Luis García Berlanga (1921-2010) that is neither a documentary nor a narrative movie, but a tribute to one of the greatest directors of Spanish cinema. Anything can happen: the performers are not themselves, but their characters; there are no interviews, but greetings; a series of entrances and exits. A joyful reunion, a celebration of life.

Por la gracia de Luis

2009

Cuentos para una escapada poster
9.0

With the help of drawings and comic strips. brings together short films, on children's themes, in which rights that children and adults should enjoy are defended. For the first time, a whole series of important Spanish directors meet to make a children's film.

Cuentos para una escapada

1981

Somnambulists poster
5.1

Ana works side by side with her mother Maria Rosa in the fight to save the anti-Franco militants from the death penalty during the process of Burgos. Ana's mother is a former actress and Ana, her mother and a few other actors prepare an act of protest in the theater where an international festival on Strinberg is being held. But there are more things in Ana's life. The mother lives with her uncle, the brother of his father, Norman, an old doctor of devious methods. Helped by Fatima, an old nurse who loves her father, the doctor will try to experiment with Ana's ideas and feelings as well

Somnambulists

1978

Snakes and Ladders poster
4.6

Jose Antonio Amor co-stars with Sonia Bruno and Maria Blanco in this comedy drama about a married man with three children. When his family leaves on vacation, the man has an affair with a pretty office worker. The relationship between the two develops slowly before they end up in bed together. Speeded up shots are used effectively to illustrate the thoughts of the characters. Technical aspects and performances are fine and overshadow some uneven editing.

Snakes and Ladders

1965

Misadventure poster
6.3

An intrigue based on a failed relationship with touches of dreams and magic filmed on the streets of Seville.

Misadventure

1988

Enrique Herreros poster
6.5

The story of Enrique Herreros (1903-1977), cartoonist, advertiser, poster designer, talent manager, actor, producer and filmmaker, and the most daring of mountaineers; the man who, along with his companions from the so-called “other Generation of '27,” brought Hollywood to Madrid's Gran Vía, turning a grey and sinister post-war city into the capital of an incipient and ambitious cultural industry.

Enrique Herreros

2011

Behind the camera

Niño nadie poster
5.0

Unbenownst to a middle-aged teacher of handicapped children, his long-term suffering girlfriend is pregnant with his child. The film philosophically explores the ideas of free will and destiny as they relate to the characters and their life choices.

Niño nadie

1997

Niño nadie poster
5.0

Unbenownst to a middle-aged teacher of handicapped children, his long-term suffering girlfriend is pregnant with his child. The film philosophically explores the ideas of free will and destiny as they relate to the characters and their life choices.

Niño nadie

1997

In Memoriam poster
6.2

In an anguished triangle of silences and unspoken words, a man secretly loves a woman who loves another man.

In Memoriam

1977

On the Line poster
4.8

A Border Patrol agent is determined to catch his old nemesis, an American criminal who successfully smuggles illegal aliens across the border from Mexico.

On the Line

1984

On the Line poster
4.8

A Border Patrol agent is determined to catch his old nemesis, an American criminal who successfully smuggles illegal aliens across the border from Mexico.

On the Line

1984

On the Line poster
4.8

A Border Patrol agent is determined to catch his old nemesis, an American criminal who successfully smuggles illegal aliens across the border from Mexico.

On the Line

1984

Black Litter poster
5.5

Tatin is a young man of fifteen years old who joins a violent group of extreme right-wing ideology, led by Blanca, a mature woman of influential personality.

Black Litter

1977

My Dearest Senorita poster
6.8

A woman living in a small town discovers after fifty years that she is actually a man. Will she change her sex and suffer the reaction of a narrow-minded society?

My Dearest Senorita

1972

B. Must Die poster
4.5

In a fictitious South American country there's lots of political tension, the labor-unions have all their members on strike. The public demands the return of politician B. from exile. However private trucker Pal can't afford to strike, so he's beaten up and his truck burned. In the headlines he's described as strike-breaker. This is only part of an intrigue which shall get him to murder B.

B. Must Die

1975

B. Must Die poster
4.5

In a fictitious South American country there's lots of political tension, the labor-unions have all their members on strike. The public demands the return of politician B. from exile. However private trucker Pal can't afford to strike, so he's beaten up and his truck burned. In the headlines he's described as strike-breaker. This is only part of an intrigue which shall get him to murder B.

B. Must Die

1975

B. Must Die poster
4.5

In a fictitious South American country there's lots of political tension, the labor-unions have all their members on strike. The public demands the return of politician B. from exile. However private trucker Pal can't afford to strike, so he's beaten up and his truck burned. In the headlines he's described as strike-breaker. This is only part of an intrigue which shall get him to murder B.

B. Must Die

1975

Ride and Kill poster
7.0

A small town in Arizona is oppressed by the tyranny of a powerful rancher. The owner of a farm, fed up with constant abuse, decides to hire a former gunslinger, as the town sheriff is recognized powerless to stand against the tyrant.

Ride and Kill

1964

Ride and Kill poster
7.0

A small town in Arizona is oppressed by the tyranny of a powerful rancher. The owner of a farm, fed up with constant abuse, decides to hire a former gunslinger, as the town sheriff is recognized powerless to stand against the tyrant.

Ride and Kill

1964

Tata Mía poster
5.6

Elvira, daughter of a disgraced military, who entered a convent at a young age leaves him and returns home to settle in Madrid with his beloved nanny, seeking help to overcome their crisis. However, the country has changed so much in his years of confinement that has little or nothing to do with his childhood memories ...

Tata Mía

1986

Tata Mía poster
5.6

Elvira, daughter of a disgraced military, who entered a convent at a young age leaves him and returns home to settle in Madrid with his beloved nanny, seeking help to overcome their crisis. However, the country has changed so much in his years of confinement that has little or nothing to do with his childhood memories ...

Tata Mía

1986

Tata Mía poster
5.6

Elvira, daughter of a disgraced military, who entered a convent at a young age leaves him and returns home to settle in Madrid with his beloved nanny, seeking help to overcome their crisis. However, the country has changed so much in his years of confinement that has little or nothing to do with his childhood memories ...

Tata Mía

1986

La Sabina poster
5.8

English scholar visits a small Spanish town in the Andalusian mountains to investigate the disappearance of another English scholar long ago. He learns of the legend of Sabina, a mysterious dragon woman who becomes his obsession.

La Sabina

1979

La Sabina poster
5.8

English scholar visits a small Spanish town in the Andalusian mountains to investigate the disappearance of another English scholar long ago. He learns of the legend of Sabina, a mysterious dragon woman who becomes his obsession.

La Sabina

1979

Un, dos, tres, al escondite inglés poster
5.7

A band of young musicians will do the impossible to boycott a song they didn't like that's supposed to represent Spain in a famous musical contest.

Un, dos, tres, al escondite inglés

1969

El monosabio poster
6.8

Juanito, a peaceful fan of bullfighting, has become picador's assistant to see from the same arena the show in which he brags he is one of the protagonists. Furthermore, he believes he has discovered in a neighbor a potential figure of bullfighting sphere.

El monosabio

1977

Leo poster
6.6

Salva works as security guard in an industrial estate on the outskirts of Madrid. There he meets Leo, a woman who makes a living collecting cardboard. As Salva falls in love with her, Leo's dark past comes back to haunt her.

Leo

2000

Leo poster
6.6

Salva works as security guard in an industrial estate on the outskirts of Madrid. There he meets Leo, a woman who makes a living collecting cardboard. As Salva falls in love with her, Leo's dark past comes back to haunt her.

Leo

2000

Leo poster
6.6

Salva works as security guard in an industrial estate on the outskirts of Madrid. There he meets Leo, a woman who makes a living collecting cardboard. As Salva falls in love with her, Leo's dark past comes back to haunt her.

Leo

2000

Anna's Summer poster
5.3

A widow reminisces on her life after returning to her family home in Greece.

Anna's Summer

2001