
Directing
Albert Serra
Born 1975-10-09 · Banyoles, Catalonia, Spain
Albert Serra ([əɫˈβɛrt ˈsɛrə]; born October 10, 1975; Banyoles, Catalonia) is a Spanish filmmaker, contemporary artist and manager of the production company Andergraun Films, set up by Montse Triola primarily to produce Serra’s films. Besides writing, directing and producing films, Albert Serra writes and produces plays. Graduated in Spanish literature and comparative literature at the University of Barcelona, where he also studied art history. Serra has been called “one of the most singular and radical filmmakers working today.” He is also a big fan of classical music and chess. “I’m not interested in forcing a meaning onto a filmic story. In fact I’d even rather the audience know more than I do about the meaning of my films.”
Acting credits
6.5An homage from Serra to one of his idols, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, shot in a nightclub full of characters that resemble the ones of Fassbinder films. The title comes from the favourite drink of “Beware of the Holy Whore” characters.
Cubalibre
2014
7.7No synopsis available yet.
La vida és Verdi
2026
5.8In 1982, Wim Wenders asked 16 of his fellow directors to speak on the future of cinema, resulting in the film Room 666. Now, 40 years later, in Cannes, director Lubna Playoust asks Wim Wenders himself and a new generation of filmmakers (James Gray, Rebecca Zlotowski, Claire Denis, Olivier Assayas, Nadav Lapid, Asghar Farhadi, Alice Rohrwacher and more) the same question: “is cinema a language about to get lost, an art about to die?”
Room 999
2023
No synopsis available yet.
Pere Gimferrer. Retrat d'un artista adolescent
2026
7.5God Sees It is a journey into the creative universe of Oscar Tusquets, one of the most fascinating figures of the last sixty years as well as one-of-a-kind character of the gauche divine, in whose mind art, irony, and rebellion coexist. The film traces an inimitable career, from his beginnings in Barcelona, quietly rebelling against the backdrop of the dictatorship, and his collaborations with Salvador Dalí, to his interventions in the Palau de la Musica Catalana or the unique Toledo metro station in Naples. If this is not enough, the film is filled with reflections and conversations on art with friends like Miquel Barceló, Albert Serra, Mario Vargas Llosa or Julia de Castro.
God Sees It
2025
5.0No synopsis available yet.
The Cause of The Accident That Started The Fire
2024
5.6Catalan director Albert Serra’s follow-up to his magisterial The Death of Louis XIV is another forensic documentation of the Sun King’s final breaths. Here, however, Versailles is replaced with the glow of the gallery.
Roi Soleil
2018
6.0My mother googles the film hero of her youth: Helmut Berger. She is shocked: only an addicted shadow of the former icon seems to be left. She decides to halt the obvious catastrophic decline of the once “most handsome man in the world”. As a consequence, this one-time god of the screen is suddenly sitting on my mother’s sofa in Nordsehl in Lower Saxony. And he stays put - for several months. While he trustingly rolls out his whole life before us, the dividing lines between film team, world star and family intermingle. This is a film about ageing, rising and falling - and about the fact that it is sometimes possible to regain an element of dignity in life.
Helmut Berger, My Mother and Me
2019
6.2Episodic film, divided into 14 chapters, based on the play De los nombres de Cristo (1586), by Fray Luis de Leon and intended for exhibition "Are You Ready for TV?". Filmed partly in the rooms of MACBA (Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona), is about the difficulty of naming or visually represent abstract concepts.
The Names of Christ
2010
5.0Waiting for Sancho is an ontological investigation into a place where cinema becomes something more than cinema. Filmed in high-definition colour over five days in the Canary Islands of Fuerteventura and Tenerife, Waiting for Sancho is a kind of experimental “making of” the critically acclaimed El cant dels ocells (Birdsong_/_Le chant des oiseaux). A particular take on the Biblical story of The Three Kings en route to the baby Jesus, El cant dels ocells premiered at the Quinzaine des Realisateurs at Cannes 2008.
Waiting for Sancho
2008
5.0The exhibition 'The Complete Letters' features epistolary works defined by cinematographic creation. This is an experimental communication format used between pairs of film directors. Although each director is situated in a location geographically distant from that of their partner, they are united by their willingness to share ideas and reflections on all that motivates their work. Within this space of freedom, the directors featured in the exhibition examine their affinities and differences, within an environment of mutual respect and simultaneity of interests and with notable formal variants established in each of the correspondences.
Cinematic Correspondences: Albert Serra – Lisandro Alonso
2009
NRA “Cinéma, de notre temps” series episode directed by french film critic André S. Labarthe, originally aired sometime around 2015.
Adolfo Arrietta, (cadré - décadré)
2015
NRSYNOPSIS Albert Serra’s piece for and audiovisual tribute to Chaplin the filmmaker… What is Chaplin’s legacy in contemporary cinema? It is not about producing films like Chaplin did, nor remembering the icon in a naïve fashion, but about finding traces of his cinema in their own individual looks.
Fiasco
2008
NRNo synopsis available yet.
El asesino a sueldo
2009
No synopsis available yet.
Biblioteca de pedra seca
2025
NRA portrait of the world of contemporary art. A world full of extravagances and colorful characters, but suggestive of the contrast it represents with the normal life of most people. An artificial, theatrical and equivocal world but inhabited by innocence and blind faith in the transforming power of art. The film is a tribute to this world and to these people, with ironic and often provocative borders, but sincere in their admiration for the subversive power of the artists who always question, and in the most unexpected (sometimes involuntary) way, our system of values.
I Am an Artist
—
5.5Part of the crew of Honor of the Knights travels to La Mancha to see the real settings of Quixote’s life in order to shoot a film.
The Lord Worked Wonders in Me
2011
NRIn “Spaces #3”, 7 internationally acclaimed directors shot, after commissioning by the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, a short film at home, making their own timely comment on the new reality that we live in. The project is inspired by the book “Species of Spaces” by the French novelist, filmmaker, documentalist, and essayist, Georges Perec and the days of quarantine. The idea is to create a film at home, using the environment, the people or the animals in that space. The only outdoor areas that may be used are outdoor living spaces, such as the terrace, the garden, the balcony and the stairwell. “My influences” is Albert Serra’s submission.
My Influences
2020
Behind the camera
6.4At the dawn of the modern era, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan leads an expedition under the Spanish crown in search of the first westward route to the Spice Islands. He embarks on a perilous journey across the uncharted Pacific, where his fleet faces starvation, mutiny, and the psychological toll of endless seas. Upon reaching the shores of Cebu, Magellan is pulled into a fatal conflict with the natives by his drive to spread Catholicism, culminating in his tragic doom.
Magellan
2025
6.9The life of the bullfighter Andrés Roca Rey during a day of bullfighting, from the moment he dresses up to the moment he undresses.
Afternoons of Solitude
2025
6.9The life of the bullfighter Andrés Roca Rey during a day of bullfighting, from the moment he dresses up to the moment he undresses.
Afternoons of Solitude
2025
6.9The life of the bullfighter Andrés Roca Rey during a day of bullfighting, from the moment he dresses up to the moment he undresses.
Afternoons of Solitude
2025
4.2An anthology of one-minute films created by 51 international filmmakers on the theme of the death of cinema. Intended as an ode to 35mm, the film was screened one time only on a purpose-built 20x12 meter public cinema screen in the Port of Tallinn, Estonia, on 22 December 2011. A special projector was constructed for the event which allowed the actual filmstrip to be burnt at the same time as the film was shown.
60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero
2011
6.4A poetic portrait of Lluís Serrat Massanellas, an unprofessional actor and friend of Albert Serra since working with him on Honour of the Knights, and his father, Lluís Serrat Batlle.
Rússia
2007
6.4A poetic portrait of Lluís Serrat Massanellas, an unprofessional actor and friend of Albert Serra since working with him on Honour of the Knights, and his father, Lluís Serrat Batlle.
Rússia
2007
10.0A 101-hour long reflection on the construction of Europe, its cultural identity and its foundations through the complete adaptation of the texts ‘Conversations with Goethe’ by J. P. Eckermann, ‘Hitler’s Table Talks’ and ‘Fassbinder über Fassbinder: Die ungekürzten Interviews’ (a compilation of interviews with the German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder, which is used as a counterpoint to the first two books). The texts are read, page by page, by non-professional actors.
The Three Little Pigs
2012
10.0A 101-hour long reflection on the construction of Europe, its cultural identity and its foundations through the complete adaptation of the texts ‘Conversations with Goethe’ by J. P. Eckermann, ‘Hitler’s Table Talks’ and ‘Fassbinder über Fassbinder: Die ungekürzten Interviews’ (a compilation of interviews with the German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder, which is used as a counterpoint to the first two books). The texts are read, page by page, by non-professional actors.
The Three Little Pigs
2012
NROn the French Riviera, two gangs of kids compete in the perilous game of cliff jumping. Géo, barely five years old, discovers over the course of a summer a world where friendship blends with rivalry, and where the first stirrings of the heart emerge against the dazzling Mediterranean landscape.
Red Rocks
2026
Based on the material generated for the documentary Tardes de soledad (2024), Albert Serra proposes his own version of tauromaquia, in which he delves into the most baroque aspects of the fiesta.
Tauromaquia
2025
6.2Island of Tahiti. French government official De Roller is a calculating man with impeccable manners, capable of dealing with both high society and the locals he frequents in shady joints.
Pacifiction
2022
6.2Island of Tahiti. French government official De Roller is a calculating man with impeccable manners, capable of dealing with both high society and the locals he frequents in shady joints.
Pacifiction
2022
6.2Island of Tahiti. French government official De Roller is a calculating man with impeccable manners, capable of dealing with both high society and the locals he frequents in shady joints.
Pacifiction
2022
6.2Island of Tahiti. French government official De Roller is a calculating man with impeccable manners, capable of dealing with both high society and the locals he frequents in shady joints.
Pacifiction
2022
6.5An homage from Serra to one of his idols, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, shot in a nightclub full of characters that resemble the ones of Fassbinder films. The title comes from the favourite drink of “Beware of the Holy Whore” characters.
Cubalibre
2014
NRAn American delegation travels to Russia in the midst of the Ukrainian war to try to find a solution to an economic dispute.
Out of This World
—
NRAn American delegation travels to Russia in the midst of the Ukrainian war to try to find a solution to an economic dispute.
Out of This World
—
NRAn American delegation travels to Russia in the midst of the Ukrainian war to try to find a solution to an economic dispute.
Out of This World
—
4.91774, shortly before the French Revolution, somewhere between Potsdam and Berlin. Madame de Dumeval, the Duke de Tesis and the Duke de Wand, libertines expelled from the puritanical court of Louis XVI, seek the support of the legendary Duc de Walchen, German seducer and freethinker, lonely in a country where hypocrisy and false virtue reign. Their mission is to export libertinage, a philosophy of enlightenment founded on the rejection of moral boundaries and authorities, but moreover to find a safe place to pursue their errant games, where the quest for pleasure no longer obeys laws other than those dictated by unfulfilled desires.
Liberté
2019
4.91774, shortly before the French Revolution, somewhere between Potsdam and Berlin. Madame de Dumeval, the Duke de Tesis and the Duke de Wand, libertines expelled from the puritanical court of Louis XVI, seek the support of the legendary Duc de Walchen, German seducer and freethinker, lonely in a country where hypocrisy and false virtue reign. Their mission is to export libertinage, a philosophy of enlightenment founded on the rejection of moral boundaries and authorities, but moreover to find a safe place to pursue their errant games, where the quest for pleasure no longer obeys laws other than those dictated by unfulfilled desires.
Liberté
2019
4.91774, shortly before the French Revolution, somewhere between Potsdam and Berlin. Madame de Dumeval, the Duke de Tesis and the Duke de Wand, libertines expelled from the puritanical court of Louis XVI, seek the support of the legendary Duc de Walchen, German seducer and freethinker, lonely in a country where hypocrisy and false virtue reign. Their mission is to export libertinage, a philosophy of enlightenment founded on the rejection of moral boundaries and authorities, but moreover to find a safe place to pursue their errant games, where the quest for pleasure no longer obeys laws other than those dictated by unfulfilled desires.
Liberté
2019
6.5August 1715. After going for a walk, Louis XIV feels a pain in his leg. The next days, the king keeps fulfilling his duties and obligations, but his sleep is troubled and he has a serious fever. He barely eats and weakens increasingly. This is the start of the slow agony of the greatest king of France, surrounded by his relatives and doctors.
The Death of Louis XIV
2016
6.5August 1715. After going for a walk, Louis XIV feels a pain in his leg. The next days, the king keeps fulfilling his duties and obligations, but his sleep is troubled and he has a serious fever. He barely eats and weakens increasingly. This is the start of the slow agony of the greatest king of France, surrounded by his relatives and doctors.
The Death of Louis XIV
2016