Jury

I feel cinema inside of me since I was 7 years old, when I went to the premiere of Star Wars, and I know since I was 13 that I would never stop watching films because of For a Few Dollars More. Many movies and books later, they offered me to be the editor in chief of Blogdecine (now Espinof), the most widely read cinema website in Spain. I stayed there for twelve years, making reviews of all kinds of premieres and special editions dedicated to people like Clint Eastwood, Walter Hill, John McTiernan, Sam Peckinah and Stanley Kubrick, among many others. The publication Dirigido por offered me to write for its “sister” magazine Imágenes de actualidad where I stayed for three years. For Cátedra, I participated in the collective book CINE XXI, alongside people like Miguel Marías or Toni Alarcón. During all that time I collaborated as a film critic in various radio programs of Cope Catalunya, Onda cero, Cadena ser and various radio stations in South America. I’m also co-author of the book Vaca Films: Pasión por el cine. And I am about to publish the huge project that has taken me four years, Love in 100 Movies, in which there are people like Koldo Serra, Guillermo del Toro, Joe Dante, Garci, Bayona, Scott Derrickson, Bárbara Lennie, Luis Eduardo Aute, Carlos Pumares, Javier Muñoz, and many more.

I went to Cannes for the first time in May 1985. In that same year, in September, I was hired as a film critic in Deia Gipuzkoa. Actually, I just wanted to write a lot of reviews to get the press accreditation for Sitges Film Festival. I was granted such grace in 1986. I was even invited to interview Christopher Lee. I accepted. When I sat in front of him, he told me that he didn’t want to talk about Dracula. I replied that we were in a fantasy film festival and that the Master was the Master. He told me that he had sung opera and was a paratrooper in World War II, that we could talk about that. I stood up and left. Over the years he came to San Sebastián. I saw how he was reflected in the mirror in the living room at María Cristina hotel. I wasn’t surprised, Lee was a fake. But by then I already venerated Frank Langella in Badham’s Dracula.

I’ve been collaborating with the Horror and Fantasy Film Festival for 30 years; I’ve been going to the Berlinale for another 30. Some years less going to Zinebi. I work in the Diario Vasco, in Berria and in Euskadi Irratia. I love motorcycles, bulls and, of course, the Vampire. The Exorcist still causes me a deliciously excruciating fear. I am from San Sebastian, a city with four wonderful cemeteries.

Specialist in makeup effects, with more than 25 years of professional experience in films, theatre and television. Expert in creating prosthetic makeup, animatronics and dummies. He has participated in well-known films such as Flowers (2014), Lasa y Zabala (2014), Guernica (2016), The Night Watchman (2016), The Giant (2017), The Bastards’ Fig Tree (2017), When You No Longer Love Me (2018), or Advantages of Travelling by Train (2019). Co-manager, together with his business partner Agar Martínez de la Hidalga, of his own FX studio: I-REAL FX, located in Getxo. They won a Goya Award for their work in The Giant.