Broken Windows

A film director, screenwriter, and producer, Víctor Erice is regarded as one of Spain's greatest masters of cinema. He was born in 1940 in the Basque town of Karrantza, and his parents moved to San Sebastián when he was a few months old. Sometime later, his life became tied to Madrid, where he first studied Law and Political Science, and then Film Direction, which he completed in 1963. While still a student, he started working in television production and worked as a film critic for magazines such as Nuestro Cine and Cuadernos de Arte y Pensamiento, and he remains active in both these fields to this day. At the same time, he began taking his first steps in the film industry, working on screenplays for films by Miguel Picazo (Obscure August Dreams/Oscuros sueños de Agosto) and Antxon Eceiza (Next Fall/El próximo otoño), and he also had an acting role in Manuel Revuelta's Antoñito Returns Home (Antoñito vuelve a casa). By then, he had already begun making his first short films in preparation for his full-length debut, The Spirit of the Beehive (El espíritu de la Colmena, 1973). In terms of just how much his films are studied and the lengthy intervals between his films, he is often compared with Carl Theodor Dreyer and Terrence Malick. Following his debut, he made only two more feature-length productions and several shorts as part of collective projects, including Ten Minutes Older: The Trumpet (2002), which appeared in Polish cinemas, and Centro Histórico (2012), which was screened at the 13th T-Mobile New Horizons International Film Festival.