Ivan Zulueta

Iván Zulueta was born on October 29, 1943 in San Sebastián, a city in the Basque Country, Spain. He was the fourth child of seven siblings. His parents were both teachers. He developed an interest in cinema and photography at an early age. He studied engineering at the University of Madrid but dropped out to pursue his passion for filmmaking. He enrolled in the Institute of Cinematographic Research and Experiences (IIEC) in 1952 and graduated in 1957. He made his first short film, La tarde del domingo (Sunday Afternoon), in 1955. He gained international recognition with his first feature film, Los golfos (The Delinquents), in 1960. The film was a realistic portrayal of the lives of young criminals in the slums of Madrid. It was selected for the Cannes Film Festival but faced censorship problems in Spain. Zulueta continued to make films that challenged the Francoist regime and its repression of political and social freedoms. He used metaphors and symbolism to avoid censorship and to express his criticism of the dictatorship. Some of his most acclaimed films from this period are Rapture (Arrebato, 1979), a cult film about a filmmaker who becomes addicted to a mysterious film reel; A Mal Gam A (1976), a documentary about the Basque rock band Kortatu; and Un, dos, tres, al escondite inglés (One, Two, Three... Hide and Seek, 1969), a pop-art musical comedy. Zulueta also worked as a designer and created posters for films by Pedro Almodóvar, Fernando Colomo, Fernando Trueba and others. He also directed music videos for bands like Radio Futura and Alaska y Dinarama. He received several awards for his work, such as the Gold Medal from the Spanish Academy of Cinema in 2009. He died on December 30, 2009 in San Sebastián from liver cancer. He was 66 years old.