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Isabel Coixet | |
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| Born | Isabel Coixet Castillo (1960-04-09)9 April 1960 (age 65) Barcelona, Spain |
| Alma mater | University of Barcelona |
| Occupation | Film director |
| Years active | 1989–present |
| Known for | My Life Without Me The Secret Life of Words |
| Spouse | Reed Brody |
| Children | 1 |
| Website | http://misswasabi.com |
Isabel Coixet Castillo (Catalan:[izəˈβɛlkuˈʃɛt]; born 9 April 1960) is a Spanishfilm director.[1] She is one of the most prolific film directors of contemporarySpain, having directed twelve feature-length films since the beginning of her film career in 1988, in addition to documentary films, shorts, and commercials. Her films depart from the traditional nationalcinema of Spain, and help to “untangle films from their national context ... clearing the path for thinking about national film from different perspectives.”[2] The recurring themes of “emotions, feelings, and existential conflict” coupled with her distinct visual style secure the “multifaceted (she directs, writes, produces, shoots, and acts)” filmmaker's status as a “Catalanauteur.”[2][3]
Isabel Coixet was born inSant Adrià del Besòs[1] near Barcelona on 9 April 1960.[4] She started filming when she was given an 8 mm camera on the occasion of her First Communion. After obtaining a BA degree in history at Barcelona University, where she majored in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century history, she worked in advertising and spot writing for the cinema magazineFotogramas. She continued in the world of advertising, standing out as creative director of the agency JWT.[5]
Coixet made her first short film in 1984,Mira y verás.[6] In 1988, Coixet made her debut as a scriptwriter and director inDemasiado Viejo Para Morir Joven (Too Old to Die Young). For this movie, she was nominated at theGoya Awards as a Best New Director. In 1996, she traveled to theUnited States to shoot her first English-language feature film, entitledThings I Never Told You (Cosas que nunca te dije). This drama cast American actors led byLili Taylor andAndrew McCarthy. Coixet received her second nomination at the Goya Awards forBest Original Screenplay. Coixet then connected with a French production company, and in 1998 she shot — for the first time in Spain and in Spanish — the historical adventureA los que aman. Two years later she founded her own production company, with which she produced her most acclaimed film to date,Mi vida sin mí (My Life Without Me). Since then she has been one of the most acclaimed directors of Spanish cinema.[6]
In 2000, she founded her own production company calledMiss Wasabi Films, for which she has produced over 400 commercials. Her international success came in 2003 thanks to the intimate dramaMy Life Without Me. The film was based on a short story by Nancy Kincaid.Canadian actressSarah Polley played Ann, a young mother who decides to hide from her family that she has terminal cancer. This Hispanic-Canadian co-production was highly praised at theBerlin International Film Festival.[7] Coixet then continued working with Polley as her lead actress with the filmThe Secret Life of Words, which was released in 2005 and also starredTim Robbins andJavier Cámara. The film was awarded four Goyas: Best Film, Best Director, Best Production and Best Screenplay.[citation needed]
In 2005, Coixet joined eighteen other international filmmakers, among themGus Van Sant,Walter Salles andJoel andEthan Cohen, to make the groundbreaking collective projectParis, je t’aime, in which each director explored a differentParis quarter. Coixet made prominent documentaries on major themes, such asInvisibles, which was selected for the "Panorama" section of the 2007Berlin Film Festival, about the international medical organizationDoctors Without Borders. Also the documentaryJourney to the Heart of Torture, which was filmed inSarajevo during theBalkan War and won an award at the October 2003 Human Rights Film Festival.[citation needed]
In April 2006, she was honored with the Creu de San Jordi De Cine Awards by theGeneralitat de Catalunya. The Barcelona director received not one but two awards. In addition to the critical award forThe Secret Life of Words (La vida secreta de las palabras) as the best Spanish film, she also received the Rosa de Sant Jordi prize, voted by the audience of Radio Nacional de España (RNE), for the best production. The award ceremony was held at thePalau de la Música.[8]
In 2008, Coixet releasedElegy, which was filmed inVancouver and produced byLakeshore Entertainment. The film was based onPhilip Roth's novelThe Dying Animal, was written for the screen byNicholas Meyer, and starredPenélope Cruz andBen Kingsley.Elegy was presented at the 58th Berlin International Film Festival.[9]
In 2009, as an official selection of theCannes Film Festival, she premiered the filmMap of the Sounds of Tokyo, shot in bothJapan and Barcelona and starringRinko Kikuchi,Sergi López andMin Tanaka, with a script by Coixet herself. And at theCentre D'Art Santa Mònica, she inauguratedFrom I to J, an installation in honor of the work ofJohn Berger. That same year she received the gold medal for Fine Arts and was also part of the jury of the 59th edition of the Berlin Film Festival.[citation needed]
In April 2009 at the Centre d'Arts Santa Mónica in Barcelona and in April 2010 atLa Casa Encendida inMadrid, Coixet presented a monographic exhibition dedicated to the British writer, art critic, poet and artist John Berger entitledFrom I to J. A tribute by Isabel Coixet to John Berger, with the collaboration of the architectBenedetta Tagliabue and the participation of the actressesPenélope Cruz,Monica Bellucci,Isabelle Huppert,Maria de Medeiros,Sarah Polley,Tilda Swinton andLeonor Watling.[10]
Also in 2009 she directed a short documentary calledLa mujer es cosa de hombres about male violence and the media.[11] for a project entitled "50 years of..." about the history of Catalonia.
In 2010, she took on responsibility for the content of one of the three Spanish Pavilion lounges for theExpo Shanghai. Plus, she inaugurated the exhibitionAral. The Lost Sea, which shows her documentary with the same title, shot inUzbekistan in 2009.[12][13]
In 2011, within the "Berlinale Specials" section of the Berlin Film Festival, she premiered the documentaryListening to Judge Garzón giving voice tothe Spanish magistrate through an interview with writerManuel Rivas. The film won theGoya in the Best Documentary category.[14]
During 2012, she directed a documentary about the 10 years of the Prestige disaster and the volunteers who participated in the recovery of theGalician coasts under the titleWhite Tide.[15]
That same year, Coixet shot and producedAyer no termina nunca (Yesterday Never Ends) which premiered in the Panorama Section of the 63rd edition of the International Film Festival of Berlin. The film also opened theMálaga Film Festival the same year, where it won four Silver Biznagas in the categories Special Jury Prize, Best Actress, Best Photography and Best Editing, the last two prizes won by Jordi Azategui.[16] In the end of 2012 she also started shooting a new project, which she finished in 2013, calledAnother Me, an English-language thriller written and directed by Coixet with a cast that featuredSophie Turner,Rhys Ifans,Jonathan Rhys-Meyers andGeraldine Chaplin, among others.[17]
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In the summer of 2013 she started shootingLearning to Drive, an American production developed inNew York City, based on an article published inThe New York Times and starring SirBen Kingsley andPatricia Clarkson, with whom Isabel Coixet had already worked inElegy. It premiered at theToronto International Film Festival and won the Grolsch People's Choice Award.[18]
Nobody Wants the Night was her next project, filmed inNorway,Bulgaria and theCanary Islands. The film starredJuliette Binoche,Rinko Kikuchi andGabriel Byrne. The film opened the 66th Berlin International Film Festival to competition.[19]
Coixet is always interested in shooting documentaries to denounce what she doesn't agree with, or to give voice to her protagonists. She shot a documentary inChad at the end of 2014 narrated by Juliette Binoche entitledTalking about Rose: Prisoner ofHissène Habré. The piece relates the experience of a group of torture victims in their struggle to bring the former Chadian dictator to justice, an effort led by US human rights lawyerReed Brody.[20]
During the 2015 edition of the Málaga Festival, the prize was awarded to her entire career and it was presented a retrospective documentary of her work, commissioned by the Festival itself,Words, Maps, Secrets And Other Things, directed by Elena Trapé.[5][21]
Also in 2015 she received the recognized prize of the French Ministry of Culture of Knight of Arts and Letters.[22]
During 2015 and 2016, Coixet directed the projectSpain in a Day, the Spanish version of the documentarycrowdsourcing project produced byMediapro. The project aims to portray the reality of a country reflected by hundreds of domestic videos recorded during the same day and that has had as direct precedentsBritain in a Day andItaly in a Day. In the case ofSpain in a Day, the videos were recorded on 24 October 2015 by thousands of volunteers.[23]
In the summer of 2016 she directed the feature filmThe Bookshop (La librería). The script adapted by Coixet was based on the novel of the same name by the English writerPenelope Fitzgerald and received the prize for the best literary adaptation at theFrankfurt Book Fair in 2017.[24] The film was shot inNorthern Ireland and Barcelona, starringEmily Mortimer,Bill Nighy andPatricia Clarkson.[25]The Bookshop inaugurated the SEMINCI 2017, as a world premiere, receiving good reviews and it was commercially released in Spain on November 10, with a very positive critical reception and great public success.[26][27][28]
The Bookshop premiered outside of Spain at the Berlinale Special Gala at the 68th edition of the Berlin International Film Festival, which took place in February 2018.[29]
In February 2019, Coixet released the filmElisa y Marcela in collaboration withNetflix. The film, based on the first registered same-sex marriage in Spain, was the third original Spanish film by Netflix.[30]
On 4 September 2020, the Spanish Ministry of Culture and Sports announced that Isabel Coixet would be awarded the National Film Award 2020. The award was presented at the San Sebastian International Film Festival.[31]
Coixet created her own production company in 2000,Miss Wasabi, with the vocation to self-produce her own more personal projects. The production company has dedicated itself basically to advertising, the making of video clips, documentaries and a fictional feature film, but also to projects outside the audiovisual sector, such as exhibitions, books and other types of cultural projects. Among the main projects, directed and produced by Isabel Coixet, are the documentaryAral, el mar perdido (2009),From I to J (2010),Escuchando al Juez Garzón (2011), the feature filmAyer no termina nunca (2013), orTalking about Rose. Prisoner of Hissène Habré (2015).[32]
On the occasion of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of TVE Catalunya (TVE Cataluña), Coixet, along with fifteen other Catalan documentary filmmakers, had the idea of capturing images, taken from the archive ofTelevisión Española, of the last half-century in Spain. The programme50 years of... (50 años de…) is in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the first TVE broadcast in Catalonia, whose first headquarters was the mythical Miramar Hotel in Barcelona, which was maintained for twenty-four years, until 1983, when the production center was moved toSan Cugat del Vallés. There has been a second season, as well as a third entitledCómo hemos cambiado.[33][34]
Coixet has a daughter, Zoe, born in 1997, and lives in Barcelona with her boyfriend,Reed Brody, a human rights lawyer.
In October 2012 Coixet was one of the signatories of the "Call to the federalist and left-wing Catalonia" manifesto, asking the Catalan left-wing for an unabashedfederalist stance vis-à-vis the State.[35] She openly declared her opposition to theOctober 2017 independence referendum held in Catalonia, signing another manifesto calling on people not to take part in the vote.[36] In April 2020 she signed a manifesto to say "enough" to the "Catalan government's political mismanagement" and "its unsupportive and irresponsible statements" on the coronavirus crisis.[37]
Coixet's political and feminist involvement is evident. For example,The Secret Life of Words is a film that denounces the rapes certain women in the Balkan Wars.[38]
In September 2025, she signed an open pledge with Film Workers for Palestine pledging not to work with Israeli film institutions "that are implicated ingenocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people."[39]
| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Camera Operator | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1983 | Morbus (o bon profit) | No | Yes | No | |
| 1989 | Demasiado viejo para morir joven | Yes | Yes | No | |
| 1996 | Things I Never Told You | Yes | Yes | No | |
| 1998 | A los que aman | Yes | Yes | No | |
| 2003 | My Life Without Me | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| 2005 | The Secret Life of Words | Yes | Yes | Yes | Also associate producer and music supervisor (credited as Miss Wassabi) |
| 2008 | Elegy | Yes | No | Yes | Also music supervisor |
| 2009 | Map of the Sounds of Tokyo | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| 2013 | Yesterday Never Ends | Yes | Yes | No | Also executive producer |
| 2013 | Another Me | Yes | Yes | No | |
| 2014 | Learning to Drive | Yes | No | Yes | |
| 2015 | Nobody Wants the Night | Yes | No | Yes | |
| 2017 | The Bookshop | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| 2019 | Elisa & Marcela | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| 2020 | It Snows in Benidorm | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| 2023 | The Movie Teller | No | Yes | No | |
| Un amor | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
| 2025 | Three Goodbyes | Yes | Yes | No |
Producer only
| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1984 | Mira y verás | Yes | Yes | Also producer |
| 2006 | Bastille | Yes | Yes | Segment for the anthology filmParis, je t'aime |
| 2016 | Un corazón roto no es como un jarrón roto o un florero | Yes | Yes | Content-branded short |
| 2017 | Proyecto Tiempo. Parte I: La llave | Yes | No | |
| Proyecto Tiempo. Parte II: La Cura | Yes | No | ||
| Proyecto Tiempo. Parte III: El Juego | Yes | No | ||
| Amodio | Yes | No | ||
| 2018 | Proyecto Tiempo. Parte IV: Brainstart | Yes | No |
Producer
| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Producer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | Viaje al corazón de la tortura | Yes | Yes | No | |
| 2011 | Escsuchando al Juez Garzón | Yes | No | Yes | Also editor and camera |
| 2016 | Spain in a Day | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| 2017 | El espíritu de la pintura | Yes | Story | Yes | |
| 2022 | El Techo Amarillo | Yes | Yes | Executive |
Associate producer
| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Producer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2004 | La insoportable verdad del carrito de compra | Yes | No | No | Segment for the collaborative documentary film "¡Hay Motivo!" |
| 2007 | Cartas a Nora | Yes | Yes | No | Segment for the collaborative documentary film "Invisibles" |
| 2010 | Dear John | Yes | Yes | No | Also cinematographer |
| Aral, el mar perdido | Yes | No | No | ||
| 2012 | Marea Blanca | Yes | No | Yes | |
| 2013 | Venice 70: Future Reloaded | Yes | No | No | Untitled segment director |
| 2015 | Parler de Rose, prissionnière de Hissène Habrè | Yes | No | Executive | Also editor |
| 2016 | Normal | Yes | Yes | No | |
| No es tan fría Siberbia | Yes | Yes | No | Also cinematographer |
| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1998 | XII premios Goya | Yes | Yes | TV special |
| 2009 | 50 años de... | Yes | No | TV documentary series Episode: "...La mujer, cosas de hombres" |
| 2019 | Foodie Love[40] | Yes | Yes | TV Miniseries Also creator and executive producer 8 episodes |
| 2021 | Peace Peace Now Now | Yes | No | TV documentary Series Episode: "Libertad Bajo Condena" |
| 2022 | Cuidarnos Entre Nosotros Nos Hace Humanos | Yes | No | TV documentary Series 4 episodes |
| Year | Title | Artist | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 | Pisando fuerte | Alejandro Sanz | |
| 2004 | It's All Right | Marlango | Co-directed withRafa Suñado |
| Once Upon a Time | |||
| 2021 | Forever Just Beyond | Clem Snide |
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| Year | Category | Nominated work | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1989 | Best New Director | Too Old To Die Young | Nominated | |
| 1997 | Best Original Screenplay | Things I Never Told You | Nominated | [41] |
| 2004 | Best Director | My Life Without Me | Nominated | [42] |
| Best Adapted Screenplay | Won | |||
| 2006 | Best Production Supervision | The Secret Life of Words. | Won | [43] |
| Best Original Screenplay | Won | |||
| Best Director | Won | |||
| Best Film | Won | |||
| 2008 | Best Documental Film (shared with other 4 directors) | Invisibles | Won | [44] |
| 2012 | Best Documental Film | Listening to Judge Garzón | Won | [45] |
| 2016 | Best Director | Nobody Wants the Night | Nominated | [46] |
| Best Film | Nominated | [46] | ||
| 2017 | Best Director | The Bookshop | Won | [47][48] |
| Best Adapted Screenplay | Won | [49][50] | ||
| 2022 | Best Documentary | El Sostre Groc | Nominated |
Medals of theCircle of Cinematographic Writers
| Year | Category | Nominated work | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1997 | Best Original Screenplay | Things I Never Told You | Won | [51] |
| 2003 | Best Adapted Screenplay | My Life Without Me | Won | [52] |
| 2006 | Best Original Screenplay | The Secret Life of Words. | Won | [51][53] |
| Best Director | Won | |||
| 2017 | Best Director | The Bookshop | Won | [54] |
| Best Adapted Screenplay | Won |
| Year | Category | Nominated work | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Best Director | The Bookshop | Won | [55] |
| Year | Category | Nominated work | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2004 | Best Film of the Year | My Life Without Me | Nominated | |
| 2006 | Best Film of the Year | The Secret Life of Words. | Won | [56] |
| Won | ||||
| 2008 | Special EGEDA Award for the Best Documentary Feature | Invisibles | Nominated | |
| 2016 | Best Feature | Nobody Wants the Night | Nominated | |
| 2017 | Best Director | The Bookshop | Won | [57] |
| Year | Category | Nominated work | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Best Director | The Bookshop | Nominated | |
| Best Screenplay | Won |
| Year | Category | Nominated work | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | Best Catalan Film | My Life Without Me | Won | |
| 2006 | The Secret Life of Words. | Won |
Other Awards
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