Víctor Erice
Born	Víctor Erice Aras (1940-06-30)30 June 1940 (age 85) Karrantza,Biscay, Spain
Alma mater	University of Madrid
Occupations	Film director writer
Years active	1961–present

Víctor Erice Aras (Spanish:[ˈbiɣtoɾeˈɾiθe]; born 30 June 1940) is a Spanishfilm director. He is best known for his first two feature fiction films,The Spirit of the Beehive (1973), which many regard as one of the greatest Spanish films ever made,^[1] andEl Sur (1983).

Erice was born inKarrantza,Biscay.^[2] He studied law, political science, and economics at theUniversity of Madrid. He also attended the Escuela Oficial de Cinematografia in 1963 to study film direction.

He wrote film criticism and reviews for the Spanish film journalNuestro Cine, and made a series of short films before making his first feature film,The Spirit of the Beehive (1973), a critical portrait of the 1940s rural Spain.

Erice was among other filmmakers, such asLuis Buñuel, who lived in “such restricted societies as Franco’s Spain,” to take aim at the authoritarian rule in power. At the time his first film was released in 1973, Francisco Franco was still in power.^[3] One of the thingsThe Spirit of the Beehive is known for is its use of symbolism to portray what life was like in Spain under Franco’s rule.^[4] Setting the movie in 1940, at the start of Franco’s rule, was a risk for Erice, given that the film “wasn't a propagandist effort in which stalwart Francoists won victories against evil, priest-massacring Republicans.”^[5]

Ten years later, Erice wrote and directedEl Sur (1983), based on a story fromAdelaida García Morales, another highly regarded film, although the producerElías Querejeta only allowed him to film the first two-thirds of the story. His third movie,The Quince Tree Sun (1992) is a documentary about painterAntonio López García. The film won theJury Prize and theFIPRESCI Prize at the1992 Cannes Film Festival.^[6]

Erice worked in the development of (and was set to direct)The Shanghai Spell, the adaptation of theJuan Marsé's namesake novel, but producerAndrés Vicente Gómez eventually tasked the project toFernando Trueba instead.^[7] This rejection entailed "a great deal of frustration" for Erice.^[7]

He was a member of the jury at the2010 Cannes Film Festival in May.^[8]

At the 2014Locarno Film Festival, Erice was awarded with a Golden Leopard award for lifetime achievement.^[9]

In July 2022, thirty years after his last full-length film, a project for a new Erice film (Cerrar los ojos) supported by Pecado Films, Tándem Films, Nautilus as well asCanal Sur was revealed to be in development.^[10] The film premiered in the following year at the2023 Cannes Film Festival and was met with very positive reviews.^[11]

Geoff Andrew, in theTime Out Film Guide, praises Erice's contribution toTen Minutes Older: The Trumpet (Lifeline) as "quite masterly", adding "it only makes you wish he worked more frequently".^[12] Excluding short films, Erice has produced only four major works:The Spirit of the Beehive (1973), the unfinishedEl Sur (1983),Dream of Light (1992,The Quince Tree Sun), andClose Your Eyes (2023 film). CriticTony Rayns describesThe Spirit of the Beehive as "a haunting mood piece that dispenses with plot and works its spells through intricate patterns of sound and image"^[13] and ofEl Sur it has been said that "Erice creates his film as a canvas, conjuring painterly images of slow dissolves and shafts of light that matchCaravaggio in their power to animate a scene of stillness, or freeze one of mad movement".^{[citation needed]}

Erice's work would go on to influence filmmakers such asCarla Simón,Carlos Vermut,Alejandro Amenábar,Oliver Laxe,Estibaliz Urresola, andJaione Camborda.^[14] His portrayal of children dreaming and their attraction to fantastic worlds during and around times like the Spanish Civil War inspired Mexican directorGuillermo del Toro and his respective films, includingThe Devil's Backbone, andPan's Labyrinth.^[5]

In December 2023, alongside 50 other filmmakers, Erice signed an open letter published inLibération demanding a ceasefire and an end to the killing of civilians amid the2023 Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip, and for a humanitarian corridor into Gaza to be established for humanitarian aid, and the release of hostages.^[15][16][17]

Source:^[18]

• Jury Prize, 1992 Cannes Film Festival^[19]
• FIRPRESCI Prize, 1992 Cannes Film Festival^[20]
• Golden Leopard for lifetime achievement^[9]

• An essay about the films of Victor Erice
• BFI interviews with Geoff Andrew
• Víctor Erice atIMDb
• (in Spanish)30 años en la colmenaArchived 2007-01-01 at theWayback Machine
• (in Spanish)Erice/Kiarostami: CorrespondenciasArchived 2006-11-22 at theWayback Machine
• (in Spanish)Erice, Angelopoulos, Kiarostami

• 1940 births
• Living people
• People from Enkarterri
• Film directors from the Basque Country (autonomous community)
• Spanish film directors
• Complutense University of Madrid alumni

• CS1 French-language sources (fr)
• Articles with short description
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• Articles with unsourced statements from September 2015
• Articles with Spanish-language sources (es)
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