My name is Guifré Margarit i Contel.

I was born on October 28th, 1994, in Barcelona, and from a very early age movies have been a passion of mine. 

In that sense, I was a strange kid. My taste was quite distinct to that of the rest. I was not focusing alone on animated movies, sure I would watch cartoons on TV but when it came to cinema, my interests where elsewhere. Besides from the two Disney VHS that we had, those being The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) and Hercules (1997), my eyes would usually go to different places. My go-to VHS were the Marx Brothers ones from my father and the very cool-looking, gold and black, Star Wars original trilogy box set (which sometimes I would only open to smell its musty odour) from my brother.

Precisely, it was through my family that I would get my eclectic and particular taste. 

My father was big on classic Hollywood overall, especially westerns (not the later spaghetti ones made by Terence Hill and Bud Spencer as they were way too silly for him), and comedies. Stagecoach (1939) would quickly become a favourite of mine, as well as the aforementioned Marx Brothers movies, especially Go West (1940) as it would perfectly mix western and comedy. But he would also direct my attention to other great movies like Rebel Without a Cause (1955), The Great Escape (1963) and Young Frankenstein (1974) among many others.

Via the collection, older VHS and at some point DVDs, and recommendations of my brother, who was much older than me, I would access various movies that in principal would not be meant for kids to see: Dracula (1992), Seven (1995) or the two Kill Bill (Uma Thurman would quickly become my first action icon). Regardless of the movie, my parents were quite open and they would let me watch pretty much anything (only the first Scary Movie caused a bit of a commotion one night at home after I had been very pushy to rent it). Still, my brother had also his gentler side too, thanks to him I would expand my comedy horizons to the likes of Woody Allen as well as be keep up to date to some of the latest hits such as The Lord of the Rings, Shrek or some superhero blockbusters like Hulk (2003) and Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man.

My brother was the one to bring cinema home, fixing the VHS or installing a home video system, but on the other hand, my sister would be the one to actually take me to the cinema. I still remember vividly one of the first, if not the first, times that I went to the cinema. My sister took me to watch The Phantom Menace (1999), I was 4 or 5 but I had already devoured many times my brother’s Star Wars box set, so seeing the Star Wars world expand was exciting. We were going down the steps in the dark room looking for our seats when suddenly… all the popcorn and big cokes that we had bought slipped from my sister’s hand and when crashing to the floor. All worried, she asked me to stay put and quiet, while the pre-movie ads were already rolling, as she went to find a mop and a clerk and helped him clean all the mess. Either way, we were seated for the beginning of the movie and the experience was amazing, The Phantom Menace was for sure much targeted to kids than maybe the original ones so it perfectly delivered for me: the pod race was spectacular, Darth Maul looked superb, John Williams’ score was sensational, and yes… I loved Jar Jar Binks! And I don’t care what you think, it stills holds a dear place in my heart.

Finally, it was with my mother with the one that I would usually watch whatever was on TV. It did not matter what was on, from crappy TV movies (which sometimes you could easily notice that were cut to fit the programming) to mostly silly old Spanish films accompanied by a roundtable with some of the people who worked on the production before and after the film. But in the middle of all that, the occasional gem would pop up. It was in these viewings that I would find out about Martin Scorsese, although not being fully aware of who he was, via the usual showings of movies like Gangs of New York (2002) and The Departed (2006), or Tim Burton with Batman (1989) and Edward Scissorhands (1990). I would also fall in love with Robert De Niro and Jim Carrey. Those two were to my simple child mine the best of the best because they were recognisable faces that they would make me feel in many different ways. Robert De Niro would make me laugh with movies like Midnight Run (1988) or Meet the Parents (2000), thrill me with Heat (1995) and cry with Awakenings (1990), while Jim Carrey would have that same varied effect on me depending on what he was on, from The Mask (1994) and Liar Liar (1997) to The Truman Show (1998) and The Majestic (2001).

This is how my family promoted, even if maybe not completely willing, my interest in cinema.

But the true turn point happened in my 14th birthday. It had been a while that I had been hearing over and over this movie mentioned and I had not watch, so I asked for it as a birthday present. This movie was The Godfather (1972). The gift was actually the entire trilogy in DVD, but it was mainly the first, the one that had a huge impact on me. It was the first time that I recall being fully engaged with a movie, fully involved, fully manipulated by it. Not one cynical eye roll, or look away, or sketchy character, it was flawless. This why, after the fact, I wanted to know it all from the film, who made this, who made that and so on. This scaled-up to being able to situate that film in the bigger spectrum of the New Hollywood, what was that? Who were the other people involved on that? “Maybe I should pay more attention to directors rather than actors”. I like Scorsese, what does he like? “I might like it too”. He likes neorealism, “Ladri di Biciclette (1948) is fantastic!”. He also likes Powell and Pressburger, “I love A Matter of Life and Death (1946).

This is how slowly but surely, I broke free from the mostly exclusive Hollywood chains and started to dig deep into eye-opening cinema from other parts of the world. I would even start paying more attention to the cinema closest to home, which sometimes is so easily disregarded and neglected by everyone in every country as too repetitive, local, or non-glamorous and so on and so forth. I would start seeing the value and artistry in filmmakers such as Luis Buñuel, Juan Antonio Bardem, Luis Garcia Berlanga, José Luis Cuerda, Pedro Almodóvar, Álex de la Iglesia or Alejandro Amenábar. As well as I would start travelling the world and time by the hand of Ousmane Sembène to Senegal and postcolonial Africa and with Youssef Chahine to Egypt; by the hand of Akira Kurosawa to the Japan of samurais while with Yasujirô Ozu post-World War II Japan; by the hand of Arturo Ripstein to Mexico and Juan José Campanella to Argentina; by the hand of Abbas Kiarostami to Iran; and by the hand of Visconti all over Europe. At the same time, I would wonder into more intricate and personal psyches through Ingmar Bergman, Andrei Tarkovsky or Robert Bresson, and magical worlds through Hayao Miyazaki, Guillermo del Toro or Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro.

All in all, I feel like, even if it might be true that I know more and I am more passionate about film than the average person, the distance is even greater to all that I lack. I still have many mysteries to unravel, many discoveries to make, and many treasures to find.