Freedom Beheaded

He was born in Barcelona on November 13, 1947

He received the Spanish Film Academy´s Goya 2006 Award for the Best Feature Documentary Film for Cineastes contra Magnats (Filmmakers Vs Tycoons) and received the same award the following year for Cineastes en acció (Filmmakers in Action)

Fred Zinnemann, George Sidney and Carlos Benpar

Both films have won the Barcelona Award (now the Gaudí award) for the Best Documentary Feature Film of the Catalan industry. And Cineastes en acció has also won the Spanish “Círculo de Escritores Cinematográficos” (Circle of Cinema Writers) Medal and the Special Prix from EGEDA for the best documentary feature film released in 2006.

Carlos Benpar and Anthony Franciosa filming El Caçador Furtiu

Cineastes contra Magnats and Cineastes en acció, both of which he produced and directed –writing the script in collaboration with Ferrán Alberich- are essay films. These films mark a return on his part to the spirit of his previous works, in which he defended filmmakers the world over in their struggle against the manipulations made to their films by the theatrical and audiovisual media.

Carlos Benpar’s initial experiences with the cinema were through the Montseny Film Society (1965-1970) and, concurrently, as a trainee for the directors Florestano vancini (I lunghi giorni della vendetta) and Josep María Forn (La respuesta / M’enterro en els fonaments).

Carlos Benpar in Soplo de Esplendor

In 1968 he started the production of his first feature film, Soplo de esplendor (Touch of Splendor), which he was not to finish until 1973. This film includes a half-feature made between 1968 and 1970 called El hachazo (The Axe Blow) which may be seen as a precedent of his Goya- winning films. Soplo de esplendor was shown at the Locarno International Film Festival in 1974, but it was not possible to legalise and premiere it in Spain until 1981, under the title La sombra de los gigantes (The Shadow of the Giants).

Ariadna Gil in Capità Escalaborns

He has subsequently directed the following films: El gènere femení (Womankind), Capità Escalaborns (Captain Escalaborns) and Escapada Final (Scapegoat), on original stories written by himself; De mica en mica s´omple la pica (Many a Mickle Makes a Muckle), based on Jaume Fuster’s novel; El cazador furtivo (The Poacher), based on Guy de Maupassant’s Bel Ami; La veritat oculta (The Hidden Truth), based on stories by Pere Calders; El jovencito Drácula (Young Dracula), using characters created by Bram Stoker; ¿Dónde se nacionaliza la marea? (Where does the Tide Acquire Nationality?),based on the true story of the film’s leading actress; La venganza del proscrito (The Revenge of the Outcast), an essay film shot on the locations of the mythical films of his childhood; Cançons d´Amor i Anarquia (Songs of Love and Anarchy), from two concerts given in, respectively, Barcelona in 2014 and Sanremo in 2015; Al final de la vida (At the End of Life), an intimate portrait on his mother, which is screened annually on 26 February; and the documentary short on the city where Orson Welles’s birthplace, called O. W. Kenosha.

La Veritat Oculta

He has also directed five shorts and the video Is That Mine?, made for the Symposium on the Conservation and Preservation of Motion Pictures, which took place at the 1987 Barcelona Film Festival, and conceived as an indictment of the manipulations films are subjected to on television and the audiovisual media in general. In keeping with this same militant attitude of this video, he wrote the book Cineastes contra Magnats, which served as the basis for the exhibition of the same title and theme that took place from September 1999 to January 2000 at the Cinema Museum of Girona, as well as for the two feature films mentioned above.)

Francisco Rabal in Escapada final (Scapegoat)

He has written and directed the episode Reportatge del Monument de Sonilles (Chronicle of the Sonilles Monument) for the serie of Televisió de Catalunya (TV3) Cròniques de la Veritat Oculta (Chronicles of the Hidden Truth), based on tales by Pere Calders; and produced the films El domini dels sentits (The Domain of the Senses), a feature-length film composed of five episodes directed by as many young Catalan woman directors; as well as Tomándote (Two for Tea), directed by Isabel Gardela; and La segona pàtria (The Second Homeland), directed by David Pallarès in coproduction with Zabriskie Films.

Martine Audò and Pere Gian in "De Mica en Mica S’omple la Pica - Dinero Negro".

Also for Produccions Kilimanjaro, a production company of which he is a founder-member, he conceived and co-produced a thirteen-episode series for Televisió de Catalunya (TV3) called Sota el signe de... (Under the Sign of...) which hinges on the star signs, and for which he contributed the episode L’Àngel i l’Escorpió (The Angel and the Scorpio).

He is the author of two books on, respectively,filmmakers Nicholas Ray and Rovira-Beleta, and has been the subject of the book El refugio de los Apaches, el cine de Carlos Benpar (The Refuge of the Apaches. The Cinema of Carlos Benpar)

José Conde and Gunnel Lindblom in Capità Escalaborns.

During the period 1991-94, he collaborated in the newspapers Diari de Barcelona and El Mundo Deportivo with a series of articles that, under the umbrella title Un Barça de película (A Movie Barça), would analyze the matches played by the F.C. Barcelona in comparative reference to a classic film.