Isabel Coixet facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Isabel Coixet
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(s)	Reed Brody
Children	1

Isabel Coixet Castillo (born on April 9, 1960) is a Spanish film director. She is one of the busiest film directors in modern Spain. She has directed twelve full-length movies since 1988, along with many documentaries, short films, and commercials. Her films are different from traditional Spanish movies. They help us think about national films in new ways.

Isabel Coixet is known for exploring "emotions, feelings, and life's challenges" in her movies. She also has a special visual style. She directs, writes, produces, shoots, and sometimes even acts in her films. This makes her a true "Catalan auteur" (a filmmaker with a very distinct style).

Early Life and First Steps

Isabel Coixet was born in Sant Adrià del Besòs, near Barcelona, on April 9, 1960. Her journey into filmmaking began when she received an 8 mm camera for her First Communion.

After studying history at Barcelona University, she started working in advertising. She wrote ads for the cinema magazine Fotogramas. Later, she became a creative director at the JWT advertising agency. She worked with big brands like BMW, Renault, and Ikea. She won many awards for her ads, but she felt she could do more.

In 1984, Coixet made her very first short film, called Mira y verás.

Film Career Highlights

In 1988, Isabel Coixet made her first full-length movie, Demasiado Viejo Para Morir Joven (Too Old to Die Young). She wrote the script and directed it. For this film, she was nominated for a Goya Award as Best New Director.

Working in English

In 1996, she went to the United States to direct her first English-language movie, Things I Never Told You. This drama starred American actors Lili Taylor and Andrew McCarthy. Coixet received another Goya Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

Two years later, she worked with a French company and filmed A los que aman in Spain, in Spanish.

International Success

In 2000, Isabel Coixet started her own production company, Miss Wasabi Films. Through this company, she has produced over 400 commercials.

Her big international success came in 2003 with the movie My Life Without Me. This film was based on a short story by Nancy Kincaid. Canadian actress Sarah Polley played Ann, a young mother who has terminal cancer and decides to keep it a secret from her family. This movie was highly praised at the Berlin International Film Festival.

Coixet worked with Sarah Polley again in 2005 for The Secret Life of Words. This film also starred Tim Robbins and Javier Cámara. It won four Goya Awards, including Best Film and Best Director.

In 2005, Coixet joined 18 other international filmmakers, like Gus Van Sant and Joel and Ethan Cohen, for a special project called Paris, je t’aime. Each director explored a different part of Paris.

Documentaries and Awards

Isabel Coixet has also made important documentaries. Invisibles (2007) was about the medical group Doctors Without Borders. Her documentary Journey to the Heart of Torture, filmed in Sarajevo during the Balkan War, won an award at the Human Rights Film Festival in 2003.

In April 2006, she received the Creu de San Jordi De Cine Awards from the Generalitat de Catalunya. She won two awards: one for The Secret Life of Words as the best Spanish film, and another, the Rosa de Sant Jordi prize, voted by the audience.

Recent Works

In 2008, Coixet released Elegy, filmed in Vancouver. It was based on a novel by Philip Roth and starred Penélope Cruz and Ben Kingsley. The film was shown at the Berlin International Film Festival.

In 2009, her film Map of the Sounds of Tokyo premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. It was filmed in Japan and Barcelona and starred Rinko Kikuchi and Sergi López. That same year, she received the gold medal for Fine Arts.

In 2010, she was in charge of content for one of the Spanish Pavilion lounges at the Expo Shanghai. She also opened an exhibition for her documentary Aral. The Lost Sea, filmed in Uzbekistan.

In 2011, her documentary Listening to Judge Garzón won a Goya for Best Documentary. It featured an interview with the Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón. In 2012, she directed White Tide, a documentary about the 10 years after the Prestige oil spill disaster in Galicia.

In 2013, Coixet directed Another Me, an English-language thriller starring Sophie Turner and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers. She also filmed Learning to Drive in New York City, starring Sir Ben Kingsley and Patricia Clarkson. This film won the Grolsch People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Cast of Nobody Wants the Night - Isabel Coixet (director), Gabriel Byrne, Rinko Kikuchi at the BIFF 2015

Her next project, Nobody Wants the Night, was filmed in Norway, Bulgaria, and the Canary Islands. It starred Juliette Binoche and Rinko Kikuchi. This film opened the 66th Berlin International Film Festival.

In 2014, she directed a documentary in Chad called Talking about Rose: Prisoner of Hissène Habré. It was narrated by Juliette Binoche and told the story of torture victims trying to bring a former dictator to justice.

In 2016, she directed The Bookshop (La librería), based on a novel by Penelope Fitzgerald. It starred Emily Mortimer, Bill Nighy, and Patricia Clarkson. The film won the award for best literary adaptation at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2017 and was very successful in Spain.

In February 2019, Coixet released Elisa y Marcela with Netflix. This film was based on the first recorded same-sex marriage in Spain. In 2020, Isabel Coixet was awarded the National Film Award by the Spanish Ministry of Culture and Sports.

Miss Wasabi Films

Isabel Coixet started her own production company, Miss Wasabi, in 2000. She wanted to produce her own unique projects. The company mainly creates advertising, music videos, and documentaries. It also works on other cultural projects like exhibitions and books. Some of the main projects directed and produced by Isabel Coixet include the documentary Aral, el mar perdido (2009) and the film Ayer no termina nunca (2013).

TV Projects

For the 50th anniversary of TVE Catalunya (a TV channel in Catalonia), Isabel Coixet and other documentary filmmakers created a program called 50 years of... (50 años de…). They used old footage from Televisión Española to show the last 50 years of Spanish history.

Style and Themes in Her Films

Isabel Coixet's work is often described as "unclassifiable" because it's so unique. She makes films in both English and Spanish, and her topics are very different. Her background in advertising influences her filmmaking style, where visuals, colors, and how things are arranged are very important. She also works as the camera operator on all her films.

One of her main themes is communication. She often explores how words are used to understand each other, and how messages sometimes don't reach the person they're meant for. She is fascinated by situations where people struggle to connect.

Another important part of her work is her strong interest in social issues. She has made films about global warming and social problems, like her documentary about Judge Garzón.

Love and loneliness are also common themes in her movies. She explores these feelings in a deep and meaningful way. She often shows laundromats in her films, which has become a recognizable detail in her work.

Coixet is known for getting deep into her characters and their stories. She shows them to the audience in a simple but very clear way. She is influenced by the poet John Berger, who taught her that "anything can explain the world" by connecting poetry, philosophy, and other ideas.

In Isabel Coixet's films, emotional connections between people are combined with a strong social awareness. She is always ready to highlight injustices in the world.

Filmography

Film

Feature films

Producer only

• Clue (2008) (Executive Producer)
• Nobody's Watching (2017) (co-producer)
• Distances (2018) (Associate producer)

Short films

Producer

• Meteoritos (1997)
• Jealousy (2002) (executive producer)
• Teeth (2014) (also executive producer)
• Sara a la fuga (2015)

Documentaries

Documentary films

Associate producer

• Hotel Explotación: Las Kelly's (2018)
• Drowning Letters (2020)

Documentary short films

Television

Music videos

Awards

Isabel Coixet has won many important awards for her films:

Goya Awards

Medals of the Circle of Cinematographic Writers

Feroz Awards

Forqué Awards

Gaudí Awards

Butaca Awards

Other Awards

• National Film and Audiovisual Prize of Catalonia (2002) for the film My Life Without Me.
• Premio Creu de Sant Jordi de cine (2006).
• Ojo Crítico de Cine Award in its XIV Edition for the film, My Life Without Me, for the “sincerity and sensitivity of its cinematographic language”.
• Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters (2015) for her contributions to art and culture.
• Atlantida Award from the Catalan Publishers (2016).
• Award for the Best Literary Adaptation at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2017, for the adapted script of The Bookshop.
• International Award Yo Dona 2018.
• Premio Nacional de Cinematografía de España 2020.

Books

Isabel Coixet has also written several books:

• My Life Without Me (Mi vida sin mí) (2003)
• La vida es un guión (2004)
• La vida secreta de las palabras (2005)
• Mapa de los sonidos de Tokio (2009)
• Isabel Muñoz (2009)
• From I to J (2009)
• Alguien debería prohibir los domingos por la tarde (2011)
• La vida secreta de Isabel Coixet (2011)

See also

In Spanish: Isabel Coixet para niños

• List of female film and television directors
• List of LGBT-related films directed by women