Birthday:
10-09-1975
(49 years)
Birthplace:
Banyoles, Catalonia, Spain
Biography
Albert Serra ([əɫˈβɛrt ˈsɛrə]; born October 10, 1975; Banyoles, Catalonia) is a Catalan filmmaker, contemporary artist and manager of the production company Andergraun Films, set up by Montse Triola primarily to produce Serra’s films. Besides writing, directing and producing films, Albert Serra writes and produces plays.
Graduated in Spanish literature and comparative literature at the University of Barcelona, where he also studied art history. Serra has been called “one of the most singular and radical filmmakers working today.” He is also a big fan of classical music and chess.
“I’m not interested in forcing a meaning onto a filmic story. In fact I’d even rather the audience know more than I do about the meaning of my films.”
Graduated in Spanish literature and comparative literature at the University of Barcelona, where he also studied art history. Serra has been called “one of the most singular and radical filmmakers working today.” He is also a big fan of classical music and chess.
“I’m not interested in forcing a meaning onto a filmic story. In fact I’d even rather the audience know more than I do about the meaning of my films.”
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Their works
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Room 999
Act like Self
event2023 star_border 5.8
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In 1982, Wim Wenders asked 16 of his fellow directors to speak on the future of cinema, resulting in the film Room 666. Now, 40 years later, in Cannes, director Lubna Playoust asks Wim Wenders himself and a new generation of filmmakers (James Gray, Rebecca Zlotowski, Claire Denis, Olivier Assayas, Nadav Lapid, Asghar Farhadi, Alice Rohrwacher and more) the same question: “is cinema a language about to get lost, an art about to die?”
Helmut Berger, My Mother and Me
Act like Self
event2019 star_border 5
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My mother googles the film hero of her youth: Helmut Berger. She is shocked: only an addicted shadow of the former icon seems to be left. She decides to halt the obvious catastrophic decline of the once “most handsome man in the world”. As a consequence, this one-time god of the screen is suddenly sitting on my mother’s sofa in Nordsehl in Lower Saxony. And he stays put - for several months. While he trustingly rolls out his whole life before us, the dividing lines between film team, world star and family intermingle. This is a film about ageing, rising and falling - and about the fact that it is sometimes possible to regain an element of dignity in life.
The Lord Worked Wonders in Me
Act like Self
event2011 star_border 5.5
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Part of the crew of Honor of the Knights travels to La Mancha to see the real settings of Quixote’s life in order to shoot a film.
The Names of Christ
event2010 star_border 6.2
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Episodic film, divided into 14 chapters, based on the play De los nombres de Cristo (1586), by Fray Luis de Leon and intended for exhibition "Are You Ready for TV?". Filmed partly in the rooms of MACBA (Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona), is about the difficulty of naming or visually represent abstract concepts.
Cubalibre
event2014 star_border 6.6
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An homage from Serra to one of his idols, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, shot in a nightclub full of characters that resemble the ones of Fassbinder films. The title comes from the favourite drink of “Beware of the Holy Whore” characters.
Adolfo Arrietta, (cadré - décadré)
Act like Self
event2015
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A “Cinéma, de notre temps” series episode directed by french film critic André S. Labarthe, originally aired sometime around 2015.
Waiting for Sancho
Act like self
event2008 star_border 5
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Waiting for Sancho is an ontological investigation into a place where cinema becomes something more than cinema. Filmed in high-definition colour over five days in the Canary Islands of Fuerteventura and Tenerife, Waiting for Sancho is a kind of experimental “making of” the critically acclaimed El cant dels ocells (Birdsong_/_Le chant des oiseaux). A particular take on the Biblical story of The Three Kings en route to the baby Jesus, El cant dels ocells premiered at the Quinzaine des Realisateurs at Cannes 2008.
Cinematic Correspondences: Albert Serra – Lisandro Alonso
Act like Self
event2009 star_border 5
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The exhibition 'The Complete Letters' features epistolary works defined by cinematographic creation. This is an experimental communication format used between pairs of film directors. Although each director is situated in a location geographically distant from that of their partner, they are united by their willingness to share ideas and reflections on all that motivates their work. Within this space of freedom, the directors featured in the exhibition examine their affinities and differences, within an environment of mutual respect and simultaneity of interests and with notable formal variants established in each of the correspondences.
Fiasco
Act like self
event2008
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SYNOPSIS Albert Serra’s piece for and audiovisual tribute to Chaplin the filmmaker… What is Chaplin’s legacy in contemporary cinema? It is not about producing films like Chaplin did, nor remembering the icon in a naïve fashion, but about finding traces of his cinema in their own individual looks.
I Am an Artist
Act like Self
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A portrait of the world of contemporary art. A world full of extravagances and colorful characters, but suggestive of the contrast it represents with the normal life of most people. An artificial, theatrical and equivocal world but inhabited by innocence and blind faith in the transforming power of art. The film is a tribute to this world and to these people, with ironic and often provocative borders, but sincere in their admiration for the subversive power of the artists who always question, and in the most unexpected (sometimes involuntary) way, our system of values.
My Influences
Act like Himself
event2020
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In “Spaces #3”, 7 internationally acclaimed directors shot, after commissioning by the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, a short film at home, making their own timely comment on the new reality that we live in. The project is inspired by the book “Species of Spaces” by the French novelist, filmmaker, documentalist, and essayist, Georges Perec and the days of quarantine. The idea is to create a film at home, using the environment, the people or the animals in that space. The only outdoor areas that may be used are outdoor living spaces, such as the terrace, the garden, the balcony and the stairwell. “My influences” is Albert Serra’s submission.
Le Cercle
Act like Self (1 ep.)
event2005
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As long as there is cinema, LE CERCLE will be there. It is the only television program of critical debates 100% devoted to cinema. Each week, it offers fiery, joyful and non-condescending jousts on the films on the bill; and invites with "Le questionnaire du CERCLE" directors to come and share their passion for cinema.
Pacifiction
Producer (1 ep.)
event2022 star_border 6.4
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Island of Tahiti. French government official De Roller is a calculating man with impeccable manners, capable of dealing with both high society and the locals he frequents in shady joints.
Honour of the Knights
Producer (1 ep.)
event2006 star_border 7.2
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Trusting in fate, Don Quixote and Sancho pursue their travels in search of adventure day and night. They ride through fields, talking about subjects as varied as spirituality, chivalry and daily life. A growing bond of friendship unites them.
Birdsong
Director (1 ep.)
event2008 star_border 7
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The Three Wise Kings travel in search of the Messiah, with unexpected obstacles on the way.
Black Out
Director (1 ep.)
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A successful black theatre and opera stage director, a very demanding and determined person, is going through a prolonged and devastating spiritual ordeal, of unknown origin, to which she seems to have become accustomed. She lives in a permanent drunkenness, shocking and implausible but paradoxically controlled and with hardly any excesses. She has a growing fascination for the talent and magnetism of one of the actresses, whose career she wants to dominate, as she considers herself responsible and owner of her triumph.
The Three Little Pigs
Stage Director (1 ep.)
event2012 star_border 10
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A 101-hour long reflection on the construction of Europe, its cultural identity and its foundations through the complete adaptation of the texts ‘Conversations with Goethe’ by J. P. Eckermann, ‘Hitler’s Table Talks’ and ‘Fassbinder über Fassbinder: Die ungekürzten Interviews’ (a compilation of interviews with the German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder, which is used as a counterpoint to the first two books). The texts are read, page by page, by non-professional actors.
Afternoons of Solitude
Director (1 ep.)
new_releases Release: March 07, 2025
The life of the bullfighter Andrés Roca Rey during a day of bullfighting, from the moment he dresses up to the moment he undresses.
Rússia
Writer (1 ep.)
event2007 star_border 6.6
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A poetic portrait of Lluís Serrat Massanellas, an unprofessional actor and friend of Albert Serra since working with him on Honour of the Knights, and his father, Lluís Serrat Batlle.
Story of My Death
Producer (1 ep.)
event2013 star_border 7.3
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Casanova meets a new servant who will witness his last moments in life, from a castle with its libertine 18th century atmosphere to the poor, shadowy Northern lands. There, his rationalist way of thinking and mundane world will succumb to a violent and romantic force, represented by Count Dracula.
Love Me Not
Thanks (1 ep.)
event2019 star_border 4.7
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A powerful international army assigns a regiment the task of guarding a mysterious man, held in a maximum security prison in the middle of the desert. Soldier Salome, daughter of Commander Antipas, becomes obsessed with him... Eros and Thanatos together reminding us that truth is based on beauty and love.
An Afternoon in Geneva
Production Coordinator (1 ep.)
event2013
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In 1973, towards the end of the Franco regime, the famous catalan writer Mercè Rodoreda bumped into the literary critic Josep Maria Castellet in Geneva where she lived exiled and she invited him to tea at her house. The writer was a most discrete person and maintained everything that concerned her wrapped in secrecy. Indeed she herself had become a secret or perhaps, even a maker of secrets. However that afternoon, strangely, she opened up and shared many intimacies.
Sant Pere de Rodes
Director (1 ep.)
event2006
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Lluís Carbó and Lluís Serrat, i nubliables Quixote and Sancho d'Honor de Cavalleria, philosophize, improvise and rehearse, as if at the top of the world, under the eye of Albert Serra.
Super 8
Director (1 ep.)
event2006
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Short film.
Crespià, the Film not the Village
Writer (1 ep.)
event2003 star_border 5.6
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Loving cult film and idiosyncratic musical portrait of summer festivities in the Catalan village of Crespià, with early performances by the well-known faces from the work of Serra.
Atlètic Club Banyoles
Director (1 ep.)
event2007
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The filmmaker Albert Serra and producer Àngel Martin present their last work on the web dedicated to the club Atlètic Club Banyoles and the authentic football.
Bauçà
Director (1 ep.)
event2009 star_border 5.5
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Changing colors according to the music.
Singularity
Director (1 ep.)
event2015
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The film takes place in Ireland – an Ireland where people speak Catalan with a Fassbinder accent – from the 1930 to today, and follows in several parallel directions the sprawling saga of two rival gold mines, the exploitation of artists by Capital, and the simultaneous opening of a brothel where women do not like men. Because he does things his own way, Albert Serra’s most narrative and wordy film was not meant for cinema: produced by the Venice Biennale, it was part of an installation, its chapters shown simultaneously on several screens. Singularity could very well have been called “Velvet Goldmine”, as it sings the meeting of brothels and tunnels, of a golden stud and lustful bodies (both shown as abstractions).
Out of This World
Director (1 ep.)
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An American delegation goes to Russia in the midst of the Ukrainian war to try to find a solution to an economic dispute linked to sanctions.
The Death of Louis XIV
Editor (1 ep.)
event2016 star_border 6.5
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August 1715. After going for a walk, Louis XIV feels a pain in his leg. The next days, the king keeps fulfilling his duties and obligations, but his sleep is troubled and he has a serious fever. He barely eats and weakens increasingly. This is the start of the slow agony of the greatest king of France, surrounded by his relatives and doctors.
Personalien
Editor (1 ep.)
event2019
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In an ambiance loaded with tension, intellectual doubts and creative frustration, Rainer Werner Fassbinder writes and teaches the staging of a theater piece about the 18th century Libertiage at a great theater in Berlín.
Filmoteca de Catalunya 10 anys al Raval
Director (1 ep.)
event2022 star_border 8
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Short film on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Filmoteca de Catalunya using fragments from unused footage of the film Pacifiction.
Roi Soleil
Director (1 ep.)
event2018 star_border 5.4
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Catalan director Albert Serra’s follow-up to his magisterial The Death of Louis XIV is another forensic documentation of the Sun King’s final breaths. Here, however, Versailles is replaced with the glow of the gallery.
Vienna Waltz
Producer (1 ep.)
event2022
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A Spanish Fighting Bull gazes at us. A steady, strong gaze from the animal; a nervous, worried gaze from us, even as we sit on the safe side of the screen. Photographically, there is a strange, misty, aestheticising sheen. These mixed signals weave a spell. Albert Serra knows how to get our blood pumping and our senses working overtime.
Liberté
Director (1 ep.)
event2019 star_border 5.4
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1774, shortly before the French Revolution, somewhere between Potsdam and Berlin. Madame de Dumeval, the Duke de Tesis and the Duke de Wand, libertines expelled from the puritanical court of Louis XVI, seek the support of the legendary Duc de Walchen, German seducer and freethinker, lonely in a country where hypocrisy and false virtue reign. Their mission is to export libertinage, a philosophy of enlightenment founded on the rejection of moral boundaries and authorities, but moreover to find a safe place to pursue their errant games, where the quest for pleasure no longer obeys laws other than those dictated by unfulfilled desires.
Reading a Poem
Director (1 ep.)
event2010 star_border 10
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A 2010 Catalan language documentary directed by Albert Serra.
L’alto arrigo
Director (1 ep.)
event2008 star_border 10
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A short film by Albert Serra, made in conjunction with his third feature film, Birdsong, from a small reference by Dante to the King Arrigo VII (Henry VII) in “Paradise” from “The Divine Comedy.”
60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero
Director (1 ep.)
event2011 star_border 3.8
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An anthology of one-minute films created by 60 international filmmakers on the theme of the death of cinema. Intended as an ode to 35mm, the film was screened one time only on a purpose-built 20x12 meter public cinema screen in the Port of Tallinn, Estonia, on 22 December 2011. A special projector was constructed for the event which allowed the actual filmstrip to be burnt at the same time as the film was shown.
Jean-Pierre Léaud: The Child of Cinema
Thanks (1 ep.)
event2024 star_border 7.7
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A portrait of the legendary actor Jean-Pierre Léaud, icon of the French New Wave and closely linked to the work of François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Goddard.
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