Torrella, una vida pel cinema

Director’s notes

This is my first feature film as a Director, which I began at the age of 18. I shot it on analog video over the course of 2 years, working all roles: not only as Producer-writer-Director, but also as Cinematographer, Camera Operator, Gaffer, Grip, Production Designer and Sound. I made this before beginning my film studies, when my only filmmaking experiences were the amateur films I made before that: little movies in Super 8, with my family and friends as my Cast & Crew.

This film is a Doc-Biography of Mr. Josep Torrella i Pineda (Sabadell, 1910-2003), a Catalan writer and filmmaker, who dedicated his life to writing books, novels, plays, scripts for documentaries, and essays, and who with a life of love and passion as a cinema-enthusiast worked as a critic, journalist, writer and investigator not only of Spanish Cinema after the Civil Spanish War (with his book “Rodatges de postguerra a Barcelona”, 1991), but also of Amateur Spanish Cinema throughout the 20th Century, including young and old filmmakers, in his book “Crónica y análisis del cine amateur español”, 1965, for instance. Furthermore Torrella dedicated the magazine “Otro cine” exclusively to Amateur Spanish Cinema, and the publication was awarded with the Premi Sant Jordi de la crítica cinematogràfica catalana in 1961. And in 2001, he was recognized with the Medalla d’Honor de la UNICA (Union Internationalle du Cinema non Profesionel) on 2001, by his role of Screenwriter for the Amateur film “Sabadell, emporio de la industria textil de España” (filmed in 1944).

But in the 1940s, before being the director and writer of this successful magazine, Mr. Torrella was the journalist from Barcelona of the most prestigious Film Magazine in Spain: “Primer Plano”, where he interviewed many Catalan and Spanish actors and filmmakers, like Sara Montiel or Catalan filmmaker Ignacio F. Iquino (considered the Spanish Roger Corman and the “godfather” of a new generation of filmmakers from 1950s, like José Antonio de la Loma or Juan Bosch)

According to friends, family, and other authors (also friends of his) Mr. Torrella was considered “Tot un gentleman de la Manchester Catalana” (in English, “A real gentleman from Catalonian Manchester”), in the words of another Catalan writer from Sabadell, Joan Cuscó i Aymamí.

After his death, Torrella was considered an icon in the culture of the city where he was born and lived: Sabadell. For this reason, this documentary was the first chapter of a project of mine, entitled "Sabadell, bressol d'artistes": a collection of 20 Doc-Biographies of 20 artists from Sabadell, born before 1940.

Nowadays, 10 years after the shooting of this documentary, my project for the next artist comes to life, this time focusing on the painter Joaquim Montserrat i Camps.