As a youth, Guillermo Garcia Lopez recalls an early fascination for film noir, westerns and sci-fi: “All the films that made me discover worlds far removed from me.” As a filmmaker he now enjoys work much closer to everyday life. “We need more cinema like Fallen Leaves, from Aki Kaurismaki, which is able to capture the nuances of human beings but not in an artificial or sentimental way.”
His 2016 debut documentary feature Delicate Balance (Frágil Equilibrio) is a portrait of lives seen from different perspectives. It premiered at International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam and won a Goya Award for best documentary.
Inspired by Italian neorealism and contemporary filmmakers such as Alice Rohrwacher, Bela Tarr and Pedro Costa, Garcia Lopez is now developing his first fiction feature Sleepless City (Ciudad Sin Sueño), produced by Buena Pinta Media, Sintagma, BTeam Pictures and Encanta Films in Spain, and Anne-Dominique Toussaint and Les Valseurs in France. The project has taken part in several development labs including the Spanish Film Academy’s residency programme, Cannes’ La Résidence de la Cinéfondation, and the Berlinale Talents’ Script Station and Talent Project Market — European co-production market selection.
Garcia Lopez joined Cinéfondation in 2020, just before lockdown in Paris. “I spent five months in a house with five filmmakers from different parts of the world. It felt a bit like Big Brother — intense but beautiful.” Sleepless City is set in the settlement of Cañada Real on the outskirts of Madrid, where people live in harsh conditions. It centres on a family under threat of eviction, seen through the eyes of a 13-year-old boy. Garcia Lopez plans to work with non-professional actors who live in Cañada Real, drawing on his documentary background.
He has immersed himself in the community, holding film workshops and shooting the short Aunque Es De Noche, which screened in competition at Cannes this year. Another of his shorts, Seagulls Cut Through The Sky co-directed with Mariana Bartolo, screened in Directors’ Fortnight.
Contact: Guillermo Garcia Lopez
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