José Luis Alcaine receives the Gold Medal from the Academy

Director of photography José Luis Alcaine has been recognized with the Gold Medal that the Spanish Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences awards annually to a member of the film sector.

"This award is for an entire generation that has accompanied me. I have been in my career for 45 years, well almost fifty because I did black work in a photography laboratory. I have made a lot of cinema, and even from bad films I have learned. I look back and remember very important people like Fernando Fernán-Gómez, a good, good friend, and you discover that we are all interconnected, that we are not unique and that everything affects you. In this job everything has been for the good for me," thus thanked the master of light José Luis Alcaine the Gold Medal that the Film Academy gave him this Monday.
It is not easy to summarize the biography of José Luis Alcaine, as recalled by the president of the Academy, Enrique González Macho, but the renowned director of photography summarized his work history before the journalists who came to the Academy this Tuesday.

González Macho complimented this son of the director of the Tetouan film club who was "bitten by the cinema virus in his childhood and there is no vaccine against this. The films in which you have worked - about 130 - are part of the heritage of Spanish cinema thanks to your light." “I admire you as a professional, but, above all, as a person, because, without losing your personality, way of knowing and mastery, you are always at the service of the films,” highlighted the president of the Academy.

An accomplice of numerous directors, much more “luminous” than dark, Alcaine explained his relationship with Almodóvar, with whom he has collaborated on several occasions, the last in The skin I live in. “We had some friction in Adam, and that's why we don't work again until bad education. We hardly talk on set, and that makes us get along very well. He is usually not clear about what he wants in photography, but he is clear about what he does not want. In Women on the verge of a nervous breakdown He explained to me that his wish was for a fifties and sixties type light. Return It is dedicated to Penelope and The skin I live in “she inherits that concern for the main actress,” said the prestigious technician with a reputation for taking care of the performers.

Without a doubt, a more than deserved recognition for the magician of light who has given life to films like Songs for after a war, Demons in the garden, Beyond the garden, The south, Tasio, The court of the pharaoh, The trip to nowhere, Oh, Carmela!, Lovers, Ham, ham, Women on the verge of a nervous breakdown, Belle Epoque, Rome, South of Granada, Volver, The thirteen roses o The skin I live in, among many others.