James de Armiñán, Goya of Honor

The Board of Directors of the Academy grants the distinction to the director and screenwriter for “a passionate dedication to the cinematographic medium since the sixties, the creation of a cinema committed to its time and the potential of stories always devised far from conventions.”

“With a certain sadness and joy” Jaime de Armiñán has received the news of being the 2014 Goya of Honor awarded by the Film Academy. "It has to be the honorific because we no longer make films. A filmmaker never retires, I have a comedy almost finished and I write almost every day. Those like me cannot retire because we only do so when we go to the sad grave," he said excitedly.

Prado Street in Madrid, adjacent to the traditional Plaza Santa Ana and the sacred Spanish Theater, saw the birth in March 1927 of a singular, lucid, prolific and talented filmmaker. Son of Luis de Armiñán, a journalist at 'El Heraldo de Madrid' and the actress Carmen Oliver, who turned away from acting after passing through the vicarage, little Jaime seemed condemned from birth to mix in his career with the artistic and cultural world. He was just a kid when, after his mother's new foray into the theater, Jaime de Armiñán crossed paths with Fernando Fernán Gómez.

He was a child of the war, as he himself declared - "I lived through the war by being present at the big events. I was seven years old and I remember that my parents and I left Madrid. On the way we found out that Calvo Sotelo had been killed, on the way to Vitoria I saw how General Mola's plane fell, and in Paris, as my father was a war correspondent, I witnessed the end of World War II. I would like to tell all this in a film. There are many generations traumatized by the war.” He spent the Civil War in San Sebastián, studied Law in the capital and in 1957 he set out to write a book – Biografía del circus was considered by some critics to be a masterpiece of its genre. Journalism also did not resist him, since from a very young age he was a collaborator in magazines such as 'Fotos' and 'Dígame', and dramaturgy, as he wrote pieces for the stage such as Eva sin apple (Calderón de la Barca award in 1953), Sinfonía terminada, Nuestro corazón (Lope de Vega award), Café del Liceo and Paso a level, among others.

But his thing was going to be cinema. Upon marrying the interpreter Elena Santonja, the doors of Spanish Television were opened to Jaime de Armiñán, a house where he began writing as a 'black' for her and the space 'Entre nosotras'. That experience would not go well as they were both expelled from the public channel when a minister's wife felt insulted when she heard on television that someone had a "pear face", but since then the Madrid director's relations with TVE would be constant. At that stage he was responsible for series such as The Twelve Faces of Juan, Gallery of Husbands, Tiempo y Hora or Fábulas. He wrote hand in hand with Narciso Ibáñez Serrador Historias de la frivolidad, a special program that would win the Montreux Grand Prix.

It would be his friend Adolfo Marsillach who proposed him for his first appearance as a screenwriter in some film credits – El secreto de Mónica, by José María Forqué (1961)–. From there, other scripts were commissioned from him: La becerrada, The twins, The game of truth, A shot in the back, I am 17 years old, I have seen death, Death travels too much,... until he debuted in 1969 as a film director with Carola by day, Carola by night, a film starring Pepa Flores and Tony Isbert that told a story after the triumph of the revolution, that of the young and beautiful heir to the throne who leaves her country to save your life.

After his first work he came They say La Lola does not live alone y My dear lady, a title that gave him the definitive accolade. Co-written and produced by the recently deceased José Luis Borau, it was nominated for the Hollywood Oscar, an award that finally went to Luis Buñuel, who represented the French country with The discreet charm of the bourgeoisie. This film was the first in his filmography to deal with unorthodox loves – transsexualism, childhood erotic awakening, romantic relationships of veteran characters,… – a theme that would mark his career over the years.

A chaste Spanish man, The love of Captain Brando, Jo, papa, It's never too late, At the service of the Spanish woman, The nest –with which he was nominated for the Oscar again–, In September, Stico, The Witching Hour, My General, On the Other Side of the Tunnel y The lame pigeon They complete the filmography of this director who stood out for being extemporaneous to his time and his cinema. 14, Fabian road It is his last film as a director, in which he directed the actresses Ángela Molina, Ana Torrent and the Argentine Julieta Cardinali at the age of 81, and for which he screened at the Malaga Festival.

As stated in the Spanish Cinema Dictionary, edited by the Film Academy and coordinated by Borau, “a personal and respected creator who, at the end of the eighties, returned with great success to television fiction through two popular series performed by Paco Rabal: Juncal and Una gloria nacional.” Columnist in 'El Mundo' and 'ABC', producer with Teo Escamilla through the company Serva Films, Gold Medal of Fine Arts, father of two sons also dedicated to the audiovisual medium – Álvaro and Eduardo – are some of the data that could complete the exceptional biography of this man of cinema.

Witness to history

He always tried to surprise, that's why he had José Luis López Vázquez play a provincial lady in My Dear Young Lady; narrated a love relationship between a mature Héctor Alterio and a teenager Ana Torrent in El nido; and he put Fernando Fernán Gómez in the costume of a high officer who must return to school with his colleagues in My General. Always bold, Jaime de Armiñán, who was very close to bringing home two Oscars, comes from television, entered the cinema after having gone through the novel and the script and, as he has always gotten along very well with comedians, he really enjoys actors. And there are many who have passed through his hands: Adolfo Marsillach, Fernando Rey, Ana Belén, Marisol, Paco Rabal, Concha Velasco, Carmen Maura, Ámparo Baró, Victoria Abril...

Witness to the evolution of Spain and soul of the most traditional bullfighting series in the history of the small screen, Juncal, this octogenarian and versatile filmmaker married to Elena Santonja, a pioneer of cooking programs on television –Con las mano en la masa–, also directed and wrote 14, Fabian Road, a story that today is the last film of which he has also been the screenwriter of the two films in which Isabel Pantoja has participated.

Always surrounded by intellectuals, since he was little he lived with authors, poets and bullfighters, Armiñán is always reminded of the drama he wrote with José Luis Borau about the woman who discovers she is a man, a topic that he always thought would not pass censorship, but not only did it pass but it also earned an Oscar nomination. "Here they didn't pay any attention to us. I only cut three or four frames of Mónica Randall while she was undressing. If it hadn't been because we were competing with Buñuel, we would have won the Oscar. Cukor, who played the master of ceremonies, was so fascinated with José Luis López Vázquez that he didn't hesitate to offer him a role in Viajes con mi aunt," the filmmaker recalled when asked to remember that event.