John Cabrera: locating Spanish Hollywood

A book recalls the natural settings in Spain where location manager and director of photography John Cabrera filmed numerous international productions.

Edited by Pigmalión and sponsored by 'Colmenar Viejo, Tierra de Cine', the Denia City Council, and other entities of the Alicante city such as the Cine-Club Pessic, the book now appears John Cabrera: locating Spanish Hollywood.

The book is a tour of those places in Spain that were once the setting for the big screen. And there was a time when Spain was the great set of Hollywood: the great foreign producers continually looked in Spain for the sets for their great epics, long before Ridley Scott or Steven Spielberg opted for it.

The idea was conceived after the exhibition in Denia, in 2013, of the photographic work of John Cabrera, director of Photography and member of the British Society of Cinematographers (B.S.C), where the veteran film operator exhibited a series of unpublished photographs of his film locations. Today, his friends from Denia and Colmenar Viejo fulfill their commitment to collect the images with the publication of this book.

Coordinated by Romualdo Soler and Víctor Matellano, the work has the participation of authors such as the writer Miguel Losada, the researcher Antoni Reig or the filmmaker Víctor Matellano, in addition to an album of unpublished photographs by John Cabrera, as well as a prologue by the Italian filmmaker Enzo G. Castellari, famous for directing the first Inglorious Bastards and mentor Tarantino.

John Cabrera Puig, son of Dianense parents, was born in Liverpool (United Kingdom) in 1925. He took his first steps in film with directors such as John Huston and Alfred Hitchcock. After being hired as a Technicolor technician in foreign productions filmed in Spain such as Ricardo III, Cabrera becomes the trusted man of mega producer Samuel Bronston, helping him create his particular cinematographic empire for epics filmed in our country such as El Cid o 55 days in Beijing as head of locations for the production company. Later, as a director of photography, he participated in such memorable films as Battle of the Bulge, Manhunt o Conan, the barbarian.

Cabrera and his camera traveled throughout the Spanish territory looking for the best natural settings for cinema, locating Spanish Hollywood... If Cabrera facilitated the filming of the first Bronston production in Denia, Captain Jones in 1958, no less important was his connection to Colmenar Viejo, where he filmed a dozen films since 1955 with Alexander the Great in the Dehesa de Navalvillar, until 1988 with Hot Blood, passing through Villa rides, Conan the barbarian o El Cid in the Hermitage of Our Lady of Remedies.