Chicho Ibáñez Serrador, Goya de Honor 2019

Narciso ‘Chicho’ Ibáñez Serrador recibirá el galardón por abrir el camino a toda una generación de cineastas españoles y por su excepcional contribución al cine de género.

Creador de películas de culto del cine de género como Who can kill a child? and The residence, Narciso ‘Chicho’ Ibáñez Serrador, el hombre que contribuyó a popularizar el cine de terror y fantástico en España, recibirá el Goya de Honor 2019.

La Junta Directiva de la Film Academy acordó reconocer al cineasta, realizador de televisión, guionista, director teatral y actor con el galardón honorífico de los premios del cine español por ser un creador de pesadillas único y original, abrir el camino a toda una generación de cineastas españoles, que siempre han reconocido su influencia, y por su contribución al fantástico, el suspense y el terror.

Su legado en el séptimo arte continúa en directores reconocidos internacionalmente como Juan Antonio Bayona, Rodrigo Cortés, Alejandro Amenábar, Álex de la Iglesia, Jaume Balagueró, Mateo Gil, Enrique Urbizu y Paco Plaza, entre otros. Junto a los cinco últimos desarrolló en 2006 Películas para no dormir, serie de seis tv movies de terror, de las que Ibáñez Serrador dirigió La culpa.

Narciso Ibáñez Serrador (1935, Montevideo, Uruguay) is the only child of the actor couple Narciso Ibáñez Menta and Pepita Serrador. Raised between tours and stages, due to an illness he suffered as a child he became an avid reader and developed his intellectual vocation.

In the fifties, already in Spain, he worked as an actor in his mother's theater company and, shortly after, he moved to theater direction. In 1957 he returned to Argentina and, together with his father, began a successful collaboration in theater, radio and television. Ibáñez Serrador became a renowned professional as an actor, director and screenwriter on Argentine television, signing his texts many times with the pseudonym Luis Peñafiel.

With theatre being his origins, – "my school, my university, my ancestors", in his own words – he discovered that directing and writing attracted him more than acting, becoming what he called "author who directs" or "author who performs".

He arrived in Spain in 1963, with tapes of his work in Argentina that he presented on Spanish Television, to which he transferred everything he had learned in America, revolutionizing and modernizing the television of the sixties in our country with series such as Mañana puede ser verdad or La historia de Saint Michel, but especially with Historias para no dormir (1966). To these are added the titles for the small screen El último reloj, El asfalto, Historias de la frivolidad and El televisor (1974). Specialized in literary adaptations and biographies of famous people, especially in his Argentine stage, it was nevertheless his science fiction and horror stories that had the greatest impact on the public.

This genre was also cultivated in cinema, giving birth to emblematic titles of Spanish fantasy and horror: The residence (1969) and Who can kill a child? (1976), of which he was screenwriter and director.

His hallmark also included humor, with the previous presentations he made in Stories to keep you awake or in the cycles of My favorite terrors, to which he added a touch of irony and comedy. In the career of this popularizer of the classics of the genre, there are also radio soap operas and the plays Approved in Chastity, The Hole and The Eagle and the Fog.

He founded the production company Prointel in 1970 to develop his own productions in film, television, theater and advertising, among which are the mythical program A two, three, answer again.

The career of the "shy" man who scared, amused and made the public think was recognized with the National Television Award in 2010, the Maestro del Fantástico Award at the Nocturna Festival, the Ondas Award for Best Program for Let's Talk About Sex, Antena de Oro awards, Iris Award and Feroz Honorary Award, among other awards, to which is now added the Goya of Honor 2019.