The producer José Frade will receive the EGEDA Gold Medal

He has a career spanning more than fifty years where there are titles such as 'Daddy's War', 'The Backroom' or 'You Won't Want the Neighbor on the Fifth'.

The 24th edition of the José María Forqué Awards will honor producer José Frade with the Gold Medal from EGEDA (Audiovisual Producers' Rights Management Entity). The award recognizes his work in the film industry where he has more than fifty years of work and titles as outstanding as Dad's war, The back room, You won't want the neighbor on the fifth floor o Torment. A total of 115 feature films and television series from his company, Jose Frade PC, which mark a large part of the history of 20th century cinema in Spain.

The recognition is a form of gratitude for “their constant and tireless work during all these years,” in the words of Enrique Cerezo. At the same time, “it tries to be a tribute to his person as a key filmmaker in the Spanish filmography of the last century,” concluded the president of EGEDA.

Frade succeeds the filmmaker Carlos Saura in this recognition and thus joins a long list that includes figures such as Pedro Masó, Elías Querejeta, Eduardo Ducay, José Luis Borau, Fernando Trueba, Agustín Almodóvar or Santiago Segura, to name just a few of the names.

The award ceremony will take place at the gala that will be held next Saturday, January 12 at the Zaragoza Conference Center and will be broadcast on La 1 de TVE. A ceremony where the films Campeones, Carmen y Lola, Entre dos aguas and El Reino will be chosen to win the highest recognition, that of Best Fiction Feature Film.

History of Spanish cinema

Jose Frade (Madrid, 1938) has a successful professional career spanning more than fifty years. Initially it would focus on the “spaghetti western”, but in the 1970s the comedy You Will Not Desire the Neighbor on the Fifth Floor would give it unprecedented commercial recognition; The film starring Alfredo Landa also marks the beginning of the genre known as “landism.”

In parallel, Frade explored other film genres alongside established filmmakers such as Juan de Orduña and emerging talents of the time such as Eloy de la Iglesia. His figure is a reference and that leads him to work with some of the great stars of national cinema such as Pepa Flores, Concha Velasco or Paco Rabal.

With the arrival of the transition, his interest turned towards more historical and social cinema, being Torment (Pedro Olea, 1974) the film that marks this new beginning. Awarded at the San Sebastián International Film Festival, the feature film in which he also participates as a scriptwriter has among its actors three very prominent names from the Spanish cinema: Paco Rabal, Concha Velasco and Ana Belen. Other titles follow such as The back room (Jorge Grau, 1975), The long vacation of '36 (Jaime Camino, 1976) or Dad's war (Antonio Mercero, 1977) that represent the openness of the society of the moment.

The 80s once again marked another commercial milestone with Mariano Ozores, with whom he worked on multiple titles. The 90s, for their part, are a reflection of this success, but on television with series such as Kangaroos or Hermanos de leche.

In recent years it has produced titles such as Don Mendo Rock. Revenge?, directed by José Luis García Sánchez; For A Handful of Kisses by David Menkes, Wednesdays do not exist, under the direction of Peris Romano or the series of The Sonata of Silence. He is currently immersed in various large projects such as the series North Valley Hospital for TVE, with a choral cast featuring the names of Alexandra Jiménez, José Luis García Pérez, Lucía Jiménez and Gorka Otxoa, among many others.

In addition to his cinematographic role, Frade is a multifaceted businessman and has also worked as a theater producer and representative of comedians and singers.