
Ventura Pons
Directing
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Ventura Pons Sala is a Catalan movie director. After a decade as a theatre director, Ventura Pons directed his first film in 1977, 'Ocaña, an Intermittent Portrait', which was officially selected by the 1978 Cannes Film Festival. Some of his movies have been produced by his own company Els Films de la Rambla, S.A., founded in 1985 and he has become one of the best-known Catalan film directors. His work has been shown at the best international film festivals, most notably at the Berlin International Film Festival for many consecutive years. He began his movie career making comedies about local customs. Since 1995 he has chosen to adapt dramatic and comic texts of Catalan writers like Quim Monzó, Josep Maria Benet i Jornet, Sergi Belbel, Lluís-Anton Baulenas, Jordi Puntí, Ferran Torrent and Lluïsa Cunillé. In 1995 he was awarded the National Cinema Prize by the Government of Catalonia, which also awarded him the Creu de Sant Jordi in 2007. Description above from the Wikipedia article Ventura Pons, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Known For

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Còmics

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La gran il·lusió, relat intermitent del cinema català

Anna returns from Africa, where he worked two years in an NGO, and is hired as a security guard at an exclusive health center on the outskirts of Barcelona. By breaking with her boyfriend and go home, a colleague leaves a camper as temporary housing. Spend a few weeks on a wilderness camping and then installed in the parking lot of a service area of the highway. On a night patrol work meets a young, admitted by court order, do not walk because of paralysis and refuses to reveal his identity.
Adrift

Fifty-something widow Anita loses her lifetime dream job as a cinema attendant when the new owner wants to tear down the old theater and build a trendy multiplex in its stead. Depressed at first, Anita finds comfort in watching the shirtless hunks on the theater's construction site. She befriends a married excavator operator, Antonio, and the two start their secret candlelit trysts in the site's office cabin. But soon Anita learns that excavators are only needed in the early phase of a construction project...
Anita Takes a Chance

Eleven episodes portray different encounters in Barcelona during the course of a single night towards the end of the millennium.
Caresses

If one person's destiny were altered (in this case, not dying), how might that event change the lives of numerous other people, or in this case, prevent seven others from dying.
To Die (Or Not)

Anna Maria Dalí is four years younger than her brother Salvador and they love each other. Both enjoy the great progressive atmosphere of republican Spain, fraternizing with great creators, García Lorca, Buñuel.
Miss Dalí

Young aspiring pianist attracts attention of famous musicians. Chance encounters bring them together but expectations must be managed by all.
Food of Love

Fifteen stories, contemporary and some historical, where humorous, sarcasm and courage passed bills to pain, old age, death and love, but above all with human stupidity, without concessions, watching her face the difficult life balance and human misery.
A Thousand Fools

In the district of Gracia, in Barcelona, a nasty old woman shares a flat with a young man, non-conformist. The guy is struggling to find his place in the world. Neither of them let themselves being intimidated, though she holds the power and the young only illusions. The old woman has given up her dreams and the young man is discovering them. A perpetual fight without truce, although both need themselves. Humor, tenderness, agility, great neighbors, a neighborhood of young people, a beautiful girl and a powerful sound track. The positive side of life.
Year of Grace

Pere Lluc is thirty five and is living an unclear period in his life. He finds out that one of his friends has death 5 months ago and to forget the sorrows he goes out and get drunk and he falls in love.
Idiot Love

In order to prepare for her role as a certain well-known actress, a young woman has lengthy conversations with three different actresses who were good friends with the famous star. Emerging from these conversations are three equally different versions of the past and the events that shaped their lives and careers. This cinematic adaptation of a theatrical work is true to the original, but does not stray far from a theatrical rendering of the story.
Actresses

Silvio is a well-to-do business executive who is seemingly happily married to Marcia. However, Silvio is convinced Marcia is cheating on him, and frequently spies on her -- ironically enough, he usually does so during assignations with his mistress, posh interior designer Claudia. Meanwhile, Daniel, who works with Claudia, is enjoying a vacation with his wife Irina, a front desk clerk at the hotel where Silvio usually romps with Claudia. Daniel is hoping the getaway will help put the spark back into their marriage, but he soon discovers Irina's head has been turned by a trainer from a nearby health spa. And finally, Mariela, Silvio's housekeeper, has stated dating Jorge Washington, who has only recently come to Spain from Peru. While Mariela has fallen hard for Jorge, he's impressed by the romantic and material opportunities his new hometown provides.
Wounded Animals

This film evokes Valencia illegal gaming back in the seventies. A young peasant -Ferran- plays cards not much to make a living but as a distraction of his daily routine. Ferran meets a larger-than-life character -el chino- who happens to play cards for a living. This other guy is depicted as a Toni Manero look alike but his charisma an arrogance lead the innocent Ferran to join him in his schemes to make money to end up betting all on the next card table. At some point the action moves to Madrid and Ferran steps down losing track of El chino who takes on more dangerous games making a living out of Russian Roulette until the round gets loaded. Based on real events this is no Hollywood epic but it captures the desperation of the characters very effectively.
Life in the Abyss

Six characters, contemporary archetypes of urban solitude, meet in an old apartment located in the city centre of Barcelona. An elderly married couple, her brother and three tenants: a blonde woman who gives French classes, a young security guard, an ex-football player and a young, pregnant South American girl. The old man, who was formerly a doorman at the opera and who likes to dress up in women's clothes, gets them all together and asks them to leave as he is going to die and wants to be alone for the last stage of his life. In this flat, incest, homosexuality and adultery are intertwined in the life of these characters whilst we simultaneously witness the passing of time in this Mediterranean city.
Barcelona (A Map)

Based on a work of Josep Maria Benet i Jornet entitled "Testament", the film tells the story of an aging professor of medieval literature with the dilemma of deciding who will inherit his essay on "The Book of friend and loved" by Ramon Llull. Feeling near death as a result of illness, he discovers that the ideal person is a young and intelligent student he is in love with and who is dedicated to male prostitution.
Beloved/Friend

The lower part of Barcelona’s best district is a quiet and stately neighbourhood. The House of Columns hides many secrets, and has witnessed many events. The Catalan capital’s multiculturalism has a lot to offer. It’s better to laugh than to cry!
The Bigger, the Better

In 1973, towards the end of the Franco regime, the famous catalan writer Mercè Rodoreda bumped into the literary critic Josep Maria Castellet in Geneva where she lived exiled and she invited him to tea at her house. The writer was a most discrete person and maintained everything that concerned her wrapped in secrecy. Indeed she herself had become a secret or perhaps, even a maker of secrets. However that afternoon, strangely, she opened up and shared many intimacies.
An Afternoon in Geneva

Minimalistic frieze fifteen episodes about human behavior (desire, submission, love, jealousy, wisdom, honesty, sincerity, passion, faith, ...) located between two fantastic stories about the will and doubt.
What's It All About

In a small Catalan village take advantage of the visit of an ecclesiastical authority of Rome, during vacations, to organize a conference on the topic of religion and sex. This causes the people to divide into two camps, those who favor and those against the "Congress", until finally after a series of negotiations between both sides, we arrive at consensus. A large mosaic of characters carry the story to end happily, through critical situations with the conservative church.