Isabel Coixet

Isabel Coixet is a Spanish screenwriter and director. After having studied History at Barcelona University, she worked in advertising and made her debut as a screenwriter and director in Demasiado viejo para morir joven (Too Old to Die Young) in 1988. Since then, she has directed many feature films and documentaries, leading famous titles such as the Spanish-American romantic comedy-drama film Cosas que nunca te dije (Things I Never Told You) in 1996 and Mi vida sin mí (My Life Without Me) in 2003, a Spanish-Canadian production that tells the dramatic story of a young woman with a husband and two daughters who finds out she is going to die soon. The main actress in that film, Sarah Polley, continued working with Coixet in her next production, La vida secreta de las palabras (The Secret Life of Words,) a drama film that was hugely successful in the 2006 Goya Awards ceremony. In 2015, Nadie quiere la noche (Nobody Wants the Night) opened the 66th Berlin International Film Festival. She has directed several documentaries such as Viaje al corazón de la tortura in 2003, Invisibles in 2007, about Doctors without Borders, Escuchando al juez Garzón in 2011 and Parler de Rose (Talking about Rose) in 2015. The Bookshop based on a novel by Penelope Fitzgerald premiered outside Spain at the 68th Berlin International Film Festival in 2018. In 2019, Coixet released Elisa y Marcela about the first registered same-sex marriage in Spain, in collaboration with Netflix. The same year, she created a TV series Foodie Love with HBO Europe. Her most recent film, It snows in Benidorm was released in Spain in Autumn 2020 despite many cinemas being closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Isabel Coixet was also awarded the Knight of Arts and Letters prize by the French Ministry of Culture in 2015, and the National Film Award by the Spanish Ministry of Culture and Sports at the San Sebastian International Film Festival in September 2020. In 2022 she wrote and directed the catalan documentary Un sostre grec, followed by two drama films, Satisfacción máxima (2022) and Un Amor (2023).