TRIBUTES AND RETROSPECTIVES

In the space of only 6 years, Rodrigo Sorogoyen has made 4 features and a TV series, making him a key director in contemporary Spanish cinema. He was born in Madrid in 1981 and studied at the ECAM film school. He made his first film, 8 citas (8 Dates) (released in 2008), made up of sketches, at the age of 25 before working mainly in television.  In 2013, his first feature, Stockholm, brought him acclaim in Spain, where he won the Best Director Award at the Malaga Film Festival. But this love story turned drama, shot in only 13 days with two actors, doesn’t give away the richness of Que Dios nos perdone (May God Save Us) (2016), his next film. This extremely dark psychological thriller, starring Antonio de la Torre and Roberto Álamo, catapulted him to the position of spearhead of Spanish crime films. El reino (The Realm), in 2018, confirmed him as the master of crime films, winning several awards at the Goyas, and Madre (Mother), in 2019, showed his skills in working on more intimate and risky themes. 2020 saw his 6-episode mini-series Antidisturbios (Riot Police), and in 2022 As bestas (The Beasts), which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival with an impressive Franco-Spanish cast (Denis Ménochet, Marina Foïs et Luis Zahera) became his biggest box-office success in France.
He works on his scripts with Isabel Peña and has remained faithful to a team of actors and technicians. While he was making Stockholm he founded Caballo Films along with 3 partners. Rodrigo Sorogoyen has found a unique place between independent and commercial cinema. His films tackle burning subjects such as corruption, police brutality and racism head on, creating universal stories rooted in a certain socially engaged cinema of the 1970s. He works on long scenes and changes register within a single sequence (brilliantly in the opening of Madre which shifts from an everyday situation to an extremely tense one in just a few minutes) bringing a high level of unpredictability to his films.
For its 35th edition Premiers Plans is thrilled to be holding the first retrospective of Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s work in France.

Thanks to Le Pacte, Outsider Pictures, Movistar+, Canal+ and ZDF Studios