Isabel Herguera
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Isabel Herguera | |
|---|---|
 Isabel Herguera | |
| Born | 1961 (age 64–65) |
| Occupation | Film Director |
| Notable work | Sultana's Dream |
Isabel Herguera is a Spanish artist, filmmaker, cultural manager, professor, and critic. She has won more than 50 awards at various international film festivals.[1][2] She graduated from UPV-Bilbao, continued her studies at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 1988,[3] and obtained a master's degree at CalArts.[4] In her 1989 movies Safari and Song of the Round Trip animation, sculpture and video were merged and together created a special work of art.[1]
In 1994, she founded an animation studio in Los Angeles.[1] In 2003, she returned to Spain from Los Angeles.[2] In 2003–2011, she was the director of Animac, the International Festival of Animated film of Catalonia in Lleida. She also coordinated the motion picture laboratory of the Arteleku art centre in Donostia-San Sebastian.[5][1] Over the years, she has served as chair and jury member of various international film festivals.[6][7][8]
In 2005 she started as a teacher at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, India. As a guest animation professor, she worked at the China Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, China. In 2017 she became a professor of the animation department in Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln, Germany.[2][4][3]
In 2012, she became one of the 12 most celebrated Basque filmmakers and directed one chapter of Kalebegiak, a movie that comprised 12 different perspectives on San Sebastián.[9]
Herguera's first feature film, Sultana's Dream, was released in 2023. The story is based on a 1905 dystopian fairy-tale by Bangladeshi social activist Begum Rokeya.[10] In this movie she also combined different techniques to underline and emphasize the differences between storylines — watercolour, cut-outs of the shadow theatre and Mehndi.[2][11] While it was still in the project stage, the film won the 2022 TorinoFilmLab Audience Design Award of the European Work in Progress in Cologne platform[12] and received a €378,000 grant from the Spanish Film Institute.[13]
Filmography
- Safari (1989);
- Song of a Round Trip (1989);
- La Gallina Ciega (2005);
- Ámár (2010);
- Under the Pillow (2012 short);
- Winter Love (2015);
- Sailor's Grave (2016)
- Sultana's Dream (2023).
