santiago lorenzo
Francisco Garcia is a member of GRAPO. He dreams like a very serious member of GRAPO: he wants to obtain social justice and to have a packet of cigarettes. Suddenly, one day he wins the lottery. And that’s when his personal drama begins. Francisco doesn’t have an ID card. He has 90 days to cash in his winnings... but he can’t! That’s how Santiago Lorenzo’s novel “Los millonarios” begins. Santiago Lorenzo was born in Portugalete in 1964. Santiago Lorenzo is a free spirit, an uncontrolled satellite, if such a thing can exist. Santiago is a magician in anything from before the digital era. He was born with a special gift for crafts and also has the patience of a saint. The models he has made and stored up over the years bear witness to that. Trains and train stations, boats, planes, buildings... Lorenzo has made everything, and all of it to scale. He started to make animated films using plasticine dolls. And then he went on to make other films with flesh and blood dolls. He started to become well known in the 90’s thanks to his short films. After his short films Bru, Es asunto mío, Manualidades and Caracol Col Col he made his first long film: Mama es Boba (1999). Nowadays it is a cult film. In this bitter sweet comedy he tells us the story of a teenager from Palencia and he was one of the first directors to deal with bullying on the big screen. It was before its time. It did not get the attention it deserved. It was definitely a predecessor for what we now call post-humour (chanante-muchachada-noguera-venga monjas and so on).
Lorenzo works on film sets: as we have said, he is good with his hands. In 2007 he filmed Un buen dia lo tiene cualquiera. As all people who work on film sets know, cinema has very little to do with the truth. And honest people like Santiago Lorenzo do not last for long in that cat and mouse world. He decided to forget about the world of cinema and start telling his stories as novels rather than in scripts. Lorenzo combines irony and surrealism in his writing. After criticising the society we live in fiercely, he suddenly creates a surrealist, unbelievable situation. Without ever making his characters less believable. Lorenzo is embarrassed whenever they compare him with Rafael Azcona. But, in fact, he is a bit like him. As well as ¨Los Millonarios¨, Lorenzo has published another book, ¨Los Huerfanitos¨. In this book, he tells us the misadventures of some brothers who inherit a debt-ridden theatre.
The news and statistics which we see every day to not achieve what Santiago Lorenzo does. When we read his books, sometimes the smile that comes onto our faces is suddenly frozen. Why? Because Santiago Lorenzo tells us about the “losers” who move the strings in culture markets and the circus, marginal or third rate players, and they all have problems, dreams, desires and fears just like ours.
Lorenzo works on film sets: as we have said, he is good with his hands. In 2007 he filmed Un buen dia lo tiene cualquiera. As all people who work on film sets know, cinema has very little to do with the truth. And honest people like Santiago Lorenzo do not last for long in that cat and mouse world. He decided to forget about the world of cinema and start telling his stories as novels rather than in scripts. Lorenzo combines irony and surrealism in his writing. After criticising the society we live in fiercely, he suddenly creates a surrealist, unbelievable situation. Without ever making his characters less believable. Lorenzo is embarrassed whenever they compare him with Rafael Azcona. But, in fact, he is a bit like him. As well as ¨Los Millonarios¨, Lorenzo has published another book, ¨Los Huerfanitos¨. In this book, he tells us the misadventures of some brothers who inherit a debt-ridden theatre.
The news and statistics which we see every day to not achieve what Santiago Lorenzo does. When we read his books, sometimes the smile that comes onto our faces is suddenly frozen. Why? Because Santiago Lorenzo tells us about the “losers” who move the strings in culture markets and the circus, marginal or third rate players, and they all have problems, dreams, desires and fears just like ours.
