Eloy de la Iglesia

Eloy de la Iglesia
De la Iglesia in 2001
Born	Eloy Germán de la Iglesia Diéguez (1944-01-01)1 January 1944 Zarautz, Spain
Died	23 March 2006(2006-03-23) (aged 62) Madrid, Spain
Occupation	Filmmaker
Years active	1966–2003

Eloy de la Iglesia (1 January 1944 – 23 March 2006) was a Spanish screenwriter and film director.

De la Iglesia was an outspoken gay and socialist filmmaker who is relatively unknown outside Spain despite a prolific and successful career in his native country. He is best remembered for having portrayed urban marginality and the world of drugs and juvenile delinquency, with many of his films dealing with the theme of homosexuality. Part of his work is closely related to the phenomenon popularly known in Spain as quinqui films, to which he contributed several works. De la Iglesia took risks in his films that captured the struggles of the underclass, portraying the everyday, unidealized lives of powerless characters portrayed genuinely with flaws and vices. They are an example of commitment to the immediate reality, going against the conformist outlook of most movies of its time. Beyond their debatable aesthetic merits, his film served as a document of the Spanish marginality of the late seventies and early eighties, and they have the stamp of his strong personality.