Fiercely independent, critically acclaimed and self-taught, Spanish photographer Cristina García Rodero was the first to capture her country’s festivals (religious and pagan) in a project that took her 15 years to complete. Today, half a century later, this 73-year-old artist with an iron will, approachable and indefatigable, continues to self-finance her long-term projects, and to document how life, love, beauty and death —that which inspires and moves the human soul, spirit and body— are celebrated in the world.
Born in Tokyo to a Swedish father and an Argentinian mother, she lives in Madrid and works as a screenwriter, documentary filmmaker, journalist and researcher. She is a member of the Spanish Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences and of CIMA. Her work has covered different social issues on a global level, such as the situation of the Aborigines in Australia, apartheid in South Africa, censorship in Kuala Lumpur and the phenomenon of criminal relapse in American women’s prisons. Her directorial feature debut, ‘Anclados’, premiered out of competition at Valladolid’s Time of History (Seminci) in 2010, and in 2019 she returned to directing with ‘Brain Matters’.