Antonio Mercero

Spanish director, author of great success TV series and several award-winning films. His father, a staff chief in a local tyre factory, was shot by the anarchists in the Spanish Civil War when he was only 6 months old. His mother wanted him to study Law, and that's what he did. He starting studying at the University of Valladolid, but that wasn't his real vocation, which was, as he himself says, 'to tell stories'. Every summer he used to go back to Lasarte, his home village, and make festivals, sketches and parodies. Once he finished his Law studies, in 1959, he decided to enter the Escuela Oficial de Cinematografía, where he made four short films: 'La oveja negra', 'Pis', 'La muerta' and Trotín Troteras (1962). In 1962, after finishing his cinematographic studies, he directed his first work as a professional, _Lección de arte (1961)_, and it won the Golden Seashell at the Festival of San Sebastián. His first attempt to make a feature film ('Está lloviendo y te quiero', about his childhood at the Basque Country which also touched on the Basque problems) failed due to the refusal of the Basque producers, and so he continued directing short films: 'La balada de los cuatro jinetes', 'Universidad de Navarra', 'Un pueblo en apuros', 'Adiós al Price'. In 1970 he started working for TV. He directed several documentaries and some chapters for the series Crónicas de un pueblo (1971) (a great success in Spain despite its deep ideological content, risky for the period it was made in) and, La cabina (1972), which won 10 national and international awards, including the Emmy Award in 1973. Then he made Los pajaritos (1974), Don Juan (1974) (which won an award at the Festival of Montreux), La Gioconda está triste (1977), the series Este señor de negro (1975), La noche del licenciado (1979), and his two biggest successes: Verano azul (1981) (which became a social phenomenon) and Farmacia de guardia (1991). His film La hora de los valientes (1998) was defined by himself as a 'realistic tragicomedy, a romantic history, a historic fresco and a sociopolitical fable'. His last works in cinema were Planta 4ª (2003), a film about children with cancer treated with a touch of humor, and ¿Y tú quién eres? (2007), a drama about a grandfather with Alzheimer.