ACTOR WITH NO LIMITS. TRIBUTE TO XABIER ELORRIAGA
Xabier Elorriaga (Maracaibo, Venezuela, 1944) is an actor with a long experience in films and who has a prolfic and highly respected profesional career. In the 80’s of last century he became the most recognizable face of what then became known as the New Basque Cinema. That was a key moment in our film history in which a willing group of senior members and filmmakers and some memorable titles achieved great popular success. They were the new image of Euskadi in the troubled democratic era that followed the demise of Franco’s dictatorship. Among those unique films, and ultimately historical, are included: La fuga de Segovia (Imanol Uribe, 1981); La muerte de Mikel (Imanol Uribe,1984); La conquista de Albania (Alfonso Ungría, 1984) and A los cuatro vientos (Jose Antonio Zorrilla,1987). In this film he also participated as a scriptwriter. Taking into account the entirety of his films as an actor, and in particular for his decisive presence in the in films produced in the Basque Country, ZINEBI wants to pay homage to him and present him with one of the Golden Mikeldi Awards at the opening gala of its 53rd edition.
He is the son of Basque parents exiled after the Spanish Civil War. Xabier Elorriaga spent his childhood and adolescence in Chile. In the mid-sixties his family returned to Bilbao and he began to study law at the University of Deusto and then continued his studies in Barcelona. There he obtaine d a degree in journalism, a profession he began practicing as a newspaper correspondent and profesor for more than ten years in the School of Communication Studies at the Autonomous University of that city.
After his first steps in the early 70’s as assistant director of the group of the atre called Kriselu in Bilbao and his role in a short film in Rome, his acting career began with his playing the leading role in the film La Ciutat cremada (Antoni Ribas, 1976), for which he won the Award given by the Cinema Writers’s Circle. To this initial success followed others, such as A un dios desconocido (Jaime Chávarri, 1977), a film with which he won again the Award given by the Cinema Writers’ s Circle; Perros callejeros (Jose Antonio de la Loma, 1977), which was a great box office success; Los ojos vendados (Carlos Saura, 1978), with Geraldine Chaplin; Ensalada Baudelaire (Leopoldo Pomès, 1978): Companys, procès a Catalunya (Josep Maria Forn, 1979) and El hombre de moda (Fernando Méndez-Leite, 1980).
In the 80’s, besides the above mentioned films which were produced in the Basque Country, Xabier Elorriaga has grown to become a currently very highly-regarded actor with titles like Reborn (Bigas Luna, 1981); the trilogy Victoria (Antoni Ribas, 1983-84), which provided hit the nomination to Silver Photogrammes Award as best actor; El jardín secreto (Carlos Suárez, 1984) and the film Tata mía (Jose Luis Borau, 1986). From the decade of the 90’s up to now, Xabier Elorriaga has made abundant appearances in works generally well appreciated by critics and the public, such as Tesis (1996), the internationally acclaimed debut of Alejandro Amenábar, a filmmaker nationally and internationally acclaimed; Hola, desconocido, one of his limited participations in the short film world (Javier Rebollo, 1998): Las Bellas Durmientes (Eloy Lozano, 2002); A mi madre le gustan las mujeres (Daniela Fejerman/Ines Paris, 2002), The Dancer Upstairs (John Malkovich, 2002): El coronel Maciá (Josep Marla Forn, 2006); Cosmos (Diego Fandos, 2007); La conjura de El Escorial (Antonio del Real, 2008); Dos billetes (Javier Serrano, 2009); Rabia (Sebastián Cordero, 2009), a co-production that produced by Spain, Mexico and Colombia with the participation of Guillermo del Toro, and Zigortzaileak (Alfonso Arandia / Arantza Ibarra, 2010).
ZINEBI
