I take the portrait of Isabel Coixet in the neighborhood of Gracia, where she has the headquarters of Miss Wasabi, her production company. She's on a tight schedule and she doesn't like to be photographed, so we end up doing an express session. A life-sized figure of Agnès Varda watches over the scene from a corner of the room.
I am left with the desire to tell her about how I admire her work, the delicate intimacy of her narratives, and above all the rhythm, the always appropriate tempo of her films, with its essential silences distributed with precision, as if it was a musical score.
Isabel Coixet worked as a creative director in advertising. In 1988 she debuted as a screenwriter and director with Demasiado viejo para morir joven. In 1996 she traveled to the United States to shoot her first feature film in English, Things I never told you, for which she won the Fotogramas de Plata award. In 2000 she founded her own production company, Miss Wasabi Films. She has shot 25 films including My life without me, awarded at the Berlin Festival 2003 and Goya for best adapted screenplay, The secret life of words, awarded Goya for best film, best direction and best original screenplay, Elegy, Ayer no termina nunca, Mi otro yo, Learning to drive, Nadie quiere la noche and The bookshop, awarded Goya for best direction. His latest film is Nieva en Benidorm.
She has also worked in the documentary genre, with titles such as Viaje al corazón de la tortura, Invisibles, winner of the Goya for best documentary film, Spain in a Day and Aral, el mar perdido.
In 2009 she received the Gold Medal of Fine Arts and in 2015 she was recognized with the medal of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters of France. She received the National Cinematography Award in 2020.