José Luis García Sánchez

José Luis García Sánchez was born on 22 September 1941 in Salamanca, Spain. He graduated in law and sociology. He then enrolled at the Official School of Cinematography in Madrid but, like others of his generation, was unable to complete his studies there after a mass expulsion of students for ideological reasons under the Franco regime. He later joked that at the film school "there was no censorship and enrolment cost 148 pesetas".

García Sánchez made short films from the late 1960s, including Pólipos en las trompas (1968). In the mid 1970s he directed the critical comedy El love feroz and Colorín colorado, in which he also appeared as an actor.

His third feature, Las truchas (1978), a black comedy in which a group of complacent diners devour rotten trout while ignoring the people outside demanding a share, won the Golden Bear at the 28th Berlin International Film Festival. He also co-wrote Habla, mudita (1973), which competed at Berlin.

In the 1980s and 1990s he worked across many genres: the musical La corte de Faraón (1985), for which he won the Silver Shell for best director at San Sebastián; Divinas palabras (1987) and Tirano Banderas (1993), both adaptations of Ramón del Valle-Inclán; Pasodoble (1988), El vuelo de la paloma (1989), the political drama La noche más larga (1991), Suspiros de España (y Portugal) (1995) and Tranvía a la Malvarrosa (1997), from the novel by his friend Manuel Vicent. Later films included Lázaro de Tormes (2001), La marcha verde (2002), María querida (2004) and his last feature, Los muertos no se tocan, nene (2011), from a text by Rafael Azcona.

As a screenwriter he was nominated five times for the Goya and won twice: for Belle Époque (1992), co-written with Rafael Azcona and Fernando Trueba, and for the adaptation of Tirano Banderas, written with Azcona. He also directed theatre, including a staging of Manuel Puig's Kiss of the Spider Woman that he considered among his best work, and wrote more than 70 children's books. He received the Espiga de Honor of the Seminci festival in Valladolid.

He was married to the singer Rosa León. Their son, Víctor García León, became a film director. Colleagues and friends, among them Rafael Azcona, Ana Belén, Víctor Manuel, José Sacristán, Fernando Trueba, Imanol Uribe and Manuel Vicent, praised his intelligence, sharp eye and humour. His son said he had "a voracity for friendship".

José Luis García Sánchez died in Madrid on Sunday 25 October 2026, aged 85, after a period of neurological illness, according to El País. His death came one day after the centenary of the birth of his friend and collaborator Rafael Azcona. It was reported by RTVE, Cadena SER and El País, and the Spanish Film Academy published an obituary describing him as a chronicler of his time. Funeral arrangements had not been announced at the time of the first reports.

García Sánchez is remembered as one of the most versatile and best loved figures of Spanish cinema: a director who used humour to reflect on life and on Spain, a tireless champion of Valle-Inclán and Azcona, and a filmmaker who, in the words of the Film Academy, spent almost 60 years raising projects, watching films, caring for Spain's film heritage, winning prizes and, above all, making friends. The 1978 Golden Bear, awarded jointly to Spain's three films that year, Las truchas, Emilio Martínez-Lázaro's Las palabras de Max and the short Ascensor, was a landmark moment for Spanish cinema in the years after the end of the dictatorship.