Temistocles Lopez

Temístocles Miguel López Giménez started his career as a journalist, writing about cinema for magazines and radio shows.

He studied cinema at the London Film School, where he made Hollywood Song, an homage to classic American movies.

In 1970, he went to live in Italy where he worked at the Teatro Stabile di Torino in the productions of Bertold Brecht's Life of Galileo and Ibsen's Peer Gynt. In 1972 he wrote and directed Dose, a surrealist short based on a story by Raymond Roussel. In 1974 He worked as assistant in the Spoleto Festival production of Robert Wilson's A Letter for Queen Victoria.

In 1975 he directed Contemporanea, a documentary about the American avant-garde scene, which featured the composer Philip Glass among others.In 1976 he moved to Caracas where he directed Shakespeare's The Tempest, Cocteau's The Knights of the Round Table and Goethe's Faust. He continued his cinematic experiments with Caribe in 1976 and The Temptations of Saint Anthony in 1978.

In 1981 he played Simon Bolivar, the Venezuelan "Libertador", in Diego Risquez's Bolívar, sinfonía tropikal. In 1983 he moved to New York, where he wrote Dali, a screenplay about the Surrealist painter, which was made into a feature that won the Grand Prize at the Biarritz Film Festival. In 1989 he wrote and directed Exquisite Corpses, a black comedy that soon became a cult hit.

In 1992 he wrote and directed Chain of Desire a provocative chronicle of contemporary sexual mores, featuring Linda Fiorentino, Elias Koteas, Assumpta Serna, Seymour Cassel and Malcolm McDowell among others. The film was the American entry in competition at the 1992 Montreal World Film Festival.

In order to learn more about the Hollywood traditions he admires, in 1994 he moved to Los Angeles, where he was hired to direct Bird of Prey, a thriller featuring Oscar nominees Jennifer Tilly, Lesley Ann Warren and Richard Chamberlain.

Filmography

Writer and Director

ELETTRA (Australia 2015)
WINK - USA -France 2015 ( in preproduction)
Katabasis (2011)
Home - The Horror Story (2000)
Bird Of Prey (1995)
Chain Of Desire (1992) Torino Film Festival (1992)
Montreal World Film Festival (1991)
Exquisite Corpses (1989)
Caribe (1976)
The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1978)
Contemporanea: music and dance (1974)
Dose (1972)
Hollywood Song (1970)

Stage Works

Written and Directed

The Knights of the Round Table (1980)
The Prince of the Galaxies (1979)

Directed

The Tempest, by William Shakespeare (1976)
Faust, by Goethe (1981)

Nominations and awards

Chain of Desire (1992)
Dali (1991) Grand Prize at the Biarritz Film Festival