I gnacio Vilar was meant to be a filmmaker. He grow up in a small Galician village listening to great storytellers by the fireplace.
At the age of 8, after watching his first film in a theatre, he decided he will keep this fading oral tradition alive by portraying those stories on the big screen. To fulfill this feverish dream he first had to thrive in the late 70’s political turmoil in Barcelona. There he co-founded a film school and projected avant-garde films throughout Catalonia, in urban and rural areas alike. Buñuel, Godard, Fellini, Antonioni, you name it, were his masters at the time.

In 1989, he received a Carlos Velo Award for best script in Galician language. This recognition fuelled his passion for developing a film culture, which would foster a sense of community and belonging in Galician society, something as rare as the birth of a new nation. After all, the British Free Cinema, the Nouvelle-Vague or the Italian Neorealism were already doing it in their own way…

To offer his contribution to world cinema, he co-founded Vía Láctea Filmes with his partner, Marina Fariñas, in 1998. Since then, Ignacio Vilar has become a preeminent art-house filmmaker, a contemporary storyteller who has moved international audiences with universal stories brewed in his homeland.