José Antonio Félez, film producer and winner Goya for the best film for The ball y The minimum islandhe has died on Tuesday at age 71. The Madrid was part of the team of titles such as Azuloscurocasinegro, GRupo 7, the man of the thousand faces a series At fish And for his work through his companies Tesela, first, and atypical, later, he was recognized with the gold medal of Egeda, the entity that manages the rights of audiovisual producers at the Forqué awards of 2021.
His approach to the cinema – he had studied law in the Complutense – began in the late 1980s, when, from the financial world, he entered the right hand of the CEO in CBS/Fox in Spain, a joint venture that at that time triumphed in the DVD market. After passing through Polygram and being a general secretary of UNE, the Spanish Videographic Union, between 1995 and 1998 developed production tasks, marketing and organization together with the producer Elías Querejeta and Prime Films.
It is Querejeta who advises him and drives him to become independent. His first experience as an executive producer was with The south lighthouse, by Eduardo Migenogna, in 1998, winner of the Goya for Best Spanish -speaking film. And there Tesela is born. In 2000 it premieres To gallop lying, The Pilgrim factor y The ball. The Pilgrim factor It is the debut, as co -director, by Alberto Rodríguez and Santi Amodeo; and The ball It is the beginnings of the races of Achero Mañas as director and Juan José Ballesta, then a child actor, as an actor, in a film that swept the critics, the public and the Goya awards, where he obtains four awards, including the best film. Félez pushed Mañas to rewrite and rethink the script, with obvious success.
It is a decade in which Félez and Telela Cinematographic Productions ride triumph in Triunfo: Alberto Rodríguez premieres The suit (2002), Santi Amodeo directs Astronauts (2003), Achero Mañas makes November (2003), and in co -productions Argentina Félez works on films such as The escape, Rome, the wind o Elsa & Fred.
The last of its fetish directors to enter his company is Daniel Sánchez Arévalo, who with his first film is also Azuloscurocasinegro (2006), triumphs in festivals around the world, such as Venice and Malaga and achieves three Goya awards, in addition to presenting Antonio de la Torre, Raúl Arévalo and Quim Gutiérrez to the general public.
From that moment on, Félez becomes the benchmark for Andalusian cinema with Rodríguez, Amodeo and Rafael Cobos, screenwriter and director, and with the producer the career of another great name of the current cinema grows: Daniel Sánchez Arévalo. Thus chained 7 virgins, dog’s head, why are the legs? Pudor, fat, The exceptional After, cousins, Group 7 o The great Spanish family until you reach another impressive work by Rodríguez, The minimum island, The second Goya prize for Félez.
That career combines it with a commitment to their work. “In other countries, perhaps the figure of the producer is more recognizable, here is more covered by directors, actors and even by screenwriters. I believe that there are many prejudices with the producers, which only matters the money, which we cheat …”, he told in 2021 at the exit of receiving from his companions with the gold medal in the Forqué. And therefore, between 2012 and 2018 he was president of the State Association of Cinematographic Producer.
De Tesela went on to create atypical films in 2009 with Cristina Sutherland, and continued with the same team, although with those same directors it also began in the television series, such as the two seasons of To the fish, With Rodríguez and Cobos, Those of the last row (2022), With Sánchez Arévalo, or The left -handed son, Again with Cobos. And more cinema like THE MAN OF THE THOUSAND FACES, Diet o Model 77. This year has released enemies, by David Valero, in collaboration with Prime Video.
On Instagram, Sánchez Arévalo has written: “My older brother, my partner, my discoverer, my producer. Five films and a series together. More than twenty years together. You were guided, you taught me, you let me fly, you gathered me when I fell. I gave me a profession. You were my creator, from calm, from the composure, from the reason.”
Félez, known in the industry as Jaf, was always a man of educated, cordial and measured treatment, in Anglo -Saxon ways grown in his initial years in finance, opposed to the punch topic on the table and broncas so rooted in Spanish cinema to the stereotype of the producer. And for that mood he has secretly brought his illness. Of their five children, two have followed their steps in the audiovisual.