The companion el acompanante by pavel giroud trailer
Pavel Giroud is a Cuban film director based in Madrid, Spain. He studied design and graduated from the Instituto Superior de Diseño (High Institute of Design) in 1994.
He first worked, for a short period of time, as a designer and art director in films and theatre plays. He then began to paint, working with the basic techniques and incorporating video in his work. When people saw his videos, they told Pavel he was a "gifted storyteller" and encouraged him to try his hand at cinema. Giroud had to do everything – from image to sound and music – when he directed his first short films. He even featured his friends in his movies, rather than professional actors.
"It wasn’t a massive hit but it made us feel good and made us feel like we were making a real picture". From there on, Pavel decided to focus his career on cinema.
Giroud only filmed what he wrote, until he read the script of the movie La Edad de la peseta, written by Arturo Infante, a young screenwriter and director. "When I first read the script, I didn’t see in this movie the possibility to express myself as a director". However, he gradually and simply fell in love with the script and the movie, "Now, I tell Arturo that it’s my film not his, and that he should forget he wrote it..." He finished La Edad de la peseta in 2006. When film critics saw the movie, they dubbed Pavel the "new Cuban Truffaut" and "the finest director of his generation".
One year later he directed a noir film titled Omerta and began to write his most ambitious project, The Companion. He spent more than six years developing it and finding financial support to make it. This film was selected as the Cuban entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 89th Academy Awards. While he developed this film, he co-directed Playing Lecuona, a musical documentary film about the greatest legend of Cuban music, Ernesto Lecuona, starring the jazz pianists Michel Camilo, Chucho Valdés and Gonzalo Rubalcaba.
From 2012, he has collaborated with the fine arts group Los Carpinteros, directing all of their video pieces.
Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Foreign Press Glauber Rocha Award, UNEAC Award, Latin New Cinema Found Prize. Havana International Film Festival:
