Pavel Giroud

Pavel Giroud (born 1973) is a Cuban film director based in Madrid, Spain.

Giroud studied design and graduated from the Instituto Superior de Diseño (High Institute of Design) in 1994.

He 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 into his work, before directing his first short films, featuring his friends rather than professional actors. From then, Giroud decided to focus his career on cinema.

Giroud filmed only self-written scripts, until he read the script for the movie La Edad de la peseta, written by young screenwriter Arturo Infante. According to Giroud, he did not originally see any possibility in the script to express himself as a director, but he gradually fell in love with it, adding: "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. One film critic who saw the movie described Giroud as the "new Cuban Truffaut" and "the finest director of his generation". In 2020 the film was selected by Cuban Cinematheque as one of ten Best Cinematography and Best Production Design in 60 years of Cuban Cinema.

One year later he directed a noir film entitled Omerta, and began writing a more ambitious project, The Companion, which took more than six years to develop and secure financial support. The film was selected as the Cuban entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 89th Academy Awards. While developing this film, he co-directed Playing Lecuona, a musical documentary film about Cuban musician Ernesto Lecuona, starring the jazz pianists Michel Camilo, Chucho Valdés and Gonzalo Rubalcaba.

From 2012 to 2019 he collaborated with the fine arts group Los Carpinteros, directing all of their films except one. After this group disbanded, Giroud continued working with one of it members, Dagoberto Rodríguez, directing three experimental videos: "Geometría Popular", released online by Sabrina Amrani Gallery in March 2020, "Semillas", with music by Joan Valent, and "A palo Limpio".

The Padilla affair, which won the Best Documentary Film award at the 10th Platino Awards,[citation needed ] revolves around the self-confession of the poet Heberto Padilla - a historic event that had been hidden for more than half a century. The documentary was first released at the Telluride Film Festival, and subsequently presented at other festivals such as San Sebastián, Rome Film Festival, BAFICI.[citation needed ]

He has been a coach for actresses Penélope Cruz and Adria Arjona.

Pavel is a third cousin of the Cuban writer Dulce María Loynaz.[citation needed ]