Temístocles López

Temístocles López is a screenwriter, actor, stage and film director. He has had an eclectic and varied career, often shifting between the classical, the popular and avant-garde. His eminently visual experimental films were followed by cinematic adaptations of classic theater and his documentary pieces about the avant-garde in Europe lead to more accessible forms of entertainment in America.

Early life and career

Temístocles Miguel López Giménez was born in Valencia, Venezuela. His father Temístocles Ramón Lopez is a psychiatrist, and his mother Lina Giménez is an acclaimed novelist. Temistocles grew up in Spain and studied in France, Germany, Italy and England, where he learned to master the diverse languages. He 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.

In HOME- The Horror Story (2000), featuring Richard Beymer, Tracy Nelson and Grace Zabriskie, the writer-director used absurdist humor and surreal visuals to satirize conservative "family values".

Katabasis, written and directed in France in 2011, re-tells the story of the Minotaur Myth, in a modern cinematic interpretation.

In 2015 Temistocles directed Elettra, a feature documentary about the life and work of Guglielmo Marconi, inventor of the radio and wireless communication.

During 2018 Temistocles travelled around the world shooting Monumental, a documentary about gigantic architecture.

At the present the director is engaged in Combate, a documentary about the humanitarian and political crisis in Venezuela.

Filmography

Writer and Director

  • Combate (2019)
  • Monumental (2018)
  • Elettra (2015)
  • Katabasis (2011)
  • Home - The Horror Story (2000)
  • Bird of Prey (1995)
  • Chain of Desire (1992) - Torino Film Festival 1992, Montreal World Film Festival 1992
  • Exquisite Corpses (1989)
  • Caribe (1976)
  • The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1978)
  • Contemporanea: music and dance (1974)
  • Dose (1972)
  • Hollywood Song (1970)

Screenwriter

  • Dalí (1991)

Actor

  • Bolívar, A Tropical Symphony (Bolívar,sinfonía tropikal) (1979), as Bolívar

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)- Best Film at the Pescara Film Festival, Nominated for Best Cinematography at the 1994 Independent Spirit Awards (Director of Photography: Nancy Schreiber)
  • Dalí (1991)- Grand Prize at the Biarritz Film Festival

Projects
  • L'Âge d'or (feature film)

A fictional biography of the visionary artist in 1920s Paris, written and to be directed by Temistocles Lopez, is now in pre-production.

  • Wink- a feature-length comedy
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  • Temístocles López at the Internet Movie Database
  • Chain of Desire in the Torino Film Festival official Website
  • Chain of Desire in the Pesacara Film Festival awards history

Film Reviews

  • Chain of Desire - Anthony Lane's review in the New Yorker
  • Chain of Desire - Todd McCarthy's review in Variety
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