Roberto Pérez Toledo leaves a legacy of three feature films and more than 40 short films that are a true reference for Spanish LGTBIQ+ cinema
The Canarian director, screenwriter and producer Roberto Pérez Toledo has died at the age of 43 in Madrid, as a result of a stroke, on January 31, 2022. Perez Toledo leaves a legacy in Spanish cinema for his tireless fight for visibility LGTBIQ +, a cause that he showed in many of his short films and that made him continue despite the fact that the industry often rejected his projects. The public always supported him.
The filmmaker planned to participate this Monday, the day of his death, in a meeting at the Film academy which included the screening of his short films «Overturning», «The screamers», «Broken», «Yes to everything», «Tris», «Secret admirer», «Taras», «Author's love», «Whenever I tell it», «Hydroalcoholic» and «Before of the eruption".
His death has coincided with the performance these days of his first play, Basic manual of sign language to break hearts, in the Maria Guerrero Theater, with production of National Drama Center. Perez Toledo He will be remembered for his cinematographic struggle —he directed four dozen short films, because the industry's rejection of his projects never stopped him— and for having been able to lead a cinema LGTBIQ + focused above all on tenderness and on the bet of desire over exclusion: the filmmaker moved around in a wheelchair since he was 14 years old, since at the age of three he was diagnosed with congenital spinal atrophy.
He directed his first film ten years ago
Natural of Lanzarote, study Communication at the University of Salamanca, driven by the desire to make movies that arose in him when he saw ET the alien. Perez Toledo premiered in 2012 «Six points on Emma», his first feature film as director and screenwriter. The film described the battle of a blind young woman (played by Veronica Echegui) for being a mother overcoming any barrier imposed by the rest. That character could summarize the entire artistic and social discourse of Perez Toledo: his strong commitment to inclusion over sexual options, disabilities and ideological differences. “I can't stand being told what I can and can't do", He said Emma, and with her also the director.
A personal, intimate and tender cinema
A year later he participated in the collective feature film «In the end everyone dies along with three other creators, and in 2014 he launched "Rare Friends", turned into a viral phenomenon in the network, where it accumulates more than 22 million views. In YouTube, Perez Toledo a channel was fed that has now become the video library of his audiovisual capacity and his sense of humor.
In 2017 he premiered «Like the foam», his third solo feature film. As the foam suffered a strange distribution, and recorded the talent of Perez Toledo to speak of a kind desire, to free bodies from the cumbersome cinematographic stiffness, in short, of collective freedom and inclusion.
Today is #Day AgainstLGTBIphobia. Because cinema is a powerful weapon of visibility, here are a few of my LGBT stories, with images of some that have not yet come out of the oven. Dedicated to all the talented actors who help me tell them ? pic.twitter.com/hHQtwqQZFy
– Roberto Pérez Toledo (@mividarueda) May 17, 2020
Roberto Pérez Toledo is a benchmark for the LGTBIQ+ collective
To this work must be added his 40 short films and advertisements, such as a campaign of Valentine's Day! for El Corte Ingles. Recently, he created and directed gifted love, the first Spanish fiction series for Facebook Watch, and shot the feature film «Places we've never been«, which has remained unpublished.
His creative capacity had a lot to do with his conception of a cinema, both social —in the sense of putting a mirror on society, and telling it realities that some viewers might or might know about, for example, the collective LGTBIQ +— as vindictive.
Pérez Toledo leaves behind a filmography that over time will serve as a testimony of a face of XNUMXst-century Spain, particularly of the people LGTBIQ + less stereotyped.
