El retorn de Néstor Almendros

Vida, èxits i anhels d'una superestrella de Barcelona

Author/s: Laura Gavaldà Mestre
Co-edition with: Comanegra
Collection: People of Barcelona

Imatge de la coberta del llibre 'El retorn de Néstor Almendros'

Imatge de les pàgines interiors del llibre 'El retorn de Néstor Almendros'

Néstor Almendros was the first big Hollywood star born in Barcelona. For anyone studying Spanish cinematography between the end of the 1970s and the 1990s, Almendros was up there with the great masters.

An Oscar winner with Terrence Malick and director of photography to François Truffaut, Eric Rohmer and Robert Benton, his mastery of light made Meryl Streep, Dustin Hoffman, Richard Gere and Catherine Deneuve, among many others, shine brighter than ever. But Néstor Almendros always lived with an open wound: the fact that he could not return to Barcelona and work there with the same recognition that he had in the United States and France, above all. First, repression, and then, oblivion. However, the filmmaker's bond with his city and country never weakened – “My rosebud is the Catalan language,” he used to say – and the mark he left on future generations is still noticeable, no matter how little we look at it.

Biografia

Art

Personatges

Photography

What are them saying

"Rescatar la memòria d'aquest 'mite del món cinematògrafic, però desconegut pel gran públic' és l'objectiu d'aquesta biografia, ara que el cinema català passa per un bon moment i el seu reconeixement, amb noms com el de Juan Antonio Bayona, triomfa fora del país."

3cat 04/09/2025

"Un llibre bonic bonic. Que hauria de ser un inici del veritable rescat de la memòria i l’obra de Néstor Almendros, ja que no li vam donar l’ocasió de formar part del nostre cine, començant per la reedició dels seus llibres i tot el que convingui. Si la cultura catalana creu de debò en els seus artistes."

VILAWEB | Mercè Ibarz 22/02/2025

"El primer volum -mèrit de l’autora, Laura Gavaldà; demèrit del país: l’oscaritzar director de fotografia, el primer català a guanyar l’estatueta daurada, va morir el 1992- amb vocació biogràfica sobre un artista del setè art que va voltar el món i va tornar sempre a Calders, a Can Cuyàs, pàtria de la família materna."

Regió7 | Toni Mata i Riu 14/03/2025

Laura Gavaldà Mestre

Laura Gavaldà Mestre is a doctor specialising in Preventive Medicine and Public Health who works at the Catalan Ministry of Health. This is her first book. Her interest in Néstor Amendros has a family origin. In July 1984, after 35 years in exile in Cuba and a bureaucratic nightmare, Almendros’ mother, Maria Cuyàs, managed to return to Barcelona, where she lived out the last years of her life. That same summer, Néstor Almendros and Laura Gavaldà’s father, great friends since childhood, organised a family get-together which, unforeseeably would be the starting point of this book. By weaving together oral memories, various archives and, above all, chatting to a large number of people who knew him, the author has written the biography of that man who fascinated her 40 years ago.