Isabel Coixet Castillo (Catalan: [izəˈβɛl kuˈʃɛt]; born 9 April 1960) is a Spanish film director. She is one of the most prolific film directors of contemporary Spain, having directed twelve feature-length films since the beginning of her film career in 1988, in addition to documentary films, shorts, and commercials. Her films depart from the traditional national cinema of Spain, and help to “untangle films from their national context ... clearing the path for thinking about national film from different perspectives.” The recurring themes of “emotions, feelings, and existential conflict” coupled with her distinct visual style secure the “multifaceted (she directs, writes, produces, shoots, and acts)” filmmaker's status as a “Catalan auteur.”
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Early life
Isabel Coixet was born in Sant Adrià del Besòs near Barcelona on 9 April 1960. She started filming when she was given an 8 mm camera on the occasion of her First Communion. After obtaining a BA degree in history at Barcelona University, where she majored in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century history, she worked in advertising and spot writing for the cinema magazine Fotogramas. She continued in the world of advertising, standing out as creative director of the agency JWT.
Career
Coixet made her first short film in 1984, Mira y verás. In 1988, Coixet made her debut as a scriptwriter and director in Demasiado Viejo Para Morir Joven (Too Old to Die Young). For this movie, she was nominated at the Goya Awards as a Best New Director. In 1996, she traveled to the United States to shoot her first English-language feature film, entitled Things I Never Told You (Cosas que nunca te dije). This drama cast American actors led by Lili Taylor and Andrew McCarthy. Coixet received her second nomination at the Goya Awards for Best Original Screenplay. Coixet then connected with a French production company, and in 1998 she shot — for the first time in Spain and in Spanish — the historical adventure A los que aman. Two years later she founded her own production company, with which she produced her most acclaimed film to date, Mi vida sin mí (My Life Without Me). Since then she has been one of the most acclaimed directors of Spanish cinema.
In 2000, she founded her own production company called Miss Wasabi Films, for which she has produced over 400 commercials. Her international success came in 2003 thanks to the intimate drama My Life Without Me. The film was based on a short story by Nancy Kincaid. Canadian actress Sarah Polley played Ann, a young mother who decides to hide from her family that she has terminal cancer. This Hispanic-Canadian co-production was highly praised at the Berlin International Film Festival. Coixet then continued working with Polley as her lead actress with the film The Secret Life of Words, which was released in 2005 and also starred Tim Robbins and Javier Cámara. The film was awarded four Goyas: Best Film, Best Director, Best Production and Best Screenplay.
In 2005, Coixet joined eighteen other international filmmakers, among them Gus Van Sant, Walter Salles and Joel and Ethan Coen, to make the groundbreaking collective project Paris, je t’aime, in which each director explored a different Paris quarter. Coixet made prominent documentaries on major themes, such as Invisibles, which was selected for the "Panorama" section of the 2007 Berlin Film Festival, about the international medical organization Doctors Without Borders. Also the documentary Journey to the Heart of Torture, which was filmed in Sarajevo during the Balkan War and won an award at the October 2003 Human Rights Film Festival.
In April 2006, she was honored with the Creu de San Jordi De Cine Awards by the Generalitat de Catalunya. The Barcelona director received not one but two awards. In addition to the critical award for The Secret Life of Words (La vida secreta de las palabras) as the best Spanish film, she also received the Rosa de Sant Jordi prize, voted by the audience of Radio Nacional de España (RNE), for the best production. The award ceremony was held at the Palau de la Música.
Productions
Coixet created her own production company in 2000, Miss Wasabi, with the vocation to self-produce her own more personal projects. The production company has dedicated itself basically to advertising, the making of video clips, documentaries and a fictional feature film, but also to projects outside the audiovisual sector, such as exhibitions, books and other types of cultural projects. Among the main projects, directed and produced by Isabel Coixet, are the documentary Aral, el mar perdido (2009), From I to J (2010), Escuchando al Juez Garzón (2011), the feature film Ayer no termina nunca (2013), or Talking about Rose. Prisoner of Hissène Habré (2015).
50 años de...
On the occasion of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of TVE Catalunya (TVE Cataluña), Coixet, along with fifteen other Catalan documentary filmmakers, had the idea of capturing images, taken from the archive of Televisión Española, of the last half-century in Spain. The programme 50 years of... (50 años de…) is in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the first TVE broadcast in Catalonia, whose first headquarters was the mythical Miramar Hotel in Barcelona, which was maintained for twenty-four years, until 1983, when the production center was moved to San Cugat del Vallés. There has been a second season, as well as a third entitled Cómo hemos cambiado.
Personal life and political views
Coixet has a daughter, Zoe, born in 1997, and lives in Barcelona with her boyfriend, Reed Brody, a human rights lawyer.
In October 2012 Coixet was one of the signatories of the "Call to the federalist and left-wing Catalonia" manifesto, asking the Catalan left-wing for an unabashed federalist stance vis-à-vis the State. She openly declared her opposition to the October 2017 independence referendum held in Catalonia, signing another manifesto calling on people not to take part in the vote. In April 2020 she signed a manifesto to say "enough" to the "Catalan government's political mismanagement" and "its unsupportive and irresponsible statements" on the coronavirus crisis.
Coixet's political and feminist involvement is evident. For example, The Secret Life of Words is a film that denounces the rapes certain women suffered in the Balkan Wars.
Pledge
In September 2025, she signed an open pledge with Film Workers for Palestine pledging not to work with Israeli film institutions "that are implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people."
Filmography
Film
Producer only
Clue (2008) (Executive Producer)
Nobody's Watching (2017) (co-producer)
Distances (2018) (Associate producer)
Producer
Meteoritos (1997)
Jealousy (2002) (executive producer)
Teeth (2014) (also executive producer)
Sara a la fuga (2015)
Documentaries
Associate producer
Hotel Explotación: Las Kelly's (2018)
Drowning Letters (2020)
Awards
Goya Awards
Medals of the Circle of Cinematographic Writers
Feroz Awards
Forqué Awards
Gaudí Awards
Butaca Awards
Other Awards
National Film and Audiovisual Prize of Catalonia (2002) for the film My Life Without Me.
Premio Creu de Sant Jordi de cine (2006).
Ojo Crítico de Cine Award in its XIV Edition for the film, My Life Without Me, for the “sincerity and sensitivity of its cinematographic language”.
Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters (2015) for his contribution to the world of art and culture
Atlantida Award from the Catalan Publishers (2016)
Award for the Best Literary Adaptation at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2017, for the adapted script of The Bookshop.
International Award Yo Dona 2018
Premio Nacional de Cinematografía de España 2020.
Books
My Life Without Me (Mi vida sin mí) (2003)
La vida es un guión (2004)
La vida secreta de las palabras (2005)
Mapa de los sonidos de Tokio (2009)
Isabel Muñoz (2009)
From I to J (2009)
Alguien debería prohibir los domingos por la tarde (2011)
La vida secreta de Isabel Coixet (2011)