Rosario Pi was a Catalan film director, producer, and screenwriter. With the release of her 1936 film ''El Gato montés'' (''
The Wildcat)'' she became one of Spain's women film pioneers, along with
Elena Jordi
Elena Jordi (born Montserrat Casals Baque; 20 November 1882 - 6 December 1945) was the first woman in Spain to become a film director
A film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or scr ...
and
Helena Cortesina
Helena Cortesina (also known as Elena Cortesina or Elena Manuela Dolores Cortés Altabas) was a Spanish film director, actor, producer, and theatrical entrepreneur. She directed and produced the first known film by a Spanish woman, '' Flor de Espa ...
. She also directed ''Molinos de viento''.
Her Star Films Movie Company produced the first talkies in Spain.
Biography
Rosario was born in
Barcelona in 1899 into a family that owned a textile factory in
Sabadell
Sabadell () is a city in Catalonia, Spain. It is in the south of the ''comarca'' of Vallès Occidental and its joint capital (co-capital), on the River Ripoll, north of Barcelona. Sabadell is located above sea level.
Sabadell pioneered the Ind ...
. She walked with a limp from a young age (likely due to
polio, according to historians).
As a young woman, she forged a path for herself as an entrepreneur, starting her own
lingerie business in Barcelona. When her business failed in 1929, she moved to Madrid and entered the fledgling film industry, forming a production company called Star Films. Star Films produced the first Spanish talkies. In 1935 she made her debut as director with ''
El Gato Montés
''El gato montés'' ("The Wild Cat") is an opera in three acts composed by Manuel Penella who also wrote the Spanish-language libretto. It premiered on 23 February 1916 at the Teatro Principal in Valencia. The opera enjoyed great success in S ...
'' (The Wildcat), released in 1936, an adaptation of the
Manuel Penella Moreno's operetta of the same name.
After she moved back to Barcelona to direct her second feature film ''Molinos de viento'' in 1937, during the
Spanish Civil War, her career as a filmmaker more or less ended, and she was forced into
exile
Exile is primarily penal expulsion from one's native country, and secondarily expatriation or prolonged absence from one's homeland under either the compulsion of circumstance or the rigors of some high purpose. Usually persons and peoples suf ...
in Italy.
Unfortunately, her film ''Molinos de viento,'' starring
Maria Mercader
Maria Carla Mercader (November 28, 1965 – March 29, 2020) was an American journalist and news producer who worked for CBS News for over three decades. For her work producing a CBS feature report about computer spam, Mercader won a business E ...
, is lost. In Rome, she worked as
Maria Mercader
Maria Carla Mercader (November 28, 1965 – March 29, 2020) was an American journalist and news producer who worked for CBS News for over three decades. For her work producing a CBS feature report about computer spam, Mercader won a business E ...
's agent, who soon became one of
Cinecittà film studios stars. Some critics believe that Pi Brujas continued working in the film industry in Rome, and was the uncredited director of the film ''Forza bruta'' (1940). For Magí Crusells and Jordi Sebastian, back in Madrid, she run a restaurant and worked as a journalist under the pseudonym of Rizpay.
For Martin-Márquez she instead got a job at the Casa Mabel, a fashion designer that produced costumes for the film industry and made
Ana Mariscal's dresses.
Ironically, Mariscal was the actress who, just a few years later, would take Rosario Pi's place as the sole woman filmmaker in Spain.
Selected filmography
As producer
* ''¡Yo quiero que me lleven a Hollywood!'' (medium length film, directed by Edgard Neville, 1932).
* ''El hombre que se reía del amor'' (feature film, directed by Benito Perojo, 1932)
* ''Odio'' (feature film, directed by Richard Harlan, 1933)
* ''Doce hombres y una mujer'' (feature film, directed by Fernando Delgado, 1934)
As director
*''El Gato montés'' (The Wildcat) (1936)
*''Molinos de viento'' (The Windmills) (1937) - lost
*''Forza bruta'' (''Brute Force'') (1940) - uncredited
As screenwriter
* ''Doce hombres y una mujer'' (feature film, directed by Fernando Delgado, 1934)
References
Further reading
* Riambau, Esteve (2019) ''Laya Films i el cinema a Catalunya durant la Guerra Civil.'' Barcelona, L'Avenç
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pi, Rosario
1899 births
1967 deaths
Women film pioneers
Spanish women film directors
Spanish film directors