After a decade as a theatre director, Ventura Pons directed his first film in 1977, Ocaña, an intermittent portrait, which was officially selected by the 1978 Cannes Film Festival. With twenty two feature films, twenty produced by his own company Els Films de la Rambla, S.A., founded in 1985, he has become one of the best-known Catalan film directors. His films are continuously programmed in the best International Festivals, with a main interest from the Berlinale, where he has been officially selected during five consecutive years, and distributed in a lot of countries around the world.
He has been the subject of homages by the Bogota, Thessaloniki, Belgrade, Dijon and Luxembourg Film Festivals. The ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts) in London, the Lincoln Center in New York, the Buenos Aires, Warsaw, Valdivia and the Istanbul Film Festival, the Tel-Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa Cinematheques in Israel and the American Cinematheque in Los Angeles have presented retrospectives of his films. He has been Vice-President of the Spanish Film Academy and has also been awarded with the National Film Award from the Catalan Government, the prestigious Ondas Award, the City of Huesca Award and the Spain Fine Arts Gold Medal and the Catalan Sant Jordi Cross.
PRINCIPAL RETROSPECTIVES AND HOMAGES
1994: Bogota Film Festival (Colombia)
1998: Thessaloniki Film Festival (Greece)
1999: ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts) London (United Kingdom)
1999: Belgrade Film Festival (Serbia)
1999: Lincoln Center, New York (USA)
2000: Dijon Film Festival (France)
2000: Independent Film Festival of Buenos Aires (Argentina)
2000: Huesca Film Festival (Spain)
2000: Strasbourg Spanish Film Festival (France)
2001: American Cinematheque, Hollywood, Los Angeles (USA)
2001: Istanbul Film Festival (Turkey)
2001: Caracas Film Festival (Venezuela)
2002: Montevideo Cinematheque (Uruguay)
2002: Argentinian Cinematheque, Buenos Aires (Argentina)
2003: Tel-Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa Cinematheques (Israel)
2003: Warsaw Film Festival (Poland)
2003: Valdivia Film Festival (Chile)
2004: Lima Spanish Film Festival (Peru)
2004: Madrid Experimental Film Fest (Spain)
2005: Asunción Film Fest (Paraguay)
2005: Stockholm Instituto Cervantes (Sweeden)
2006: Damascus (Syria), Beirut (Libanon) & Amman (Jordan) Instituto Cervantes
2006: Inquiet / Valencia (Spain)
2007: Som Festival Mollerussa (Spain)
2007: Viena Instituto Cervantes (Austria)
2008: IDEM Film Festival (Spain)
2008: Istambul Pera Museum and Instituto Cervantes (Turkey)
2008: Cinematik Film Festival (Slovakia)
2009: Lima Film Festival, XIII Encuentro Latinoamericano de cine (Peru)
2010: Rome Instituto Cervantes (Italy)
2011: Jamaia Millia Islamaia University New Delhi (India)
2011: Belgrad Cinematheque (Serbia)
2011: Montpellier Film Festival (France)