Ángela Molina

Molina was born in Madrid on 5 October 1955, the daughter of singer Antonio Molina and Ángela Tejedor. Her siblings Paula, Mónica and Miki have also pursued an acting career. Another of her siblings, Noel, is a composer.

She studied dance and theatre art in the Escuela Superior de Madrid. She made her film debut in 1975 with César Fernández Ardavín's No matarás. Another early major credit is her performance as Rosa (a sexually provocative woman and unwed mother) in Black Brood (1977), a film portraying fascist violence in post-Francoist Spain. She rose to international prominence after starring in Luis Buñuel's last film That Obscure Object of Desire (1977). She has worked with such directors as Luis Buñuel, the Taviani brothers, Jaime Chávarri, Pedro Almodóvar, Fernando Colomo, Jaime Camino, José Luis Borau, Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, Giuseppe Tornatore, Bigas Luna, Alain Tanner, Julio Medem, Ridley Scott, Lina Wertmüller, Luigi Comencini, Sergio Castellitto and Jaime de Armiñán. In 1985, she became the first foreign actress to win the Italian cinematographic David di Donatello prize for her role in Lina Wertmüller's Camorra. She was awarded the prize for Best Actress at the Donostia-San Sebastian International Film Festival in 1987 for her role in Half of Heaven. She was also repeatedly nominated for the Goya Awards (Spanish cinematographic awards). In 1999, she was the Head of the Jury at the 49th Berlin International Film Festival. She was awarded with the Gold Medal of Merit in the Fine Arts in 2002 and the Spanish National Prize of Cinematography in 2016.