Born in Barcelona in 1975, J.A Bayona’s passion for cinema began early, encouraged by his father, an artist who painted the big promotional posters on the facades of the city’s movie theaters. He studied Cinema at the Catalan film school ESCAC (Escola de Cinema i Audiovisuals de Catalunya). His film career started directing commercials and music videos, as well as two internationally acclaimed and awarded short films, Mis Vacaciones (My Holidays, 1999) and El Hombre Esponja (The Sponge-Man, 2002).
The Orphanage, his feature directorial debut, was written by Sergio G. Sánchez and executive-produced by Guillermo del Toro. It also marked the beginning of his creative alliance with producer Belén Atienza. The critically acclaimed movie premiered at the 2007 Cannes’ Critics’ Week and received a ten-minute standing ov
Born in Barcelona in 1975, J.A Bayona’s passion for cinema began early, encouraged by his father, an artist who painted the big promotional posters on the facades of the city’s movie theaters. He studied Cinema at the Catalan film school ESCAC (Escola de Cinema i Audiovisuals de Catalunya). His film career started directing commercials and music videos, as well as two internationally acclaimed and awarded short films, Mis Vacaciones (My Holidays, 1999) and El Hombre Esponja (The Sponge-Man, 2002).
The Orphanage, his feature directorial debut, was written by Sergio G. Sánchez and executive-produced by Guillermo del Toro. It also marked the beginning of his creative alliance with producer Belén Atienza. The critically acclaimed movie premiered at the 2007 Cannes’ Critics’ Week and received a ten-minute standing ovation. The Orphanage was also an international box office success and it was nominated to five European Film Awards. It also won seven Goyas, Spain’s main national annual film awards, among them the Outstanding New Director prize for Bayona. In 2016, Bayona released A Monster Calls, a powerful tale of loss, love and acceptance based on the novel by Patrick Ness, who also wrote the screenplay. Starring Liam Neeson, Felicity Jones, Sigourney Weaver and Lewis MacDougall. A Monster Calls won one European Film Award and nine Goya Awards, among them the Best Director prize.
Before jumping to his biggest movie yet, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Bayona executive-produced Sergio G. Sánchez’s feature debut, Marrowbone, starring George MacKay and Anya Taylor-Joy. In 2018, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom opened in theaters. The second chapter in the Jurassic World trilogy, executive-produced by Steven Spielberg and starring Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Toby Jones, James Cromwell and Jeff Goldblum, became a box office juggernaut, grossing $1.3 billion worldwide.
On September 2, 2022, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, based on the legendary work by J.R.R. Tolkien will premiere on Prime Video. Bayona directed the first two episodes of this new Amazon Original Series and he is also one of its executive producers, alongside Belén Atienza.
Currently, J.A. Bayona is in Spain shooting his next feature film, Society of Snow, a Netflix Original based on the book La sociedad de la nieve by Pablo Vierci. The Spanish-language movie describes the harrowing events of the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, which in 1972 was chartered to fly a rugby team to Chile and catastrophically crashed on a glacier in the heart of the Andes. Only 29 of the 45 passengers survived the crash.
