A city on the northern coast which turned its back on the country side long ago and surrounded itself with industries which forced it to grow disproportionately, pushing and shoving, fed it with emigration and workers and painted a horizon of chimneys, of problems and hopes, of future uprooting. A group of men who walks its hilly streets every day, hooking for life's emergency exits. Long term fear, people who perform a balancing act at the end of the month and the beginning too, performers without a net and without an audience, without applause at the end, who daily walk the thrigtrope of the precarious employment, who prop up their existence with a scaffolding of hope, and convert their few happy moments into trenches, conversation, routine, as if the shipwreck from which they daily try to save themselves weren't theirs, while they talk of their exploits and laugh, at every thing and nothing particularly, full of hope, relaxed, on Monday morning in the sun.

FERNANDO LEON DE ARANOA was born in Madrid in May, 1968, and graduated in Audio-Visual Sciences from the Complutense University of Madrid.
He wrote and directed the feature film BARRIO (1998), produced by Elias Querejeta, which won the categories of Best Director, Best Original Script and Best New Actress in the 1999 Goya Awards presented by the Spanish Academy of Film Arts and Sciences. He won the Silver Conch for Best Director at the 46th San Sebastian International Film Festival, and also the Best Script Award, the Circle of Film Writers' Award and a Special Mention from the specialist critics (Fipresci) at that festival. He won the Fotogramas Award for Best Film of the Year, the Our Cinema Award given by Canal+ in its second edition, the IV Jose Maria Forque Award to the best Spanish production of the year, the Best Film of the Year Award given by the newspaper El Mundo in the Basque Country, the Cartelera Turia's Best Film Award and the Circle of Film Writers Award for Best Director. The film was also shown in the official section of the Sundance Film Festival in 1999.
He wrote and directed the feature film FAMILIA (1996), produced by Elias Querejeta, with which he won various national and international prizes such as Best New Director
in the 1998 Goya awards presented by the Spanish Academy of Film Arts and Sciences as well as the Best Director Award, the Audience Award and a Special Mention from the International Critics (Fipresci) at the 41st Valladolid International Film Week. Chosen for the Berlin International Film Festival in 1997, it also won the Gold Medal for Best Foreign Film at the Houston International Film Festival, the Best Film Award at the Festival of Hispanic Cinema in Miami, the Sant Jordi award for Best First Film shown in 1997, the Circle of Film Writers Award for Best New Director, the Cartelera Turia Award for Best First Film and that of the Association of Catalonian Critics.
Recently, its theatrical version was premiered by Carles Sans, a member of the Tricicle company.
He wrote and directed the short film SIRENAS (1994), produced by Xaloc, P.C., the winner of the Community of Madrid Award in the Alcalä de Henares Film Festival and the award for Best Script at the Badalona Independent Film Festival.
Recently he wrote and directed the documentary CAMINANATES about the EZLN march in February of this year to the capital of Mexico. He has also participated in such documentaries as IZBJEGLICE (Refugees in Bosnia Herzegovina), PRIMARIAS and LA ESPALDA DEL MUNDO.
He has written several feature film scripts, including FAUSTO, directed by the theater company La Fura dels Baus, and included in the Official Section of the Venice International Film Festival this year, LA GRAN VIDA, INSOMNIO, CHA CHA CHA, CORAZON LOCO, winner of the Best Comedy Script Award in the X edition of the Perliscola Film Festival. POR FIN SOLOS, LOS HOMBRES SIEMPRE MIENTEN and ESQUIVEL! for Fox Searchlight, presently at the script development stage.
A writer for television series such as TURNO DE OFICIO (Diez ailos despus), UNISEX or POR FIN SOLOS, he has also written programs for various genres such as UN, DOS, TRES by Ibätiez Serrador or the MARTES Y TRECE television spectacles, among others.
The scripts of his two films FAMILIA and BARRIO, have been published, as well as various articles and short stories, including WALKIE TALKIES (Alfaguara), ENFERMOS (Plaza y Janös), MENSAJES, which won second prize in the XV edition of the Antonio Machado award and LAPICEROS, finalist in the same international competition in its XVII edition.