Biography
Álvaro Fernández is a producer based in Los Angeles and born in Sevilla, Spain. He is known for his dedication to concept and story development, specializing in working directly with writers and directors to create high-quality original content. Álvaro is known for "Life is No Joke" (2013) and also has a background in the video game industry.
Álvaro Fernández holds a BA in Audiovisual Communications from University of Sevilla, Spain (including a mobility scholarship to do research on new technologies applied to the teaching of film studies at Sussex University, UK) a Masters in Video Game Design from Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona, Spain) and a MFA in Film and TV Producing from New York Film Academy.
His first short film "Reflexiones" (Reflections), 2002, was featured in the late night show "1001 Noches", broadcast internationally on Andalucía Televisión. He later became a segment producer for this same show.
In 2003, Álvaro produced, directed and wrote the short film "Despierta" (Wake Up) and produced the documentary "Lágrimas Negras" (Black Tears), about the Prestige oil spoilage catastrophe. This documentary won the Special Jury Prize at the 2003 University of Sevilla Film Awards.
In 2004, Álvaro produced and co-directed the short-film "Inhyde", an adaptation of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", which enjoyed a festival run in Europe. In 2005 Álvaro moved his career to the video game industry, and completed a Master in Video Game Design. His thesis project, the platform game "Quimera", was finalist at the Playstation Video Game Creation Award at Art Futura 2006, the reference New Media festival in Spain. For the following years Álvaro worked for NCsoft Ltd., the world's leading developer and publisher of online computer games, as a Project Manager for the internationally acclaimed online game "Guild Wars", which sold over 7 million copies worldwide.
After moving to the United States in 2010, Álvaro focused his career completely in film producing and worked in several award-winning short-films, including "Life is No Joke" and "Bert's Plan", which have gathered accolades in international film festivals (Amsterdam Van Gogh Award, Mexico's Silver Palm, New York's Big Apple and CINE's Golden Eagle to name a few).
In 2016 Álvaro produced the documentary "Artur Schnabel: No Place of Exile" for ARTE and RBB, which explores Europe's rich heritage through one of the most iconic musicians of the Twentieth Century. Filmed in Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the United States, the project includes a fine art installation as part of an international concert series commemorating the figure of Artur Schnabel More recently, Álvaro also produced the documentaries "Wittgenstein's Repertoire" -about the pianist who built the left-hand alone piano repertoire- and "Mosolov's Suitcase" -a hybrid narrative-documentary exploration of the composer, bad-boy dandy, and forgotten genius of the Soviet avant-garde, featuring César-nominated actor Kirill Emelyanov-. These films form an intimate trilogy of classical music portraits directed by Matthew Mishory.
In 2020, Álvaro started production of the documentary "Elementary, Dear Wilder", about the legendary Austrian-American filmmaker and his film "The Secret Life of Sherlock Holmes" and two other documentary films by director Michael Mazur: "El Forajido: The Cautionary Tale of Toño Bicicleta" -a true crime documentary about the infamously beloved Puerto Rican criminal - and "Living as Though People Matter" -featuring the fascinating humanitarian work by Father Charlie Burrows in Indonesia-.
Álvaro's prolific work includes national commercial campaigns for clients like Pfizer, Roku, Royole, DirecTV, Best Buy and TCL, including their latest national campaign with NBA All-Star Giannis Antetokounmpo.
