Antonio Abad Ojuel(1911-1989)

Spanish screenwriter. He was born in Tudela in the province of Navarra on January 17, 1911. He attended the Lyceum and Faculty of Law in Zaragoza, from which he graduated with a degree in literature. In 1928 he joined the editorial office of the Zaragoza newspaper "El Noticiero." During the Spanish Civil War, he served as a war correspondent and was wounded while reporting on the conflict. In October 1936, he was appointed director of the San Sebastian newspaper "Unidad." In 1942 he moved to Madrid. He became noted as a theater critic, broadcasting reviews on Radio España. His journalistic quality and the merits of his style earned him the "Sotomayor" (1941) and "Virgen del Carmen" (1943) awards for excellence. He was secretary general of the journalists' trade union (1943-1946) as a specialist in social and economic problems. He was also the holder of the Film Literature chair at the Instituto de Investigaciones y Experiencias Cinematograficas (IIEC), a training center for Spanish filmmakers. As a screenwriter, he received the First Hispano-American Film Festival (1948) award for his adaptation of Cervantes' Don Quixote of La Mancha. He died in Madrid, 26 June 1989.