J. A. Bayona

Bayona's films are about children and parents facing loss, told with a horror film's tools. In The Orphanage, Laura raises her adopted son in the old orphanage where she grew up. A Monster Calls sends a monster to a boy named Conor, asking him to tell the truth. Society of the Snow follows the Uruguayan rugby team whose plane crashed into a glacier in the Andes in 1972.

Signature

• Grief and mothers and sons (The Orphanage, A Monster Calls).
• Horror techniques used for melodrama.
• Survival against nature (Society of the Snow).
• Spanish productions with international casts.