Félix Sabroso Cruz, known professionally as Félix Sabroso, is a screenwriter and filmmaker born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in 1965. His career cannot be understood without that of the filmmaker Dunia Ayaso, also born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in 1961. They began their professional career together in Madrid, at the end of the 80s of the 20th century. Both acquired the necessary professional experience writing scripts for their own production programs broadcasted by television channels such as RTVE, Antena 3, ETB or TVGA.
In 1994, Sabroso and Ayaso wrote, directed and produced their first feature film, Fea (Spain, 1994), a completely independent work. Both continued to write for television during the following years, alternating this work with their work in the world of theater. As writers on some occasions and directors on others, they managed to premiere plays on stage such as Other Women, What became of the Sue sisters?, The Powerfull Boys, Glory under the arm o The sinking of the Titanic.
In 1997, the two screenwriters wrote and directed the feature film Perdona bonita, pero Lucas me quería a mí (Spain, 1997), starring Pepón Nieto and Jordi Mollá, among other actors, which won the Audience Award at the Maspalomas Festival on the island of Gran Canaria. The film was screened in Miami, Tokyo and San Francisco, California, and was a respectable box-office success in Spain. In 1998 they write and direct the feature film El grito en el cielo (Spain, 1998), another choral and crazy comedy along the lines of the previous one, in which they incorporate actress María Conchita Alonso, together with María Pujalte and Candela Peña, to the cast. With this film, both filmmakers attended film festivals in Miami and Denver, both in the United States, and in Tokyo.
In 1999 they directed the sitcom for the private channel Telecinco, Quítate tú pa ponerme yo (Spain, Telecinco, 1999-2000), a 13-episode sitcom. With the new millennium, both filmmakers publish Slightly Altered Women (Planeta), a book of female theatrical monologues, which are performed in Spanish by actress Antonia San Juan, both in Spain and Latin America, and in English by actress Puy Navarro at the American Globe Theater in New York.
Produced by El Deseo, S.A. and Mediapro, Sabroso and Ayaso made two relevant works. Firstly, they write, direct and premiere their fourth feature film Descongélate (Spain, 2003). Starring Candela Peña, the actress won the Ondas Award for Best Actress. Second, they wrote and directed the television series Mujeres (Spain, RTVE, 2005). RAI acquired the series and broadcast it in 2006 for Italy.
In 2007 both filmmakers made their fifth feature film, The Naked Years. Classified S (Spain, 2007), a film of important historical value that traces the years of the "destape" in Spain, starring Candela Peña, Goya Toledo, Mar Flores and Antonio de la Torre.
Both filmmakers directed La isla interior (Spain, 2009), based on their own script. Shot entirely in Gran Canaria, it was the last film that both filmmakers shot together. Once again Candela Peña heads the cast, accompanied on this occasion by none other than Alberto San Juan, Cristina Marcos, Geraldine Chaplin, Celso Bugallo and Antonio de La Torre. The film won more than a dozen awards, including best actor for Alberto San Juan at the Valladolid Festival, and best film at the Nantes Festival in France, as well as the Navaja de Buñuel, awarded by TVE and SGAE to the best film of the year.
Away from the cinema for a few years, Sabroso and Ayaso wrote and premiered the theatrical comedy The Great Depression in 2011. The play starred Loles León (who is in all the films shot by both filmmakers) and Bibiana Fernández. The theatrical production won the Shangay award for best theatrical production and the Cosmopolitan was awarded for its actresses.
In February 2014, after a long illness, Dunia Ayaso passed away in Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
Short films The Banjo (2014) y I Carry Letters (2015) y Utherapyin the outskirts (2016), constitute some of the stylistic exercises directed by Sabroso exclusively. The films The Time of Monsters (Spain, 2015) starring Javier Cámara, Candela Peña and Carmen Machi, and Sing and Don't Cry (Spain, 2024) are the most recent feature films directed by Sabroso.
Only Men Go To The Grave (Spain, 2016), directed by Abdulla Al-Kaabi, has a script in which Dunia Ayaso, Félix Sabroso himself and the aforementioned director Al-Kaabi had participated before her death.
Félix Sabroso triumphs in television with two series: Mentiras Pasajeras (El Deseo and Paramount TV, 2024) with Elena Anaya, Pilar Castro and Hugo Silva about industrial espionage, and Furia (HBO Max, 2025), a series about the collective catharsis of five women in extreme situations. It stars Carmen Machi, Candela Peña, Cecilia Roth, Pilar Castro and Nathalie Poza, among others.
