A singer who has made one film and made it count. In La bola negra he keeps still while everything around him swoops, and the camera keeps coming back to find out why. One part is not a career, but it is a proper start.
Fi1m perspective
La bola negra (2026) is a film that will not stand still. Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo swing their camera through three eras and a great many rooms, and the one thing in the picture that does not move is Guitarricadelafuente. As Sebastián he holds his face, holds his hands, and lets the others do the talking. When the camera finally stops, it is usually to look at him, and we do not think that is an accident. Whatever he has, the directors saw it and built the shots around it.
He arrived from somewhere else. He began posting covers on Instagram in 2017 while living in Barcelona, made a first album, La Cantera (2022), with the producer Raül Refree, and a second, Spanish Leather (2025). The music mixes indie folk with rumba, flamenco and older regional forms such as the jota, which is to say it is a young man's take on things his grandparents would recognise. Then Ambrossi and Calvo cast him, with no acting behind him, as the lead in their film built from Lorca's unfinished play. He has said of them that "that blind faith they had in me was what gave me the confidence to accept". The faith looks well placed.
What he plays is a man who cannot say what he wants, and he plays it from the inside, which is the hard way. Around him are Penélope Cruz, who can let a scene happen to her, and Lola Dueñas, who knows exactly how tired her character is, and he is not embarrassed by the company. We will admit to relief every time the film cut back to him: after another sweep through another decade, here was someone simply waiting, and the waiting was more eloquent than the swooping. The film is 155 minutes long and explains too much; he is the part of it that does not explain.
We do not yet know what else he can do. Stillness is a fine thing to have on a first outing, and it is also the easiest thing for a musician to bring to a set, because standing quietly in front of people is most of the job. A second director, less in love with him, will tell us whether it is a method or the only card. Until then, see La bola negra on the largest screen you can find, and watch what happens to the frame when it settles on him.
Biography
Guitarricadelafuente, born Álvaro Lafuente Calvo on 27 August 1997 in Benicàssim, Spain, is a Spanish singer-songwriter, guitarist and actor. He began sharing covers and original songs on Instagram in 2017 and released his debut album La Cantera in 2022, followed by Spanish Leather in 2025.
In 2026 he made his acting debut as Sebastián in the film La bola negra, directed by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi. He also composed and performed the song 'La Nieve' for the film, produced with Raül Refree.
