User:JR Villar

JR Villar (João Luís Losada Roque Rei Villar) was born in Lisbon, in 1969 and raised in Cascais, his family's town in Portugal.

Cascais is a magic, mythic place. The town of refuge for the kings during World War II. The Spanish, Italian, French, Bulgarian and Romanian royal families and many artists like Zsa Zsa Gabor took shelter in the glamorous hotels near the beach in Estoril and Cascais.

Ian Fleming started the adventures of James Bond at the Hotel Palacio in Estoril, due to his own experiences when he also lived in the hotel.

Living in this aura just next door to his school, from an early age JR Villar showed an above the average creativity in many different subjects, especially in music, acting, illustration, and storytelling.

In 1988 directed is first short animated cartoon, "La vie en Gris", for the event Animathon International by the hand of the Academy Nominee André Leduc and the National Film Board of Canada. For this short animation film (16mm) JR Villar won his first world praise, an "honour special". This was the first step in the Film and Television career.

In 2011 JR Villar moved to the United Kingdom and lives in York.

The lack of choices in Portugal to study film and television by the early 90's made him follow a graphic design degree, after serving as an Anti-Aircraft Sergeant, being awarded for his discipline, respect, and leadership, over a platoon of antiaircraft units.

With the emergence of the first Portuguese private TV channels in the middle 90's, a couple of Universities started to offer some TV and Media degrees.

So JR Villar had the opportunity to enrich his curriculum, with post-graduate degrees in Cinema and TV (In 1999-2001), becoming the best student of the year, and also a Master in Broadcast, Media and New Media (2009-2010), with his work leading him to be invited to work for a major TV producer in Portugal before finishing his studies. In 2009 and 2010, he also attended different lectures of scriptwriting taught by Robert McKee: "Story" and "Genre". In parallel JR Villar also studied Drama and Acting at the UM Lisbon University, with the Stella Adler Conservatory of NY, and attended a Musical Theatre summer school at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.