Gwai Lou

Gwai Lou, meaning "foreign devil" in Cantonese, is the professional pseudonym of filmmaker, writer, visual artist, and film lecturer David Yánez. The nickname reflects his experience as an immigrant and his fluid cultural identity.

A native of Extremadura (Spain) and the son of fishmongers, he had little contact with the film industry until he took the plunge and self-financed his first feature film, Muchos Pedazos de Algo (18th Malaga Film Festival, 2015). Despite being produced on a shoestring budget, the film was released in theaters and later acquired by Netflix and Disney+ for the European region. The same year, he was selected for the Locarno Summer Academy and, later, Berlinale Talents in 2016. Since then, he has continued on the path of an independent filmmaker, directing four more features: Side-B (2018), Desaparecer (2020), Somewhere Over the Rainbow (2022) short in The Philippines, and, We Are The Jungle (2026) with which he won Best director and Film studies award at the 29th edition of the Malaga Film Festival, alongside a notable filmography of short films, including the multi-awarded The Girls Are Alright (2019) and Kumbang (2023).

Since 2016, he has lived in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where he balances his adventures as a filmmaker and cinematographer with teaching, serving as the Program Coordinator for the Bachelor of Digital Film Production at Sunway University.

His cinema, situated somewhere between digital realism, pop, and formalist art cinema, explores the microcosms of the working class and migrants, always from a first-person perspective. It draws connections between uprootedness and the endless search for "family."

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10811035

Filmography

Filmography as Director& Writer
2027 - How to Get Lost - feature, fiction (in postproduction)
2026 – Scrap Metal – short film, fiction (in postproduction)
2026 – We Are The Jungle - feature, fiction
2024 - This is not a pipe... – short film, fiction
2023 – Kumbang/Bugs – short film, fiction
2023 - Kuleshov Noir – short film, fiction
2021 - The New World – short film, fiction
2021 - Anomaly – short film, fiction
2020 – Target – short film, fiction
2020 – Reset – short film, fiction
2020 – Disappear – feature film, fiction
2020 - Cold Winter Tale – short film, fiction
2019 - The Girls Are Alright – short film, fiction
2019 – Wounds – short film, fiction
2019 - Filmmaker's Notebook #2 WARSAW/LODZ – short film, film essa
2018 - Side-B – feature film, fiction
2017 - Windows – vertical short film, fiction
2017 - Filmmaker's Notebook #1 NICE – short film, film essay
2015 – Many Pieces of Something - feature film, fiction
2014 – Portrait of Irina Grecco – short film, fiction
2013 – Inparadise – short film, fiction
2010– Room 303 – short film, fiction
2009 – When We Were Kings 1999-2009 – short film, documentary
2009 – Cold Winter Tale – short film, fiction
2007 - The Wanderer – short film, fiction
2005 - Playing by the Rules – short film, fiction
2004 –The Film Without Title – short film, fiction

Filmography as Cinematographer
2026 – We Are The Jungle - feature (Dir. Gwai Lou)
2025 – Macai - feature (Dir. Sun-J Perumal)
2024 - Simple Manusan - feature (Dir. Haran & Sobaan)
2024 - This Land of Mine - feature (Dir. Feisal Azizuddin)
2024 - Fire on the Water/Blues - feature (Dir. Sun-J Perumal)
2023 – Ayah - feature (Dir. Sew Teong Hin)
2022 – Somewhere Over the Rainbow - feature (Dir. Gwai Lou)
2022 – The Sky Beast/Ceroboh - feature (Dir. Feisal Azizuddin)
2021 – Barbarian Invasions - feature (Dir. Tan Chui Mui)
2020 - Can you love me most - short film (Dir. Feisal Azizuddin)
2020 - Sometime, Sometime - feature (Dir. Jacky Yap)
2019 - Metro Maalai - feature (Dir. Haran & Sobaan)