Film director Isabel Coixet bequeaths a defence of the analogue world to future Cervantes
Film Director Isabel Coixet Bequeaths an Analogue Legacy
Poinews.com – Film director Isabel Coixet bequeaths a defence of the analogue world to the future through a personal deposit in the Instituto Cervantes’ Caja de las Letras. Her time capsule, placed in box 1586, includes a cassette tape, a handwritten letter and a collage created on the cover of an abandoned book published in 1913. It is scheduled to be opened in 2076.
The Spanish filmmaker, born in Sant Adrià del Besós in 1960, chose objects and memories that celebrate tactile, everyday life. Her references include a Bic biro, torrijas, clay water jugs and open-air summer cinemas—small details that may seem ordinary now but could hold a very different meaning for the person who discovers the box in five decades.
Rather than providing a single explanation, Coixet left the collage deliberately open to interpretation. Its images and references are intended to create an atmosphere, preserving ambiguity instead of offering future readers a fixed lesson about the present.
A cassette soundtrack for 2076
The cassette holds 18 songs by artists including Camarón and Lucho Gatica. Coixet especially highlighted “La lista de la compra,” the Catalan rumba performed by La Cabra Mecánica and María Jiménez.
For Coixet, the song captures domestic scenes that could become unfamiliar: crumbs on a kitchen table, mismatched plates, sweat and household cleaning. Film director Isabel Coixet bequeaths these images as part of a wider reflection on routines that are often unnoticed until they have vanished.
“It seems to me that in 50 years' time all the things that song talks about - the kitchen table covered in crumbs, those unbearable mixed plates, sweat, scrubbing, scouring - may well be a thing of the past.”
The musical selection is not designed as a formal history lesson. Instead, it preserves emotional associations through popular music, recognisable voices and fragments of daily life. Like the rest of the deposit, the tape values memory, material objects and personal feeling over tidy explanations.
A handwritten warning against easy certainty
Coixet wrote her letter by hand using a Bic biro, her favourite pen. The choice is itself part of her message: a tribute to a practical, accessible object that she wonders might no longer exist when the box is opened.
“I am writing this with a Bic biro, my favourite. I wonder if they still exist. You, whoever you are, do not be taken in by treatises on the wonders of the world. The Bic biro is one of humanity's great inventions.”
Her distrust of over-explanation recalls Florence Green, the central character in Coixet’s film The Bookshop. During the event, she cited Green’s phrase, “Understanding makes the mind lazy,” when explaining why she did not want to impose a definitive meaning on the collage.
Film director Isabel Coixet bequeaths an analogue legacy that is not simply nostalgic. Her choices defend independent taste, cultural spaces and imperfect everyday rituals, while also including a humorous wish that the future recipient does not encounter speciality coffee chains.
Coixet is due to receive the 2026 Antonio de Sancha Award from the Madrid Publishers’ Association. The prize recognises her efforts to bring literature closer to wider audiences and her defence of bookshops as places of cultural resistance. The ceremony also featured a conversation with Cristina Andreu, former president of the Association of Women Filmmakers and Audiovisual Media.
Frequently asked questions
When will Isabel Coixet’s Caja de las Letras deposit be opened?
Box 1586 at the Instituto Cervantes is scheduled to be opened in 2076.
What did Isabel Coixet place in the time capsule?
She deposited a cassette tape containing 18 songs, a handwritten letter written with a Bic biro and a collage made on the cover of an abandoned 1913 book.
What is the main idea behind Coixet’s deposit?
Film director Isabel Coixet bequeaths a personal defence of analogue objects, cultural memory and everyday experiences that she believes may change or disappear over time.