Leiva

José Miguel Conejo Torres learned to watch the camera long before stepping onto a film set. In the Madrid neighborhood of Alameda de Osuna, he was pounding the drums before anyone knew what Pereza was, but audiovisual language had always been lingering in his mind as a parallel craft.

Nobody expected a rocker in a leather jacket to end up with a shelf full of Goya statuettes.

In 2010, director Achero Mañas asked him to compose the incidental music for Todo lo que tú quieras. That first foray went largely unnoticed by the general public, but it taught him that composing for the screen means staying silent when the actor breathes and striking when the edit calls for it.

Three years later, he appeared as a street musician in Temporal, the feature film directed by José Luis López González that was released in 2013. But his definitive breakthrough in the industry came when two first-time directors put an outlandish script in front of him.

The Box Office Heist with Los Javis

Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi needed a song that would serve as the dramatic climax of their film adaptation of La Llamada in 2017. Leiva locked himself away with an acoustic guitar and wrote a pop-styled melody with gospel backing vocals that worked as a key narrative element throughout the entire film.

And the gamble paid off perfectly.

The song took off on streaming platforms, and in February 2018 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded him the Goya Award for Best Original Song, beating veteran symphonic musicians. On stage, he admitted feeling like a respectful intruder at someone else's party.

That victory changed his standing with film producers in Spain. Suddenly, directors were no longer looking for an archival track to fill the closing credits, but for a composer who could grasp the visual rhythm of the sequences.

Sabina's Shadow and the Documentary Pulse

In 2022, Fernando León de Aranoa wrapped a thirteen-year shoot about the life of Joaquín Sabina. The project needed a closing song that would sum up half a century of excess, stage falls and hotel rooms without sliding into a complacent tribute.

Leiva served as the music producer of the documentary feature Sintiéndolo mucho and co-wrote the title track with singer-songwriter from Jaén. The song was raw and smelled of burnt tobacco.

In 2023, the Academy honored him again with his second Goya Award for that shared composition. He thus achieved an unusual feat for an artist outside classical conservatories, winning two statuettes in the same category with only a handful of film projects under his belt.

But his involvement with real imagery went beyond accompanying other people's stories.

The Fixed Camera on the Collapse

In September 2023, filming began in New York on Hasta que me quede sin voz, a documentary directed by Mario Forniés and Lucas Nolla, produced by Blur and distributed by Sideral. The project completely ruled out glowing interviews and talking-head tributes from fellow professionals.

The film used 16mm footage, digital video and home recordings to capture a real physical crisis. A chronic vocal cord problem threatened to end his ability to sing live in the middle of an international tour.

The camera didn't look away when the operating room came into view.

In September 2025, the film premiered at the San Sebastián Film Festival in the Velódromo section before an audience of three thousand. In January 2026, the Academy confirmed a new Goya nomination for the original song written for the film, shot over twenty-four months of touring and medical consultations.

The feature film completed its run in commercial theaters with 91 minutes of footage without lyrical concessions, ending with a studio microphone cutting out abruptly during the final shot.