Month: September 2022

• Hellboy
• Hellboy II 
• Pan’s Labyrinth
• The Shape of Water
• Blade II
• Crimson Peak
• Nightmare Alley

Guillermo del Toro was born October 9, 1964 in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. Raised by his Catholic grandmother, del Toro developed an interest in filmmaking in his early teens. Later, he learned about makeup and effects from the legendary Dick Smith (The Exorcist) and worked on making his own short films. At the age of 21, del Toro executive produced his first feature, Dona Herlinda and Her Son. Del Toro spent almost 10 years as a makeup supervisor, and formed his own company, Necropia in the early 1980s. He also produced and directed Mexican television programs at this time, and taught film. – via IMDB

• Roma
• Gravity
• A Little Princess
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Alfonso Cuarón Orozco was born on November 28th in Mexico City, Mexico. From an early age, he yearned to be either a film director or an astronaut. However, he did not want to enter the army, so he settled for directing. – via IMDB

• Babel
• 21 Grams
• The One Percent

Alejandro González Iñárritu (ih-nyar-ee-too), born August 15th, 1963, is a Mexican film director. González Iñárritu is the first Mexican director to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director and by the Directors Guild of America for Best Director. He is also the first Mexican-born director to have won the Prix de la mise en scene or best director award at Cannes (2006), the second one being Carlos Reygadas in 2012. His six feature films, ‘Amores Perros’ (2000), ’21 Grams’ (2003), ‘Babel’ (2006), ‘Biutiful’ (2010), ‘Birdman’ (2014) and ‘The Revenant’ (2015), have gained critical acclaim world-wide including two Academy Award nominations. Alejandro González Iñárritu was born in Mexico City. – via IMDB

• Skin I Live In
• Talk To Her
• Pain and Glory
• Volver
• Julieta
• All About My Mother

The most internationally acclaimed Spanish filmmaker since Luis Buñuel was born in a small town (Calzada de Calatrava) in the impoverished Spanish region of La Mancha. He arrived in Madrid in 1968, and survived by selling used items in the flea-market called El Rastro. Almodóvar couldn’t study filmmaking because he didn’t have the money to afford it. Besides, the filmmaking schools were closed in early 70s by Franco’s government. Instead, he found a job in the Spanish phone company and saved his salary to buy a Super 8 camera. From 1972 to 1978, he devoted himself to make short films with the help of of his friends. The “premieres” of those early films were famous in the rapidly growing world of the Spanish counter-culture. In few years, Almodóvar became a star of “La Movida”, the pop cultural movement of late 70s Madrid. His first feature film, Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls Like Mom, was made in 16 mm and blown-up to 35 mm for public release. In 1987, he and his brother Agustín Almodóvar established their own production company: El Deseo, S. A. The “Almodóvar phenomenon” has reached all over the world, making his films very popular in many countries. – via IMDB

• Un Chien Andalou
• L’Age d’Or
• Viridiana

The father of cinematic Surrealism and one of the most original directors in the history of the film medium, Luis Buñuel was given a strict Jesuit education (which sowed the seeds of his obsession with both religion and subversive behavior), and subsequently moved to Madrid to study at the university there, where his close friends included Salvador Dalí and Federico García Lorca. – via IMDB