ALEJANDRO GONZALEZ INARRITU
Date of Birth: August 15, 1963
Born in Mexico City, Alejandro González Iñárritu studied drama under Polish director Ludwig Margules, then studied directing with Judith Weston in Los Angeles. Returning to Mexico, he became a DJ on WMF, a high profile Mexican rock music station, and made his directorial debut doing television commercials. In 1988 he began composing music for Mexican feature films, including Garra de tigre (1989). By the time he was 27 he had become one of the youngest artistic directors of Televisa, a large Mexican network. In 1991 he founded a society for producing short and advertising films as well as television programs. In 1995 he directed his first television movie, Detrás del dinero.
In partnership with Guillermo Arriaga, Iñárritu planned to make 11 short films to show the contradictory nature of Mexico City, but settled on three of the stories and decided to expand them, melding them into one feature length film. Called Amores perros (1999), the gritty look at the underbelly of Mexican life won an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film as well as a BAFTA Film Award for "Best Film not in the English Language," the Critics Week Grand Prize and Young Critics Award at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival as well as many more awards from festivals and societies around the world.
The success of Amores perros won Iñárritu an invitation to the U.S. to direct the Universal/Focus feature film 21 Grams, starring Benicio Del Toro, Naomi Watts and Sean Penn. First though, he did the final short in the BMW The Hire series, called Powder Keg, and directed the Mexico segment of the independent feature 11'09"01 - September 11 (2002).
For his next film, Babel (2006), starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, Iñárritu won Best Director at the 2006 Cannes Festival, as well as nominations from the Golden Globes and Academy Awards.
Filmography:
Babel(2006)
21 Grams(2003)
11'09''01 - September 11 (2002) (segment "Mexico")
Amores perros(2000)