By Elia Esparza
His filmmaking journey began in Mexico, but it didn’t take long for Hollywood to notice Alfonso Cuarón’s skill and natural talent for directing. In Hollywood, he started with A Little Princess (1995), Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), Children of Men (2006), Gravity (2013), a space thriller that would go win 7 academy awards. He capped his list of achievements with the successful sci-fi TV series, Believe in 2014. Cuarón film jobs have taken him all over the globe and eventually made London his new home.
I believe that human beings are born first and given passports later. I’m really thankful for my journey. And it’s a journey I didn’t design” – Alfonso Cuaron
However, for this celebrated Hollywood titan, Cuarón has made a full circle in his career by returning to his native land, Mexico, where he filmed, Roma. It is his first move since his 2013 Oscar Award-winning Gravity.
“I can live abroad, but my head always thinks about Mexico, and as a Mexican, I am always aware of what is happening in my country,” he explained. “Returning to Mexico to make movies was a necessity.”
There is so much buzz surrounding his mysterious new movie. What we do know is that Roma chronicles a year in the life of a middle-class family in Mexico City in the early 1970’s and is loosely based on things that happened around Cuaron’s own life.
“It is the movie I’ve always dreamed of making,” he admitted during a press conference in Mexico when Roma wrapped. The cast is made up mostly of local Mexican actors, and the film is targeted for a 2018 release date.
Roma’s details are sketchy—a testament to some creative film PR— Cuarón is tight-lipped on plot revelations, he did offer this:
“Returning to my country with this specific project was something very personal because we made a film set in the ’70s, with many elements and experiences of my childhood,” the director told press. He referred to the film as “quite a universal story.”
There have been some reports that the film will include a major historical event called The Corpus Christi Massacre, in which soldiers killed liberal student protesters.
A deep and thoughtful storyteller, Cuarón has described using an anecdote, fellow director Guillermo Del Toro once told him. “He told me that certain movies are like a box of cereal with a prize included because when you’re a kid, you’d eat it all up to know what you got,” he recalled. “Gravity was for me that little toy, and I made the decision to use it to go back to Mexico and make the film I had always dreamed of.”
To make Roma, Cuarón, partnered with Netflix and he became his own cinematographer. It has been a long process, nearly four years after Gravity, the 56-year old filmmaker took his time to make what he considers the “most essential movie” of his career.
Why did Cuarón go the Netflix route?
He said that the streaming giant was the best home for a secretive project that may be the closest he has come to an autobiography, and brought him back to his roots. In addition, in an interview that Cuarón and Executive Producer David Linde, CEO, Participant Media gave, Cuarón admitted a conventional theatrical release “worried” him because Roma is a Spanish-language drama shot in black and white, featuring a cast of unknown actors.
Having a no-name actors cast, made Roma a harder sell. Cuarón wanted to partner with a distributor offering a more aggressive theatrical plan, which is what he said Netflix offered.
As of date, Netflix has embraced Roma with passion and are handling it with kid gloves. So protective that recently it was reported that Roma would not be seen at the Cannes Film Festival—the Big Kahuna of all film festivals! Cannes. And, boy did they want this film but a little rule spat killed the deal. Apparently, there is a rule CFF reinstated that states films must receive French theatrical distribution to be eligible to premiere in the competition lineup. Netflix skips theatrical releases in France and instead immediately streams them on its French service as films released theatrically in the country can’t be made available for streaming platforms until three years after their in-theater debut.
So, no, Roma, in Cannes.
As for the rest of the public, we’ll have to wait until it streams on Netflix, hopefully in December. For now, we have a cryptic trailer clip, reveals the film is in black and white foreign-language film with absolutely no high profile actors. It’s enough to drive any studio marketing department to get nervous and go nuts!
Roma heads to the Venice Film Festival in September. The rest of us will have to wait for Cuaron’s coming-of-age tale to see if it gets a general theatrical release before streaming on Netflix.
Roma Shot on 65mm Film with Dolby Atmos Sound Director/Writer: Alfonso Cuarón Producers: Nicolas Celis, Alfonso Cuarón, Gabriela Rodriguez Executive Producer: David Linde/Participant Media Cinematographer: Alfonso Cuarón Editors: Alfonso Cuarón, Adam Gough Casting Director: Luis Rosales Cast: Yalitza Aparicio, Marina de Tavira, Diego Cortina Autrey, Carlos Peralta, Marco Graf, Daniela Demesa, Nancy Garcia Garcia, Veronica Garcia, Andy Cortes, Fernando Grediaga, Jorge Antonio Guerrero, Jose Manuel Guerrero Mendoza, Latin Lover, Zarela Lizeth Chinolla Arellano, Jose Luis Lopez Gomez, Edwin Mendoza Ramirez, Clementina Guadarrama, Enoc Leano, Nicolas Perez Taylor Felix, Kjartan Halvorsen
Alfonso Cuarón is repped by Anonymous Content/Manager, ID Public Relations/Publiciste cou. Follow him on Social Media:
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