Guests 2006
Guillermo del Toro
Guillermo del Toro is one of the most unusually gifted and versatile directors to have emerged in recent years from Mexico. Master of the horror and fantasy genre in the country, since his international debut Cronos, at the International Critics’ Week in Cannes, he has worked non-stop in Hollywood and abroad and has not ceased to surprise audiences with wildly imaginative and visually eloquent films.
He got an early start at the age of eight, shooting Super 8 films, before working as a makeup supervisor for over a decade, and founding his own company Necropia in the 80’s. A self-described “lapsed altar boy,” del Toro combines his affinity for the teratological, with a dark sense of humor and an offbeat Catholic sensibility.
Bringing us memorable characters, from the comic-book inspired Hellboy, to the mutant cockroaches in Mimic, the vampire warrior in Blade II and the proto-fascist Jacinto in The Devil’s Backbone, del Toro explores the poetics of horror in order to reexamine the social dynamics of our world. Using the magic and the monstrous to touch upon a profound humanism, he allows us to experience our current reality paradoxically through the realm of his fantasy.
His most recent feature, Pan’s Labyrinth, returns to some of the themes of The Devil’s Backbone. Set in post-civil war Spain, the film centers on 10-year old Ofelia, her relationship with her estranged fascist stepfather, and her encounter with an ancient satyr named Pan. Perhaps his most ambitious work to date, Pan’s Labyrinth was selected for the Official Section of this year’s Cannes Film Festival and has garnered reams of critical acclaim.
by Mara Fortes
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- 2006 | Pan´s Labyrinth
- 2001 | The Devil´s Backbone
- 1997 | Mimic
- 1993 | Cronos
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