His name is Alejandro González Iñárritu.
Out of the six feature films, Alejandro González Iñárritu has directed, every single one has found its way to the Oscars.
Best Picture, Best Foreign Film, Best Director, you name it, and there’s an Academy Award nomination or win linked to his creations.
Presently, his latest offering The Revenant, based on Michael Punke’s 2002 novel, is competing in a whopping 12 categories, including Best Director, at the 88th Academy Awards.
And, there’s a good chance he may take the trophy home again this year.
Who is this Iñárritu? Why is he hailed as a visionary and one of the finest filmmakers in the world today?
Here is everything you need to know:
Alejandro González Iñárritu and Leonardo DiCaprio at 73rd Annual Golden Globe Awards. Image: Kevin Winter/Getty Images
To begin with, his name is pronounced as Ah-leh-hahn-dro Gon-sah-les Ih-nyar-ee-too. Try saying it a few times and it’s not as hard as it looks.
He was born in Mexico on August 15, 1963 to Hector González Gama and Luz María Iñárritu. His father was a banker who started his own business after facing professional setback. Iñárritu has four siblings -- one brother and three sisters.
At the age of 17, following his expulsion from school due to poor grades, he took up a job as a commercial sailor and travelled across the Atlantic to gain experience.
During this time, he read a lot and the existentialist views in writers like Herman Hesse and James Joyce’s works left a deep impact on his discerning mind.
After his stint on the sea, he enrolled in Mexico’s Iberoamaricana University to do a course in Communications while pursuing his passion for music as radio DJ.
Next, he studied theatre under Polish-Mexican director Ludvik Margule while dabbling in advertising. Did you know he’s directed commercials for brands like Coca Cola and BMW?
The itch to do bigger and better led him to screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga.
After they collaborated on their first feature film, Amores Perros, wherein a car crash provides a common link into parallel lives, there was no looking back for Iñárritu who bagged the Critics Week Grand Prize and Young Critics Award at the Cannes Film Festival..
Nominated for the Best Foreign Film Oscar, it lost out to Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.
Interestingly, Mani Ratnam’s Yuva is said to take stylistic inspiration from Amores Perros,
His partnership with screenwriter Arriaga bore fruit in their next two star-studded projects: 21 Grams and Babel.
21 Grams, which deals with the aftermath of an accident, fetched acting nominations for Benicio Del Toro and Naomi Watts at the Academy Awards.
Meanwhile, the anthology drama Babel, and the third one in the ‘Death trilogy’ headlined by stars like Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett scored six nominations (Best Picture, Direction, Editing, Original Screenplay, Original Score, Supporting Actress) out of which it won only one for Gustavo Santaolalla’s rousing soundtrack.
In his review of Babel, late film critic Roger Ebert observes, 'Iñárritu (born 1963) is one of three friends I have taken to calling the New Mexican Cinema, although other names should and will be included. Guillermo Del Toro made Pan’s Labyrinth, and Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men, and with Babel those three titles are among the adornments of recent cinema.'
Image: Javier Bardem in Biutiful
Interestingly, Del Toro (Pacific Rim, Hellboy), Alonso Cuarón (Gravity, Y Tu Mamá También) and Iñárritu co-founded a production company called Cha Cha Chá Films, which produced the 2008 super hit Rudo y Cursi directed by Carlos Cuarón (younger brother of Alonso).
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