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Alfonso Cuarón will attend the 15th FICM as a Special Guest

The Morelia International Film Festival (FICM) will be honored to receive the extraordinary Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón as a special guest in its fifteenth edition.

The director, screenwriter, producer and publisher will present in Morelia one of the decisive films of his career, Y tu mamá también (2001), a masterpiece that catapulted him to the top of the international filmmaking scene. Y tu mamá también was written with his brother, Carlos Cuaron, who will be back in Morelia for the first edition of the MORELIA SUNDANCE Screenplay Lab, on the fifteenth edition of the festival. The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and is part of the special program from Mexico to Hollywood to the Oscars, created in collaboration with the United States Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In addition, Alfonso Cuarón will present a special screening of The Secret Formula (1964) by Rubén Gámez, winner of the First Competition of Experimental Mexican Cinema in 1965, in the 15th FICM.

Alfonso Cuarón, is acclaimed both by the audience and critics for his original films - each of which is a genre in itself - shot with his personal technique of uninterrupted continuous planes. "The films were my refuge from a very young age," says Alfonso Cuarón, who is a self-proclaimed fan of cinema and studied Philosophy at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), as well as University Center for Film Studies (CUEC-UNAM). He began working on television before directing his first feature film, the satirical comedy, Solo con tu pareja, in 1991. Four years later he made his directorial debut in the United States with two literary adaptations: The Little Princess (1995) and Great Expectations (1998). After the resounding success of Y tu mamá también, followed equally celebrated films like Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) and Children of Men (2006). Gravity (2013), his space-set thriller, is technically innovative and visually superb. The movie won seven Academy Awards in 2014, two of them for Alfonso Cuarón for Best Director (first Mexican to win this award) and Best Editing. He also won a BAFTA, a Golden Globe and the Directors Guild Award for his direction.

In 2014, Time magazine included Alfonso Cuarón on the list of "The 100 most influential people in the world: Pioneers", and published about him, regarding Gravity, that the director is "creating new worlds" through his originals films, and how he has been the creator of "some of the most fascinating and visually dazzling works of recent cinema." Alfonso Cuarón, who lives in London, was chairman of the jury of the 72nd Venice International Film Festival. In March of 2017, he finished filming his next film in Mexico. Rome, is currently in postproduction.

This is the third time FICM has the privilege of Alfonso Cuarón's presence. He also attended the festival in 2007 and 2013.