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With a degree in communications from the UNAM and an honors degree in film directing from the Center for Film Training (CCC), he is an active member of the Mexican Academy of Film Arts and Sciences. He pursued a concentration in film directing from Barcelona’s Escola Superior de Cinema i Audiovisuals de Catalunya and another in stage directing from the UNAM’s University Theater Center. He was also a student at Berlinale Talents.

His debut feature Somos lo que hay (We Are What We Are) competed for the Caméra d’Or at Cannes in 2010 and became the first Mexican film to have an American remake. This film won the Silver Hugo Special Jury Prize at the Chicago International Film Festival, the Séquence Prize to Best Film Feature at the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal, and Best “Next Wave” Film and Screenplay at the Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas, among others.

He directed Chalán (Gofer), produced by Canal 22 and Imcine, and 72, produced by Juan José Campanella and Canana. He was invited to direct the short films i …is for ingrown for The ABC’S of Death; Treasure for 60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero; and Muñecas (Dolls) for México bárbaro (Barbarous Mexico). He made his United States debut with the film Big Sky and the series Demencia. In 2016, he premiered 7:19, the first Mexican film to have an international Netflix release. In this 2019, he’s premiering his latest film, Perdida, produced by Dynamo Colombia and Urujuru México.

Grau teaches at the CCC and at Escine; he is also an advisor in Imcine’s Stimulus Program for Film Directors. He has lectured and taught master classes and seminars all over Mexico. He participated in the III International Telecápita Conference in 2013: “Game Over ¿Reset? Distopía/Impasse/Apocalipsis.” He taught a master class in the film certificate program at Puebla’s UMAD. As part of the Baja International Film Fest in Los Cabos, in 2013, he spoke on the panel devoted to USA/Mexico co-productions. As part of the “Fifth International Colloquium on Contemporary Ibero-American Film: Screen Culture - Industry, Narratives, Aesthetics,” he delivered the talk “Migración de pantallas,” on “screen migration,” in 2014. He led a master class in directing organized by Conarte in Monterrey, Nuevo León, in 2014, as well as a noir screenwriting workshop as part of the Second International Festival on Noir Novels: Traces of Crime. He was a panelist on the round table “Perspectives on Contemporary Mexican Horror Film” at the Cineteca Nacional. He led the film adaptation laboratory Weird Fiction and the “Workshop on Project Adaptation and Development” in collaboration with Home Films. Both alone and in the company of writers and directors, he has given talks about film in spaces such as the Cineteca and the University of Communication.

Grau has published articles in Le Monde Magazine, Spécial Cinéma, GIF Magazine, and Picnic; he also wrote the column Tocacintas for Frente. He has served as a jury member for over 13 film festivals, plot and screenwriting competitions, and Imcine programs and funds.