Stephen Frears to be Guest of Honor at the 13th FICM

The Morelia International Film Festival (FICM) is greatly honored to announce that Stephen Frears, one of the great contemporary British filmmakers, will be a Guest of Honor at FICM for the second time. At the 5th FICM, Frears presented six of his films in Morelia, including The Queen (2006), which was nominated for an Oscar. Eight years later, the renowned director will return to the Michoacán capital with his most recent film, The Program (2015).

“For me it is always an honor to receive great filmmakers like Frears again at FICM,” Daniela Michel, general director of FICM, declared. “I’ve been fortunate to have a friendship with him since I met him in Morelia in 2007 and I’m thrilled to have the premiere in Mexico of his latest film The Program, which deals with the controversial athlete Lance Armstrong”.

Stephen Frears and a still from his most recent film, The Program (2015).

Frears has always dealt with a great variety of themes, genres and styles. He began his career doing TV drama series and in the middle of the 1980s he got involved in cinema with the filming of The Hit (1984), starring Terrence Stamp, John Hurt and Tim Roth. The next year he directed My Beautiful Laundrette for Channel 4, a film that showed his talent and launched his career. After filming Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (1987) and the biography of Joe Orton Prick Up Your Ears (1987), starring Gary Oldman, he began to work in Hollywood with Dangerous Liaisons (1989), followed by The Grifters (1990), for which he received his first Oscar nomination. He returned to England and directed The Snapper (1993) and The Van (1996), two Irish features based on stories by Roddy Doyle and, then after a second stay in the United States, in which he made The Hi-Lo Country (1998) and High Fidelity (2000), he returned to Great Britain, where he has lived ever since. Frears showed his versatility once again with two films that are radically different from one another: Dirty Pretty Things (2002), a true-to-life portrayal of immigrant life in London, and Mrs. Henderson Presents (2005), a dramatic comedy with a nostalgic vision of burlesque theater. Frears was nominated again for an Oscar for The Queen, starring Helen Mirren. In 2013 he directed Philomena, starring Judi Dench and Steve Coogan, winner of the BAFTA prize and nominated for three more. It also received three nominations at the Golden Globe Awards Ceremony and four Oscar nominations. His most recent film is The Program, starring Ben Foster as Lance Armstrong, the seven times winner of the Tour de France.

It is an honor to receive this director in Morelia once again. He is a key figure in today’s cinema and stands out both for his astonishing versatility and his humility. According to the film specialist Geoff Andrew, Stephen Frears has “an unusual, very special talent, that enables him to do something that is very complex in a way that seems simple.”

The Morelia International Film Festival is especially grateful to the British Council possible for making this visit possible.