Alfonso Cuarón (Ansa)

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20 October 2021Alfonso Cuarón, one of the new stars of modern Hollywood, arrives for "Close Encounters" at the Rome Film Fest. A real achievement for him, born in Mexico City in 1961, who actually dreamed of being an astronaut as a child watching the Apollo 11 spacecraft landing on the moon, and who gave up when he learned that to be an astronaut it was necessary to join the army. Nothing could be further from his pacifist personality, he who is a vegetarian and has decided to learn Esperanto well, the best known and used among the international auxiliary languages, developed between 1872 and 1887 by the Polish ophthalmologist of Jewish origin Ludwik Lejzer. Zamenhof to make different peoples dialogue,trying to create understanding and peace with a simple and expressive second language, belonging to the whole of humanity and not just to a people.



So Cuarón decided, that day, as a child, as he himself told, to make a film set in space, and he will do it. As we know, it's called 'Gravity', it comes out in theaters in 2013 and will represent one of his most important successes. But it is natural that not everything goes smoothly from the beginning, while studying cinema and philosophy at Unam, the National Autonomous University of Mexico, he shoots his first short film, "Vengeance Is Mine", together with his colleagues and friends Carlos Marcovich, also a director, and Emmanuel Lubezki, the only cinematographer in the history of cinema to have won the Oscar in his category three times in a row (in 2014 for "Gravity", in 2015 for "Birdman" and in 2016 for "The Revenant").The work satisfies Cuarón so much that he wants to put it on the market, but the faculty disagrees so he decides in protest to leave the course and take the path of bottom-up cinema, working first as a technician and then as a director on Mexican TV. 



At the beginning of the nineties, he wrote the screenplay for a feature film with his brother Carlos, also a director, but initially the Mexican Institute of Cinema did not have the funds to finance it: Cuarón, once again, did not give up, and once the money is found, spin "One for all". The film has an incredible success, not only because it is well written and directed, but because in those years in Mexico there were very few comedies; yet the story would also face serious problems related to AIDS and suicide, but audiences and critics love the light tones with which Cuarón decides to tell it. Such a resounding success that the echo is soon reaching the neighboring United States as well, specifically in Sydney Pollack,who is so impressed with the work that he hires Cuarón for an episode of "Fallen Angels", a neo-noir television series.



In 1995 Cuarón made his first US-produced film, "The Little Princess", an adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett's novel, and was already a critical success. His next work is also the adaptation of a literary work: a modern version of Charles Dickens' "Great Expectations" entitled "Paradise Lost", and the cast includes Ethan Hawke, Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert De Niro. This film should represent his first real step in the Hollywood that counts, that of big budgets and stellar castes, in 1998 it is difficult to find more popular actors than those hired, yet Cuarón is not at all satisfied with the result. This is because the Mexican director has a 'idea of ​​cinema so precise and effective that it also knows perfectly the results that it expects from its works; it is no coincidence, therefore, that in 2001 he took refuge in a story of his own home, filming "Y tu mamá también - Your mother too", a provocative and controversial drama about the troubles of two Mexican teenagers obsessed with sex; and it is not even a coincidence that this film makes him appear for the first time at the Oscars window, even if it will not bring home the statuette for the best original screenplay.and it is not even a coincidence that this film makes him appear for the first time at the Oscars window, even if it will not bring home the statuette for the best original screenplay.and it is not even a coincidence that this film makes him appear for the first time at the Oscars window, even if it will not bring home the statuette for the best original screenplay.



The big break comes three years later, when he is hired to direct "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban", the third installment of the fantasy saga. Cuarón's goal is perfectly understood once the film is released in theaters and is compared with the previous two: Cuarón is very keen to restore the literary dignity to the saga that has been a bit lost in the hype of the worldwide success from the cassette. and he succeeds so well that even JK Rowling, author of the original novels from which the films are based, who had seen and loved "Y tu mamá también", said that it is her favorite film in the series. The film also features two extras, two children, their names are Tess Bu and Olmo, and they are two of the three children she has brought into the world together withItalian actress and freelance journalist Annalisa Bugliani, his ex-wife, which is why a beautiful piece of Cuarón's heart is Italian, so much so that in May 2014, the small community of Pietrasanta, in Tuscany, province of Lucca, made him a citizen honorary and in 2020 he even dedicates a float to him in his renowned carnival.



The relationship between Cuarón and literature is an intimate and happy relationship, the Mexican director has this extraordinary ability to translate words and consequential sensations into images. In 2006 he signed the sci-fi thriller "The sons of men", loosely based on the novel of the same name by the English writer PD James, a dramatic and desperate fresco of the near future, which tackles the issue of immigration and the decadence of values ​​in the modern western society; and so we return to the Oscars, the film gets two nominations: best non-original screenplay and best editing, but once again it returns home with empty pockets.



Cuarón in the meantime, together with his friends Alejandro González Iñárritu and Guillermo del Toro, in short, the stars of the most brilliant era of Mexican cinema, Cha cha cha Films. He returns to the cinema in 2013 and it is precisely the moment of "Gravity", a particular, tiring film, so tiring that Cuarón himself admits that he will never again dedicate himself to such a complex project; but it is also the film that allowed him to definitively break the American film industry. The film will gross $ 700 million worldwide and will finally see him come out of the Oscar night in 2014 taking home seven statuettes, two directly linked to his work, those for the best director and the best editing. He is now considered one of the most influential men in Hollywood,even the circle with his own dream as a child who wants to be an astronaut is closed, that year Time also included him in its famous list of the 100 most influential people in the world.



In 2015 he presided over the jury of the 72nd Venice International Film Festival, a title that, as we know, represents a very specific artistic and intellectual investiture; but it is in 2018 that Cuarón puts his masterpiece into action. "Rome" is an autobiographical film, it is the director's memory that becomes literature from which to draw to stage a drama as intense as it is delicate. Everything about "Roma" takes us back to Cuarón's childhood: Yalitza Aparicio, who plays the main character, the housekeeper Cleo, is identical to the nanny who took care of the little Cuarón brothers while her parents' marriage was undermined by the constant infidelities of her father Alfredo. So it is no coincidence that the film is shot in black and white, to return thatatmosphere of memory and nostalgia that makes the film so engaging.



But the "Roma" project is also extraordinary for another reason: it is the first film to win big at the Oscars with a distribution that takes place exclusively through Netflix.

The film gets ten nominations, five directly linked to the work of Cuarón, who wins three, as best director, best photography and best foreign film.

Rumors say that in the next project Cuarón should return to horror and should shoot in Tuscany, perhaps right in his Pietrasanta, or as he called it "Little Athens", where it seems you can often meet to go shopping or sitting in a cafe drinking coffee.