Guillermo del Toro Announces Scholarship for Aspiring Mexican Filmmakers

Guillermo del Toro is ready to help the next generation of Mexican filmmakers…

The 53-year-old Mexican writer-director, who won two Oscars earlier this month, has returned to his hometown of Guadalajara with some news.

Guillermo del Toro

After his romance-fantasy film The Shape of Water took home four Academy Awards last Sundayincluding best picture and director, del Toro attended the Guadalajara International Film Festival, where he’s imparting a series of free master classes to thousands of fans.

Following the first class on Saturday, the festival inaugurated a state-of-the-art cinema named after del Toro, and then organizers announced the creation of the Jenkins-Del Toro International Film Scholarship, a $60,000 annual award for an aspiring Mexican filmmaker to study abroad at a prestigious film institute.

“If we change a life, if we change a history, we change a generation,” said del Toro, whose genre filmmaking has inspired a new generation of talent in Mexico.

Del Toro and fellow countrymen Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity) and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Birdman) regularly produce films from up-and-coming Mexican filmmakers.

“The first push is very important,” said del Toro, who will oversee a jury that awards the scholarship at the Guadalajara film fest each year.

del Toro also announced that his At Home with Monsters exhibit will hit museums in Guadalajara and Mexico City next year. The exhibit features 500 drawings, paintings and concept pieces from del Toro’s works, including creepy life-size sculptures of monster figures. The collection, to be curated by Oscar-winning production designer Eugenio Caballero (Pan’s Labyrinth), bowed in 2016 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Alejandro G. Inarritu to Receive Special Oscar for His Virtual Reality Installation “Carne y Arena”

Alejandro G. Inarritu is getting a special Oscar…

The Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has voted to give a special honorary Oscar to the 54-year-old Mexican filmmaker’s extraordinary virtual reality installation Carne y Arena

Alejandro G. Inarritu

It will be presented at the upcoming Governors Awards on November 11 at the Ray Dolby Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland.

This joins previously announced Governors Award honorees this year including actor Donald Sutherland, director Agnes Varda, cinematographer Owen Roizman and filmmaker Charles Burnett.

In making the announcement of the Oscar to this unique achievement — full name: Carne y Arena (Virtually Present, Physically Invisible) — the Academy said it was in recognition of a visionary and powerful experience in storytelling. It was first unveiled at this year’s Cannes Film Festival in May in a nearby airport hangar where I was among the lucky ones to experience it. And experience is the word.

“The Governors of the Academy are proud to present a special Oscar to Carne y Arena, in which Alejandro Iñárritu and his cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki have opened for us new doors of cinematic perception,” said Academy president John Bailey. “Carne y Arena, Iñárritu’s multimedia art and cinema experience, is a deeply emotional and physically immersive venture into the world of migrants crossing the desert of the American southwest in early dawn light. More than even a creative breakthrough in the still emerging form of virtual reality, it viscerally connects us to the hot-button political and social realities of the U.S.-Mexico border.”

Los Angeles residents currently have the opportunity to see Carne y Arena as it is on display at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, as well as at Fondazione Prada in Milan, and Tlatelolco Cultural Center in Mexico City. It’s a collaboration between Iñárritu, Lubezki, producer Mary Parent, Legendary Entertainment, Fondazione Prada, ILMxLAB, and Emerson Collective.

The Oscar will be Inarritu’s fifth Academy Award. He won three for Birdman including Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay as well as becoming only the second helmer in 65 years to win back-to-back awards when he won Director again for 2015’s The Revenant.

LACMA to Honor González Iñárritu at This Year’s Art + Film Gala

Alejandro González Iñárritu is being feted for his “daring and nimble vision”…

The 51-year-old Oscar-winning Mexican filmmaker will be honored alongside light and space artist James Turrell at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s fifth Art + Film Gala on November 7.

Alejandro González Iñárritu

LACMA trustee Eva Chow and actor Leonardo DiCaprio will once again co-chair the annual fundraiser presented by Gucci.

“In only a few years, LACMA’s Art + Film Gala has established its reputation for honoring artists and filmmakers whose impact can be felt worldwide and that have particular relevance to Los Angeles, and James Turrell and Alejandro G. Inarritu certainly fit that bill,” said Michael Govan, LACMA CEO and Wallis Annenberg director, who further elaborated on the selections.

“In the last two decades, Inarritu has displayed a daring and nimble vision for films including Birdman and Babel; his work has rightly garnered the highest of critical acclaim.”

González Iñárritu won three golden statuettes as the 87th Academy Awards for Birdman, becoming the first-ever three-time Latino Oscar winner in history.

His five feature films – Amores perros (2000), 21 Grams (2003), Babel (2006), Biutiful (2010) and Birdman (2014) – have garnered wide acclaim.

Past honorees include Barbara Kruger, Quentin Tarantino, David HockneyMartin ScorseseEd Ruscha and Stanley Kubrick.

“The Art + Film Gala is now an annual highlight and brings together figures from the worlds of art, cinema, fashion and music to support the museum,” said longtime supporter and fashion designer Chow. “It’s a real honor and my pleasure to welcome two such unique and greatly talented artists whose work moves and inspires me deeply. And I am thrilled to co-chair this important fundraiser with Leonardo DiCaprio, whose support for this initiative is so critical.”

Funds from the Art + Film Gala support LACMA’s growing mission to make film a more prominent aspect of the museum’s programming, by way of exhibitions, educational sessions and screenings that explore how the film and art worlds converge.

Cruz In Negotiations to Star in “Gucci”

She’s donned Gucci on the red carpet, but Penelope Cruz may soon be appearing on the big screen in a film about the Italian family behind the legendary clothing brand.

The 38-year-old Spanish actress and 2013’s Campari calender girl is currently in talks to star in Gucci, according to The Wrap.

Penelope Cruz

Directed by Ridley Scott’s daughter Jordan Scott, the film tells the story of the late Maurizio Gucci, grandson of Gucci’s founder, as he becomes heir to the family empire.

Gucci was shot to death in 1995. His ex-wife, Patrizia Reggiani, was jailed for the killing in 1999.

The project, first announced in 2006, originally had Ridley Scott attached to direct from a script by Andrea Berloff. Several other writers have since been involved in the project.

Angelina Jolie was approached in 2009 to play Reggiani, who was jailed for 29 years for allegedly ordering the killing of her ex-husband, when Ridley was still attached to direct.

Reports of the film’s resurfacing came as Gucci makes a push to re-establish the brand as synonymous with Hollywood glamour, which it has been struggling to do since Tom Ford left the house in 2004.

The company has become increasingly involved in the film world. Gucci has given more than $2 million to Martin Scorsese to help him restore old films, including Federico Fellini‘s La Dolce Vita and Sergio Leone‘s Once Upon a Time in America.

The label also funds film scholarships and supports a weekly film series at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.