Prieto to Make Feature Directorial Debut with the Revenge Thriller “Bastard”

Rodrigo Prieto is stepping into the director’s chair…

The 51-year-old Mexican cinematographer, who has worked on films such as Martin Scorcese’s Silence and Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain, will make his directorial debut with the revenge thriller Bastard.

Rodrigo Prieto

Based on an original script penned by Bill Gullo, Bastard is a taut revenge thriller with a riveting antagonist at its core, set against a looming flood that will ravage the small town of Bird’s Point, Missouri.

A Mexico-City native, Prieto started his career shooting television commercials at the age of 22 before moving into features in 1992. He broke out into the film scene with his work on Amores Perros, which kicked off his collaboration with director Alejandro González Iñárritu. Prieto boasts a top-notch list of film credits including Julie Taymor’s Frida; Curtis Hanson’s 8 Mile; Spike Lee’s 25th Hour; Iñárritu’s 21 Grams and Babel; Oliver Stone’s Alexander; Kevin Macdonald’s State of Play; Pedro Almodóvar’s Broken Embraces; Francis Laurence’s Water for Elephants; Cameron Crowe’s We Bought A Zoo; Lee’s Brokeback Mountain; Ben Affleck’s Argo; and a clutch of Scorcese titles.

He’s most recently worked on HBO series Vinyl and Silence, the latter of which saw him earn an Oscar nomination.

Prieto directed his first short film Likeness, starring Elle Fanning, which premiered at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival.

Production is slated to begin in the first quarter of 2018.

Escalante Named to This Year’s Marrakech Film Festival Jury

It’s jury time for Amat Escalante

The 34-year-old Mexican filmmaker will join Oscar winner Marion Cotillard, Academy Award nominee Patricia Clarkson and president Martin Scorsese on this year’s jury for the 13th annual Marrakech Film Festival.

Amat Escalante

Academy Awards aside, the jury is stacked with Cannes Film Festival winners and regulars.

Escalante, this year’s best director winner, was named Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival.

South Korean director Park Chan-wook (Stoker, Oldboy), Turkish director Fatih Akin (New York, I Love You) and Moroccan writer-director Narjiss Nejjar, who took home the best screenplay award at Marrakech in 2003 for Les Yeux Secs, will round out the star-studded jury.

The jury votes on the festival’s top prize, the Golden Star, for best film, as well as the jury prize, best actor and best actress. The festival’s slate of 15 films is expected to be announced next week. The festival will pay tribute to Scandinavian cinema in an evening program Dec. 4.

The festival runs Nov. 29-Dec. 7.