Birth name
     Alfonso Cuarón Orozco
Date of birth
     28 November 1961 , Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico

Mini biography

Alfonso Cuarón (November 28, 1961 , Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico)

Alfonso Cuarón Orozco was born on November 28th in Mexico City, Mexico. He has always wanted to be a director, and also an astronaut.

He didn't want to enter to the army so he forgot that possibility. He wanted to make films when he was little, but unfortunately he didn't have a camera. On his twelfth birthday he finally received a camera, and since then he started to shoot everything he saw, showing it afterwards to everyone.

In his teen years, films were his hobby, and he didn't have many friends. Sometimes he said to his mother he would go to a friend's home, when in fact he would go to the cinema. His ambition was to know every theatre in the city.

Near his house there were two studios, Studios Churubusco and Studios 212, where he would go and try to see some interesting stuff.

After finishing school, Cuarón decided to study cinema right away. He tried to study in C.C.C. (Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica) but wasn't accepted because at the time they weren't accepting students under twenty-four years old.

As his mother didn't support that idea of cinema, he started to study philosophy in the morning and in the afternoon he went to the C.U.E.C. (Centro Universitario de Estudios Cinematográficos). During that time he met many people who would later become his collaborators and friends. One of them was Luis Estrada.

He also became good friends with Carlos Marcovich and Emmanuel Lubezki. Luis Estrada directed a short called "Vengance is Mine" and Alfonso and Emmanuel collaborated with him. The film was spoken in English and that didn't please the teachers of the C.U.E.C., specially Marcela Fernández Violante. It caused such arguments that in 1985, Alfonso was expelled from the university.

During his time studying in C.U.E.C. he met Mariana Elizondo, and with her he had his first son, Jonás Cuarón. After being expelled, Alfonso thought he could never be a director and so went on to work in a Museum so he could sustain his family. One day, José Luis García Agraz and Fernando CáMara went to the museum and made an offer to Cuarón. They asked him to work as cable person in "La víspera (1982)". That was his salvation. After that he was assistant director in Garcia Agraz's "Nocaut (1984)", and in some other films.

He was also second unit director in "Gaby: A True Story (1987)", and cowrote and directed some episodes in the series "A Hora Marcada (1967)". On New Year's Eve he decided he wouldn't again be an assistant director, and with his brother Carlos started writing what would be his first feature film: "Sólo con tu pareja (1991)" (Love in the time of Hysteria).

The screenplay was written, now the problem was to get the money. I.M.C.I.N.E. (Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografia) had already decided which projects it would support that year, but the director of one of those projects was unable to direct it, so his project was canceled, and "Sólo con tu pareja" took its place.

There was a lot of tension between Alfonso and the I.M.C.I.N.E. executives but after it was finished, it was a huge success and turned out to be a very good film. In Toronto festival the films won many awards, and Alfonso started to be noticed by Hollywood producers. Sydney Pollack was the first one to invite him to shoot in Hollywood.

He proposed a feature film to be directed by Alfonso, but the project didn't work and was canceled. Alfonso moved to Los Angeles without anything concrete, and stayed with some friends, as he had no money. Soon after that, Pollack called him again to direct an episode called "Fallen Angels: Murder, Obliquely (1993)" of the series "Fallen Angels (1993)", that was the first job he had in U.S., and also the first time he worked with Alan Rickman.

Some time passed and Alfonso wanted to direct something as he needed money, he finally signed a contract with Warner Brothers to direct the film Addicted to Love (1995). One night he read the screenplay for the film A Little Princess (1995) and fell in love with it. He talked to Warner Brothers and after some meetings he gave up directing "Addicted to Love" in order to do "A Little Princess". Even thought it wasn't a great box office success, the film received two nominations for the Oscars, and won many other awards.

After "A Little Princess" Alfonso developed for some time a project with Richard Gere starring. It was the story of a man who crosses a desert thinking he's a whale, to find the sea. The project was canceled, but Cuarón got an offer from Twentieth Century Fox to direct the modern adaptation of the Charles Dickens' classic Store forventninger (1998). He didn't want to direct it but the studio insisted, and in the end he accepted it. The experience was very painful and difficult for him mainly because there was never a definitive screenplay.

He then reunited with producer Jorge Vergara and founded Anhelo Productions and Moonson Productions. Anhelo's first picture was also Alfonso's next film, the erotic road movie "...Og din mor! (2001)", which was a huge success. During the promotion of the film in Venice, Alfonso met the cinema critic Annalisa Bugliani. They started dating and are now married. "Children of Men (2006)" was to be Alfonso's next film, a futuristic, dystopian story. During the preproduction of the film, Warner Brothers invited Alfonso to direct the third Harry Potter film, "Harry Potter og fangen fra Azkaban (2004)", and he accepted the offer after some thinking. The film was the greatest box office success of his career. --IMDb

Director - Selected filmography

1. Roma (2018)
   
2. Gravity (2013)
   
3. Children of Men (2013)
   
4. Y tu mamá también | And Your Mother Too (2001)