Amat Escalante
Spanish and Mexican filmmaker (born 1979)
title: "Amat Escalante" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1979-births", "best-director-ariel-award-winners", "cannes-film-festival-award-for-best-director-winners", "living-people", "mexican-film-directors", "mexican-film-producers", "mexican-screenwriters", "spanish-film-directors", "spanish-people-of-mexican-descent", "mexican-people-of-spanish-descent", "venice-best-director-silver-lion-winners", "writers-from-guanajuato"] description: "Spanish and Mexican filmmaker (born 1979)" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amat_Escalante" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Spanish and Mexican filmmaker (born 1979) ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox person"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | Amat Escalante |
| image | Amat Escalante Festival de Cannes 2023.jpg |
| caption | Escalante Festival de Cannes 2023 |
| birth_date | |
| birth_place | Barcelona, Spain |
| citizenship | |
| years_active | 2002–present |
| occupation | Film director, producer and screenwriter |
| :: |
| name = Amat Escalante | image = Amat Escalante Festival de Cannes 2023.jpg | caption = Escalante Festival de Cannes 2023 | birth_date = | birth_place = Barcelona, Spain | nationality = | citizenship = | birth_name = | years_active = 2002–present | occupation = Film director, producer and screenwriter
Amat Escalante (born 28 February 1979) is a Spanish and Mexican film director, producer and screenwriter. He is most well known for directing the controversial Mexican crime thriller Heli for which he was awarded the best director prize award at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, and for directing the 2016 Mexican drama The Untamed for which he received the Silver Lion for best director at the 2016 Venice Film Festival.
Biography
Escalante was incidentally born in Barcelona, Spain while his parents — a Mexican father and an American mother — had been living in Norway. He spent most of his early years in Guanajuato, Mexico,
After his stint in Barcelona, he joined the International School of Film and Television (EICTV) in Havana, Cuba an institution founded by Nobel Prize-winner Gabriel García Márquez, Fernando Birri and the Julio García Espinosa "to support the development of national audio-visual industries" in non-aligned countries. Back in Mexico, he directed a short film (Amarrados, 2002) that received an award at the 2003 Berlin International Film Festival.
He worked as an assistant of Carlos Reygadas in Batalla en el cielo (2005), which entered the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. During the filming of the movie, both became close friends, and Reygadas ended up co-producing some of Escalante's first films. ::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Andrea_Vergara,Amat_Escalante,Armando_Espitia-"Heli"(8751871994)(cropped).jpg" caption="Amat Escalante (center) with Andrea Vergara (left) and Armando Espitia (right) in 2013"] ::
His film Heli was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival and was awarded the prize for Best Director by a jury presided by U.S. film director Steven Spielberg.
In 2016, his film The Untamed was selected to compete in the 73rd Venice International Film Festival. Escalante won the Silver Lion for Best Direction for his film.
Filmography
- Amarrados (2002), producer
- The Legend of Pete Jones (2005), cinematographer
- Sangre (2005), director, producer, screenwriter, For which he won the "Film Critics and Press Award"
- Los bastardos (2008), director, producer, screenwriter
- Heli (2013), director, associate producer, screenwriter
- The Untamed (2016), director, producer, screenwriter
- Narcos: Mexico (2020), director
- Lost in the Night (2023), director
References
References
- Mandelbaum, Jacques. (13 May 2013). "'Heli' : l'horreur au Mexique vue droit dans les yeux". [[Le Monde]].
- (26 May 2013). "Amat Escalante gana premio al mejor director en Cannes por 'Heli'". [[La Jornada]].
- (26 May 2013). "Mexico's Amat Escalante wins Cannes best director". [[France 24]].
- Calderón, Verónica. (27 May 2013). "Amat Escalante revalida en Cannes al cine mexicano". [[El País]].
- (27 May 2013). "Cannes premia a Escalante por un retrato sin concesiones de la violencia".
- (13 May 2013). "'Heli' retrata la violencia: Escalante". Excélsior.
- (25 April 2011). "Amherst College to Host Screening, Director's Discussion of Mexican Film Revolución on April 28". [[Amherst College]].
- Nehru, Meesha. (6 January 2011). "Acclaimed Cuban film school trains its focus on 'cinema and life'". Times Higher Education.
- Pérez, Mónica Isabel. (27 May 2013). "Amat Escalante: Tres de tres en Cannes". Forbes México.
- (26 May 2013). "Awards 2013". Cannes Film Festival.
- Dargis, Manohla. (26 May 2013). "Story of Young Woman's Awakening Is Top Winner". New York Times.
- (11 September 2016). "Venice Film Festival: Golden Lion To 'The Woman Who Left'; Tom Ford's 'Nocturnal Animals', Emma Stone Take Major Prizes – Full List". Deadline.
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