By Jake Howell jake.howell@utoronto.ca

Countdown To Cannes: Amat Escalante

AMAT ESCALANTE

Background: Mexican; born Barcelona, Spain, 1979.

Known for / style: Sangre (2005) and Los Bastardos (2008); a member of Nuevo Cine Mexicano (New Mexican cinema); collaborating with Carlos Reygadas; narratives that touch upon immigration, drug culture, sexual abuse, and violence.

Notable accolades: At the top of Escalante’s awards shelf is his FIPRESCI prize for Sangre (2005) when it debuted in Un Certain Regard. Outside of Cannes, the Bratislava International Film Festival has been good to Escalante, bestowing upon him Best Director and a Student Jury Award for Los bastardos (2008). The Thessaloniki International Film Festival gave Sangre its second-place Silver Alexander in 2005, with a purse of €22,000, while Sundance gave Escalante’s latest, Heli, a $10,000 check in the form of the NHK Award in 2010.

Previous Cannes appearances: A product of the Festival, both of Escalante’s features have played in Un Certain Regard (Sangre and Los Bastardos). 2013 marks his first time in Competition.

Film he’s bringing to Cannes: Heli, a drama shot and set in Escalante’s town of Guanajuato, Mexico. When 12-year-old Estela falls madly in love with a young police officer, the violence of the region strikes her family and complicates her plans to marry the cadet. The film features unknowns Armando Espitia, Andrea Vergara, Linda Gonzalez and Juan Eduardo Palacios.

Could it win the Palme? With fellow Mexican auteur Carlos Reygadas winning Best Director at Cannes last year (Post Tenebras Lux), the doors may have opened for Escalante to follow his success, if the film holds up (fitting, as Reygadas holds a producer’s credit on Heli). Escalante, who was assistant director on Reygadas’ Battle in Heaven (2005), has yet to compete for the Palme, meaning his jump from Un Certain Regard to the Competition is something Thierry Frémaux felt was the next step in Escalante’s budding career. And if the jury is looking for an extra reason to give Escalante some love, well—Mexico hasn’t been attached to a Palme d’Or in over forty years, and given the real (and very brutal) drug violence that occurs in modern-day Mexico, Heli’s external relevance could be off the charts.

Why you should care: Working alongside his friend and producer Carlos Reygadas, Cannes has chosen Escalante to join the established auteurs. While he has yet to gain major traction with North American audiences, that could change in but a few weeks’ time. From a cinephile’s perspective, however, Heli sounds intriguing and powerful; a devastating look at a horrible problem plaguing the Mexican landscape at large.

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2 Responses to “Countdown To Cannes: Amat Escalante”

  1. mimi bates says:

    I HAVE JUST COME FROM SEEING HELI.
    I HAD WANTED TO SPEAK BUT TIME WAS OUT. JUST TO SAY THAT I ALMOST LEFT THE THEATER BECAUSE I FELT OVERWHELMED W/ PAIN, HOWEVER MANAGED TO STAY TILL THE END AND OVERJOYED THAT I DID. A WONDERFUL FILM, EXTREMELY COMPELLING, AND BRILLIANTLY EXECUTED.
    I AM A VISUAL ARTIST AND CONTRARY TO THE GENTLEMAN THAT SPOKE REGARDING THE FACT THAT ENOUGH SCRIPT WAS NOT USED. FOR ME IT WAS PERFECT. THE CAST, THE DRAMA, AND THE CINEMATOGRAPHY TOLD IT ALL.
    I AM A VISUAL ARTIST,(ABSTRACT) PAINTER/MIXED MEDIA. AT TIMES, I HAVE WIPED OUT HALF A PAINTING FROM MY CANVAS BECAUSE IT “SAYS” TOO MUCH.
    NOW I HAVE USED TOO MANY WORDS TO EXPLAIN WHAT I AM WRITING TO YOU ABOUT!
    BUENO, SOLO QUIERO DICIR: BRAVO,Y MUCHISIMO GRACIA POR SU TALENTO Y ESTE PELICULA ESPECTACULO! KUDOS ENORME!!!!!
    MIMI BATES

  2. mimi bates says:

    I HAVE JUST COME FROM SEEING HELI.
    I ALMOST LEFT THE THEATER IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FILM BECAUSE I FELT OVERWHELMED W/ PAIN, HOWEVER MANAGED TO STAY TILL THE END AND OVERJOYED THAT I DID. A WONDERFUL FILM, EXTREMELY COMPELLING AND BRILLIANTLY EXECUTED.
    I AM A VISUAL ARTIST, AND CONTRARY TO THE GENTLEMAN THAT SPOKE REGARDING THE FACT THAT ENOUGH SCRIPT WAS NOT USED, FOR ME IT WAS PERFECT. THE CAST, THE DRAMA AND THE CINEMATOGRAPHY TOLD IT ALL.
    I AM A VISUAL ARTIST (ABSTRACT)PAINTER/MIXED MEDIA. AT TIMES I HAVE WIPED OUT HALF A PAINTING FROM MY CANVAS BECAUSE IT “SAYS” TOO MUCH.
    NOW I HAVE USED TOO MANY WORDS TO EXPLAIN WHAT I AM WRITING TO YOU ABOUT!
    BUENO, SOLO QUIERO DICIR BRAVE Y MUCHISMO GRACIAS POR SU TALENTO Y ESTE PELICULA ESPECTACULO!

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon