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Mexican film director Alejandro González Iñárritu at the 2006 San Sebastián International Film Festival. Photo by Mario Antonio Pena Shoe Store- Wikimedia Commons

Top 10 Astonishing Facts about Alejandro Gonzalez ±õ²Ôã°ù¾±³Ù³Ù³Ü

Alejandro González Inárritu is a Mexican film director born in Mexico City on August 15, 1963, as the youngest of seven siblings to Luz Mara Inárritu and Héctor González Gama. His maternal grandfather, Alfredo Inárritu  Ramrez de Aguilar, was a prominent lawyer, judge, and Supreme Court justice of Mexico with Basque ancestry.
He is the first Mexican director to be nominated for Best Director by the Academy and by the Directors Guild of America. He is also the first Mexican-born director to win the Prix de la mise en scène or best director award at Cannes (2006), with Carlos Reygadas following in 2012. His six feature films, ‘Amores Perros’ (2000), ’21 Grams’ (2003), ‘Babel’ (2006), ‘Biutiful’ (2010), ‘Birdman’ (2014), and ‘The Revenant’ (2015), have received international critical acclaim, including two Academy Award nominations.

1. He has received awards from multiple film events

Enlarged Oscar® statuette beside red carpet at 81st Annual Academy Awards in Kodak Theatre, Los Angeles Photo by Greg in Hollywood

Inárritu has won five Academy Awards, two Directors Guild of America Awards, a Producers Guild of America Award, three British Academy Film Awards, three AACTA Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, two Independent Spirit Awards, two American Film Institute Awards, and three Cannes Film Festival Awards for his films.

He is the first Mexican director to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director and the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing, as well as the first to win the Cannes Film Festival’s Best Director Award.  Among many other honors, Inárritu received the Directors Guild Award for Outstanding Directing in 2015, as well as the Producers Guild of America Award for Best Theatrical Motion Picture.

Birdman won three Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Direction, making him the first Mexican to do so. In 2016, Inárritu won the Academy Award for Best Director for his work on The Revenant, making him the first director to win the award twice in 65 years. Following John Ford and Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Inárritu is the third director to accomplish this feat.

Inárritu received the Gotham Awards’ World Cinema Tribute in 2006, alongside fellow Mexican filmmakers Alfonso Cuarón and Guillermo del Toro.

He also received the Sundance Institute’s Vanguard Leadership Award in 2015 for his films’ “originality and independent spirit.”

2. ±õ²Ôã°ù¾±³Ù³Ù³Ü was the first Mexican to get an Academy Awards nomination

Alejandro G. Iñárritu in Los Angeles, US, 2014. Photo by Bart Michiels-

Inárritu is the first Mexican filmmaker in Academy Award history to be nominated for either director or producer, the first to win an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and Best Picture, the first to receive the Best Director Award at Cannes, and the first to win a DGA Award for Outstanding Directing.

He is also the first director to win two DGA Awards in a row. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by Mexico’s National Autonomous University. Not only that but he was also named Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters in France in 2019. In the film industry, Inárritu and Mexican filmmakers Alfonso Cuarón and Guillermo del Toro are known as “The Three Amigos.”

3. He started his career as a radio host

Studio A (Equipment) Photo by Chumaniclaxton

Inárritu began his career as a radio host at Mexico’s most popular rock music station, WFM, in 1984, where he “pieced together playlists into a loose narrative arc.” He collaborated with and interviewed musicians such as Robert Plant, David Gilmour, Elton John, Bob Geldof, and Carlos Santana.

Inárritu also created and broadcasted short audio stories and storytelling advertisements. He went on to become Televisa’s youngest producer, the largest mass media company in Latin America.  

He composed music for six Mexican feature films between 1987 and 1989. During this time, Inárritu met Mexican writer Guillermo Arriaga and began working on screenplays with him.  Inárritu has stated that music has had a greater influence on him as an artist than film. 

4. ±õ²Ôã°ù¾±³Ù³Ù³Ü is a sailing enthusiast

Sailing Photo by FotoSleuth

 Inárritu left home to work as a sailor on cargo ships, sailing down the Mississippi River and then visiting Europe and Africa at the ages of 16 and 18. On his second trip, Inárritu spent a year in Europe with $1,000 provided by his father.

 He has stated that his early travels as a young man had a significant influence on him as a filmmaker, and the settings of his films have frequently been in locations he visited during this time. He returned to Mexico City after his travels and majored in communications at Universidad Iberoamericana.

5. ±õ²Ôã°ù¾±³Ù³Ù³Ü has directed several creative T.V commercials

González Inárritu directed “Powder Keg,” an episode of the BMW film series The Hire starring Clive Owen as the driver, in 2001/2002.

In 2010, he directed Write the Future, a football-themed commercial for Nike in advance of the 2010 FIFA World Cup that won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions advertising festival.
He directed Procter & Gamble’s “Best Job” commercial for the 2012 Olympic Ceremonies in 2012. It went on to win the Creative Arts Emmy Award for Best Primetime Commercial.

6. Alejandro is chair of the Cannes Festival jury

Dominik Bernard au Festival de Cannes 2008 Photo by Alexgrim

His involvement with the festival dates back nearly two decades, when his first film, Amores Perros, premiered on the Croisette. Cannes has been an important festival to him since the beginning of his career, so he was humbled and thrilled to be given the enormous honor of presiding over the jury.

At the time, the festival’s president, Pierre Lescure, and artistic director Thierry Frémaux praised Inárritu as a daring filmmaker, a director full of surprises, and a man of conviction, an artist of his time.   They noted that Inárritu’s willingness to serve on a jury was “extremely unusual.”

7. Andrei Rublev is his all-time favorite film

This is a 1966 Soviet epic biographical historical drama film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky and co-written by Andrei Konchalovsky.

The story of Andrei Rublev is set in early-15th-century Russia. Although the film is only loosely based on Andrei Rublev’s life, it attempts to portray a realistic portrait of medieval Russia. Tarkovsky’s goal was to make a film that depicted the artist as a “world-historic figure” and “Christianity as an axiom of Russia’s historical identity” during a turbulent period in Russian history that culminated in the Tsardom of Russia.

8. He guided Leonardo Di Caprio to his fist oscar

In 2015, he directed ‘The Revenant,’ which brought him worldwide fame and glory. The film was an adaptation of Michael Punke’s novel of the same name. The film is based on true events and revolves around Hugh Glass, a fur trapper played by Leonardo Di Caprio.

The Oscar for the best actor had previously and famously eluded Di Caprio in several attempts, but Inárritu’s directing mastery in his portrayal of one man’s battle with the elements made for a compelling story that finally made Di Caprio win a much-awaited Oscar.

9. Alejandro has his own production company

Inárritu founded Z Films, a production company, with Raul Olvera in Mexico in the early 1990s.  He began writing, producing, and directing short films and advertisements through Z Films.

In order to make the final transition into TV and film directing, he studied in Los Angeles with well-known theater directors Ludwik Margules and Judith Weston.  Inárritu wrote and directed his first TV pilot, Detrás del dinero, or Behind the Money, for Z Films in 1995, starring Miguel Bosé. 

10. He has directed 10 award nominated performances

Inárritu has worked with a host of Hollywood A-list actors because he appreciates their unique ability to interpret and deliver the script to ultimately articulate his vision as a director. All of them have gone on to be nominated and win in their respective categories. They include; Michael Keaton, Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Naomi Watts, Edward Norton, Benicio Del Toro, Adriana Barraza, Rinko Kikuchi, Emma Stone, and Javier Bardem.