Carlos Cuarón at the Whistling Woods Institute, Mumbai
After the closing of the Guadalajara Film Festival, Carlos Cuarón made a visit to Mumbai to serve as a creative advisor in the second annual Mumbai Mantra Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab (March 10-15) and deliver a master class at the Whistling Woods Institute for Film, Television, Animation & Media Arts (March 15).
Eight screenwriting fellows were selected to work intensely on their proposed scripts in an environment that encourages innovation and creative risk-taking, with the support of a distinguished group of established screenwriters and directors serving as creative advisors. Besides Cuarón, creative advisors include Bill Wheeler, Joshua Marston, Asif Kapadia, Habib Faisal, Sabrina Dhawan, Anjum Rajabali, Marti Noxon, Carlos Cuaron, and Malia Scotch-Marmo. Read more about the selected projects and participants.
Over at Whistling Woods, Carlos Cuarón presented a master class and told students to, “break all rules, and write with no conventions or boundaries – be free, be ignorant.” He also encouraged them to read everything that came their way, and to preserve that which adds value and discard what doesn’t. You can see more photos from the visit here. Thanks to Rahul Puri for bringing this to our attention.
While in India (first time), the writer-director also conducted one of his first English-language interviews on his second feature-length film (as director), Besos de azúcar. He told Pratik Ghosh:
My films have universal themes rooted in specific contexts. They are social portraits of my country. For my latest film I didn’t rope in stars. The central characters are two anonymous 13-year-olds. I am the writer, director and producer of Sugar Kisses.
Besos will screen in Mexican cinemas this October. No word yet on international distribution, although Cuarón acknowledged that his films have been more popular with English-speaking audiences than in Mexico. Read more.
An Alfonso Cuarón Archive 