1 PANTELION and CINELATINO Present an ALAZRAKI FILMS ...

PANTELION and CINELATINO Present an ALAZRAKI FILMS production

A film by Gaz Alazraki

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SYNOPSIS When successful construction mogul Herman Noble accidentally stumbles onto his children’s credit card statements, he discovers they are spending money beyond control. His oldest son Javier, neglects the family business in exchange of his own ridiculous business ideas. His daughter Barbara gets engaged to a 40 year-old gigolo just to spike her father, Herman, and his youngest son Charlie was expelled from college after having sex with the teacher. Herman realizes his children are spoiled beyond redemption and decides to teach them a lesson, before its too late. He stages a massive foreclosure and sneaks them out of the luxurious house into a poor neighborhood. He makes them find work. His hippie son Charlie, gets work as a bank teller, Javi drives a cheap transit bus, and Barbara becomes a waitress at a cantina. Herman enjoys his children’s suffering as they learn the hardships of working in the real world, but everything changes once he learns that Barbara has been a bulimic for 8 years and that Javier is dyslexic, it is clear to him that his absence has been deeper that he imagined. It is only when all the secrets com out that the family begins to come together. Unfortunately, Peter, the 40 year old gigolo dating Barbara, discovers that Herman’s bankruptcy was staged. So he shows up at the poor house and corners Herman when he threatens to expose the truth. Peter takes them all back to their home, leaving Herman at the hardest juncture: If he tells his children the truth, they will never forgive him. But if he remains quiet, his daughter will marry a blackmailer... What can he do? ORIGIN OF THE STORY Nosotros los Nobles (We are the Nobles) Has its origins as a story in real life experiences of director Gary “Gaz” Alazraki: “I studied in Los Angeles for 2 years

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and a half. I had an American girlfriend that would criticize me about being a ‘junior’. Let’s say she criticized it out of me. “When I came back to Mexico, I finally started to understand what it was that she was talking about, and what it was that bothered her so much about my attitude before. This way of life of the Mexican junior, with a sense of entitlement and privilege, disconnected from the real life social injustice. I started to get annoyed by it.” This irritation soon became a story he wanted to tell. He started writing for a Mexican actress, the story about a spoiled little rich girl that moved to her nanny’s small town in Veracruz, hiding from her father’s enemies. Here she begin to live a transformation very similar to the one Gaz lived thanks to his American girlfriend years before. “That draft was shit, so I threw it away. But later on my younger brother brought the series Arrested Development to my attention, and said that this series was talking about the same thing but in a different way. So I told myself ‘Why not put the whole family in the predicament?’ In a night out, the producer Simon Bross told me that if I wanted to wirte this story I had to watch The Great Madcap. Of course part of the story of that movie didn’t work for us, like the alcoholic father, but that gave us the line line that we would soon follow to write the story, the prospect of what story we wanted to tell. We took various things away, like have the children be deceived through out the storyline and develop a subtrama of each character more thoroughly; we cut and mended everything and finally, 18 drafts later, we came to what the story is now.” Alazraki explains. Thanks to the teachings of one of his film school teachers, Gaz had an inkling on how he wanted to tackle the story: “He used to say that at certain points in history, depending on the social context of an era, the industry would promote either comedies or more profound dramas. When there was prosperity or social movements arousing, the audience would not attend to the movies to see 3

screenings of romantic comedies, while when in a crisis, people would rather watch comedies or social satires – like in the 1930’s – because of the relief these stories had on the general population of a nation, being able to laugh and mock the elite classes. I did an extensive research about those years in American film history, watching movies like It Happened one Night, My man Godfrey, How to marry a Millionaire, The Seven Year Itch, and all the comedic films of that time that would make fun of the bourgeois, like The Philadelphia story, and started to extract all the attributes I could use. Then watched parts of Arthur, Overboard, and Trading Places and little by little I started to understand that the movie I wanted to make was a movie like the ones John Landis used to do in the 80’s. No one had done that in Mexico. My brother and I used to talk about that part of the target for films in Mexico, with that kind of humour, and how it was not being approached at all in our country, and I decided to approach it myself.” said Gaz. The risk on approaching the theme was falling into classist and/or racist stereotypes, a delicate thing to do in Mexico, and not judging anyone: “ This is how the movie was born from the script and it is a very closely calculated risk. We never doubted the story we wanted to tell, there was never fear about speaking of this. The movie tackles this subject because it is well founded, directed and because the topic is an ongoing topic nowadays. But also our film industry has been talking about it since the 1940’s and 1950’s: the clash of classes. For example, Los Olvidados (The Forgotten) by Luis Buñuel or the movies by Pardave or even the telenovelas”, Producer Leonardo Zimbron comments. Even though we were satirical, and we tried to portray reality as much as we could, it was always in a very respectful way, NEVER disrespectfully. We were ironic, satirical, but we never tried to insult anyone,” Zimbron adds.

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“I think that in any good comedy, there is a hint of anger behind it. But, of course, in order to avoid insulting anyone I had to learn to love my characters, I had to care,” Alazraki confesses. “In the moment I started to care for them, I was more sensible about all the things surrounding their world and social circle. It was the first time I could actually tell the difference between just a guy and a “mirrey” (junior), or just a gal and and actual spoiled-to-the-bone “princess”. In fact many of them were my actual friends, and they also have feelings, and suffer, they feel intimidated by their families’ success, they also party a little too hard to fill void left by their parents – even if they are in a way responsible for this lifestyle- and furthermore, their self esteem lowers. There is true pain in this. If I could be truly honest, then I would be able to love my characters and see the comedic part of things.” “You are presented with a guy that is dyslexic, and his father doesn’t know about it. Or a young girl that is bulimic and her father never noticed. This is real, it is not melodramatic, nor exaggerated, it is the disintegration of the family, the absence of the father, he is the one with the prejudices. He should be helping more instead of trying to teach them a lesson,” Alazraki explains. There are three motivation points for making this film in Alazraki’s mind: 1. To make a Mexican comedy, in contrast to the rest of the films that showed a defeatist Mexico. 2. To make a film that most Mexicans, that had lost touch with their own cinema, would feel identified. 3. To make a film with his own humor injected to it very much inspired by sketches he used to watch in SNL (Saturday Night Live) during his teenage years. For him it was a way to exorcise his own demons and attitudes. Alazraki asked himself what entitles people of highr classes to treat people of the lower classes in the manner that some of them do, or why they go to certain night clubs and they flirt with the neighbor’s girl/boyfriend, and then send their bodyguards to defend their “honor” or lack there of. He questioned why they do this without a real authority and even more without having earned the money of

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status on their own. His answer was within the film. “I wanted to raise my opinion that this is wrong! Let’s mock it.” THE CASTING “I searched for the right actors without having a clear idea of who I wanted for each part,” Alazraki says. “Leonardo (the producer) wanted ‘big names’, famous actors and I wanted great actors. I was very interested in doing what Jason Reitman did for Juno, when he casted Micheal Cera even if he wasn’t a known actor; or what they did in Thank you for smoking, casting Aaron Eckhart when he was still a nobody, but a few months later he appeared in The Dark Knight. It even looked as if Christopher Nolan was using Jason Reitman as his Guiney pig. I liked the way Knocked up and 40 year-old Virgin worked as a whole without a star system actor, beacause the star was the movie itself. That is why I reached out to Alex Reza, because he is a serious casting director and understands the art of casting very well; we talked extensively about this. The first thing I said was: “I don’t want to have to deal with the same actrices everyone else does, and that have appeared in every single movie made in Mexico, I want new faces.” Zimbron and Alazraki had heated arguments about this subject. The father had been written thinking of Gonzalo Vega, but he wanted to avoid all the established actors for the rest of the characters so they had to reach an agreement about them. I consider myself as a commercial film producer. The first thing I always say is that a star studded movie might not guarantee box office success but it helps with the media couverage and you can get more interviews in certain media. Added to the fact that this was Gary’s first film, this worried me, given that he had no filmography, and not having well-known actors would not help much.” “We finally agreed that at least certain actors had to be somewhat famous. We never doubted on Gonzalo Vega… he was the one. But for the rest of the parts it was a very fun process to have. Always looking for them in the movie’s best interest,” Zimbron explains. 6

The actors that got the parts, gave truth to their characters, they were smart, that took direction well and they came up with good ideas for them,” Gaz emphasizes. There was no casting couch actors, nor did they get the parts by chance. All of the actors strived to get there and were the best of the casting process for their respective characters. These actors came to fame when we launched the film,” Zimbron concluded.

KARLA SOUZA – BARBARA NOBLE “What gave Karla the part is the fact that it became easy to her to make me laugh though out her whole casting session. I had to hide myself behind the computer to be able to laugh freely. Without the right actor you can’t get to the comedy,” Gaz talks about Karla. The actress immediately became fond of the story and the message, she felt it very present and very universal. Young people could see it as well as their friends and family. But she was also drawn to it because it spoke about true sacrifices, hard work and fighting for something greater in life; that the film had something to say without giving a lecture on how to aspire to doing something more of oneself, it spoke to the young people in Mexico. “I also wanted to take a chance on new talent, debut films in Mexico. The most part of the films I have worked in are debut films like The Tequila effect and Suave Patria. I had heard about the surname Alazraki, in Publicity, but when I got offered the script I researched who he was, where he had studied film, his ideas on filmmaking, I talked to many people about it. When I realized Gary had a good foreseeable future as a director, I immediately signed on. As an actor you want to become your director’s muse or the actress he loves to work with,” Souza comments. The coincidences on the actors’ life with their characters also took part in the her involvement. “I was peculiar how Gonzalo Vega – who played our father – had 7

actually been very sick with cancer in real life and decided to come back to acting for this film. I had recently lost my father to cancer. I realized that it would be very interesting and formative to actually connect in this movie and work on that father-daughter relationship and share what we had learned along the way about family and life. It was very exciting for me to know that Gonzalo would come back to film with Nosotros los Nobles (We are the Nobles),” the actress comments on her relationship with Vega.

I also knew that Luis Gerardo Mendez, a dear friend of mine, was in on the project. I trust him and his work very much and I love working with him, and this also influenced my decision of working in the film,” Souza confesses.

What finally convinced her to jump aboard and close the deal was the experience of the Producers Leonardo Zimbron and Raymundo Diaz-Gonzalez, given that they were professionals and had vastly worked on very interesting and important film projects before. Souza did not want to parody real life, but base her acting in Life.

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researched for the part, watching a lot of videos on the Internet, especially the one about the ‘Ladies of Polanco’, that vastly circulated in social media. Two young women supposedly of the high class that were caught on camera drunk and mistreating a police officer that was only doing his job by pulling them over in a high end street in Polanco, Mexico City.

She also went to places the

‘Princesses’ usually go to. “Gary coordinated a night out where we all went to a very high end night club, very popular and trendy at the time in Mexico City.

Here we saw all the

characters in the movie. The lifestyle in which “Mirrreybook.com”, or myluxury.it or even “rich kids on Instagram” are based. There, I started to study the behavior of the girls and most of the time I was in the bathroom, where I knew I would catch most of the conversations between them and watch their attitudes closely. I was there for like two hours.”

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“I even stroke up a conversations with the cleaning lady in the bathroom ‘How ong have you worked here?’ – Oh! At least 10 years, I’ve been working in night clubs tending the bathrooms’. That is when I asked her ‘ What is the most common factor that you see in these women’ – ‘First of all, they are always complaining about someone; the boyfriend, or their father mostly. They are tipsy or drunk and they start complaining that her father wants her home, of that the boyfriend looked at another woman. You can tell these girls have a huge void. They feel fatter than they truly are, they have defects that only they see when they look in the mirror,’ she told me.” Souza recalls. This is what helped her know her character’s limitations, she did not want to exaggerate Barbara, but she also wanted her to BE a ‘Princess’, without any doubt, she had to find the perfect balance for the character to be believable. But even harder a challenge was not to make the audience hate her, because she was the leading lady. “Gary wanted me to make her detestable but I gave him the example of Goldi Hawn on Overboard; she starts out being a detestable character but she is truly endearing.

She ends up being a lovable person and falls in love with Kurt

Russell’s character and cares very much for his children. And that is why we had to make this character funny and mild in order to not make her the antagonist. She had to become a spoiled girl and her frivolity, her situation had to make you laugh. She truly has no idea of what happens outside her crystal bubble,” Karla concludes. GONZALO VEGA – HERMAN NOBLE The way Gonzalo came into the picture was somewhat peculiar. “During the ’94 World Cup, the family that was chaperoning us around town and us, ran into Gonzalo at a hotel. He had had a bit to drink and he really made my brother and I laugh really hard,” the director recalls. My brother and I remembered when we watched him in the play Mrs. President, we were teenagers and we weren’t really 9

fond of going to the theater, and they had dragged us to see it. We remember we had enjoyed it a lot and we had laugh out loud especially when he said ‘Damn you, Freud!’, It had been the first time we had seen an adult curse in that manner,” Gaz reveals. Alazraki wanted someone that would mock the paternal figure, but that understood his father when he interpreted him. In the end Vega’s character came out somewhat different. Alazraki wanted an actor that had about the same age as his own father, a person that would understand about making his own way in his professional life and having to walk the talk since being very young, that had kids that had in a way become juniors and that would sometimes regret educating his children the way he had done it. Gonzalo, according to the director filled in the criteria, and also made him laugh about it. “I really didn’t know Gonzalo personally, nonetheless I knew his work and how professional he is when he gives ideas. He was a very generous actor with us,” Karla Souza says.

Nonetheless he always set himself aside in a way. I believe it was very strategic on his part, to create a sense of absence in the communication between parent and children. No matter how much they loved each other no one knew about the others life. During filming it was like there were 2 groups: the children and the adult, which was something that had to happen and it reflects on camera. When shooting came to an end and the father was coming closer to his children, Gonzalo became very fond of us. It was all closely calculated and you see on screen,” Souza reflects. LUIS GERARDO MENDEZ – JAVIER NOBLE “Luis brought something to Javier that the character lacked; a sort of freshness, something new. That is why he got the part,” Gary confesses.

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“The character came to me literally in a friend’s Jewish wedding. The young man came towards me telling me he was a film director (Gary) and that he had an idea for a movie. He asked me if I could read the script. He had seen me in theatre and in some film and he said he loved my work. As an actor you get a lot of people that come up to you at parties and then you never here from them again,” Mendez recalls. “After that I ran into him at the premier of Capadocia, and he then told me that he already had the money to make the film and that filming would be starting soon, but then he scolded me, ‘But you’re older! I had you pinned for a younger character – That Juan Pablo Gil ended up portraying.- I answered him: ‘Don’t worry, I can shave for the part.’ - ‘We’ll see,’ he told me, ‘I’ll call you to see about casting and see how you look, because I feel that you have outgrown the character a bit.’”

But when Gary sent him the script, Mendez was more interested in the older brother part – Javier, who had the same age as he did, amongst other qualities. He then asked Gary to do a casting session for that character in particular. Gary didn’t want to because he had envisioned him chubbier. For the next few weeks there was a coming and going of arguments between the actor and the director: “I used to tell him that the character didn’t have to be chubby, but very likeable. So you could say that I earned the right to play Javier by my own right, because I had to convince Gary little by little. In the end we were both very satisfied with the outcome,” Mendez reaffirms.

What compelled Luis Gerardo to paly Javier was the emotional journey that the character has in the movie, in which he discovers the true value of family, hard work and money.

Javier is what I love to call a hard candy for an actor.

He is personable,

endearing, fun, naïve, and truly charming. If you add into the mix that he is a real 11

junior, you get a very interesting character for me to play. When we were filming there was a boom in social networks of “Mirreyes” or how we call juniors in Mexico nowadays- they are like an urban tribe that to me is more than interesting,” he conludes. Speaking of difficulties to ensure the creation of the character, Luis says, “Javier and I are very diferent. I don’t act, talk, walk, stand or even think like him”.

Javier becomes more of a challenge because of his entrepreneur side.

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carries around a sort of enterprise bible and does want to make something of himself: “He wants to be someone to win his father’s respect. He knows that his father has made a name for himself and by himself and wants to follow in his footsteps doing something on his own. But he want to do it using the fast lane. He actually thinks that his little enterprise manual has all the answers,” Luis Gerardo explains.

For Mendez, this is an ongoing tendency in the new generation. They all want to earn a lot of money, but in a quick and easy way, without having to make sacrifices or work too much. “Javier wants to earn his father’s respect and create his own ventures but with the least amount of effort, that is why he comes up with these absurd business ideas, actually believing that they are great ideas and that they could make him more successful than his father,” Mendez states. JUAN PABLO GIL – CHARLIE NOBLE For Juan Pablo the script and the opportunity to work with an actor like Gonzalo Vega were the fundamental factors that made him want to do Nosotros los Nobles (We are the Nobles). After a severe casting process, he was finally chosen for the part and it was Gaz, the director himself that called him up to let him know he had gotten the part.

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“My character is just like Javier but without the money factor. I wasn’t very familiar with the Hipster movement.

As I investigated even further, my

personality adopted some of the characteristics of a hipster, I started to morph into my character as time went by.” “As I prepared for the part, I started to hang out with a couple of friends that were very hipster-like and very much like the character I had to play. Also Gary took us to places where people of thie urban tribe would hang out, and there I asked them questions about their lifestyle, ideas, clothing, appearance, etc…”. “For my character it was less possible to have funny moments than my co-stars, but it never stopped me from asking Gary to give me funnier lines. Then, one day Gary told me: ‘Whenever someone talks about something very somber, horrible just answer with the typical hipster mantra ANIMO (Chin up), that is funny in itself,” Gil replies.

In the matter of the sexual preference of his character, much older women than himself, Gil comments: “I believe Charlie is looking for a mother figure.

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shelters himself in older women because he doesn’t have a mother since he was very young. That in the end generates a lot of conflict within him”. IANIS GUERRERO – LUCHO Ianis was one of the first to be cast for the film. This was a priveledge given that he had the opportunity to give replica to other actors that went though the casting process, and to have talks with Gaz about his character and the film. This gave him much more introspect into his character and how to approach him. “It was being granted access to the film before filming even started”. “Lucho is one of the calatlyst characters in the story. It’s thanks to this character, as the director expressed it to me once, that the message of the story truly takes shape: ‘Hard work is dignifying, it makes people noble and enriches their life further’. My character is the one that teaches the others the value of working hard 13

earning a living, fighting for what you want, when in general we are used to receiving everything without giving nothing in return,” Guerrero explains. Recalling the challeges for this character, Ianis has it very clear: “Certainly the romantic scenes. Everyone starts out wanting to be an actor so they can kiss beautiful girls like Karla, but for me it was certainly one of the most difficult things I had to do”. “The love scenes are crueler, because if you don’t feel anything, it shows on canmera. People know what it feels like to be in love, that shimmer in the eyes. As an actor there is no way to fake it, they are your coworkers and you could even be in love with someone else in real life”. “Fortunately Gary and Karla had certain tecniques, for example, in the kissing scenes I never knew how or when Karla was going to kiss me so there was always an element of surprise I could react to. Sometimes I would be about to give a line and before I could finish she would go in for the kiss, without me even finishing a sentence. That gave way to spontaneity in my reactions and forced me to maintain my full attention on her,” Ianis confesses.

FILMING, THE ENSAMBLE AND THE DIRECTOR “I think that all of us being young and with theatrical experience, we all took our work very seriously and with a lot of discipline. I say this to emphasize that making a comedy is very serious work, it requires agility of the mind, analysis and timing,” Luis Gerardo says.

Luis Gerardo aslo talks about the absolute trust that he cultivated with Souza, Vega and Gil. This allowed the actors to give ideas and solutions to scenes. They realized that they had the same comic references in series like Friends or Two and a half men, and that they all understood what those references meant: “I could say that a third of the things that are in the final film weren’t in the script 14

and that they came to life thanks to the trust that Gary had in us and the creative liberty he gave us throughout the shoot.

At the same time we trusted that

everything would come out the way it should, because Gaz is a great director, and that he know exactly what he wants. This is not that common in the Mexican film industry, because the director normally sticks to the script”. Karla Souza’s opinion about her director was very much along these lines. “One of his greatest achievements was that if he was certain of what he wanted and if something was within what he envisioned, then he would go with it. If not he would not let you change his mind”. “Another great thing about Gaz is his duality. On one hand he has this vision in which he has been firm about, but he still lets others have an opinion and express it. Many directors are more selfish, egotistical and sort of dictatorial, and who believe that they know everything and won’t listen to others, they want you to be their puppet and do as you’re told. But Gaz is nothing like this, he is always open to ideas. That is his best quality, I think”.

Another Great quality is that he always surrounds himself of professionals, ranging from the producers to the art assistants, AD’s, director of photography, the editor, and even production assistants; everyone in this film were people with a lot of experience, which in turn demonstrates Gary’s great intelligence. He knew how to delegate work to whom was the perfect person or department for the job, and that way he would be able to concentrate on his.

The search for the crew was very similar to that of the casting process: Gary did not want the most famous names in the industry, for each department, but he wamted the experienced people with the best disposition.

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In the matter of Director of Photography, he began with the most reknown names in Mexican Cinema and worked his way down, finding along the way, no time in their respective agendas. So he decided to work with the photographer he had most enjoyed working with while directing tv commercials: Jose Casillas. Then came an even harder choice: the 1st Assistant Director. Gary finally came to three possibles, but finally came to choose the old school style of the experimented Laura Pesce. “Laura didn’t accept me sending her the shooting schedule digitalized. She asked me to print the script and give her 12 days so she could absorb the script and make the schedule. I love it! In this digital era, we lose the rigor, and I was afraid of losing it, and that is why I brought someone like her aboard. She managed the ship amazingly”. “I learned a lot from knowing what she expected from me, she would scold me and told me when I was doing something wrong. I was refreshing. She was the mother hen on set, from a very different generation than us, this made me feel protected and connected with traditions in film that she would respect and she would get offended when the crew did not”. The devotion and support that the producer Leonardo Zimbron, who believed in Alazraki’s story since the beginning, were key to finance the project and make it a reality. “If I hadn’t had my cheerleader Leo, I wouldn’t have had the strength to bear a 7 month rewrite of the script, living only on my mere savings. He hunted down the financing and went to every meeting”. “And when we finally had the money to make the film, he introduced me to the most talented names he has met and ‘collected’ along his career. But most of all he aloud me to bring new people onboard that even if they didn’t have much experience they had their heart set on this project,” the director confesses. “One of Gary’s greatest talents is his vision of a young film industry; fresh and fun. It is a type of film that has no much prestige in Mexico, nevertheless it has been important and for the masses in American film history. It’s the comedies and romantic comedies arena, while the obscure and violent films are the ones in 16

Mexico that get to go to Cannes, and what earns respect in Mexico. But I believe in Mexico there is a great market for the type of films that Gary and I like to make. Gary is the perfect director for this, because he has the tools to make it”, Karla Souza says.

If anyone were to ask Gaz Alazraki about the critiques he might get from the “juniors” that he mocks in the film, many of them his friends, and how he used to be one, his answer is short an concise: “We all must learn to mock ourselves”.

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FICHA TÉCNICA Cast Herman Noble: GONZALO VEGA Bárbara Noble: KARLA SOUZA Javier (Javi) Noble: LUIS GERARDO MÉNDEZ Carlos (Charlie) Noble: JUAN PABLO GIL Lucho: IANIS GUERRERO Peter Pintado: CARLOS GASCÓN

Director: Gaz Alazraki Script: Gaz Alazraki, Adrián Zurita, Patricio Saiz

Producers: Leonardo Zimbrón and Gaz Alazraki Ejecutive Producer: Raymundo Díaz-González Musical Score: Benjamín Schwartz Editor: Jorge García Director of Photography: José Casillas

PRODUCTION COMPANY INFORMATION Alazraki Films Created in 2012, Alazraki Films is the production branch of Alazraki Networks. We create entertainment content with a high profile and with the idea of stimulating our audience intellect by sharing humoristic stories; we develop films, TV shows, plays and we produce TV commercials, especially for Alazraki Publicity. Our services comply from development, line production, financing, commercial alliances, film and TV distribution and exhibition negotiations and even designing launching strategies of the content.

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Nosotros los Nobles (We are the Nobles) is our first film and it premiered in Mexico March 28th, 2013 under the label of Pantelion Films. With the goal of always generating the best entertainment content possible, we gather the best talent available to us, to make the stories come alive. Stories with a focus on both the commercial and artistic side of entertainment.

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BIOGRAPHY GAZ ALAZRAKI - Director In 2001, Gary graduated from the School Film and Television of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. He went back to Mexico and started working as an assistant director in TV commercials until he finally directed his own. Some of these commercials were for companies like Hipodromo of the Americas, Ilusion, Consejo de la Comunicación, Telmex, Mexico’s Yellow Pages, Yahoo!, Estrella Beer company and Más Fondos. In 2004, he started his first production company with Pedro Pablo Ybarra. He left the company in 2008 to start his entertainment content development company, where he directed more than 200 commercials in the next 6 years. He has written and directed two short films that were accepted into more than 30 festivals combined; Volver, Volver staring Jaime Camil, Martha Higareda and Tony Dalton; and La Hora Cero starring Jose Maria Yazpik and Ileana Fox, produced by Guillermo Arriaga. In 2007, he was hired by Guillermo Arriaga as a director to represent Mexico in a short film compilation produced by Terra.com. It was written and produced by Guillermo Arriaga and was a finalist in the Tribeca Film Festival.

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