Guillermo Arriaga

Guillermo Arriaga
Guillermo Arriaga, March 2009
Born	13 March 1958 Mexico City, Mexico
Other names	Guillermo Arriaga Jordán
Occupation	Screenwriter, author, director, producer
Years active	1991–present

Guillermo Arriaga Jordán (Spanish pronunciation: [ɡiˈʎermo aˈrjaɣa]; born 13 March 1958) is a Mexican author, screenwriter, director and producer. Self-defined as "a hunter who works as a writer," he is best known for his BAFTA-nominated script for 21 Grams and his screenplay for The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, which received the 2005 Cannes Best Screenplay Award.

Early life

Arriaga was born 13 March 1958 in Mexico City. At the age of 13, he lost the sense of smell after a brutal street fight that would later serve as inspiration for some of his work. Before engaging in his writing career, Arriaga tried out a variety of jobs and professions, amongst which were that of boxer, basketball player and professional soccer player. He completed a B.A. in Communications and a M.A. in Psychology at the Ibero-American University.

Career

While teaching at the Universidad Iberoamericana, Arriaga met future film director Alejandro González Iñárritu and decided to make a feature length, multiplot film set in Mexico City. The result was Amores Perros (2000). The film received an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film as well as a BAFTA Film Award for "Best Film not in the English Language," the "Critics Week Grand Prize" and "Young Critics Award" at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival, as well as many other awards from festivals and societies around the world.

The success of Amores Perros earned Arriaga and Iñárritu an invitation to the U.S. to work on the Universal/Focus Features film 21 Grams, starring Benicio del Toro, Naomi Watts and Sean Penn. Del Toro and Watts received Academy Award nominations for their performances.

González Iñárritu and Arriaga collaborated on a third movie, Babel, to form a trilogy with his first two pictures focusing on the theme of death. However, friction between writer and director led to González Iñárritu banning Arriaga from attending the 2006 Cannes screening of Babel. Nevertheless, González Iñárritu and Arriaga both received Academy Award nominations for their work.

On 19 January 2007, the film adaptation of his book El Búfalo de la Noche directed by Jorge Hernandez Aldana premiered at the Sundance film festival. It features a score by Omar Rodríguez-López of The Mars Volta.

On 29 August 2008, The Burning Plain was premiered at the Venice Film Festival. Arriaga wrote the script and pitched it to American producers, who talked with some directors. Arriaga eventually directed the film, starring Charlize Theron.^[1]

In 2011, Mexican producers including Arriaga, Alex Garcia, and Lucas Akoskin unveiled "Heartbeat of the World," an international cinema project with four films tackling topics including religion, sexuality, politics and drug addiction.^[2] Each of the four feature films consist of a collaborative set of 10 shorts. The first film in the series—Words with Gods—includes contributions from Arriaga, Emir Kusturica, Brazil's Jose Padilha, Australia's Warwick Thornton, Iran's Bahman Ghobadi, India's Mira Nair, and Japan's Hideo Nakata.^[2] The three other films are the "drug-themed Into the Bloodstream; Encounters, a look at sexual identity and expression; and Polis, which delves into political topics." Financing for all four movies have been secured, with each produced in 14 months.^[2]

Filmography

Arriaga objects to being called a "guionista" (Spanish for "screenwriter");^[3] he advocates for screenwriters being referred to as "writers" and screenplays being referred to as "works of film." He has clarified that he has no objections to the term's use in English; his issue with "guionista" is that in Spanish the term has the wrong connotations since the word also used to describe people who write tour guidebooks.^[4]

Feature films

Year	Film	Writer	Producer	Director	Note
1999	Un Dulce Olor a Muerte	Yes	Yes	No
2000	Amores perros	Yes	Yes	No	The Death Trilogy
2003	21 Grams	Yes	Yes	No	The Death Trilogy
2006	Babel	Yes	No	No	The Death Trilogy
2006	The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada	Yes	No	No	had an acting cameo in the film as a bear hunter
2008	The Burning Plain	Yes	No	Yes
2013	Rio, I Love You	Yes	No	Yes
2014	Words with Gods	Yes	Yes	Yes
2015	Desde allá	Yes	Yes	No

Short films

Year	Film	Director	Producer	Writer
2015	Desde Abajo	Yes	No	Yes
2013	Zero Hour	No	No	Yes
2013	Broken Night	Yes	No	Yes
2010	El Pozo	Yes	No	Yes
2008	Dusk	No	Yes	Yes
2001	The Hire	No	No	Yes

Guillermo Arriaga, September 2009

Selected works

Year of Publication	Literary work	Genre
2007	The Guillotine Squad, translated by Alan Page ISBN 0-7432-9681-8	Novel
2007	A Sweet Scent of Death, translated by Alan Page ISBN 0-7432-9679-6	Novel
2007	Night Buffalo, translated by Alan Page ISBN 0-7432-8186-1	Novel
1999	El Búfalo de la Noche, ISBN 0-7432-8666-9	Novel
1994	Un Dulce Olor a Muerte, ISBN 958-04-6169-4	Novel
1991	Escuadrón Guillotina	Novel

References

1. David Gritten, "The Burning Plain," The Telegraph, 13 August 2009.
2. Hecht, John (13 October 2011). "Mexican Film Project 'Heartbeat of the World' Has Global Pulse". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2014-06-01.
3. TV interview at KUSI in San Diego on 10 September 2009
4. Guillermo Arriaga (Guillermo Arriaga Jordán) – Author, Screenwriter, Director and Producer

External links

• Guillermo Arriaga at the Internet Movie Database
• (Spanish) Interview with Guillermo Arriaga at El Malpensante
• Writing (and Filming) the Memories: Interview with Guillermo Arriaga on The Burning Plain by Matthew Sorrento (Bright Lights Film Journal)