Salvador Carrasco

Salvador Carrasco

Carrasco filming The Other Conquest
Born Mexico City, Mexico
Occupation Film director

Salvador Carrasco is a Mexican film director based in Santa Monica, California. He is the writer and director of the highly acclaimed and influential feature film The Other Conquest about the Spanish colonization of Mexico. Carrasco has won numerous film and academic awards, and is currently developing new film projects through his production company, Salvastian Pictures, based in Santa Monica, CA. He is a tenured film professor at Santa Monica College, where he is the Head of the Film Production Program, recently featured in Variety magazine.[1]

Short biography

Earlier career

Carrasco was born in Mexico City and now resides in Santa Monica, California. He first attended Bard College and then graduated in 1991 with a degree in Film and Television from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, receiving the Founders Day Honors Award. At NYU he wrote and directed three award-winning short films: Alone with His Void, Marblood, and To Fall in Exile. In 1992 Carrasco and producer Alvaro Domingo co-founded Carrasco & Domingo Films, a film production company based in Mexico City and now also in Los Angeles. They also created the Spanish-language cultural magazine, Litoral, which published a wide range of international writers and artists.

The Other Conquest

Carrasco’s first feature, The Other Conquest (La Otra Conquista), was distributed by Twentieth Century Fox and became the highest-grossing Mexican film ever at the time of its release.[2] During its run in Los Angeles, The Other Conquest had great box-office success and wide critical acclaim, becoming one of The Los Angeles Times’ Top 10 Films of 2000.[3] LA Times' critic Kevin Thomas wrote: "Dazzling, Stupendous, Daring! In his bravura feature debut, Carrasco has created nothing less than a superb cinematic vision."[4] Variety called The Other Conquest “the first 3 million dollar movie that looks like 30!”[5] and in the words of Oscar-Watch's Sasha Stone: "Carrasco ought to emerge as one of the world's best directors, taking his place alongside such uncompromising giants as Martin Scorsese and Akira Kurosawa."[6] The Other Conquest was re-released in US theaters in 2007, accumulating more than 40 rave reviews,[7] and is now available on DVD.

More recent output

Carrasco is currently developing Hollywood studio projects as a writer-director. He has also directed episodic television, including Nickelodeon's hit series comedy, Brothers Garcia. As a writer, Carrasco's essays and poems in both English and Spanish have been published in books, magazines, and newspapers that include The Los Angeles Times' Calendar section[8] and Book Review,[9] His song-cycle Solamente Sola has appeared twice on CDs (Island Records and Urtext) and was described by Fanfare magazine as being “…of a Spanish intensity reminiscent of [Spanish poet] García Lorca”[10] and by The New York Times' Allan Kozinn as "four songs couched in effusive and seductive folk styles... a hauntingly evocative cycle on poems by Salvador Carrasco".[11]

Academic positions

Carrasco is the 2002-2003 recipient of the Moseley Fellowship in Creative Writing at Pomona College.[12] He has taught directing at the University of Southern California; screenwriting at Pomona College; film theory and history at Santa Monica College; and he was the Advanced Directing Course Director at The Los Angeles Film School from 2003-2010. In July 2010 Carrasco was appointed as a tenured film professor at Santa Monica College, where he created a new Associate in Science degree program in Film Production.

As the Head of SMC's Film Production Program, Carrasco teaches both filmmaking and critical studies courses, and mentors award-winning short films as Executive Producer: Solidarity (dir. Dustin Brown),[13] Annabel Lee (dir. Ronja Jansz),[14] Rachel 9000 (dir. Angelo Chavez),[15] (dir. Morgan Peterson),[16] Hurt (dir. Brandon Chang), Cora (dir. Kevin Maxwell), Muñecas (dir. Ozzy Ozuna), Bird (dir. Brittany Barber), Like A Rolling Stone (dir. Daniel Hawley), and Shape Shifter (dir. Kelly Thompson), as of July 2015.

Impact Award

On January 10, 2015 Salvador Carrasco was honored at the Aero Theater by the Santa Monica International Film Festival with the "2015 Impact Award” celebrating the local and international educational, economic, and artistic impact of his work at Santa Monica College as Head of the new SMC Film Production Program. Other recipients of the SMFF Impact Award include film directors James Cameron and John Frankenheimer, as well as actor Pierce Brosnan.[17]

Other works

References

  1. ↑ Malina Saval. "Film Professor Creates Low-Cost Production Program at Santa Monica College". Variety.
  2. ↑ "- Trailer - Showtimes - Cast - Movies - New York Times".
  3. ↑ "Small Business: Web Hosting, Domains, Ecommerce & Email". Small Business.
  4. ↑ "Los Angeles Times: Archives - Movie Review".
  5. ↑ Army Archerd. "New filmmaking from A to Z.com". Variety.
  6. ↑ "La Otra Conquista- By Sasha Stone".
  7. ↑ External reviews, La otra conquista, IMDb
  8. ↑ "Los Angeles Times: Archives - An Appreciation".
  9. ↑ "Los Angeles Times: Archives - The mestiza Scheherazade".
  10. ↑ Fanfare Magazine; October 1989, p.384
  11. ↑ http://www.presser.com/Composers/info.cfm?Name=SAMUELZYMAN#Reviews
  12. ↑ http://www.pomona.edu/events/news/NewsItems200203/71202moseley.shtml
  13. ↑ Solidarity at the Internet Movie Database
  14. ↑ Annabel Lee at the Internet Movie Database
  15. ↑ Rachel 9000 at the Internet Movie Database
  16. ↑ I'll Take Care of You at the Internet Movie Database
  17. ↑ "Santa Monica International Film Festival". Santa Monica International Film Festival.

Articles

Interviews

Magazine cover photos

External links

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