London-based Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón stands on the brink of award-winning history. His Spanish language homage to his childhood, ROMA garnered 10 Academy Award nominations last week, having already collected seven BAFTA nods. It has been recognised as the year’s best by multiple critics groups and TIME magazine.

The semi-autobiographical take on Alfonso’s upbringing in Mexico City follows an emotional year in the life of a middle-class family’s live-in maid set against the domestic and political turmoil in 1970’s Mexico. The title refers to Colonia Roma a neighbourhood in the city. Alfonso’s personal haul of four Oscar nominations – Best Picture (Producer), Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Cinematography is two short of Walt Disney who holds the record for individual nominations in the same year with six in 1954. Walt won four, but Alfonso could collect five, because the Best Foreign Language Award is given to the film’s director and their name is inscribed on the famous golden statue.

Six of ROMA’s seven BAFTA nods have gone to the Alfonso, a British Academy record. He is nominated in the same Oscar categories with the edition of editing. The film’s impressive black and white cinematography is the director’s lens work after his regular DP, old high school buddy and three-time Oscar winner Emmanuel ‘Chivo’ Lubezki was unavailable due to a scheduling clash. The last film they collaborated on was GRAVITY in 2013. Both won Academy Awards, Alfonso for Direction and Editing and Chivo for his photography.

Alfonso attended a Gala Screening of ROMA at the BFI London Film Festival last October at the pop-up Embankment Cinema. I was there hoping to get my sketch signed. After a delayed arrival, he did press and was rushed in for the film’s intro. As he quickly passed me, he saw the drawing and promised to sign it on the way out. True to his word, he came over especially, before leaving.