The brilliant Mexican filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu attended last year’s BFI london Film Festival with his latest feature BARDO, FALSE CHRONICLE OF A HANDFUL OF TRUTHS. While I had been lucky enough to meet him briefly on a handful of occasions, I finally got my act together and drew this portrait sketch for him to sign, which he did outside his London hotel, stopping for a chat and a graph… as you do. It’s intriguing reading about his teenage years and what shaped his future direction. He was apparently a poor student, expelled from high school for poor grades and misbehaviour, running off to Acapulco,with a girl from a wealthy family, influenced by the Milos Forman film HAIR, which lasted a week, before returning home to Mexico City. After a stint working on cargo boats, he travelled around Europe for a year, which had a great influence as a filmmaker.

 Known for his, and I quote, “modern psychological drama films about the human condition”, which have garnered plenty of Awards recognition -126 wins from 168 nominations to be precise, according to IMDb. They includes five Oscars, three BAFTAs and four Golden Globes. His 2014 black comedy-drama BIRDMAN or (THE UNEXPECTED VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE) won the Best Picture, Director and Original Screenplay Academy Awards. He was the third person (and the first in 65 years) to win consecutive Best Director Oscars, taking the prize the following year for THE REVENANT. In 2018 he received a Special Achievement Award in for FLESH AND SAND (CARNE Y ARENA), a short (7 minute) virtual reality project from the POV of migrants crossing the Mexican/US  border, which was the first ever VR installation presented at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival. In 2019, he was made Commander of the Order of the Arts and Letters in France.