AMAT ESCALANTE

— This is unused footage from my second film. The women are Alexis and Elena. The man with the palm trees on his shirt was sitting outside the sound stage, on the sidewalk next to a gutter. I asked him to come inside and be a spectator. Filmed on 35mm Panavision Anamorphic and processed digitally. The soundtrack is “Cocktail Nubiles” by The Stranglers, who we were listening to on repeat during the shooting and the idea was to use this track in the scene.

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Amat Escalante, born in 1979, is a self-taught filmmaker from the city of Guanajuato in Mexico. He began his work in cinema at the age of fifteen. After making two short films, he wrote and directed SANGRE, his first feature film. SANGRE became part of the Official Selection Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival in 2005 where it was awarded the FIPRESCI Prize chosen by International Film Critics. His second feature film, LOS BASTARDOS, also premiered at Cannes in 2008, in the Official Selection Un Certain Regard. HELI is his third feature length film, and was part of the Cannes Film Festival’s Official Competition in 2013, where he received the award for Best Director.