CARLOS REYGADAS - BIOGRAPHY

At 16, I started getting interested in things other than soccer, girls and partying.
By accident I happened upon the films of Tarkovsky, not really knowing who he was. I was so impressed to discover what could be created by the simple combination of a camera moving slowly over a wall and a carefully worked sound track. Since then I’ve been fascinated by the cinema as a means of expression more than as a tool to tell stories, to distract, to document, or to protest. It’s an incredible way of creating and transmitting ideas and sensations.

I wanted to study in a field that would allow me to write or to think in one way or another. Law was a rich field and seemed to be a logical choice, so I entered law school at the University of Mexico, where I did my thesis on the International Court of Justice and the possibility of controlling the resolutions of the security council of the United Nations in matters of peace and national security. When I finished university, at the age of 23 I went to do a Master’s degree in London, where I specialised in armed conflict. I started working for the Mexican Foreign Service at the United Nations, preparing work for the International Penal Court. But I soon felt the need to do something more intense, more adventurous. I was drawn to this branch of international law in the first place because these stories fascinated me: only extreme situations interested me. So at that moment in October of 1997 when I was living in New York, I decided to quit.

In January 1998 I left for Brussels, where I knew some students at INSAAS. I decided to take the entrance exams. While I was studying for the exams, I discovered “What is Cinema?' by André Bazin. All you have to do is read him and watch the films he cites to become a filmmaker. I was advised to make a short film to submit with my application. A friend of mine (the director of photography of JAPÓN) lent me equipment and a crew to shoot it. The result wasn’t a disaster and I felt that I wanted to devote myself to cinema. In September, I took the entrance exam and they basically told me that I was already a filmmaker and shouldn’t take
the place of someone else! Perhaps it turned out better that way. During the first semester of 1999, I directed and produced three other short films. These were just exercises designed to help me master the technique, while waiting to make a more ambitious project. I never sent them to festivals. Between September 1999 and February 2000, I wrote the script for JAPÓN. We filmed it in the summer, self-produced and partially self-financed. It was, for the whole team, our first experience on a feature-length film.