Amat Escalante

Amat Escalante (born 28 February 1979) is a Spanish and Mexican film director, producer and screenwriter. He is most well known for directing the controversial Mexican crime thriller Heli for which he was awarded the best director prize award at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, and for directing the 2016 Mexican drama The Untamed for which he received the Silver Lion for best director at the 2016 Venice Film Festival.

Biography Escalante was incidentally born in Barcelona, Spain while his parents — a Mexican father and an American mother — had been living in Norway. He spent most of his early years in Guanajuato, Mexico,

After his stint in Barcelona, he joined the International School of Film and Television (EICTV) in Havana, Cuba an institution founded by Nobel Prize-winner Gabriel García Márquez, Fernando Birri and the Julio García Espinosa "to support the development of national audio-visual industries" in non-aligned countries. Back in Mexico, he directed a short film (Amarrados, 2002) that received an award at the 2003 Berlin International Film Festival.

He worked as an assistant of Carlos Reygadas in Batalla en el cielo (2005), which entered the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. During the filming of the movie, both became close friends, and Reygadas ended up co-producing some of Escalante's first films.

His film Heli was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival and was awarded the prize for Best Director by a jury presided by U.S. film director Steven Spielberg.

In 2016, his film The Untamed was selected to compete in the 73rd Venice International Film Festival. Escalante won the Silver Lion for Best Direction for his film.

Filmography Amarrados (2002), producer The Legend of Pete Jones (2005), cinematographer Sangre (2005), director, producer, screenwriter, For which he won the "Film Critics and Press Award" Los bastardos (2008), director, producer, screenwriter Heli (2013), director, associate producer, screenwriter The Untamed (2016), director, producer, screenwriter Narcos: Mexico (2020), director Lost in the Night (2023), director