Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1494244
CINEMA AUDIO SOCIETY 59TH CAS AWARDS | 20 This evening, Alejandro González Iñárritu will receive the Cinema Audio Society's Filmmaker of the Year honor. "It is an honor to name director Alejandro González Iñárritu as recipient of the prestigious 2023 CAS Filmmaker Award. His sobering portrayals of the human experience bring empathy and consciousness to perspectives often left untold and unconsidered," shares CAS President Karol Urban. "No doubt drawing on his history in music, his films experiment and utilize sound—uniquely embracing its capacity to emotionally engulf the viewer." Upon hearing the news that he was to receive the CAS honor, Mr. Iñárritu said, "Being singled out as a filmmaker by my colleagues in the Cinema Audio Society is a great honor. I have had the pleasure of collaborating with some of the most gifted sound designers in the industry and truly cannot emphasize the importance of the work they do in creating a fully sensorial experience for audiences when watching a film." Born and raised in Mexico City, Academy Award-winning director, writer and producer Iñárritu is one of cinema's most celebrated and respected storytellers. His influential body of work explores the human condition with cinematic daring and a deeply affecting visual and sonic grammar. Deadline recently noted how this bilingual filmmaker emphasizes sound as he crafts the visuals in his narratives: "Cinema is an audiovisual medium. That's why audio is first." He also tells CAS: "Sound is primal. It is a sensorial frequency, it hits our body, and our body does not lie. Unlike the image, it does not need a process of interpretation or intellectualization. For this reason, I think sound is even more impactful than the visuals, and through it, you can have parallel narratives along a film." Always sensitive to the importance of music and sound, Iñárritu began his career as a host and director at Mexico City's rock radio station WFM before transitioning to writing, producing, and directing short films and commercials under his Z Films company. Iñárritu is the first Mexican filmmaker to be nominated for either director or producer in the history of the Academy Awards, the first to win an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and for Best Picture, the first to receive the Best Director Award at Cannes and the first to win a DGA Award for Outstanding Director (and to win the DGA Award in consecutive years). He made his feature directorial debut in 2000 with the Academy Award-nominated Amores Perros. "I believe Amores Perros was an important soundtrack that collected at a very interesting time the best bands of Mexico and Latin America, plus the score of Gustavo Santaolalla. Both things wove together to create a sonic mosaic with a very 'chilango' particular personality." The critically acclaimed 21 Grams followed, receiving Academy Award nominations for Naomi Watts and Benicio del Toro's performances. Babel completed Iñárritu's thematic Death Trilogy, garnering seven Academy Award nominations and earning him the Best Director award at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. Critically and commercially successful Biutiful was nominated in 2011 for Best Foreign Language Film at the Golden Globes, BAFTA Awards and Academy Awards. In 2015, Iñárritu won the Academy Award for Best Director for Birdman: Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance). The dark comedy, for which he also shared Oscars for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay, also won for Best Cinematography, while F I L M M A K E R A W A R D A L E J A N D R O G O N Z Á L E Z I Ñ Á R R I T U I N A R R I T U