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Mario Beguiristain, Ph.D., born in Matanzas, Cuba, emigrated to the U.S. in 1963. His passion for filmmaking first manifested in his childhood as he drew movie theater designs and performed plays with his younger brother and sister. He briefly attended Hialeah High School, and graduated from O'Keefe High School in Atlanta in 1966. After a year studying architecture at Georgia Tech, he went to film school at New York University (1968) and The University of Southern California. At USC, he completed an M.S. in Film Education (1975), a doctorate in Cinema-Television (1978), and was recipient of a CBS Fellowship. His short films have been official selections at the Miami, Chicago and Atlanta International Film Festivals. Upon arrival in Los Angeles in 1970, he was selected as Assistant Cameraman Trainee by IATSE Local #659 and, after finishing his training, worked on Robert Wise's The Andromeda Strain, George Roy Hill's Slaughterhouse-Five, and John Cassavetes' Minnie & Moskovitz, as well as many TV series, including The Lucy Show, Mission Impossible, The Brady Bunch, The Odd Couple, Marcus Welby, and a Columbo episode directed by Steven Spielberg. While doing his doctoral dissertation on the Influence of the Actors Studio in Hollywood during the Fifties, he worked as script consultant on Richard Lester's Cuba and Sydney Pollack's Havana, then in 1981 he served in that same capacity and as Al Pacino's dialect coach on Brian de Palma's Scarface. At about that same time, his friendship with Academy Award winning cinematographer Nestor Almendros and director Orlando Jimenez Leal led to his collaboration in their documentaries about oppression in Cuba Improper Conduct and Nobody Listens. In the mid-eighties, Mario entered the field of Hispanic Advertising, eventually becoming Creative Director at six major national Hispanic advertising agencies where his campaigns won awards for clients such as BellSouth, The Florida Lottery, Chivas Regal, Marshalls, T.J. Maxx, and Cerveza La Tropical (Publicis Sánchez & Levitan); Chevrolet-Geo, Shell Oil Co., and Smirnoff Vodka (Lezcano/Campbell-Ewald); Toyota, Texaco, Campbell Soup Co., The Disney Channel, Conroy's Flowers and Standard Brands. (Conill/Saatchi & Saatchi); Coca-Cola, Disneyland, Tree-Top Juices, Del Monte, Milk Advisory Board and Buick (La Agencia de McCann-Erickson). His advertising work has been recognized with a Clio Award, a Belding Award (Los Angeles Ad Club), a New York Festival Award, two Golden Mike Awards, two Sunny Awards (Southern California Broadcasting Assoc.) and five Se Habla Español Awards (Hispanic Business Magazine). As a Broadcaster in the U.S. Hispanic Market, he launched, staffed, created the on-air look and served as General Manager of The International Football Channel-a 24-hour pan-regional signal exclusively broadcasting soccer to Latin America from its base in Miami. Earlier in Los Angeles, he was part of the team that launched KVEA-TV Channel 52, (now Telemundo), where he was in charge of its on-air look, advertising and programming/sales promotions. At KMEX-TV Channel 34 (Univision), also in Los Angeles, he served as on-air promotions director and was in charge of the station's advertising in other media as well as creating, marketing and directing many star-studded specials for the Univision Network. As a Broadcaster in the General Market, NBC-TV commissioned his ground breaking 90-minute late-night comedy series pilot Off-Hollywood which aired as an alternate to Saturday Night Live during the show's heyday in 1978. He has considerable experience in the field of Direct Response TV, having directed over 14 one-hour infomercials for the global DRTV market in three languages. In the field of Education, Mario has taught Film History and a course on American International Pictures at Loyola Marymount University (Los Angeles) as well as TV Commercial Production at the Miami Ad School. He also teaches U.S. Hispanic Marketing at Saint Thomas University. In 2003 he joined the full-time faculty of the School of Entertainment and Design Technology at Miami Dade College. While at MDC, he helped develop the film bachelor's degree program and managed the film internship. He engaged in numerous projects outside of the College. In 2003, he developed a theatrical musical biography of Cuban poet/patriot José Martí. From 2004 to 2006, he ran a Telemundo Writers Workshop to train telenovela writers. With over thirty years of experience in the fields of film production, advertising, broadcasting, and television program production; having created, written, produced and/or directed over one two hundred television commercials and over forty special programs in English, Spanish and French for the NBC, Univision, CBC and Telemundo television networks. He retired from the School of Entertainment and Design Technology (SEDT) at North Campus in February of 2015 after serving as a full-time film professor for almost 12 years. He never had children nor married, Beguiristain passed away at the age of 68 after succumbing to pancreatic cancer on September 10, 2016.
