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After completing the two films that earned him a place in Latin American cinema, Juan Carlos was in the predicament of what to do next. In winter of 2008, aboard a cargo ship crossing the north Atlantic, he decided it was time to follow his muse in his native Bolivia. Three very personal films came about from the 10-year journey.
In Zona Sur a bourgeois Bolivian family undergoes major turmoil in the face of political changes. It Premiered at The Tokyo International Film Festival and won writing and direction awards at Sundance 2010, before going on in impressive tour of 150 film festivals worldwide, including, Berlin, London, Guadalajara, Chicago, Moscow, to name a few. The Hollywood Reporter wrote: 'Stylistically innovative... the director has managed to get inside the very fabric of lives as they are unraveling.' And Screen Daily said: ... [the director's] themes are so accessible that [the film's] ruminations on generational divides and the challenges of raising a family transcend geographical borders.'
It was followed by a-once-in-a-lifetime voyage of initiation to a place deep in South American jungle that is fast disappearing right before our eyes. Land Without Evil (Yvy Maraey) is a Bolivian-Mexican-Norwegian co-production. Juan Carlos plays the lead role of a filmmaker who encounters ancient knowledge and questions the tenets of his own identity while traveling with a Guarani Indian to a place where uncontacted indigenous still exist. Part fiction, part performative documentary or ethnographic film, its philosophical and poetic fabric make it, as the Hollywood Reported said: "a beautiful meditation on origins and identity." The film opened in Berlinale Native, Mar del Plata, Morelia, Vancouver, and won awards in Havana, Montreal, Trieste, Tres Fronteras and played at The Museum of Modern Art of New York. The film has a huge following in the College Circuit and has awaken the interest of an Academic community mesmerized by its contemporary gaze on ancient themes. The trilogy was completed in 2018 by Søren, a meditation on love and the role of the imagination in modern relationships. It was inspired by Kierkegaard's writings and it features French actor and model Willy Cartier as Søren. Shot in the Bolivian Andes and the lush jungles below, the film opened in the prestigious Cineteca Nacional de Mexico in 2019. It's the more flee flowing and experimental of the three.
Swimming across cold waters of Lake Titicaca and the remote shores of the South Atlantic in the Argentine Patagonia, for a film commissioned by the Argentine Ministry of Culture to homage the fallen in the Falklands War (My Mar Adentro), once again, he realized it was time to crossover and embrace the industry again.
In 2022, Juan Carlos directed Season 8 of El Señor de los Cielos, Hispanic television's most successful TV franchise ever, with nearly 3 billion views across all the Americas. It aired in the US in January 2023 to record breaking ratings for the studio Telemundo/NBC/Universal. It's due on Netflix in the spring of 2023. In 2002, he also directed 6 episodes of The Power of Sunflowers for Disney+ (in post-production).
Not the first experience with wide-audience-appeal content. His first film, Jonah and the Pink Whale (1995), a bittersweet romance doomed by the growth of the drug cartels of the time, was an instant box office success in Bolivia and Mexico. It was made possible by a generous grant from the Foundation for New Latin American Cinema (out of over 200 entries from all Latin America). It won best first film in Cartagena and opened the doors to his alma matter, The Sundance Institute. American Visa (2002), a romantic thriller about the 'Bolivian Dream', with Kate del Castillo and Academy Award Nominee, Demián Bichir, was a solid box office success and still a favorite in cable and on-demand platforms. It opened in Morelia, and Havana, Biarritz and won a Mexican Academy Award (Ariel)
American Visa, Zona Sur and Land without Evil were Bolivian submissions for the Oscars. Juan Carlos's entire film catalogue is represented by Shoreline Entertainment and is available for streaming in various platforms in the US and worldwide.
After juggling the demands of auteur and commercial cinema and television, Juan Carlos is once again in process of making a crossover. During the pandemic, he took refuge in his seaside cottage in the coast of Oaxaca in Southern Mexico, where he practices open water swimming. He wrote a novel which is the basis for new film projects he's adapting for the screen. He also taught writing and directing online and had the privilege of working as script editor on a project he's now attached to direct. Shadows on the Rock, written by Susan Sultan and Gerald L'Ecuyer, is a free adaptation of the novel by Willa Cather to be shot in Canada, the United States and France. The project is in development.
Juan Carlos was born in Bolivia and lives and works in Mexico, a country with a bustling industry that gave him opportunity to grow as a professional. He studied filmmaking at Columbia College, Chicago - part of a generation of Columbia graduates like Janusz Kaminski and Mauro Fiore, who collaborated with him in his short films. In Los Angeles, he became a member of The Open Fist Theatre, under the direction of Ziad Hamzeh. Acting, directing and collaborating on all areas of theatre production, left a deep resonance in his creative upbringing. He made it an objective to combine these two schools of training to delve into what he considers the essence of storytelling: the human heart. He has an ease when it comes to working with actors and staging for the camera. With a strong hold in his national roots and global Latin American cultural identity, Juan Carlos intends to return to the place where he initiated the long voyage of discovery.
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