Post Tenebras Lux

Carlos Reygadas was born in Mexico City in 1971. At university, he initially studied law with a specialization in international jurisprudence, but later rejected the lawyer’s life for a career in film. His short film debut Maxhumain first screened at an independent filmmaking competition in Belgium in 1999. Only three years later, Reygadas directed his debut feature film Japan, which he also wrote. The film turned heads among critics and received awards at festivals in Cannes, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. His second film, Battle in Heaven (2005), was a Golden Palm nominee in Cannes. As had his debut, it too stirred some controversy, yet at the same time established the director as one of Latin America’s most exciting new talents. His third feature, Silent Light (2007), showed a new maturity from Reygadas, bringing together the major recurrent themes of his work with a vision that recalls the classics of metaphysical cinema. In 2010, the director contributed the short This Is My Kingdom to the collective project Revolution, which brought together young Mexican filmmakers to present their visions of the legacy of the Mexican Revolution at its centennial. His latest film Post Tenebras Lux screened at the Cannes festival in 2012. Carlos Reygadas was the subject of a retrospective at last year’s New Horizons.