When Cuarón, Iñárritu and Del Toro tell their stories...

POSTED ON OCTOBER 11, 2018

A series of three new documentaries by Jean-Pierre Lavoignat, Christophe d'Yvoire and Cyril Bron, The Three Amigos, traces the journey and friendship of the three musketeers of Mexican cinema: Alfonso Cuarón, Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu and Guillermo Del Toro. To prepare us for this series of 3 documentaries to premiere at the Lumière festival, we spoke with one of its directors, Jean-Pierre Lavoignat.

Could you tell us about the genesis of the project? 

For several years, Christophe d'Yvoire, Cyril Bron and I have been working together on portraits of filmmakers. After having made a series of ten profiles of directors of the eighties (also with Nicolas Marki), we turned our attention toward three directors whose films we really like: Alfonso Cuarón, Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu and Guillermo Del Toro. For quite some time, the journey of these three Mexican filmmakers - who succeed in Hollywood and yet pursue very personal projects - has intrigued us. We knew that they are close friends, that they often share and communicate, and yet each director’s cinema is distinct from the two others. In short, we were very curious to learn more about them and how they worked together. So, we pitched a documentary to OCS, a three-part series that would feature individual portraits of each of them and the story of their friendship. Of course, this was only possible if the "Three Amigos" agreed to play the game, which they did immediately!

TA set of three directors means three visions. How did you go about dividing the work, setting the tone and direction of the three films? Did each of you do a separate part or did you approach the project as a whole?

We are a small team who does almost everything together, for reasons of both substance and form. We did not divide anything; we collaborated on everything. We also treated these three filmmakers the same way. Each section of "Three Amigos" is thus composed of the same structure: a short common introduction, a prologue that is significantly different for each director, where they discuss their first meeting, then a portrait of the individual filmmaker, and of course, along the way, the importance of the ties which unite the filmmaker with the other amigos...

What do you like about the cinema of these three very different filmmakers? 

We specifically appreciate how different they are! If we take Iñárritu, we are touched by his desire to constantly push the boundaries of cinema, while giving his films an incredible organic dimension. We admire Cuarón’s quest (while addressing all genres and transcending them!) to find what constitutes the quintessence of cinema itself. Del Toro has a tremendous capacity to create universes that are extraordinary, powerful and singular, and to view "monsters" with a lot of tenderness and humanity.

What do the three have in common, both on a personal level and in their approach to cinema?

Their fabulous visual prowess, their taste for technical and artistic challenges, their desire to explore unknown territory... But above all, above all, their absolute faith in cinema.

The three filmmakers represent successful Mexican cinema. How would you describe the state of Mexican films today?

Making three documentaries on these three Mexican directors did not make us Mexican cinema specialists! [Laughs] What one can easily imagine is that their career path and their successes have naturally changed things, opening doors, helping to nourish their craft... They have undoubtedly already become models and references for young Mexican filmmakers.