Jonás Cuarón and Angela Ortíz
A few months ago I caught up with screenwriter, director, producer, Jonás Cuarón (Gravity, Aningaaq, Year of the Nail) who told us how he came up with his film story. He said about eight years ago while traveling through Arizona with his brother they stopped in Tucson and were invited by the consulate to tour their installations; during the tour they were told many border crossing stories, and about that time the anti-immigrant rhetoric was starting to creep up in the country. This made Cuarón start to think about how he could tell the stories that ended up being Desierto, a minimalist horror film with a conscious.
Gael Garcia Bernal, Jonás Cuarón and Jeffrey Dean Morgan
©2016 Angela María Ortíz S.
We had a chance to talk with him again more recently, but this time with his two lead actors, Gael Garcia Bernal and Jeffrey Dean Morgan. They told us all about their experiences and why they wanted to do the film.
Gael told us how the Cuarón family brought him into the film industry, and Jeffrey loved working with the dogs (he’s a huge animal lover).
Every viewer will interpret this film differently, depending on his or her experiences and opinions about the immigration issue.
Jonás Cuarón
Bernal, Cuarón & Morgan
I saw a comment that said Jeffrey Dean Morgan looked too handsome and fashionable to play such a vicious person. To me that is what worked: villains don’t always look the way you think.
Now sit back and listen in on the conversation. Desierto is in theaters now.— A.O.
