“When you check the cast of ‘The Strain’ all four seasons have Joaquín Cosio, Miguel Gomez. “The first thing we’ve got to keep doing is to have visibility and help others have visibility,” del Toro says. He plans to announce a second wave of scholarships next week. At the most recent Morelia Film Festival, he launched a scholarship program for Mexican animators, 50% of which was funded out of his own pocket, without a sponsor.

Del Toro has been striving to realize that kind of change for years. mayor Eric Garcetti launched the Evolve Entertainment Fund - are putting their initiative where their mouth is. Rather than inclusion and diversity simply existing as industry buzzwords, high-profile minority filmmakers - like Ava DuVernay, who along with producer Dan Lin and L.A. Kick it open and come in,” del Toro said in his Oscar acceptance speech, urging all those struggling to have their stories heard. That inequity was underscored by the fact that this year not one Latino was nominated in any of the Oscar acting categories. It also came in a year that featured both an African-American (Jordan Peele) and a woman (Greta Gerwig) in the directing category, embossing the notion that representation on the big screen begins behind the camera.ĭespite the recognition earned March 4 by del Toro, who also won the best picture honor, as well as Disney-Pixar’s Mexico-themed “Coco” as best animated feature and Chile’s transgender tale “A Fantastic Woman” for best foreign language film, these achievements belie a glaring paucity of Latino representation on Hollywood’s top films and in its executive suites. Following in the footsteps of Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro González Iñárritu, Guillermo del Toro’s Oscar victory as best director for his fairy-tale romance “The Shape of Water” marked the fourth time in five years that the movie Academy’s top prize for cinema craftsmanship has gone to a Mexican filmmaker.

The shape of water guillermo del toro