Alfonso Cuarón told a Busan International Film Festival audience Thursday that life as an experience now matters more to him than cinema, a reversal from his younger years, when film came first.
The Mexican director, making his first visit to South Korea, spoke at a master class one day after he and his son Jonás reunited for a discussion following an IMAX screening of “Gravity.” Alfonso won the best director Oscar for the 2013 space survival drama, which stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. Jonás co-wrote the screenplay. Warner Bros. released the film, and it earned 10 Academy Award nominations.
The pair described the project as an experiment born from a shared love of cinema and technical invention. Alfonso cited Alfred Hitchcock’s habit of placing ordinary people in extraordinary situations as a model, and said the film’s extended takes were designed from the start to hold the audience inside the characters’ emotions. Setting and movement, he recalled, were their tools for expressing the desire to survive. In his view, a camera has a thousand possible positions but only one right one.
Jonás, who directs, used the trip to support his own work. He brought “Campeón Gabacho” to Busan for its Asian premiere in the World Cinema section, followed by a Q&A. He has directed “Desierto” and the Netflix adventure “Chupa” since co-writing “Gravity.” Jonás said his storytelling favors simple setups with strong emotions, and he named Bong Joon Ho’s “The Host” and “Parasite” and Park Chan-wook’s “No Other Choice” among the Korean films he admires. He added that his young son’s love of “Train to Busan” made the trip special for the family.
Asked about future plans, Jonás said he remained focused on his newly completed film while exploring different approaches to projects in development. Alfonso said he wants to make a comedy and learn from a younger generation of filmmakers. He described himself as a cinephile before a filmmaker and said he trusts audiences.
The festival runs Oct. 6 to 15.
