The director Guillermo del Toro called one of the most amazing filmmakers alive
Everybody enjoys praise, especially creative people. Some kind words carry more weight that others, like those from one’s peers, especially if said peers happen to Guillermo del Toro. The Mexican master has three Academy Awards to his name, including a Best Director prize, and has garnered six more nominations across his remarkable career. Pan’s Labyrinth; The Devil’s Backbone; Blade II; The Shape of Water, his filmography is an embarrassment of riches.
Receiving praise from somebody of del Toro’s ilk is something to be cherished, and he’s been more than forthcoming with his opinions on film across his time in the public eye. The director isn’t just part of the industry; he’s a massive movie geek, too, so he is more than qualified to give his opinion on the subject. When del Toro speaks highly of a fellow director, it’s best to listen, and that’s precisely what he did for French filmmaker Jacques Audiard.
Following the release of Audiard’s 2024 film Emilia Pérez, his contemporaries gushed over his achievements at a screening of the movie for members of the Directors Guild of America (DGA). “It is so great to see cinema. It’s so beautiful to see a movie that is cinema,” he said (via The Hollywood Reporter). “And nobody says cinema like the French. It sounds really nice.”
“I’m not a dispassionate observer,” del Toro assured the audience. “I’ve been part of two juries – one in Cannes, one in Venice – that gave Jacques the Palme d’Or and best director. So this is how I feel about him: I think he’s one of the most amazing filmmakers alive today. It’s a privilege to be here.” Audiard responded to this outpouring of compliments in the same way most people would. He simply said, “you’re making me blush.”
Emilia Pérez began life as a libretto written by Audiard and inspired by the 2018 novel Écoute by Boris Razon. It’s a musical starring Karla Sofía Gascón as the title character, a mob boss who secretly undergoes gender reassignment surgery. The film also stars Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez, and Édgar Ramírez and has been a big hit on the 2024/25 awards circuit. At the Golden Globes, it took home three prizes, including Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and Best Foreign Language Film. It looks set to perform similarly well at the upcoming 97th Academy Awards.
Audiard began his career as a screenwriter before moving into directing with 1994’s See How They Fall. Other successful ventures in his past include A Self-Made Hero, which was nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes, Rust and Bone, which won ‘Best Film’ at the BFI London Film Festival, and The Beat That My Heart Skipped, Bafta’s pick for ‘Best Film Not in the English Language’. His only prior Oscar nomination was for A Prophet, which was up for ‘Best Foreign Language Film’ in 2010.
“I think that in many of your movies, there is an energy that is profoundly emotional,” del Toro told Audiard. “But that leads to sort of this irreconcilable conflict between what we want to be and the world, and that clash is both very romantic and very dramatic.” They say never meet your heroes, but considering he spent a considerable amount of time telling one of his how good he was to his face, del Toro would probably disagree with that statement.
