Mexican Fantasy/Horror at the Oscars

With several Oscar nominations, the Mexican-Spanish El laberinto del fauno (Pan's Labyrinth, 2006) picked up three Oscar wins last night: Best Achievement in Cinematography (Guillermo Navarro), Best Achievement in Art Direction (Pilar Revuelta, Eugenio Caballero; pictured above), and Best Achievement in Make-Up (David Marti, Monste Ribe). Crafted by Mexican director Guillermo del Toro, certainly the most impressive contemporary artist in cinemafantastique, the film lost out to Germany's Das Leben der Anderen for Best Foreign Language Film.

Of the winners for El laberinto del fauno, only Guillermo Navarro (pictured to the right) is Mexican born. Navarro has had a long-standing working relationship with del Toro that started with Cronos (1993). Interestingly enough, another Mexican cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki, who had been nominated for Children of Men (2006), may have once worked with del Toro on the Mexican horror TV series, Hora marcada (1986-1990), which represented del Toro's first professional directorial efforts.

Congratulations to all the nominees and winners!