Mateo Guez is a director, writer, photographer and producer. Born in Paris, France, he resides in

Toronto, Ontario Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

, Canada.

Biography

His 1996 effort, ''Le Dernier Jour'', took first prize at the Decine festival, and the Audience Award at the International Film Festival of Cergy Pontoise. Since then Guez has directed music videos for a variety of European and Canadian artists including

Molly Johnson Margaret Leslie "Molly" Johnson, Order of Canada, OC is a Canadian singer of pop and jazz. Biography Johnson began as a child performer, receiving formal training from the National Ballet School and the Banff School of Fine Arts. Johnson's b ...

, as well as directing the much lauded short film, ''L'Ultima Notte'', which was screened at a variety of prestigious festivals worldwide in 2003 – including The

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the most prestigious and largest publicly attended film festivals in the world. Founded in 1976, the festival takes place every year in early September. The organi ...

, the 26th Clermont-Ferrand International short film festival, the

Berlin International Film Festival The Berlin International Film Festival (), usually called the Berlinale (), is an annual film festival held in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festival has been held every February since 1978 and is one of Europ ...

, and the Inside Out Toronto Gay and Lesbian Film festival. Recent efforts include his work as one of three contributing directors to the unique interactive feature, Late Fragment – an official selection at TIFF 2007 – as well as a variety of short films/photo installations shot using only a

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois. It was founded by brothers Paul and Joseph Galvin in 1928 and had been named Motorola since 1947. Many of Motorola's products had been ...

cell phone. The latest of these interactive cell phone photo/

video installation Video installation is a contemporary art form that combines video technology with installation art, making use of all aspects of the surrounding environment to affect the audience. Tracing its origins to the birth of video art in the 1970s, it has ...

s was exhibited at the 2009 Contact Annual Toronto Photography Festival and shares not only its name, but also its subject matter with his 2009 feature film debut, ''Off World''.Toronto Star
/ref> Shot on location in the vast urban

slum A slum is a highly populated Urban area, urban residential area consisting of densely packed housing units of weak build quality and often associated with poverty. The infrastructure in slums is often deteriorated or incomplete, and they are p ...

Manila Manila, officially the City of Manila, is the Capital of the Philippines, capital and second-most populous city of the Philippines after Quezon City, with a population of 1,846,513 people in 2020. Located on the eastern shore of Manila Bay on ...

Smokey Mountain Smokey Mountain was a large landfill once located in Tondo, Manila. History Smokey Mountain operated for at least 50 years, consisting of over two million metric tons of waste. The flammable substances in decomposing waste led to fires that r ...

in the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

, the film is a portrait of both the place, and the people who inhabit it. Off World premiered at the 2009 São Paulo Film Festival in 2009 and won the Tonya Lee Williams Award for Outstanding Canadian Feature at the 10th ReelWorld International Film Festival. Guez' next feature, entitled ''Innocent'', is in development.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Guez, Mateo Living people Year of birth missing (living people)