‘Meet the Director: Juan Pablo González’

Juan Pablo González was born in Atotonilco el Alto, Jalisco, Mexico, and his home region has become the focus of his filmmaking practice, acting as the location for all of his work to date. As a filmmaker, he seeks to reclaim the medium to counter colonial narratives and centre the voices of rural Mexico—building alternative histories to those that seek to frame its communities as being locked in stasis, or as victims of circumstance. González’s work spans fiction and nonfiction, and he often collaborates with real people from his life to reflect their own reality on screen. His films seek to explore community, grief, globalization, and the changing nature of Jalisco as a place. All of his work shares a beautifully cinematic aesthetic and, with a patient lens and care for his subjects, Gonzalez’s commitment to telling these stories is clear in every frame.