Douglas Pedro Sánchez

A Fulbright Scholar, Douglas-Pedro Sanchez is a film writer/director born in Santurce, Puerto Rico. His "Sol de medianoche" (Midnight Sun) won the Best Feature Award at the 2019 Ferrara Film Festival in Italy, and was featured on HBO Latino, HBO Go and HBO Now. First feature "Cualquier cosa" (Any Given Thing), had previously won a Special Achievement Award from the Mexican Academy. A 3rd feature "La ultima gira" (The Last Tour), is liberally inspired by certain incidents in the life of Tropical Music idol Daniel Santos. Douglas' Comparative Literature thesis at Brown dealt with Borges' "The Theme of the Traitor and the Hero", Bertolucci's adaptation, "The Spider's Stratagem", and the themes of the politics of spectacle and the spectacle of politics. Filmmaking studies at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and New York University (NYU), led to a Fulbright Scholarship year of research at the Mexican Cinematheque. Post-graduate studies in Latin American Literature at UNAM were followed with filmmaking at CUEC/UNAM, and work in 14 films as director, writer, editor, producer, cinematographer, sound recorder and actor. "Cualquier cosa" (Any Given Thing) was lavishly praised by all CDMX's major critics: "an exercise in unhinged imagination", "a masterpiece of the signifying game" and "a totally outstanding film" (Jorge Ayala-Blanco); "a totally audacious, intelligent film that reveals great aesthetic coherence and control over the film medium" (Tomas Perez-Turrent); "the most vital Mexican film in decades" and "[only the second] classic of the Mexican independent cinema" (Gustavo Garcia). The film had a sold-out run at the Mexican Cinematheque, was featured at a Pompidou Museum Mexican Culture Conference, and at a Madrid Cinematheque Independent Mexican Cinema Series, and was finally recognized with a Special Achievement Award by the Mexican Academy. There followed writing and directing 28 documentaries for television on the National Polytechnic Institute activities, and work with Arturo Ripstein, Gabriel Retes, and other New Mexican Cinema directors on 44 educational TV series episodes filmed at Churubusco Studios. Back in Santurce, work in advertising and public relations was followed by a Juris Doctor degree and private law practice until resuming filmmaking with "Sol de medianoche" and "La ultima gira".