Elías Nahmías

Elías Nahmías is a Mexican born independent filmmaker, with 40 years experience, who has worked in every aspect of filmmaking. His first job was as personal assistant to actor /director Dennis Hopper. He has worked as an AD with directors such as Gary Winick, Carl Franklin, Miguel Littin in "Alsino and the Condor" Nominated for best foreign film and won the Golden medal in the Moscow Film Festival, Rafael Corkidi who shot all three films by Jodorowsky in México and he is considered the a pioneer in the use of video in México. Also worked with Patricio Guzmán in "In the name of God" an undercover documentary against the Pinochet regime during the dictatorship, with Felipe Cazals, in "Los Motivos de Luz "which won a price at The San Sebastian film Festival, with Michel Gondry, Roberto Rochín, Emmanuel Lubezki, and Rodrigo García in his first two films. He has worked in Mexico, Nicaragua, Spain, Chile and the U.S.A. As a screenwriter he wrote "Purgatorio" directed by Roberto Rochín based on three stories by Juan Rulfo.The movie won several awards. He directed a docudrama about the Mayans in the holy city of Palenque using indigenous people for the series "Ciudades del México Antiguo". He did a short film about about a Kafka short story "The Fratricide"; he has done also video art, photography and painting and written for several magazine and dailies about film. He has studied in depth the work of Fellini, Griffith, Chaplin, Buñuel, Kubrick, Scorsese and Woody Allen. He also has given courses and workshops on film appreciation, film language, documentary and film authors at the National Mexican Cinemateque National, Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica, (México's top film school), Chile and Colombia. He worked at the Mexican Film Institute, teaching documentary. In Los Angeles he worked for 15 years in the Hollywood film industry and also founded Frijolywood (Association of Mexican Filmmakers in Los Angeles) a non-profit that gathered Mexican filmmakers and actors in Hollywood. Among them Emmanuel Lubezki, Alfonso Cuarón, Rodrigo Prieto, Rodrigo García, José García, Sergio Arau, Kate del Castillo and Salma Hayek among others . He programmed films at El Teatro Santa Ana in San Miguel de Allende to promote film culture.He is working on an adaption of a Gabriel García Márquez short story to be made in animation. He belongs to the DGA Directors Guild of America.