David Albala

David Albala was born on November 12, 1971 in Santiago, Chile. With a degree in Journalism, he focused his career towards screenwriting and film directing. Grandchildren of Yugoslavian Jewish immigrants, David grew up in Santiago. From the age of 4 years old his mother took him every Sunday to the movies where he fell in love with cinema. In 2000, after serving as the General Producer and AD for the recognized documentary series "Los Patiperros" ("Nowheremen") (1996-2000, IMDB), he decided to create his own production company (Calibre 71) driven to position himself in the film industry as a director. By the end of 2002, his motorbike was hit by a car who ran a red light and left him paraplegic. After 11 hours of surgery, and without realizing yet what really happened he said: "the only thing I need to work is my head and my hands". David's spinal cord injury gave him the necessary inspiration that led to his director's debut as he decided to develop a documentary film, "PersPecPlejia" (IDFA, Silverdocs, Guadalajara, among other festivals), about his recovery process, inviting several personalities to appreciate the world from the director's wheelchair. "PersPecPlejia" (2005) was then turned into a series which was broadcasted by Canal 13 in Chile and then bought by Turner International (2009). It was broadcasted by Comcast in the US and also in Europe. In 2008 he received a Fulbright Scholarship for an MFA in Film & TV Directing and Production in the University of Texas at Austin. While in Austin, David created his first narrative projects by directing the short films "Elevation" (2009), "Soul CheckMate" (2010) and the documentary film "That Thing You Do" (2011). Upon his return to Chile in 2011, Calibre 71 kept producing commercial projects while David continued developing his teaching career in different Film & Journalism Schools such as UNIACC or UDD. In 2013 David officially started developing his first narrative feature film which was a dream since he came across the story in 1990. "Pacto de Fuga" ("Jailbreak Pact") premiered on January 23rd, 2020 in every major theater in Chile. Distributed by 20th Century Fox, the thriller is inspired by real-life events which led to Chile's most celebrated prison escape on January 29th, 1990, at the tail-end of Augusto Pinochet's brutal dictatorship. The fiction feature debut of David Albala, produced by Calibre 71, Tora Investments, Storyboard Media and Enlazo Capital Films, became the most watched Chilean film of the last two years with over 230.000 admissions and remained on screen until the closure of cinemas because of the global pandemic. "Jailbreak Pact" toplines Benjamín Vicuña ("Vis a Vis"), Amparo Noguera, ("Death Will Come and Shall Have Your Eyes"), Roberto Farías, winner of Best Actor prize at the Fenix Film Awards and Mar del Plata Film Festival for his role in Pablo Larraín's "The Club", and Francisca Gavilán, star of Andrés Wood's Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner "Violeta Went to Heaven". Amazon Prime Video clinched U.S. and Latin American rights to "Pacto de Fuga" ("Jailbreak Pact"), the biggest Chilean smash-hit at domestic cinemas in Chile over the last few years. In August 2020, it had its International Premiere in the Shanghai International Film Festival 2020.