Mateo Guez
Encyclopedia
Mateo Guez is a director, writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

, photographer and producer.
Born in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, he currently resides in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

.

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 video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...

s for a variety of European and Canadian artists including Molly Johnson
Molly Johnson
Molly Johnson, OC is a Canadian Juno Award-winning singer-songwriter 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...

, 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
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival is a publicly-attended film festival held each September in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 2010, 339 films from 59 countries were screened at 32 screens in downtown Toronto venues...

, the 26th Clermont-Ferrand International short film festival, the Berlin International Film Festival
Berlin International Film Festival
The Berlin International Film Festival , also called the Berlinale, is one of the world's leading film festivals and most reputable media events. It is held in Berlin, Germany. Founded in West Berlin in 1951, the festival has been celebrated annually in February since 1978...

, 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
Late Fragment
Late Fragment is an Canadian interactive cinema production, written and directed by Daryl Cloran, Anita Doron and Mateo Guez. It is North America's first interactive feature film. The project is a co-production of Canadian Film Centre and the National Film Board of Canada. -Synopsis:Three...

 – an official selection at TIFF 2007 – as well as a variety of short films/photo installations shot using only a Motorola
Motorola
Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...

 cell phone.

The latest of these interactive cell phone photo/video installation
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 increased in popularity as digital video production...

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
Feature film
In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...

 debut, Off World.

Shot on location in the vast urban slum
Slum
A slum, as defined by United Nations agency UN-HABITAT, is a run-down area of a city characterized by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security. According to the United Nations, the percentage of urban dwellers living in slums decreased from 47 percent to 37 percent in the...

 of Manila
Manila
Manila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...

’s Smokey Mountain
Smokey Mountain
Smokey Mountain was a Filipino singing group formed by musical director, composer, conductor Ryan Cayabyab and executive producer Judd Berlin...

 in the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

, the film is a portrait of both the place, and the people who inhabit it. Off World premiered at the 2009 Sao Paolo Film Festival in 2009 and won the Tonya Lee Williams Award for Outstanding Canadian Feature at the 10th ReelWorld International Film Festival
ReelWorld Film Festival
ReelWorld Film Festival is a five-day film festival held annually in downtown Toronto. The festival screens "features, shorts, documentaries, animation, music videos from the Aboriginal, Asian, Black, Latino, Middle Eastern, South Asian and other multi-racial communities."-History:ReelWorld was...

.

Guez’ next feature, entitled Innocent, is currently in development.
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