Guillermo del Toro won the Oscar for "The Shape of Water" and is the third Mexican to obtain the coveted statuette for best director, after Alfonso Cuaron and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu.
Today Mexico has reasons to celebrate the seventh art in style. The Mexican director Guillermo del Toro won this Sunday (03.04.2018) the Oscar for best director for "The Shape of Water", a film that also won an award in the best film category.
He is the third Mexican to achieve that achievement after Alfonso Cuarón ("Gravity") and Alejandro González Inarritu ("Birdman" and "The Revenant").
"I am an immigrant, like Alfonso, like Alejandro, like my compadres, and like many of you," said the one from Guadalajara with the Dolby Theater standing, at the beginning of his thank-you speech.
"The best thing about our art is that it erases the lines in the sand. We have to continue doing that when the world tells us to make them deeper," added the filmmaker, who thus collected the first golden statuette of his career.
Del Toro started as the favorite in this category thanks to his victory at the Directors Guild of America Awards, where he beat the same rivals he had at the Oscars except Martin McDonagh ("Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri"), who left his place at the Oscars to Paul Thomas Anderson ("Phantom Thread").
Before this edition, del Toro only had a nomination for best original screenplay for "Pan's Labyrinth" (2006).
Minutes before, he lost the award for the best original script -along with his partner Vanessa Taylor-, a trophy that went to Jordan Peele with "Get Out".
The director, who pointed out in a recent interview that this film is "the most human and emotional" of his career, has become one of the most acclaimed modern authors thanks to that particular commitment to the fantasy that has left unique works such as "The Devil's Backbone", "Pan's Labyrinth" and big productions like "Pacific Rim" or "Hellboy".
