“I don’t think ‘good’ photography is always ‘beautiful’ photography…I think it’s not about that—images should just be what moves you and what will support the story.”
Born in Mexico City, Rodrigo Prieto started off making short films and commercials for more than a decade before coming to the world’s attention with his daring work on Amores Perros (2000), his first feature with director Alejandro González Iñárritu. His partnership with Iñárritu continues to this day, as they have worked together on 21 Grams (2003), Babel (2006) and Biutiful (2010). Their films are known for their unconventional narratives, often jumbling the chronology of events or telling separate (but sometimes interrelated) storylines. In addition, Prieto’s work with Iñárritu has focused on handheld camera, which gives their urgent tales a gritty, raw quality. Prieto has also collaborated with Spike Lee on 25th Hour (2002), Curtis Hanson on 8 Mile (2002) and Pedro Almodóvar on Broken Embraces (2009). He received an Oscar nomination for Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain (2005)—and he would reunite with Lee on a very different love story in 2007, the Shanghai-set period thriller Lust, Caution. Quite comfortable with both the boldness of Iñárritu and the simplicity of Lee, Prieto has also worked with Oliver Stone for his opulent historical epic Alexander (2004) and his Wall Street sequel Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010).
