Jonás Cuaron

In 2013, Jonás Cuarón experienced one of the most important moments in his career as a screenwriter. The film Gravity, which he wrote with his father, Alfonso Cuarón, earned four Golden Globe nominations and won for best director (Alfonso), and received other awards, including seven Oscars.

Jonás Cuarón started to dream about Desierto about a decade ago, when Donald Trump was just a billionaire only involved in choosing the most beautiful women for his Miss Universe contest. When Jonás finally sat down to write it, the script was so tempting that it inspired his director father, Golden Globe winner Alfonso Cuarón.

“Movies were the only topic of conversation at the dinner table”, Jonás Cuaron recalled to the HFPA about growing up in a family with his dad Alfonso, Golden Globe winning director of Gravity (2013) and his uncle Carlos producer of films like Y Tu Mamá Tambien and Rudo y Cursi. His own feature film debut, Desierto, is a taut chase thriller set in the Southwest desert where a deranged rancher (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) hunts down a hapless group of undocumented migrants, led by Gael García Bernal, attempting to cross into the U.

Few know that Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity  began as a screenplay written by his son Jonás years before. Jonás’ idea was so enticing that Cuaron decided to take on the ambitious project, with his son as a co-writer.