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導演 : 艾力謝路依拿力圖 (Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu)
演員：畢彼特(Brad Pitt)、姬蒂白蘭芝(Cate Blanchett)、加爾卡西亞般奴 (Gael Garcia Bernal) 、役所廣司 (Yoji Yashuko)、
菊池凜子 (Rinko Kikuchi)
片種 : 劇情片
上映日期： 1月11日

榮獲康城影展3項大獎包括最佳導演、評判團大獎、技術大獎三項大獎。由《狗男女的愛》、《21克 - 生命可以有多重 ?》導演最新力作，四段發生在摩洛哥、墨西哥和日本的故事，因為一粒子彈而連上了脈搏，於摩洛哥旅行的一對美國夫婦(畢彼特及姬蒂白蘭芝飾演)，因為妻子意外地中槍，引發一連串骨牌效應的事件 ....

B A B E L

"We talk about the border as a place only, instead of an idea. I believe that the real borders are the ones that exist within us." - Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

PRODUCTION INFORMATION

In BABEL, a tragic incident involving an American couple in Morocco sparks a chain of events for four families in different countries throughout the world. Tied by circumstance but separated by continent, culture and language, each character discovers that it is family that ultimately provides solace.

In the remote sands of the Moroccan desert, a rifle shot rings out - detonating a chain of events that will link an American tourist couple's frantic struggle to survive, two Moroccan boys involved in an accidental crime, a nanny illegally crossing into Mexico with two American children and a deaf Japanese teen rebel whose father is sought by the police in Tokyo. Separated by clashing cultures and sprawling distances, each of these four disparate groups of people are nevertheless hurtling towards a shared destiny of isolation and grief.

In the course of just a few days, they will each face the dizzying sensation of becoming profoundly lost - lost in the desert, lost to the world, lost to themselves -- as they are pushed to the farthest edges of confusion and fear as well as to the very depths of connection and love.

In this mesmerizing, emotional film that was shot in three continents and four languages - and traverses both the deeply personal and the explosively political -- acclaimed director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (21 GRAMS, AMORES PERROS) explores with shattering realism the nature of the barriers that seem to separate humankind. In doing so, he evokes the ancient concept of "Babel" and questions its modern day implications: the mistaken identities, misunderstandings and missed chances for communication that, though often unseen, drive our contemporary lives.

Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Gael Garcia Bernal, Koji Yakusho, Adriana Barraza and Rinko Kikuchi lead an international ensemble of actors and non-professional actors from Morocco, Tijuana and Tokyo, who enrich BABEL's take on cultural diversity and enhance its powerful remarks on cultural links and frontiers.

BABEL is an Anonymous Content Production, una produccion de Zeta Films an Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu film. Produced by Jon Kilik, Steve Golin and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, the film is written by Guillermo Arriaga, based on an idea by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Guillermo Arriaga. The distinguished behind-the-scenes team includes OscarR-nominated director of photography Rodrigo Prieto (BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN), OscarR-winning production designer Brigitte Broch (MOULIN ROUGE), OscarR-winning editor Stephen Mirrione (TRAFFIC), and OscarR-winning composer Gustavo Santaolalla (BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN).

THE BABEL OF MAKING BABEL

Babel: n. 1. In the Bible, a famous tower built by a united humanity to reach toward heaven, causing God in his anger to make each person involved speak different languages, halting the project and scattering a confused and disconnected people across the planet.

Shot over the course of a year across three continents -- and starring a multi-lingual cast led by Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Gael Garcia Bernal, Koji Yakusho, Adriana Barraza and Rinko Kikuchi as well as non-professional actors from Morocco, Mexico and Japan, the film came to mean for all the people involved a physical and psycological journey very close to that portrayed by its characters. While the film tells the stories of people set adrift by cultural and idiomatic frontiers, both the director and his crew dealt with these same challenges months before the shooting started.

For Academy AwardR-nominated director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, making the film was itself a transformational journey. It was, he says, his greatest filmmaking challenge to date and one that changed everyone involved in a profound way. "BABEL was born of a moral need to purge myself and to speak of the things that were filling my heart and mind: the incredible and painful world-wide paradoxes that affected close and distant lands, finally pouring out as individual tragedies."

"The making of BABEL was itself a kind of Babel," Gonzalez Inarritu notes. "The production was entirely unique from any of the other films I have done. We essentially made four different movies, trying to really penetrate four different cultures without using an outsider's point of view. It was very logistically challenging, but the difficult part was intellectually and emotionally. BABEL became not only an external journey, but an internal one as well. Everyone on the crew, myself included, was transformed, and the film itself changed in that I had to rewrite each story according to the cultures and circumstances." As is usually the case, the clashing of so many cultural points of view in both the ideological and in the physical ended up transforming not only his personal perspective on things but the creative process itself.

Gonzalez Inarritu has said that, first and foremost, the idea of BABEL is the result of having left his country and of his living-on-the-go current state of mind. "BABEL no longer answered the question 'where am I from' but rather, 'where am I heading'".

"The best part of shooting BABEL was that I began filming a picture about the differences between human beings - that which separates us, the physical barriers and those of language - but along the way I began realizing that I was making a film about that which joins us; love and pain: what makes a Japanese and a Moroccan happy can be very different, but that which makes us miserable is the same for everybody" says the director.

Indeed, in making a movie that crosses borders, cultures, conflicts and the internal lines people draw between themselves, Gonzalez Inarritu and the cast and crew had to work through a similar tangle of widely varied dialects, lifestyles and personalities.

"During the production, we had many of the same problems that are central to the film -- communication wasn't easy," he explains. "BABEL was created by hundreds of people all from different parts of the world. On the set in Morocco, for example, people spoke Arabic, Berber, French, English, Italian and Spanish. We even had actors from the same town who spoke different languages, so it was an ongoing challenge to bring everyone together."

With the cacophony of human voices that emerged from the biblical Tower of Babel as its inspiration, BABEL follows four equally compelling narratives that unravel in different corners of the planet, yet are nevertheless tied together at the roots. Everything that unfolds in the film is set in motion by a single, simple act - a hunting rifle left behind by a tourist in Morocco -- that reverberates through a chain of personal and global interactions. Though it tackles some of the same themes of fate and interconnection touched upon in its two predecessors, AMORES PERROS and 21 GRAMS, the film is also a departure, traversing a much broader emotional, intellectual and geographic canvas. "The only reason why this trilogy can be considered as such, besides its having been shaped by overlapping story structure, is that in the very end, they are stories of parents and children. That's what AMORES PERROS and 21 GRAMS were. Despite the fact that social and political questions on a global scale are implicit in BABEL, it does not cease being a quartet of very intimate tales," said Gonzalez Inarritu.

While traversing such distinctive yet different cultures, one of the director's main objectives was to avoid using a conventional "outsider" point of view that could dilute the audiences' intimacy with the multicultural characters. Instead, he followed what he calls an "observe and absorb" process - spending time in each country in which he shot, watching the everyday habits of the locals, while also utilizing many non-professional actors who could provide him not only with unsurpassed naturalism, but unique insight into the local cultural subtleties. Despite the fact that many of the actors had never even seen a film camera before, Gonzalez Inarritu trusted them to reveal their own personal and culturally specific reactions to the dramatic situations in the film.

This emotionally compelling means of storytelling helped to break down the walls that often surround foreign characters in Hollywood-made films. For the director, it was one of the major cruxes of making BABEL - honestly representing each of story's cultural surroundings, while also revealing the starkly poignant and undeniable common humanity at the center of each tale.

"The real borderlines are within ourselves in that more than a mere physical space, the barriers are in the world of ideas. I realized that what makes us happy as human beings could differ greatly, but that what makes us miserable and vulnerable beyond culture, race, language, or financial standing is the same for all" says Gonzalez Inarritu. " I discovered that the great human tragedy boils down to the inability to love and be loved and the incapacity to touch or be touched by this sentiment, which is what gives meaning to the life and death of every human being. Accordingly, BABEL transformed into a picture about what joins us, not what separates us."

IMAGINING BABEL: THE SCRIPT

At the center of BABEL is a subject at the core of 21st century life: communication. The film tackles the unsettling contradiction that although we now live in a world where the latest, greatest technologies make it shockingly easy to communicate on a global level, people still feel largely isolated and apart from one another.

Thus, it was that the title of BABEL came to Gonzalez Inarritu from the foundational tale in The Bible's Book of Genesis in which a cohesive humanity, yearning for something higher, attempts to build a gigantic tower that will reach all the way through the cosmos to heaven. When the humans start to get close, God becomes angry at their hubris and decides to foil their plans. He does so by giving each and every person in Babel an entirely unique language - immediately halting their ability to talk to one another. Now unable to connect, the humans give up their tower and disperse themselves across the globe.

For eons, the story of the Tower of Babel has been a way of explaining how humanity was first divided into so many different cultures and languages - but to Gonzalez Inarritu, it is also a poignant reminder of how humans have remained painfully divided by superficial barriers and miscomprehensions.

"I wanted to try to capture the whole idea of human communication - its ambitions, its beauty and its problems with one word," he says of choosing BABEL to name his film. "I considered so many different titles, but when I thought of the story of Genesis, it made so much sense as a metaphor for the film. Each of us has our own different language, but I believe we all share the same spiritual spine."

In a departure from his two previous films, both shot in countries, settings and shooting conditions somehow manageable and familiar to the director, BABEL meant for Gonzalez Inarritu not only the deep involvement in a more complicated, emotional and intellectual journey, but a means of exploring other cultures and ways of seeing the world through the eyes of a far more complex film production. As is usually the case, the clashing of so many cultural points of view in both the ideological and in the physical ended up transforming not only his personal perspective on things but the creative process itself.

One of the director's main objectives was to avoid using an outsiders point of view in telling the stories of characters born and raised in the cities portrayed. In order to achieve that he followed what he calls an "observe" and "absorb" process. Aside from carefully watching the everyday habits of the locals, he chose to work with foreign non-professional actors who provided him with insight on cultural subtleties. In the ultimate challenge of telling the story from the characters and not the director's frame of mind, he let his first-time actors develop their own reactions to situations that might have a different meaning in another country. Many of them had never seen a film camera before.

The idea of making a film about the cacophony of human voices first came to Gonzalez Inarritu before he even began shooting 21 GRAMS. Acclaimed writer Guillermo Arriaga joined forces again to write the screenplay and conclude the triology which they began with AMORES PERROS and 21 GRAMS. "Arriaga's talent is extraordinary. He has been an important collaborator. His writing is profound and powerful and technically, he understands and manages his tools impeccably," says the director.

The first of the four narratives follows a troubled American couple who find themselves fighting for their lives in the middle of a tragic incident while vacationing in the Muslim country of Morocco, where the local language and culture are a constant riddle. The paradox implied in the relationship between the characters portrayed by Cate Blanchett and Brad Pitt is an example of a more intimate definition of miscommunication. "From the outside, they look like a couple who gets lost in the desert, when in reality, they are a lost couple who find one another in their loneliness," says the director. "To me, Richard and Susan's story, more than being about an American couple coming together to get hopelessly lost in the desert, is about two people who have lost respect for one another and who come to the desert to find each other. The key to understanding who they are lies in the fact that they lose a child, and the subsequent grief and guilt that arises out of that misfotune." Says the director.

Entwined with this shattering marital drama is the story of the two Morrocan children who accidentally endanger many lives and set off a chain of global events they could never have imagined. Theirs is a a more common mode of miscommunication, one of sibling rivalry that culminates in an inoccent choice gone wrong. For me "the story of the Moroccan children meant more a tragedy about the moral breakdown of a highly spiritual Muslim family than a story about a boy being chased by the police. It is equally or more important to the father of the children that Yussef is peeping on his sister while she is undressing than the fact that they had shot at a bus. When values crumble nothing makes sense anymore; when a link is broken, it's not the link that is rotten, but the chain itself."

Another tale revolves around a Mexican nanny working amidst the wealth of California, who makes the fateful decision to bring two American children illegally across the border. Her story is a fable that sums up the situation of thousands of people who try to cross the U.S. border - a situation that emcompasses the frustrations of so many immigrants living abroad, their inability to fully communicate their desire for a better life.

The final story focuses on a widowed father trying to emotionally connect with his deaf daughter in the middle of the intensely urban setting of Tokyo. This tale of a teenager who falls into sexual extremes as a way to fulfill her yearning for affection, expresses another side of language - the physical. Says Gonzalez Inarritu "communication becomes not what is mearly said or not said, but also what is physically evoked. In Chieko's case, the Japanese adolescent, besides lacking a mother, suffers from the lack of words. When to touch or to be touched by words is not an option, then body becomes an instrument, as a weapon or an invitation." says the director.

Each of the stories involves parents and children, tragedy and transcendence, the personal and global - and each involves an overarching yearning for communication.

Ultimately, Gonzalez Inarritu contends that the universal, visual language of film is one way that artists can break through the borders and miscommunications he explores in BABEL. "I believe that languages can be like a mirage that misleads and confuses us. They can make us more suspicious of people we see as others. But I also think there's no tool more perfect for breaking away from the language barrier than powerful images and music. Images don't need translation because they trigger universal human emotions. Film is as close to Esperanto as it gets," he summarizes.

CASTING BABEL

To bring to life the many lost and searching characters of BABEL, Gonzalez Inarritu recruited a remarkably diverse cast made up of both actors and non-actors, superstars and locals, many of whom did not share a common language let alone a common experience - yet each contributed something unique to the film. For Gonzalez Inarritu, working with such a wide-ranging cast was an exhilarating challenge. "Directing actors is difficult. Directing actors in a language other than your own is much more difficult. Now, directing non-actors in a language you don't understand is the greatest challenge a director can have," says Gonzalez Inarritu, who did all three in making BABEL.

He began with the American couple who, still reeling from the heartbreaking loss of a child, find themselves struggling to survive while on vacation in the mountains of Morocco, Gonzalez Inarritu cast two of Hollywood's most sought-after actors: box-office star Brad Pitt and Academy AwardR winner Cate Blanchett.

Pitt takes on the role of Richard Jones, a man already in the throws of guilt and anger over his child's death when he finds himself caught in a terrifying dilemma far from home. Gonzalez Inarritu had a vision of "an icon of the All-American male" for the role. He explains: "I felt it was important to see an American -- like Brad -- faced with trouble in a Muslim country in the days we are living in now. Despite the fact that Richard's role did not seem to be obvious for an actor as recognizable as Brad Pitt, that's what personally excited and challenged me. He is an icon and it always seemed to me that he had a magnetic presence on a level beyond his popularity. He hasn't done this type of role before and I was excited -- and I think he was too -- to transform himself into a middle-aged man in crisis. He did an amazing job and gave me everything he had."

For Richard's wife, Susan, Gonzalez Inarritu likewise knew he would need an actress of consummate skill and depth. When a gunshot comes out of nowhere, shattering a tour bus window and striking Susan in the neck, she enters the catalytic limbo between life and death, where she remains for much of the film. "I felt that only an actress of Cate's range and scale could deliver something interesting from what is essentially lying there on the floor," the director explains. "Even more than that, the audience has to care about Susan, and Cate is someone who creates such empathy, who so clearly reveals her soul and interior life. There is very little physicality to this role, but the performance is all about her eyes and her ability to allow you to feel her suffering. I relied on her to sustain the gravity of the story. As a director, she makes life so easy," he says. "She proved that small parts don't exist. She's a princess on every level," says the director.

Blanchett says that, upon reading the script, she "fell completely into the rabbit hole of Alejandro's vision of the film." Then, she began to consider the inherent difficulties of the character. Blanchett continues: "When Alejandro approached me, my first reaction was 'this is an incredible story, but what is the challenge for me here?' Very quickly I realized that to set up the complexities of the deep rifts and the chasm of misunderstanding between Richard and Susan, all with very little dialogue or screen-time, would be a mammoth challenge."

As her journey began, Blanchett found it was her trust in the director that helped to guide the way. "There is so much of Alejandro in this film," she observes. "He was unbelievably generous with his experiences and was painstaking in helping Brad and I to construct a back story. Often, Alejandro would talk us through the take almost like directing a silent movie - which I loved because it added a charge to Susan's inactivity. As Scorsese says, 'making a film is knowing where to put the camera' and Alejandro knows this deeply, instinctively and absolutely."

She also enjoyed her collaboration with Pitt. "Brad was tireless. The poor thing had to lug me full-tilt uphill on a rocky track for hours on end!"

Blanchett, who brought her family with her to Morocco, took further pleasure in getting to know the country. "I really enjoyed the opportunity my children had to engage in the life of the village. Of course there were difficulties. What you see in the film is very much what it was like - a myriad of languages, hot, dusty and remote."

Equally important to the Moroccan segments of the film is the portrait of two young Moroccan brothers, Yussef and Ahmed, whose boyish attempt to test their rifle's range has startling results for them and their whole village. With one shot from the .270 caliber Winchester, the boys become fugitives and are caught up in what authorities fear is a terrorist plot.

For these roles, Gonzalez Inarritu made the decision to utilize non-professional locals. BABEL marks the first time Gonzalez Inarritu has directed non-actors, a decision he did not make lightly. "Working with non-actors was a great challenge, but it also made everything more real," he notes. "When we started casting, I realized that professional actors in Morocco could look inauthentic. Their skin was too smooth and their look too well-groomed for the part."

Seventeen days before starting to shoot in Morocco, I didn't have a single actor besides Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. In humble villages in the Sahara, casting calls were announced from mosque speakers and hundreds of enthusiastic people lined up to be taped, in what Gonzalez Inarritu considers one of the best decisions he made. It was during these extensive casting calls that Boubker Ait El Caid and Said Tarchini, chosen because their haunting, expressive faces stood out in the crowd. Also cast at the same time was Mohamed Akhezam, a 27-year-old Ouarzazate computer consultant who portrays Richard and Susan's increasingly desperate tour guide Anwar.

For the amateur Mohamed Akhezam, getting the chance to star in a major international film was what he calls "magical and incredible." He credits his famous co-stars for making him feel welcome and relaxed, despite his contrasting background. "When I saw Brad and Cate for the first time, I knew they were big stars with very different lives from mine, but they were also very simple and simpatico," says Akhezam. "I found them natural. Brad is a good man, who really made me feel empowered, and Cate is very calm, professional. I respected her concentration and focus. The opportunity to work with them was a once-in-a-lifetime moment."

For the gripping story of a lost nanny that unfolds against the U.S.-Mexico border, Gonzalez Inarritu focused first on the search for Amelia, the illegal immigrant who crosses the border for her son's wedding - only to be abandoned in the scorching Sonoran desert with two American children in her care. Gonzalez Inarritu auditioned hundreds of bilingual actresses, looking for that elusive combination of determination and vulnerability that Amelia embodies. It was his wife, Maria Eladia, who then suggested Adriana Barraza, the actress who appeared in AMORES PERROS as Octavio's mother.

"Adriana sent a tape and it was so good that I was almost crying," recalls the filmmaker. "Every scene hit me in the heart and the gut. She has that quality of unconditional maternal love, who is also tough and endures a lot of pain. She represents those millions of Mexicans living in the United States, as invisible citizens. As the embodiment of these forgotten people, Adriana Barraza gives new meaning for the word incarnation. Every movement of her body, her hands, and her eyes was incarnate with tenderness and complexity of the spirit of a character that could easily have become stereotyped. Her work was sublime."

Also key to the story that unwinds in Mexico are the children Amelia brings with her over the border: Mike, who is played by newcomer Nathan Gamble, and Debbie, who is portrayed by Elle Fanning, sister of Dakota Fanning. It's through their wide-eyed, unpolished perspective that Gonzalez Inarritu unveils an unseen side of Mexico. "There can be a prejudice that exists in American society about Mexico, so I wanted to show the country through the eyes of children, where there is an air of innocence and sense of discovery," reveals the director. "What can be judged as dirty, eccentric and poor, in the eyes of kids can be playful, colorful, different and fun. I was very interested in exploring new territory in an area that is almost always portrayed so negatively on film, and the children allowed me to do that."

For Fanning, the filmmaking journey was especially eye opening. "Making this film was such a special time for me," she says. "I learned so much and had a great time. I feel really lucky."

To play Santiago, Amelia's brother who drunkenly leads her and the children into their own perilous desert odyssey, Gonzalez Inarritu turned to Gael Garcia Bernal - the actor whom Inarritu first discovered when he cast him as Octavio in AMORES PERROS, and has since become an international star.

"Gael had been on my mind since the first time I thought about this story," he notes. "I couldn't end this triptych without him. He's one of my favorite actors in the world. He portrayed subtlely the complicated nature of Santiago who represents the double nature of a certain type of Mexican man, who can be lovely, friendly and enthusiastic, but when he drinks, can be very irresponsible, angry and resentful. He also represents how some Mexicans who cross the borders every day, feel about American authority. Santiago's sudden rage is not because of that night or because he is drunk, but because of the sum of years of humiliation and resentment that he has been holding back for a long time."

Bernal was immediately intrigued by Santiago. "When Alejandro began talking to me about BABEL, I felt I knew who this character was," says Bernal. "I don't want to take roles that I cannot relate to and a lot of scripts I read have these kinds of characters -- drug dealers and gang members. But after reading about 15 pages of this story, I immediately knew I could relate."

Perhaps the most intimate story in BABEL is the portion that unfolds amidst the chaos and constant motion of Tokyo, which tells the tale of a lonely teenage rebel and her distant, widowed father - who are mysteriously tied to the fates of others in the story.

For the role of Yasijuro, the frustrated father who cannot reach his daughter in the wake of his wife's suicide, Gonzalez Inarritu cast one of Japan's most esteemed actors, Koji Yashuko, who has starred in nearly 50 films including MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA and the original, SHALL WE DANCE? Though the role is small, Gonzalez Inarritu knew he needed an actor who could leave a powerful and memorable mark in a short span of time. "The father is in just a couple of scenes, but we had to find an actor who has so much presence and gravity that you remember him long after his scenes have passed," states Gonzalez Inarritu, adding that he admire Yashuko's "economy of movement."

Meanwhile, in 2004, Gonzalez Inarritu began holding auditions in the quest to find Yasijuro's daughter, the angry, sexually exploring, deaf-mute Chieko. He knew the precise mix of defiance, desire and grief he was looking for would be tough to match, especially since he was seeking a hearing-impaired actress. When 24-year-old Rinko Kikuchi came in for a reading early on, Gonzalez Inarritu was "blown away by her talent, but reluctant because she wasn't deaf," he recalls. Though he continued to audition hundred of actresses for another 9 months, Gonzalez Inarritu remained haunted and captivated by Kikuchi, and eventually cast her. "No one came close to the spirit, sadness and isolation she captured," he explains

Even before Gonzalez Inarritu cast her, Kikuchi was so determined to get the part that she began taking lessons in sign language. "It was a very brave and wise decision," notes Gonzalez Inarritu. "Sometimes the magic and art of performance is about transformation."

Throughout BABEL, Gonzalez Inarritu faced the challenge of directing foreign, non-professional actors. "Directing actors is difficult. Directing actors in another language that you more or less speak is very difficult, as I already knew from 21 GRAMS, but directing non-actors in a language where you don't have a clue, that's the most ridiculous, challenging and satisfying idea that I have ever had," he says.

Gonzalez Inarritu had help overcoming the obstacles of communication from three women he calls "more than translators," who enabled the director to "direct as if language was not an issue."

"In Morocco, I relied on Hiam Abbass who, more than a language coach or translator, was the person who really helped me to build the emotional link with the Arabic non-actors. Without her, I would never have been able to make it," he says. "The same is true of Mariko and Rieko in Japan. Mariko, our deaf translator, enabled me to communicate with the deaf cast members and, together, we were able to bridge the gap that could have so easily have been misunderstood and thus collapsed. Rieko, who was my Japanese language translator, allowed my voice to be heard and understood, which given the circumstances, was no easy task." For the director, this ability to transcend cultural and language barrier were not only a saving grace but went directly to the heart of the film's themes.

THE LOOK OF BABEL

The visceral power and expressiveness of BABEL comes not only from the performances but from the film's unique visual fluidity. Using a style that is a departure from his previous film, Inarritu sought to combine a stark hyper-realism with more poetic, dream-like sequences that work to pull the audience deep into the inner lives of the characters. To help achieve this, he was joined by a crew of top rate collaborators consisting of director of photography Rodrigo Prieto, production designer Brigitte Broch and composer Gustavo Santaolalla, along with sound designer Martin Hernandez - all of whom have been integral members of Gonzalez Inarritu's team since AMORES PERROS. The artistic bond already established between them made the BABEL experience even more intimate and transforming.

"Over the course of the year, we lived around the world like a big circus of gypsies. It was a creative process in which everybody gave the best of their talents and I owe to all of my team and collaborators, the best and most satisfying moments, both in the film and out of it. Without them, it would have been impossible to conceive even an inch of film," says the director.

Key to forging the film's unique look was OscarR-nominated cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto's (BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN) mastery of visual narratives. Collaborating closely with Gonzalez Inarritu, Prieto developed distinctive film styles for each of BABEL's four interlocked stories yet also found a way to cohesively tie them all together.

"We visually represented the character's individual emotional journeys through the use of different film stocks and formats," Prieto explains. "By emphasizing the subtle differences between the image quality of each story -- like the texture of the film grain, the color saturation, and the sharpness of the backgrounds - we were able to enhance the experience of feeling like you are in different places geographically and emotionally," says Prieto. "We then digitally combined the different lens formats used into one negative, in the same way that all these cultures and languages come together in one film."

Production designer Brigitte Broch - an OscarR winner for MOULIN ROUGE -- faced her own unusual challenges while moving around the globe and encountering very diverse production situations - from the empty deserts of South Morocco and Mexico to the hypermodern city of Tokyo. Meanwhile, she worked to achieve Inarritu's goal of always making the art department's efforts invisible to the audience.

"This film was one of the toughest experiences of my life, though also one of the most unforgettable and gratifying," says Broch. "From working in the most amazing landscapes in Morocco to watching the strangest mixture of society in Tokyo, this film has shaped in me a better understanding of mankind. We decided to paint the film country by country in variations on red tones. We used orange earth tones for Morocco, electric, vivid red for Mexico and then shifted more toward a subtle red-purple for Japan."

The film's aesthetic was also forged in the editing room, where Gonzalez Inarritu recruited Academy AwardR-winning editor Stephen Mirrone's efforts to tackle the massive task of pulling all of BABEL's interlocked pieces together.

"I loved working with Alejandro because he is relentless," says Mirrione. "He's not satisfied unless every frame in the film makes you feel something. In editing BABEL that meant being focused microscopically on every detail within each scene. Over 2,500 distinct camera setups were shot, giving us an overwhelming palette of images and sounds to choose from. There are roughly 4,000 cuts in the film. So, like assembling a massive mosaic from tiny intricately designed tiles, the work we all accomplished only became clear to me after stepping back and watching with a little distance. I am still discovering new details, new connections, and new layers of meaning with every viewing."

Adding the final touches of feeling and depth to the film is another long-time partner of Inarritu's - composer Gustavo Santaolalla, who most recently wrote the OscarR-winning score for BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN. "BABEL was the third motion picture I had the chance of working with Alejandro. Since AMORES PERROS and through 21 GRAMS we've been developing a particular musical language that helps us to connect with the humanistic, visceral and heartfelt essence of his movies," says Santaolalla. "The challenge with BABEL was to find a leading instrument that would connect all the characters and places, keeping an identity but not sounding like the music of a National Geographic documentary. That voice I found in an instrument called the oud, an Arab fretless instrument, ancestor of the Spanish guitar that also echoes the Japanese koto. That sound in combination with other instruments is what created the sonic fabric of BABEL."

Also joining the project were producers Jon Kilik (ALEXANDER, MALCOLM X, DEAD MAN WALKING) and Steve Golin (ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF A SPOTLESS MIND and BEING JOHN MALKOVICH). "It was great to be able to rely on the family that had been with me during the past two films, but it was also amazing to work with new friends and partners, Jon Kilik and Steve Golin. We went through a lot over the course of the film, but their spirit, experience and support was indispensable for this project," says Gonzalez Inarritu.

From the point of view of a producer, BABEL posed numerous challenges, but the biggest goal of all was to maintain the creative integrity of the film. "BABEL became the most demanding and the most rewarding producing challenge of my career," says Kilik "Remote deserts, highly secured international borders, and one of the most densely populated cities on the planet made for enormous production challenges while embracing the lifestyle and work style of Morocco, Mexico and Japan resulted in an honesty on the screen that I am extremely proud of."

Golin expresses a similar sentiment. "This was my first collaboration with Alejandro and the experience of working on BABEL was not only memorable, but unlike any other film I have been a part of," he remarks. "Each day provided me an opportunity to witness people's methodologies of filmmaking within an international setting and I was continually challenged and inspired as a producer. Having to overcome the obstacles and boundaries of language to find a way of working with one another helped to make this journey truly unique."

THE THREE CONTINENTS OF BABEL

Intriguingly, each of the locations of BABEL has played a role in Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's life. Gonzalez Inarritu took a life-changing trip to Morocco at age 17, and from the minute he was first introduced to that country's shimmering deserts and soulful mountains, he determined he would one day make a movie there. In this age of terrorism and fear, the setting became even more relevant to Inarritu's story of mixed up communication and mistaken motives.

Similarly, the director's previous visits to Japan inspired him to commit to returning one day with a movie camera. In 2003, he went to that country to promote 21 GRAMS, and visited a place named Hakone, a landmark mountain with steaming thermal waters that struck him as magical. While climing up the Hakone mountain, he saw an old man taking care of a mentally-retarded adolescent Japanese girl with such love and dignity that the image had a powerful effect on him - leading to the idea of telling the story of a relationship between two isolated people in the middle of bustling Japan. Later on, the strange and constant appearance of deaf people in that same trip, became the seed of the Japanese story,

Another influence on Gonzalez Inarritu as he forged BABEL was his own recent move from his former home in Mexico City to the United States. The director knew he wanted to set one of his stories against the deadly and highly contentious border between the U.S. and Mexico. "Being an immigrant myself, I gained a clearer perspective of myself, my country and my own work. I also now understand what it feels like being a Third World citizen living in the First World country, and the complexity of its significance."

Production of BABEL began in Morocco in May of 2005, then moved on to Mexico and Tokyo - but wherever the production traveled, Gonzalez Inarritu attempted to bring the same sensibility. "We wanted to blend ourselves into each of the cultures," he says. "We wanted to transcend the black-and-white view of the outsider or tourist."

In Morocco, the key was finding a location to stand in for the village of Tazarine, a small, tight-knit enclave in the southern desert. Gonzalez Inarritu had a very clear vision of what he wanted - a traditional-feeling community featuring a central plaza with a mosque, little or no foliage and roads large enough for a tour bus (not to mention a few production vehicles) - and set out to find it.

Following a series of scouts near Ouarzazate, Morocco’s now burgeoning film center, Gonzalez Inarritu found the remote Berber village of Taguenzalt. The village, built into the rocky gorges of the Draa Valley, boasts ancient, adobe-style houses (ksours) with rooms facing around an inner courtyard. On rooftops, Berber women saturate wool in vats of boiling water, using henna, indigo, saffron, and other ancient dyes to make the prized rugs named for the Berber people. Each night the sky, dusted by fierce Saharan winds, glows orange and red as the sun sets.

"I liked that this village was very humble and very real," comments Gonzalez Inarritu. "The people in Taguenzalt were extremely nice and spiritual. And I mean really spiritual. I felt safe there."

The villagers of Taguenzalt can trace their Berber ancestors back more than 3,000 years, and today subsist mainly as pastoral nomads and farmers, raising dates, figs, goats and sheep, as well as weaving their internationally renowned rugs and handbags. Taguenzalt is so traditional that as the film began production, the village was just getting "electrification," power poles and cables to provide the local people with their first ever electricity. So while some villagers had seen a movie on battery-powered television sets before, no one recognized the actors - even Brad Pitt. Thrust into the world of international film production, the entire village enthusiastically participated, with some 200 locals serving as extras.

Despite the warm hospitality of the people, the conditions in Morocco could be daunting. Temperatures regularly soared to 98 degrees, with afternoon windstorms whipping up sands from the southern Sahara. Yet the discomfort only added to the gritty realism of BABEL. "The heat was brutal and uncomfortable, but it's precisely what this story is about. This was not only method acting, but method execution," says Gonzalez Inarritu.

After Morocco, production hopped back to Tijuana, Mexico - where once again, in parallel with the film's characters, the production found themselves in a dusty, sweltering desert and a tiny, secluded village. Here the rural, Norteno town of El Carrizo stood in for Amelia's ramshackle home in the "Los Lobos" hamlet. Key sequences were also shot along the border between Mexico and California, where Gonzalez Inarritu captures the view from the Mexican side - with its extensive fencing, surveillance cameras, mega-watt stadium lighting and fortress-like atmosphere. A smaller cast and crew then moved on into the harsh, desolate expanses of the Sonoran desert for the scenes in which Amelia and the children struggle to survive during their disastrous border crossing.

"Five people were in the hospital in the Sonoran desert. Adriana almost suffered from heat stroke on set. It wasn't easy," recalls the director.

Finally, Gonzalez Inarritu and his crew arrived in Tokyo which, despite being the only urban setting in the film, was rife with its own hectic challenges. "Tokyo was both a wonderful experience and a difficult one," states Gonzalez Inarritu. "Things work slowly there and there's no film commission to help you through. There's no permission to shoot anything, so you are always escaping from the police at every corner. We had to be brave and work like a guerilla-style crew, ready to improvise, moving fast."

Every phase in the making of BABEL both mirrored the situations faced by the characters, and in turn informed the film's story even further. "Everyday, I was adjusting and adapting the script, depending on how the culture struck me," says Gonzalez Inarritu. "If the film molded reality or the other way around is best left for the audiences to guess."

ABOUT THE CAST

Brad Pitt (Richard)

Brad Pitt is one of the most recognizable actors in the world. His work in such films as TROY, FIGHT CLUB, MR. AND MRS. SMITH, SEVEN and TWELVE MONKEYS have made him one of the most prominent actors in the world. He has also become successful in the production arena with his Plan B Productions.

Pitt is currently in production on OCEAN'S THIRTEEN for Warner Bros. where he is reprising his role as Rusty Ryan. The film is scheduled for release in June 2007. Following OCEAN'S THIRTEEN, Pitt will begin production on THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTONS re-teaming him with his Babel co-star Cate Blanchett. The film, directed by David Fincher, is an adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story of the same name.

Later this year, Pitt will also star in THE ASSASINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD as Jesse James, directed by Andrew Dominik.

Pitt's role as the seductive hitchhiker in Ridley Scott's controversial THELMA & LOUISE first brought him national attention. He then went on to star as the psychopathic serial killer in KALIFORNIA, the charismatic-but-doomed Paul Maclean in Robert Redford's A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT, and the bloodsucking Louis in Neil Jordan's INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE.

Pitt has been nominated twice for a Golden GlobeR Award -- for his work as Tristan, the passionate, untamable brother in Tri-Star's LEGENDS OF THE FALL and for his co-starring role in Terry Gilliam's TWELVE MONKEYS. Pitt won the award for his performance in the latter.

Born in Shawnee, Oklahoma and growing up in Springfield, Missouri, Pitt attended the University of Missouri at Columbia where he majored in Journalism with a focus on advertising. Right before graduation, he moved to Los Angeles to study advertising and graphic design, but instead began to pursue an acting career, studying with Roy London. Soon thereafter, he began securing roles in various television projects, including the Fox series, "Glory Days," HBO's "The Image" and the critically acclaimed movie of the week, "Too Young To Die."

Pitt's recent starring roles include Wolfgang Petersen's TROY, which had a international box office of $481 Million; the hits OCEANS 11 and OCEANS 12 with an ensemble cast that included George Clooney, Julia Roberts and Matt Damon, directed by Steven Soderbergh and Universal's SPY GAME in which he starred opposite Robert Redford, directed by Tony Scott. He also co-starred in Dreamworks' THE MEXICAN with Julia Roberts and James Gandolfini for director Gore Verbinski and Guy Ritchie's SNATCH. He appeared in cameo roles in Soderbergh's FULL FRONTAL and Clooney's CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND. Pitt also lent his voice as Sinbad in Dreamworks' animated motion picture SINBAD: LEGEND OF THE SEVEN SEAS. His most recent starring role was as John Smith in Doug Liman's MR. & MRS. SMITH opposite Angelina Jolie, which was one of 2005's most successful films, garnering $428 Million worldwide.

Pitt has also starred in JOHNNY SUEDE, which won the 1992 Golden Leopard Award for Best Picture at the Locarno Film Festival, Ralph Bakshi's COOL WORLD, Tony Scott's TRUE ROMANCE, SLEEPERS, THE DEVIL'S OWN, Jean Jacques Annaud's SEVEN YEAR'S IN TIBET, Marty Brest's MEET JOE BLACK, and FIGHT CLUB reuniting him with director David Fincher (SEVEN).

Plan B Productions has produced films including TROY and CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY starring Johnny Depp, directed by Tim Burton; and has completed production on THE ASSASINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD, in which he stars, A MILLION LITTLE PIECES, THE DEPARTED and RUNNING WITH SCISSORS. Other films in production include DIRTY TRICKS, A MIGHTY HEART and SHANTARAM. For television, the company is co-developing a miniseries adaptation of the Stephen Ambrose book about explorers Lewis and Clark for HBO among other projects.

Cate Blanchett (Susan)

Since graduating from Australia's National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA), Cate Blanchett has worked extensively in the theater: with Company B, a loose ensemble of actors including Geoffrey Rush, Gillian Jones and Richard Roxburgh based at Belvoir St. under the direction of Neil Armfield. Her roles included Miranda (THE TEMPEST), Ophelia (HAMLET - for which she was nominated for a Green Room Award), Nina (THE SEAGULL) and Rose (THE BLIND GIANT IS DANCING).

For the Sydney Theater Company (STC) she appeared in Caryl Churchill's TOP GIRLS, David Mamet's OLEANNA (awarded The Sydney Theater Critics award for Best Actress), Michael Gow's SWEET PHOEBE (also for the Croyden Wearhouse, London) and Timothy Daly's KAFKA DANCES (also for The Griffin Theatre Company) for which she received the Critics Circle award for best newcomer.

For the Almeida Theatre in 1999, Cate played Susan Traheren in David Hare's PLENTY on London's West End.

Her television credits include lead roles in BORDERTOWN and HEARTLAND, both for the Australian Broadcasting Commission.

Her film roles include Susan Macarthy in Bruce Beresford's PARADISE ROAD, Lizzie in THANK GOD HE MET LIZZIE, an anti-romantic comedy directed by Cherie Nowlan for which Cate was awarded both the Australian Film Institute (AFI) and the Sydney Film Critics awards for Best Supporting Actress, and Lucinda in OSCAR AND LUCINDA opposite Ralph Fiennes and directed by Gillian Armstrong, a role that earned her an AFI nomination for Best Actress.

In 1998, Cate portrayed Queen Elizabeth I in the critically acclaimed ELIZABETH, directed by Shekhar Kapur, for which she received a Golden GlobeR Award for Best Actress in a Drama and a BAFTA for Best Actress in a Leading Role as well as Best Actress Awards from The Chicago Film Critics Association, The London Film Critics Association, The Toronto Film Critics Association, On-line Film Critics, Variety Critics and UK Empire Award. She also received a Best Actress nomination from the Screen Actors Guild and the Academy of Motion Picture, Arts, & Sciences.

In 1999, Cate appeared in PUSHING TIN with John Cusack, a black-comedy about air traffic controllers directed by Mike Newell, AN IDEAL HUSBAND directed by Oliver Parker and THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY directed by Anthony Mingella for which she received a BAFTA nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Cate also starred in THE GIFT, directed by Sam Raimi and in Sally Potter's THE MAN WHO CRIED which premiered at the Venice Film Festival and for which Cate was awarded Best Supporting Actress by the National Board of Review and the Florida Critics Circle.

In 200l, Cate appeared in BANDITS with Bruce Willis and Billy Bob Thornton, and directed by Barry Levinson, for which she received a Golden GlobeR Award nomination and a Screen Actors Guild nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress. Cate has also appeared in THE SHIPPING NEWS, alongside Kevin Spacey and directed by Lasse Hallstrom, based on the 1994 Pulitzer-Prize winning novel by Annie Proulx. She was also seen as "Galadriel," Queen of the Elves, in LORD OF THE RINGS: FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, the first installment of Peter Jackson's trilogy based on J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy novels. Cate was honored by the National Board of Review as the 2001 Best Supporting Actress for her outstanding supporting performances in BANDITS, THE LORD OF THE RINGS: FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING and THE SHIPPING NEWS. She reprised her role as "Galadriel" in 2002 for second installment of the trilogy, LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS and the final installment, LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING.

In 2002, Cate was also seen in the title role of CHARLOTTE GRAY, directed by Gillian Armstrong and based on Sebastian Faulks' best-selling novel. Cate also appeared in HEAVEN, opposite Giovanni Ribisi and directed by Tom Tykwer, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival where the film was awarded the Golden Camera Award.

In 2003, Cate was seen in VERONICA GUERIN, the fact-based story of the Irish journalist who was slain in her homeland in 1996 by drug dealers, directed by Joel Schumacher. Her performance earned her a Golden Globe nomination in the category of Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama and a nomination by the Washington, D.C. Area Film Critics Association for Best Actress. The film was released in October 2003. She also starred in the Columbia Pictures' thriller, THE MISSING, opposite Tommy Lee Jones for director Ron Howard. The film was released in November 2003.

In early 2004, Cate appeared in the film COFFEE & CIGARETTES for director Jim Jarmusch. In this United Artists release, Cate played two roles opposite each other - herself and the role of her cousin. Her performances earned her a Best Supporting Female nomination for the 2005 Independent Spirit Awards.

In July 2004, Cate returned to the Sydney Theatre Company to play the title role in Andrew Upton's adaptation of HEDDA GABLER. The play was a critical success earning her the prestigious Helpmann Award for Best Female Actor in a Play. She also starred in her first Australian film in several years, LITTLE FISH, directed by Rowan Woods, for which she was awarded Best Actress by the Australian Film Institute.

Cate was most recently seen in two films: the Howard Hughes biopic, THE AVIATOR for director Martin Scorsese and THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU for director Wes Anderson. For her role in THE AVIATOR in which she played actress Katherine Hepburn, Cate received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She was also honored with the BAFTA Award and a SAG Award for her role in the film. Additionally, she was recognized by several critics' organizations and received a nomination from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

Cate has completed production on NOTES ON A SCANDAL with Dame Judi Dench; and THE GOOD GERMAN opposite George Clooney, directed by Steven Soderbergh. In March 2006, Cate made her American stage debut in HEDDA GABLER. The limited five-week engagement completely sold out. She is currently in production on THE GOLDEN AGE, the sequel to ELIZABETH.

Her next films are I'M NOTE THERE, in which she portrays Bob Dylan during a specific time in his life, directed by Todd Haynes; and, THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON, co-starring Brad Pitt, directed by David Fincher.

Gael Garcia Bernal (Santiago)

Gael Garcia Bernal worked as an actor in his native Mexico since childhood, before making his feature film debut in Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's Academy Award-nominated AMORES PERROS. His breakthrough performance in the universally acclaimed film earned him a Silver Ariel Award (Mexico's equivalent of the OscarR) as well as a Silver Hugo Award at the Chicago International Film Festival, both as Best Actor. Mr. Bernal's next film role was in another globally celebrated feature, Alfonso Cuaron's Academy AwardR-nominated Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN, starring opposite his lifelong friend Diego Luna. For their performances, the two friends were jointly voted the Marcello Mastroianni Award at the Venice International Film Festival. He subsequently starred in the title role of Carlos Carrera's Academy AwardR-nominated romantic drama EL CRIMEN DEL PADRE AMARO [THE CRIME OF FATHER AMARO]. His performance earned him the Silver Goddess Award for Best Actor from the Mexican Cinema Journalists, as well as a nomination from the Chicago Film Critics Association for Most Promising Performer. Mr. Bernal had an extremely busy year in 2004. In September, he starred in Focus Features' THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES directed by the award-winning Brazilian director, Walter Salles. He received rave reviews for his portrayal of the young Che Guevara out of both the Sundance and Cannes Film Festivals. The film earned a nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards and was honored by the Motion Picture Club as the Male Star of Tomorrow. Then, in November audiences saw him in the critically-acclaimed LA MALA EDUCACION [BAD EDUCATION] helmed by famed Spanish director Pedro Aldomovar. In the film, he took on the challenge of playing three complex characters. On September 15, he stars in Michel Gondry's critically acclaimed fantasy feature, THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP. This past year he was seen in James Marsh's independent drama, THE KING, alongside William Hurt as a young man who returns home after being discharged from the Navy Mr. Bernal also made his London stage debut as the principal character in Federico Garcia Lorca's BLOOD WEDDING.

Koji Yakusho (Yasujiro)

One of Japan's most acclaimed actors, Koji Yakusho initially came to international prominence for his role as Shohei Sugiyama in the film, SHALL WE DANCE? (1996) and most recently, for his role as Nobu in MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA (2005). The award-winning actor, who earned nearly a dozen "Best Actor" Award nominations from the Japanese Academy, has appeared in more than 50 films and television programs. He also starred in UNAGI (THE EEL) which won the Palme d'Or and EUREKA which won both the FIPRESCI and Ecumenical Jury prizes at the Cannes Film Festival. He has won an array of movie awards for best actor in Japan. His film credits include WARAI NO DAIGAKU, (UNIVERSITY OF LAUGHS) AKAI HASHI NO SHITA NO NURUI MIZU, (WARM WATER UNDER A RED BRIDGE), DORA-HEITA, (PLAYBOY), KAMIKAZE TAXI, and KYUA, (CURE). Yakusho was born in Nagasaki, Japan on New Year's Day, 1956.

Adriana Barraza (Amelia)

Adriana Barraza worked previously with Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu in the role of Octavio's mother in the film, AMORES PERROS. A popular actress in Spanish-language television, Barraza is also a distinguished acting coach, director and drama teacher, working on a number of different films and television series, including the long-running MUJER, CASOS DE LA VIDA REAL (as a director and actress), and as director of the soap operas LOCURA DE AMOR, EL MANANTIAL and COMPLICES AL RESCATE. She is the coach of Neutral Accent in PRISIONERA, and in the film, SPANGLISH. Other feature credits include, as an actress in the FILMS LA PALOMA DE MARSELLA, LA PRIMERA NOCHE (THE FIRST NIGHT) and its sequel, LA SEGUNDA NOCHE. She is currently Vice President in Neutral Accent and Acting Development for the Telemundo Network.

Rinko Kikuchi (Chieko)

Rinko Kikuchi was born on January 6th, 1981 in Kanagawa. She started her modeling and acting career at the age of fifteen with her real name Yuriko Kikuchi. She changed her screen name to Rinko in May 2004.

She made her film debut in IKITAI in 1999, which was directed by Kaneto Shindo.

Since then she's added more than a dozen movies and TV commercial films to her resume.

She gave particularly strong performances in HOLE OF THE SKY (2002) directed by Kazuyoshi Kumakiri and in TORI/KOKORONO KATANA, (2004) directed by Tadanobu Asano.

Kikuchi also appeared in THE TASTE OF TEA, directed By Katsuhito Ishii,

which was selected by The 57th Cannes Film Festival in 2004. In the FUNKY FOREST-THE FIRST CONTACT (2005) directed by FUNKY FOREST (Katsuhito Ishii / Shunichiro Miki / A N I K I), she portrayed a class president and showed her comical side.

BABEL is her first appearance in an American movie.

Elle Fanning (Debbie)

Elle Fanning is a veteran of nearly ten films in less than five years of acting. Fanning debuted to much acclaim opposite OscarR-winner Sean Penn in I AM SAM as his daughter, Young Lucy. She followed that up with a role in the television miniseries, TAKEN and the films, DADDY DAY CARE, THE DOOR IN THE FLOOR, BECAUSE OF WINN-DIXIE, DAY 73 WITH SARAH and I WANT SOMEONE TO EAT CHEESE WITH. Elle has also appeared in episodes of CSI: NY, CSI: MIAMI, JUDGING AMY, guest starred on HOUSE and had the lead voice in MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO. Elle recently completed filming the Sci-Fi Channel miniseries LOST ROOM opposite Peter Krause.

ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Director / Producer)

Born in Mexico City in 1963, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu directed and produced his debut feature film in 2000, AMORES PERROS, which was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Foreign Language Film and received over 60 prizes becoming the most awarded film around the world in that year. Inarritu's follow-up film, 21 GRAMS (2003), which he conceived, directed and produced, starred Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, and Naomi Watts. Both Del Toro and Watts received Oscar nominations for their roles in the film and Penn won the Jury Prize for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival. In May 2006 Inarritu completed his third feature film BABEL, which concluded his trilogy and earned him the Best Director Award at the 59th Cannes Film Festival. Inarritu also wrote, directed and produced two short films, Powder Keg (2001) and Darkness (2002), which was part of the collective feature film 11'09"01. He now lives in Los Angeles with his wife Maria Eladia Hagerman and their two children Maria Eladia and Eliseo.

Guillermo Arriaga (Writer)

Known for his complex narrative structures, intense stories and characters full of contradictions and humanity, Guillermo Arriaga penned the original screenplays for 21 GRAMS and AMORES PERROS and served as associate producer on both films. Arriaga won the Golden Palm for Best Screenplay at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival for THE THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA, a film helmed by Tommy Lee Jones, in which Arriaga also starred. Most recently, he completed the screen adaptation of EL BUFALO DE LA NOCHE, based on his novel of the same name, and will serve as producer on the feature film.

Arriaga is the author of three novels, GUILLOTINE SQUAD, A SWEET SCENT OF DEATH and THE NIGHT BUFFALO, and one book of short stories entitled RETORNO 201. His writings, which appear in many languages, are highly praised by critics and audiences worldwide.

Born and raised in Mexico City, Arriaga has also directed, produced and written short films, documentaries, television series, radio and television commercials and has been a college professor for more than 25 years.

Jon Kilik (Producer)

As one of NYC's top independent producers, Jon Kilik has collaborated with a wide range of auteur filmmakers. He has been a producer on twelve of Spike Lee's films, in a collaboration that dates back to DO THE RIGHT THING. Among their subsequent films together have been MALCOLM X, CLOCKERS, HE GOT GAME and 25TH HOUR.

Mr. Kilik has produced two films directed by Tim Robbins, the Academy AwardR-winning DEAD MAN WALKING; and the ambitious journey into the NYC theater world of the 1930's, CRADLE WILL ROCK. He has also produced two films directed by Julian Schnabel, BASQUIAT (starring Jeffrey Wright as artist Jean-Michel Basquiat); and BEFORE NIGHT FALLS, for which Javier Bardem earned an Academy AwardR nomination for Best Actor.

Mr. Kilik's other films as producers include Robert DeNiro's A BRONX TALE; Gary Ross' award-winning PLEASANTVILLE; Ed Harris' Academy AwardR-winner POLLOCK; Chris Eyre's SKINS; Oliver Stone's ALEXANDER; and Jim Jarmusch's Cannes Grand Prix winner, BROKEN FLOWERS.

Steve Golin (Producer)

Producer Steve Golin is founder and CEO of Anonymous Content, a multimedia development, production and talent management company. The company reunites Golin with such directors as David Fincher, Neil LaBute, David Kellogg, Gore Verbinski and Mark Romanek, all of whom worked with Golin through his previous venture, Propaganda Films. Golin has produced such feature films as ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, 50 FIRST DATES, BOUNCE, NURSE BETTY, BEING JOHN MALKOVICH, and IN THE LAND OF WOMEN. Recently announced feature films which Golin is producing include RENDITION, DEAD I WELL MAY BE and PATTERN RECOGNITION.

Golin has guided the company's commercial division into a leading developer and producer of spots and campaigns for Nike, Intel, Citibank, United Airlines, Ford, Audi, Coca-Cola and Pepsi. Its music video division has produced projects for Radiohead, Prince, Nine Inch Nails, Jay-Z and Beck , among others.

Previously, as co-founder and chairman of Propaganda Films, Golin helped develop such filmmakers as Michael Bay, Spike Jonze, Dom Sena, Simon West and Antoine Fuqua. He produced such films as RETURN TO PARADISE, A THOUSAND ACRES, THE GAME, THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY, SLEEPERS, TRUTH OR DARE, and WILD AT HEART, Golin also oversaw the development and production of acclaimed and popular television series as "Beverly Hills 90210," "Twin Peaks" and "Tales of the City." Golin helped build Propaganda into the largest music video and commercial production company in the world, winning more MTV Video Awards and Cannes Palme d'Or Awards than any other production company for artists including The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Michael Jackson, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Bonnie Raitt, George Michael and Madonna.

Rodrigo Prieto. ASC, AMC (Director of Photography)

Rodrigo Prieto was born in Mexico City, where he studied at the Centro de Capacitacion Cinematografica. He started his career as a Cinematographer on television commercials at the age of 21. He went on to shoot feature films, which included Daniel Gruener's SOBRENATURAL, and Carlos Carrera's UN EMBROJO (UNDER A SPELL) both of which were awarded Silver Ariel Awards for Best Cinematography (Mexican Academy AwardsR). UN EMBRUJO also took the Concha de Plata for best cinematography at the San Sebastian Film Festival in 1998. Shooting commercials, he met Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, who offered him to be the Cinematographer on his first feature: AMORES PERROS. AMORES PERROS brought cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto to the attention of the world film community. His work on the film brought him several honors, including another Silver Ariel Award and the Golden Frog Award at the Camerimage International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography.

His subsequent films as cinematographer have included Michael Cristofer's ORIGINAL SIN, Julie Taymor's FRIDA (for which he was nominated by his peers, for the American Society of Cinematographers Award), Curtis Hanson's 8 MILE, Spike Lee's 25th HOUR, and Mr. Inarritu's award-winning Focus Features release 21 GRAMS, as well as their latest collaboration, BABEL. Mr. Prieto traveled to Cuba with director Oliver Stone to shoot COMANDANTE, the documentary on Fidel Castro. The two then went to the Middle East to film a documentary on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, PERSONA NON GRATA. Their next project together was the epic ALEXANDER, for which Mr. Prieto was honored with the Silver Frog Award at the Camerimage International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography.

Prieto next collaborated with director Ang Lee on BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN. He was nominated for an Academy AwardR for Best Cinematography, as well as the BAFTA and American Society of Cinematographers awards. He won Best Cinematography for BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN for the Chicago Film Critics Association Awards 2006; the Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association 2005; the Florida Film Critics Circle Award 2006, and the Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards 2005. He is currently working on Ang Lee's next film in China: LUST, CAUTION.

Brigitte Broch (Production Designer)

Award-winning Production Designer Brigitte Broch has worked with Gonzalez Inarritu on his previous films, AMORES PERROS and 21 GRAMS. She has served as production designer on the films AMAPOLA, LUCIA, LUCIA, REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES and THE HIRE, POWDER KEG. The German-born Broch, who lives and works in her adopted hometown of Mexico City, won an Academy AwardR for "Best Art Direction-Set Decoration" for MOULIN ROUGE! and was nominated for an OscarR in the same category for her work on ROMEO & JULIET (1996). She was production designer on the miniseries FIDEL and was nominated won a Silver Ariel in Mexico for "Best Art Direction" for the feature film, SEXO, PUDO Y LAGRIMAS. Her other film credits include AMBER, LA HIJA DE PUMA, SHE HATE ME and CHRONOS.

Stephen Mirrione. A.C.E. (Editor)

BABEL marks Mirrione's second collaboration with director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, winning Mirrione the Vulcain Artist-Technician Award at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. His first film with Gonzalez Inarritu, 21 GRAMS, earned Mirrione a BAFTA nomination for editing in 2004. In 2006, his work on George Clooney's highly acclaimed GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK garnered Mirrione editing nominations from BAFTA and the American Cinema Editors. He also edited Clooney's directorial debut, CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND. Mirrione received an Academy AwardR for editing TRAFFIC, in 2001. It was his first collaboration with director Steven Soderbergh, for whom he also edited OCEAN’S ELEVEN and OCEAN’S TWELVE. Mirrione is currently editing OCEAN’S THIRTEEN for Soderbergh. Mirrione's other editing credits include Gregory Jacobs' CRIMINAL, two films for director Jill Sprecher, CLOCKWATERS and THIRTEEN CONVERSATIONS ABOUT ONE THING as well as Doug Liman's SWINGERS and GO.

Gustavo Santaolalla (Composer)

Acclaimed Composer Gustavo Santaolalla won his first Academy AwardR for "Best Original Score" for his work on the film BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN. He was also nominated for two Golden GlobeR awards for BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, one for "Best Original Score -- Motion Picture" and for one for "Best Original Song-Motion Picture." He won the award for "Best Original Song-Motion Picture."

Santaolalla has scored both of Gonzalez Inarritu's previous films, 21 GRAMS and AMORES PERROS, as well as such motion pictures as NORTH COUNTRY, and THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES. One of Santaolalla's songs was featured in Michael Mann's THE INSIDER. Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Santaolalla won numerous awards for his work in THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES including a Silver Condor from the Argentinean Film Critics Association Awards for "Best Music," the British Academy of Film and Television Arts' "Film Music Award," and a Clarin Entertainment Award.

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