Cinema Audio Society To Honor Alejandro González Iñárritu With Filmmaker Award At 59th Annual CAS Awards

Alejandro González Iñárritu will receive the Cinema Audio Society's Filmmaker of the Year honor at the 59th CAS Awards on Saturday, March 4, at the InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown hotel.

This year's timeline, application rules and regulations for the CAS Awards are available at www.cinemaaudiosociety.org/.

"It is an honor to name director Alejandro González Iñárritu as recipient of the prestigious 2023 CAS Filmmaker Award. His sobering portrayals of the human experience bring empathy and consciousness to perspectives often left untold and unconsidered," said CAS President Karol Urban. "No doubt drawing on his history in music, his films experiment and utilize sound - uniquely embracing its capacity to emotionally engulf the viewer."

Upon hearing the news that he was to receive the CAS honor, Mr. Iñárritu said, "Being singled out as a filmmaker by my colleagues in the Cinema Audio Society is a great honor. I have had the pleasure of collaborating with some of the most gifted sound designers in the industry and truly cannot emphasize the importance of the work they do in creating a fully sensorial experience for audiences when watching a film."

Born and raised in Mexico City, Academy Award-winning director, writer and producer Iñárritu is one of cinema's most celebrated and respected storytellers. His influential body of work (including Amores Perros, Birdman, The Revenant and Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths) explores the human condition with cinematic daring and a deeply affecting visual and sonic grammar. Deadline recently noted how this bilingual filmmaker emphasizes sound as he crafts the visuals in his narratives: "Cinema is an audiovisual medium. That's why audio is first."

He also tells CAS: "Sound is primal. It is a sensorial frequency, it hits our body, and our body does not lie. Unlike the image, it does not need a process of interpretation or intellectualization. For this reason, I think sound is even more impactful than the visuals, and through it, you can have parallel narratives along a film."

Always sensitive to the importance of music and sound, Iñárritu began his career as a host and director at Mexico City's rock radio station WFM before transitioning to writing, producing and directing short films and commercials under his Z Films company.

This will be the 18th year that CAS bestows its Filmmaker Award. Past honorees include: Gil Cates, George Clooney, Bill Condon, Jonathan Demme, Jon Favreau, Taylor Hackford. Richard Linklater, James Mangold, Rob Marshall, Paul Mazursky, Jay Roach, Sir Ridley Scott, Henry Selick, Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, Joe Wright and Edward Zwick.

CAS will also honor five-time Oscar nominee Peter J. Devlin, CAS (Black Panther, Wakanda Forever, Star Trek: Picard, Pearl Harbor) with its highest honor, the annual Career Achievement Award at the March 4 ceremonies. Visit www.cinemaaudiosociety.org for the latest news.

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