Douglas Sánchez

Education

In 1974 Sánchez graduated with Honors in Comparative Literature from Brown University, in Providence, Rhode Island, where he studied with Robert Scholes, Nicanor Parra, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Arnold Weinstein, and Michael Silverman. Weinstein and Silverman supervised his Honors Thesis in which Sánchez analyzed and compared the Jorge Luis Borges short story, "The Theme of the Traitor and the Hero", and the film by Bernardo Bertolucci based on the same story entitled The Spider’s Stratagem, exploring the themes of the politics of spectacle, and the spectacle of politics.

Sánchez also completed film-making courses at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and New York University (NYU), studying with Martin Scorsese’s mentor Haig P. Manoogian, and producing one of his earliest films, Superman on the West Side (1973). At that time, Sánchez found and acquired, at a Spanish bookstore in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, Jorge Ayala Blanco’s first book, The Adventure of the Mexican Cinema and various volumes of Emilio García Riera’s Mexican Film Encyclopedia. These readings re-awakened his interest in Mexican film ─ an integral part of his childhood in San Juan. Upon graduating from Brown University, Sánchez was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study the history and aesthetics of Mexican cinema. He spent the next year doing research and screening films at the now-defunct Mexican Cinemateque, a venture which culminated with meeting his film idol Jean-Luc Godard.

In 1975, Godard was invited to Mexico to present a film project to the Mexican Cinematography Department. Sánchez attended the press conference for the Swiss director at the Mexico City airport where Godard vainly attempted to talk about his project, which was to star María Félix, while the press kept pestering him with questions about his presumed relationship with Brigitte Bardot during the filming of Le Mépris. This incident, exaggerated to absurdity, became the jump-start and first scene of Sánchez' later films Fotonovela (1977) and Cualquier Cosa (Anything)(1979).

Sánchez pursued further graduate studies in Hispanic-American Literature at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, (UNAM its Spanish acronym). He studied with Puerto Rican writer José Luis González, Spanish theorist Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez, and Mexican surrealism scholar Margo Glanz before entering the Center for Cinematographic Studies (CUEC its Spanish acronym), part of the UNAM.

The CUEC/UNAM

At the CUEC/UNAM, Sánchez worked, most often in close collaboration with fellow classmates José Iván Santiago and Daniel daSilveira, on fourteen films as: director, writer, editor, producer, cinematographer, sound recordist, and actor. For his first project at the CUEC, he wrote and directed a 20-minute short titled Fotonovela(1978) which won the Best Film Award and the Best Actor Award (for Santiago) at the annual Mexican National Actors Association contest.

For his second project, Sánchez again wrote and directed a 20-minute short titled La flor de la canela (1979). It was based on an episode from the memoirs of Giacomo Casanova translated and published by Margo Glantz who felt that the episode exhibited the narrator’s “outrageous narcissism” and related to Balzac’s Sarrasine, which in turn was the basis for Roland Barthes’ literary treatise S/Z.

For his final CUEC project, Sánchez produced, wrote, and directed ─ again in close collaboration with José Iván (Chiván) Santiago and Daniel daSilveira ─ the feature-length film titled Cualquier Cosa (Anything)(1980), which re-worked and amplified the earlier Fotonovela.

Upon graduating from the CUEC/UNAM, Douglas, Chiván, and Daniel, along with other classmates such as Adriana Contreras and Antonio Saborit, were termed by film critic Jorge Ayala Blanco “the most brilliant and anarchic CUEC class in its [then] 18 years of existence” and by critic Gustavo García as “the first free territory of Cinemaland”.

Cualquier Cosa

Cualquier Cosa (Anything) narrates the story of Gualberto Rodríguez (Jaime Garza), an actor and photo-novel star, from the Yucatán state, who arrives in Mexico City with dreams of conquering the big city. Partly through sincerity and partly prompted by an uneasy conscience, he wants to revolutionize the traditional photo-novel medium by linking it to social and political reality, to bring social conscience to the masses by utilizing this mass medium. The film narrates, in a tragicomic tone, Gualberto's itinerary in his effort to produce his revolutionary photo-novel: the story of a peasant who migrates to the city, becomes a blue-collar worker, tries to establish a union, and ends up falling in love with the factory owner's daughter. The revolutionary ends up being used, manipulated, and his project fails completely.

Cualquier cosa production cost was 40,000 pesos and although technically a student film, it had a great impact on the Mexican film scene and was favorably reviewed by every major critic in Mexico City. The Mexican Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences recognized it with a Special Jury Award in its Arieles ceremony (the Mexican Oscars), in September 1981.

Professional Work in Mexico

Upon graduating from film school, Sánchez wrote, directed, and edited twenty-eight documentaries for the Channel 11 TV series Tiempo de acción (Time for Action) about the activities of the National Polytechnic Institute in Mexico City. He also assisted Arturo Ripstein and other Mexican directors at the Churrubusco Studios in the direction and editing of forty-four educational TV episodes sponsored by the Public Education Department.

While working with Ripstein, Sánchez met Hispanic film master Luis Buñuel. In a brief aside, Buñuel concurred with Sánchez that Él (1953), starring Arturo de Córdova, and Susana (Carne y demonio)(1951), starring Rosita Qintana, were probably his best films.

Other Professional Work

Back in San Juan, Sánchez worked for a few years as a copywriter, TV producer, and as an advertising and public relations executive.

Later he studied law at the University of Puerto Rico, obtained a Juris Doctor degree in 1992, was admitted to the bar in 1993, and has been involved in the private practice of law since then.