Nicolás López (director)

Life and work

López was born in Santiago, Chile. Since a very young age, Nicolas became interested in filmmaking. After reading Robert Rodriguez Rebel Without a Crew, and watching the movie Clerks, he took his family's video camera and began experimenting with it.

By the age of 12, Nicolás López was already writing a column for El Mercurio, one of the oldest and most prestigious and conservative right-wing Chilean newspapers. His column, "Memorias de un Pingüino" (“Memories of a penguin”), ran from 1997 to 1999 and described the life of a student, commonly known as a "penguin" in Chile because of the typical black and white uniform. The comments he made in the column led to him being expelled from school. At the age of 14, after his expulsion, he began a new column called "López" with a more mature style.

At the age of 15, he made his debut at the Valdivia film festival with the short film "Pajero" (“wanker”), that tells the story of a teenager constantly interrupted during masturbation. The next year he filmed "Superhéroes" (“superheroes”), the story of a teenager who tries to convince people that he is a superhero, and in 2000 he filmed "Florofilia", a love story between a man and a plant. He became partner and co-founder of sobras.com, a website about cinema, television, books, comics and video games that focused on young audiences. He then founded the first independent film festival in Santiago, the "Sobras Independent Film Festival", as well as Sobras.com Producciones, a film production company.

As associate producer, Lopez took charge of the marketing of the Jorge Olguin horror movie "Angel negro" (“black angel”) in 2000, and the adult animation "Cesante" (“unemployed”), which he also co-wrote. He also ran the marketing for other Chilean films such as "Sangre eterna" (Eternal Blood, by Jorge Olguin), "Taxi para tres" (A Cab for Three, by Orlando Lubbert), "Paraíso B" and "Made in Chile".

He co-directed many music videos, and won an MTV Latin Music Award in 2002 for "Mujer Robusta" by Sinergia. He co-wrote the 2003 edition of the MTV Latin Music Award and, also in 2003, he directed, co-wrote and acted in an absurd comedy series for the same network, called "Piloto MTV", along with Eduardo Bertrán.

At the age of 20, López directed his first feature film, (“red average”), a dark romantic comedy about teenagers with superpowers, in which the main character slips in and out of reality, with the ‘unreal’ scenes animated. He won the special jury prize at the Viña del Mar Film Festival, and featured in the Mar del Plata International Film Festival and LA Film Fest. Although the film was criticized in his native country, it caught the attention of international directors and other industry personalities including Salma Hayek, Alfonso Cuaron, Alejandro González Iñárritu and Guillermo del Toro

In 2005, and with a bigger budget, López began working in "Santos", a film about a failed comic artist. Released in 2008, the film was poorly received by critics and did not fulfill its financial expectations.

In 2010, after the failure of "Santos",' López wrote and directed his highest grossing film ever, (“shame about your life”). The romantic comedy became a successful trilogy, followed by (“shame about your wedding”), and (“shame about your family”).

In 2012, López partnered with North American actor and director Eli Roth to release Aftershock, a Chilean-American disaster movie, based on supposedly real events that took place during the 2010 8.8 earthquake in Chile, but in reality, only the earthquake was real. It was his first English language film and was produced for his company Sobras, by Miguel Asensio, Eli Roth and Brian Oliver. The movie debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Awards

Director

Screenwriter

Producer

Actor

Television

Music videos