BIOGRAPHY

André Figueroa Garza, born February 15, 2001

I started making stop-motion films with figurines. When I was 16, I made my first short film, Todavía No Puedo Dormir (2018), which I shot on an iPhone. It was a silent but modern film about loneliness in a big city. It contained adult imagery and did very well. Many high-profile directors saw it at the time, and everyone seemed to love it. That gave me the opportunity to make Elena! (2018), which I shot on 16mm film.

Elena! was a very difficult production because I had never studied film, and shooting on film format on my own, with almost no crew, was completely different. Working with actors and handling the technical aspects made me realize what I was not about. I was trying to imitate directors who had very different lives than I did, and I was only 17.

Then I made a more controlled drama titled Sándalo (2019), which I shot on 35mm. It was a strong film about a wealthy Mexican couple in the 1980s going through a brutal fight and the end of their romance. The film was going to be part of the Venice Film Festival, but I could not complete post-production due to the failure of the original audio files. At the same time, I became seriously ill with a nearly lethal allergic condition, angioedema, correlated with histamine intolerance. This turned my life upside down, especially as my family also lost financial stability.

This led to seven years of rebuilding my life. While curing my condition through natural methods, I transformed completely. I became a canicross runner, lost 55 kg, became a boxer, and adopted a vegetarian lifestyle. I also quit alcohol and drugs, which had severely worsened my condition in my younger years when I abused them recklessly.

During these years, I studied almost every art form: writing, singing, painting, acting, photography, and more.

I attempted several projects during this period, including a low-budget first feature film and a high-budget stage adaptation of Macbeth. Although I had some small successes, such as participating in art galleries and nearly securing funding for these projects, they ultimately fell through due to circumstances involving other people. This forced me to restructure my life entirely.

During a period of deep crisis in every aspect of my life, I wrote my first poetry book, Cantos Desde Ursa, which will soon be properly published, although it was previously released in an earlier version. I also wrote a fantasy novel that I am very proud of, but I am currently rewriting it because I want it to be perfect.

Most importantly, during these seven years I developed a cinematic fantasy saga, my most important project. It will have three prologues, each with an ascending budget, produced as short films in order to make the larger vision possible, since the full project requires a budget between 70 and 100 million dollars. Before the prologues, I am also making three short films to regain my confidence and strength as a film writer and director. I hope to complete them all in 2026.

I also created a magazine centered on every art form I love. It is a very different, avant-garde publication that touches on fashion, but the kind of fashion I love, which is very different from what most people are doing. I am currently working on the first semiannual issue.

This year, I will take my canicross running to a competitive and international level, because I have become very damn good at it.