CANNES — Alfonso Cuarón wanted to help Mexico after its massive 2017 earthquake, but he was skeptical about partnerships.
The Oscar-winning director, 57, admitted at Cannes Lions on Tuesday that he was advised to team up with a social action group, but he didn’t believe in them.
“I have to say I was a bit skeptical at first because I have worked with people who work in social action,” he explained during a talk at the Palais. “Sometimes there’s a lack of genuity [sic] about the whole thing.”
Cuarón ultimately teamed up with longtime collaborator and Participant Media CEO David Linde — who was also part of the festival’s discussion — and found the perfect match with Anonymous Content.
The trio launched Mexico Rises, a fundraising organization to provide urgent relief.
Through networking and Mexico Rises, Linde and Cuarón contacted Ai-jen Poo, the executive director of the Domestic Workers Alliance, and another member of Tuesday’s talk.
On the heels of “Roma,” which tells the story of his family’s domestic worker, Cuarón decided he wanted to help the domestic workers in Mexico who were rallying for rights, but he knew he had to time it right so he didn’t look disingenuous.
“You don’t want to use the action for your profit,” Cuarón explained. “You want your currency to work for the social action.”
As a result, they didn’t launch their “social action” until after “Roma” received its nominations. In April, Mexico’s congress voted to grant the country’s cleaners, cooks, babysitters, gardeners, caretakers, and other domestic workers basic labor rights, the New York Times reported.
The legislation helped more than 2 million women who weren’t previously officially considered part of the labor market. It’s since been dubbed “The Roma Effect.”
And to think all of this, including deciding what a then-unnamed “Roma” would even be about, began over dim sum, the duo revealed.