Composer

ALEXANDRE DESPLAT

Director, Co-Writer, Producer, & Songwriter

GUILLERMO DEL TORO

MODERATED BY JON BURLINGAME (Variety)

Academy Award®-winning director Guillermo del Toro and award-winning stop-motion legend Mark Gustafson reimagine the classic Carlo Collodi tale of the fabled wooden boy with a whimsical tour de force that finds Pinocchio on an enchanted adventure that transcends worlds and reveals the life-giving power of love. PG | 117mins

Alexandre Desplat is a two-time Oscar-winning composer who is one of the most respected film composers in the world today. Desplat is noted for his collaborations with some of the world’s top filmmakers: Greta Gerwig, Wes Anderson, Guillermo del Toro, George Clooney, Kathryn Bigelow, Stephen Daldry, David Fincher, Stephen Frears, Tom Hooper, Ang Lee, Terrence Malick, and Angelina Jolie. To date, he has received eleven Academy Award nominations and two Oscars. 

Desplat first captivated American ears with The Girl With The Pearl Earring and Birth. The two-time Oscar and Golden Globe winner has since scored a range of acclaimed films, eleven of which have been Oscar-nominated: The Queen, The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, The Imitation Game, The King’s Speech, Argo, Philomena, and The Painted Veil for which he received a Golden Globe, and Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox, Isle of Dogs, and The Grand Budapest Hotel which won the 2015 Oscar for Best Original Score. Desplat’s thematic score to Guillermo Del Toro’s film, The Shape of Water won the 2018 Academy Award for Best Original Score. It garnered a 2018 Golden Globe, a BAFTA award, and a 2019 Grammy nomination. Desplat scored Greta Gerwig’s Little Women which was nominated for a 2020 Golden Globe and an Academy Award for Best Original Score, George Clooney’s The Midnight Sky, which received a 2021 Golden Globe nomination for Best Score, and Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch, which earned a 2022 Golden Globe nomination for Best Score. Desplat’s work includes Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken, his second collaboration with Tom Hooper The Danish Girl, Godzilla, directed by Gareth Edwards, Illumination Entertainment’s box office smash hit, The Secret Life Of Pets as well as the sequel The Secret Life of Pets 2, Florence Foster Jenkins starring Meryl Streep, Zero Dark Thirty directed by Kathryn Bigelow, Twilight Saga: New Moon, directed by Chris Weitz, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Pts. 1 & 2, Jacques Audiard’s Rust and Bone and The Sisters Brothers starring Joaquin Phoenix and Jake Gyllenhaal and George Clooney’s comedy crime feature, Suburbicon. Most recently Desplat has scored Graham Moore’s directorial debut The Outfit, starring Mark Rylance, and Stephen Fears’ The Lost King, starring Steve Coogan and Sally Hawkins. Upcoming is the highly anticipated Netflix stop-motion animated feature Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, for which Desplat provided both the Original Score and all Original Songs.

Born to a Greek mother and French father, Desplat grew up in France with a budding love for Hollywood film music and broke into the French film industry in the 1990s. With a penchant for lyricism, elegant orchestrations, and precise dramatization, Desplat has quickly joined the pantheon of all-time greats.

Guillermo del Toro is a Mexican filmmaker, author, and actor. He directed the Academy Award-winning fantasy films Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) and The Shape of Water (2017), winning the Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture for the latter. Throughout his career, del Toro has shifted between personal, lower-budget Spanish language films, such as Cronos (1993) and The Devil’s Backbone (2001), and Hollywood tentpoles, including Mimic (1997), Blade II (2002), Hellboy (2004) and its sequel Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008), Pacific Rim (2013), Crimson Peak (2015), Nightmare Alley (2021) and his upcoming stop-motion film Pinocchio (2022). As a producer or writer, he worked on the films The Orphanage (2007), Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (2010), The Hobbit film series (2012–14), Mama (2013), The Book of Life (2014), Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018), Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019), and The Witches (2020). In 2022, he created an anthology horror series for Netflix titled Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities featuring a collection of classical horror stories. With Chuck Hogan, he co-authored The Strain trilogy of novels (2009–2011), later adapted into a comic-book series (2011–15) and a live-action television series (2014–17). With DreamWorks Animation, he created the Netflix animated series Trollhunters (2016–18), 3Below (2018–19), and Wizards (2020), the three installments of the Tales of Arcadia trilogy (as well as a Sequel Movie), based on the 2015 novel he co-wrote with Daniel Kraus. Also with DreamWorks, he executive produced Puss in Boots (2011), Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011), Rise of the Guardians (2012), and Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016).

Del Toro’s work has been characterized by a strong connection to fairy tales and horror, with an effort to infuse visual or poetic beauty in the grotesque. He has had a lifelong fascination with monsters, which he considers symbols of great power. He is also known for his use of insectile and religious imagery, the themes of Catholicism and celebrating imperfection, underworld and clockwork motifs, practical special effects, dominant amber lighting, and his frequent collaborations with actors Ron Perlman and Doug Jones. Del Toro is close friends with fellow Mexican filmmakers Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro G. Iñárritu, and they are collectively known as “The Three Amigos of Cinema.” He was included in Time Magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2018, and he received a motion picture star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2019.

*** SCREENING + Q&A INFORMATION ***

Check-in begins 6:30PM.

If you RSVP but are unable to attend, please cancel your reservation by 10:00AM Thursday, November 17.

Free for current SCL members (click here to check your membership status) plus two guests who will stay for both the screening and Q&A. Please remember to RSVP for two (2) if you plan on bringing a guest.

In the event of a waitlist, please remember to sign up twice (2) if you plan on bringing a guest.

Guests of SCL members may NOT attend without the member invitee, or if the member RSVPs, but cannot attend and cancels.

Please allow extra time for traffic and check-in.

This invitation is non-transferable.

Per California state health guidelines, masks are recommended to be worn indoors at all times.

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