bio
Mexican-American filmmaker Robert Rodriguez burst upon the independent scene with a miraculous $7000 (shooting cost) action film geared for the Mexican Spanish-language video market. Touted as the cheapest film ever released by a studio, "El Mariachi" (1993) was a galvanizing send-up of Mexican action films, American Westerns and tough anti-hero movies informed by such auteurs as Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah. It told the fast-moving story of a mariachi musician who arrives in a Mexican border town at the same time as a hit man. Violent complications ensue after they accidentally switch guitar cases. On the strength and economy of this first feature, Rodriguez snared representation by ICM and a two-year development deal with Columbia Pictures.
Born on June 20, 1968 in San Antonio, TX, Rodriguez began making Super 8 movies as a 13 year-old, using his large family—five sisters and four brothers—as a stock company. Though a born filmmaker, he was initially rejected by the film program at the University of Texas at Austin. Undaunted, Rodriguez continued with borrowed equipment and little money, making over 30 short films. He compiled a number of these for "Austin Stories,” a video anthology of three vignettes starring his younger siblings, which won Rodriguez several awards and admission to film school. There he made his first 16mm short, "Bedhead" (1991), a remarkable eight-minute-long calling card film about a little girl who uses her newfound telekinetic powers to enact revenge on her obnoxious older brother. The film racked up awards at 14 film festivals.
During his 1991 summer break from college, Rodriguez spent a month in a research hospital as a test subject for a new cholesterol drug. He was paid $3000 for his trouble and emerged with the script for "El Mariachi.” Rodriguez landed another $4000 from a friend before he began his 14-day shoot in a Mexican border town using mostly amateur actors. Columbia later picked up the several hundred thousand dollar tab for completing a final edit (on film rather than video), redubbing the sound and dialogue in Dolby stereo and blowing it up to 35mm. "El Mariachi" did only modest business at the box office—perhaps due to insufficient marketing to the Spanish-speaking action audience—but it provided a wake-up call to an often profligate industry.










