Gustavo Alatriste

Biography

Gustavo Alatriste Rodríguez (August 8th, 1922 – July 22, 2006) was a Mexican director, producer, exhibitor, and entrepreneur. At the age of 17, he enrolled in the Escuela Bancaria y Comercial to study Accounting, but left after only six months. He married Ariadne Welter, an actress who appeared in Ensayo de un crimen (1955), a film directed by the Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel, with whom Alatriste formed a strong friendship.

A successful furniture businessman, Alatriste later ventured into the film industry as a producer with Viridiana (Buñuel, 1961), a story set in an old and remote estate filled with attractions and romantic entanglements involving a novice (Silvia Pinal, then Alatriste’s second wife), her uncle Don Jaime (Fernando Rey), her cousin Jorge (Paco Rabal), the maid Ramona (Margarita Lozano), and a group of beggars. The film was awarded the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, where Alatriste received the prize from André Malraux, then France’s Minister of Culture and a member of the French Resistance during World War II.