Salvador Carrasco

Salvador Carrasco
Carrasco on a film set in 2016
Born	Mexico City, Mexico
Occupation	Film director

Salvador Carrasco is a Mexican film director based in Santa Monica, California. He is the writer and director of the highly acclaimed and influential feature film The Other Conquest about the Spanish colonization of Mexico. Carrasco has won numerous film and academic awards, and is currently developing new film projects through his production company, Salvastian Pictures, based in Santa Monica, California. He is a tenured film professor at Santa Monica College, where he is the Head of the Film Production Program, recently featured in Variety magazine. Carrasco was featured as a guest film director at the 2016 CinemadaMare Film Festival in Italy, along with directors Paolo Sorrentino and Krzysztof Zanussi.

Carrasco was born in Mexico City and now resides in Santa Monica, California. He first attended Bard College and then graduated in 1991 with a degree in Film and Television from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, receiving the Founders Day Honors Award. At NYU he wrote and directed three award-winning short films: Alone with His Void, Marblood, and To Fall in Exile. In 1992 Carrasco and producer Alvaro Domingo co-founded Carrasco & Domingo Films, a film production company based in Mexico City and now also in Los Angeles. They also created the Spanish-language cultural magazine, Litoral, which published a wide range of international writers and artists.

Carrasco’s first feature, The Other Conquest (La Otra Conquista), was distributed by Twentieth Century Fox and became the highest-grossing Mexican film ever at the time of its release. During its run in Los Angeles, The Other Conquest had great box-office success and wide critical acclaim, becoming one of The Los Angeles Times’ Top 10 Films of 2000. LA Times' critic Kevin Thomas wrote: "Dazzling, Stupendous, Daring! In his bravura feature debut, Carrasco has created nothing less than a superb cinematic vision." Variety called The Other Conquest “the first 3 million dollar movie that looks like 30!” and in the words of Oscar-Watch's Sasha Stone: "Carrasco ought to emerge as one of the world's best directors, taking his place alongside such uncompromising giants as Martin Scorsese and Akira Kurosawa."The Other Conquest was re-released in US theaters in 2008, accumulating more than 40 rave reviews, and a 90% score with top critics on the Rotten Tomatoes website. The Other Conquest is now available on DVD.