Born in 1971 at Ballarat (Australia), film director and screenwriter Michael Rowe studied English post-colonial literature at La Trobe University in Melbourne. His artistic career first began as a poet, winning the Melbourne Fringe Festival Poetry Prize. He then moved to theatre and wrote three plays. In 1994, at the age of 23, he traveled to Mexico and made it his adoptive home. In 1998, while in Mexico, he began a career as a journalist while studying screenwriting at a Vincente Leñero workshop. In 2005, one of his first scripts, "Naturaleza Muertas" won at the Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografía. In 2006, he directed his first short film, CACAHUATES. SILENCIO followed in 2007.
Though English is his native language, the bulk of his film work is done in Spanish. In 2010, Rowe directed AÑO BISIESTO (LEAP YEAR), which garnered him the Caméra d'Or prize for Best First Film at the Cannes Film Festival. His follow-up film, MANTO ACUIFERO (THE WELL) premiered at the Rome Film Festival in 2013. In 2013, it was announced that Rowe was working on his English feature debut, EARLY WINTER, starring Paul Doucet and Suzanne Clément, and slated for production in Montreal. The film is a co-production between Quebec production house, Possibles Média (Serge Noël) and Australia's Freshwater Pictures (Trish Lake).
Pyramide Distribution
