As rarely in his long film career, Guillermo del Toro gave himself the opportunity to talk about his present, past and future as a filmmaker.

During the closing of the 75th edition of the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, which took place last weekend, the director, who was one of the most besieged by the international press, stunned his own and strangers when he revealed the reasons why he left his native country: Mexico.

The Oscar winner for “Best Director” and “Best Picture” for ‘The Shape of Water’ said he would have loved to reside “all his life in Mexico”, however, the violence in the country and the kidnapping of his father – a fact that changed his life – forced him to move away.

“I would have stayed in Mexico all my life, but my father’s kidnapping in 1998 changed my life. I started making films in the United States because I had a lot of money for my first film in Mexico, ‘Cronos’. Then I thought I would continue to make Spanish films, then… it was never planned, it just happened,” the 57-year-old screenwriter recalled with notorious nostalgia.

Guillermo del Toro, who has been known for creating films about monsters and demons, also mentioned that among his future plans as a screenwriter is to write a version of the work of playwright Mary Shelley: “My dream would be to do my version of ‘Frankenstein’,” he said.

“Those two works represent what I dreamed I wanted to do when I was a kid, when I was very young,” said del Toro, who moderated a series of debates organized at Cannes with great filmmakers about the future of cinema.