Isaac Ezban
- Producer
- Director
- Writer
Isaac Ezban is a filmmaker from Mexico, co-founder of the production company Red Elephant Films and Autocinema Coyote (the biggest drive-in theater chain in Latinamerica).
He wrote 4 short novels before becoming a full-time filmmaker, starting with 10 short films awarded in important international festivals.
His first feature film The Incident (2014), a psychological sci-fi thriller about characters trapped in an infinite staircase and an infinite road, premiered at Cannes Film Festival and then played at Fantastic Fest & Sitges, and in over 50 festivals over the world, wining 16 awards and with positive reviews of important press and filmmakers like Guillermo del Toro, who commented on it: "A potent and ingenious riddle and a promising debut for Isaac Ezban... A complicated idea but very well structured... A great debut! Very, very ambitious and still it achieves everything it wants. Ezban is a necessary director in genre films in Mexico".
His second feature film The Similars (2015), described by him as "A love letter to the sci-fi of the 60s", also premiered at Fantastic Fest & Sitges, making Isaac the first director in the history of Mexico to have 2 films in 2 years in a row in Official Selection at the two most important genre festivals in the globe. It won in Sitges Best Latinamerican Film and in Morbido the Press Award, as well as other 15 awards.
After their theatrical releases, Isaac's first films The Incident and The Similars were sold to Netflix Worlwide.
Isaac was then hired by BRON Studios to direct his third movie (and first English spoken film) Parallel, for which he traveled to Vancouver. This awaited sci-fi thriller/drama about a group of friends that stumble upon a portal to a "multiverse", starting Martin Wallstrom, Aml Ameen, Georgia King, Mark O'Brien and Kathleen Quinlan, was released in 2020.
Between all these movies, Isaac also took part in the successful international film anthologies Mexico Barbaro (2014) and Deathcember (2019), using his creativity to craft some of the most impressive, scary, unique and bizarre segments of such collections of stories.
In 2022, Isaac had his first huge box office hit releasing his fourth movie and first entry into full horror, Mal de Ojo (Evil Eye), a co-production between Cinepolis, Edgar San Juan's Film Tank, Cinema Maquina and Isaac's own company Red Elephant Films. Co-written by Ezban, San Juan and Junior Rosario, Mal de Ojo tells the coming-of-age story of Nala, a 13-year-old girl from the city that travels with her family to her grandmother's home in the countryside, to try to find a cure for her little sister's mysterious illness, soon finding out her granny is not exactly what she seems. Based on an original screenplay that came from the Dominican Republic and explored Latin-American folklore in its darkest depths, and deeply inspired by Guillermo Del Toro's coming-of-age fantasies The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labrynth, Ezban crafted his first film to achieve both a festival and commercial success: it played at Fantastic Fest, Sitges, Toronto After Dark and most of the important genre festival of the year, but also became a huge box office hit in Mexico (selling over 35 million pesos in box office and with over 612,000 spectators, becoming the third highest grossing Mexican film of 2022, and the # 1 in the horror genre, not only of 2022 but of the last 3 years!). Mal de Ojo was also distributed in USA and most of the world. It is now available in USA on Vix, and on Mexico and Latinamerica on Amazon Prime Video, with his previous 3 films.
2022 was also the year Isaac had his first TV experience, directing an episode on the awaited reboot of La Hora Marcada (the classic Mexican Twilight-Zone-esque anthology where Del Toro, Cuaron and Lubezki had their beginnings in the 80s, which will come back in 2023), and is currently developing and set to direct in other TV genre projects in Mexico and USA.
During 2023, Isaac directed his fifth feature film Párvulos, also within the coming-of-age / horror landscape, a dystopian and very personal story he had been trying to make for years, about three young brothers who live in a cabin in the middle of the woods and hide a dark disturbing secret in their basement. The film premiered during the summer of 2024 on the Official Selection of Fantasia International Film Festival (Montreal) to rave reviews and then Fantastic Fest (Austin) for its US Premiere, starting what has been Isaac's most prestigious festival tour with any movie yet, which included so far over 30 Official Selections in international festivals (among them, Germany Fantasy Filmfest for its European Premiere, Sitges, Vancouver International Film Festival, Mórbido as the Opening Film, and even non-genre film festivals like the Chicago International Film Festival or the Morelia International Film Festival, where the film had its Mexican Premiere), winning so far 9 awards. Corazon Films released the film in theaters in México at the end of 2024, where it stood as the highest grossing Mexican movie in cinemas for a couple of weeks, and Firebook Entertainment is getting ready for a US Theatrical Release during 2025.
Represented by Vision Entertainment, Isaac is now getting ready to direct his sixth film, while he's currently working on more screenplays of his own, and has been hired by Sony Pictures to direct the awaited adaptation of Dan Simmons's classic horror novel Summer Of Night.
He wrote 4 short novels before becoming a full-time filmmaker, starting with 10 short films awarded in important international festivals.
His first feature film The Incident (2014), a psychological sci-fi thriller about characters trapped in an infinite staircase and an infinite road, premiered at Cannes Film Festival and then played at Fantastic Fest & Sitges, and in over 50 festivals over the world, wining 16 awards and with positive reviews of important press and filmmakers like Guillermo del Toro, who commented on it: "A potent and ingenious riddle and a promising debut for Isaac Ezban... A complicated idea but very well structured... A great debut! Very, very ambitious and still it achieves everything it wants. Ezban is a necessary director in genre films in Mexico".
His second feature film The Similars (2015), described by him as "A love letter to the sci-fi of the 60s", also premiered at Fantastic Fest & Sitges, making Isaac the first director in the history of Mexico to have 2 films in 2 years in a row in Official Selection at the two most important genre festivals in the globe. It won in Sitges Best Latinamerican Film and in Morbido the Press Award, as well as other 15 awards.
After their theatrical releases, Isaac's first films The Incident and The Similars were sold to Netflix Worlwide.
Isaac was then hired by BRON Studios to direct his third movie (and first English spoken film) Parallel, for which he traveled to Vancouver. This awaited sci-fi thriller/drama about a group of friends that stumble upon a portal to a "multiverse", starting Martin Wallstrom, Aml Ameen, Georgia King, Mark O'Brien and Kathleen Quinlan, was released in 2020.
Between all these movies, Isaac also took part in the successful international film anthologies Mexico Barbaro (2014) and Deathcember (2019), using his creativity to craft some of the most impressive, scary, unique and bizarre segments of such collections of stories.
In 2022, Isaac had his first huge box office hit releasing his fourth movie and first entry into full horror, Mal de Ojo (Evil Eye), a co-production between Cinepolis, Edgar San Juan's Film Tank, Cinema Maquina and Isaac's own company Red Elephant Films. Co-written by Ezban, San Juan and Junior Rosario, Mal de Ojo tells the coming-of-age story of Nala, a 13-year-old girl from the city that travels with her family to her grandmother's home in the countryside, to try to find a cure for her little sister's mysterious illness, soon finding out her granny is not exactly what she seems. Based on an original screenplay that came from the Dominican Republic and explored Latin-American folklore in its darkest depths, and deeply inspired by Guillermo Del Toro's coming-of-age fantasies The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labrynth, Ezban crafted his first film to achieve both a festival and commercial success: it played at Fantastic Fest, Sitges, Toronto After Dark and most of the important genre festival of the year, but also became a huge box office hit in Mexico (selling over 35 million pesos in box office and with over 612,000 spectators, becoming the third highest grossing Mexican film of 2022, and the # 1 in the horror genre, not only of 2022 but of the last 3 years!). Mal de Ojo was also distributed in USA and most of the world. It is now available in USA on Vix, and on Mexico and Latinamerica on Amazon Prime Video, with his previous 3 films.
2022 was also the year Isaac had his first TV experience, directing an episode on the awaited reboot of La Hora Marcada (the classic Mexican Twilight-Zone-esque anthology where Del Toro, Cuaron and Lubezki had their beginnings in the 80s, which will come back in 2023), and is currently developing and set to direct in other TV genre projects in Mexico and USA.
During 2023, Isaac directed his fifth feature film Párvulos, also within the coming-of-age / horror landscape, a dystopian and very personal story he had been trying to make for years, about three young brothers who live in a cabin in the middle of the woods and hide a dark disturbing secret in their basement. The film premiered during the summer of 2024 on the Official Selection of Fantasia International Film Festival (Montreal) to rave reviews and then Fantastic Fest (Austin) for its US Premiere, starting what has been Isaac's most prestigious festival tour with any movie yet, which included so far over 30 Official Selections in international festivals (among them, Germany Fantasy Filmfest for its European Premiere, Sitges, Vancouver International Film Festival, Mórbido as the Opening Film, and even non-genre film festivals like the Chicago International Film Festival or the Morelia International Film Festival, where the film had its Mexican Premiere), winning so far 9 awards. Corazon Films released the film in theaters in México at the end of 2024, where it stood as the highest grossing Mexican movie in cinemas for a couple of weeks, and Firebook Entertainment is getting ready for a US Theatrical Release during 2025.
Represented by Vision Entertainment, Isaac is now getting ready to direct his sixth film, while he's currently working on more screenplays of his own, and has been hired by Sony Pictures to direct the awaited adaptation of Dan Simmons's classic horror novel Summer Of Night.
