Guillermo del Toro Launches Scholarship for Aspiring Mexican Filmmakers

The Oscar-winning 'Shape of Water' director also announced that his eerie 'At Home With Monsters' exhibit will travel to his native Mexico next year.

Mexican writer-director Guillermo del Toro is bringing some of that feel-good Oscars love to his hometown, Guadalajara.

After his romance-fantasy film The Shape of Water took home four Academy Awards last Sunday, including for best picture and director, the affable filmmaker has returned to his native city for the weeklong Guadalajara International Film Festival, where he's imparting a series of free master classes to thousands of fans.

Following the first class on Saturday, the festival inaugurated a state-of-the-art cinema named after del Toro, and then organizers announced the creation of the Jenkins-Del Toro International Film Scholarship, a $60,000 annual award for an aspiring Mexican filmmaker to study abroad at a prestigious film institute.

"If we change a life, if we change a history, we change a generation," said del Toro, whose genre filmmaking has inspired a new generation of talent in Mexico.

Del Toro and fellow countrymen Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity) and Alejandro G. Inarritu (Birdman) regularly produce films from up-and-coming Mexican filmmakers.

"The first push is very important," said del Toro, who will oversee a jury that awards the scholarship at the Guadalajara fest each year.

Del Toro also announced that his At Home With Monsters exhibit will hit museums in Guadalajara and Mexico City next year. The exhibit features 500 drawings, paintings and concept pieces from del Toro's works, including creepy life-size sculptures of monster figures. The collection, to be curated by Oscar-winning production designer Eugenio Caballero (Pan's Labyrinth), bowed in 2016 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.