Pedro Peirano (Santiago, 25 December 1972) is an award-winning Chilean director, screenwriter, journalist, cartoonist and television producer. He wrote the film No (script developed from a theatrical monologue written by Antonio Skármeta), which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in January 2013.

Biography

Peirano was born on December 25 and as a result, as a child, he claims to have believed he had the same powers as Jesus. He studied at Los Sagrados Corazones school in Santiago, where he edited the student publication El Vikingo (The Viking) from 1989 to 1990. He then studied journalism at the University of Chile where he met Álvaro Díaz, who would later become his partner in creating the TV production company Aplaplac.

Among Peirano’s earliest professional works were the TV series Plan Z (1997), which he co-wrote, and El Factor Humano (The Human Factor, 1998), which he co-directed with former classmate Álvaro Díaz. Both shows were social satires exploiting absurd humour and political incorrectness, though Plan Z used a comedy sketch show format while El Factor Humano took the form of a journalistic documentary series. El Factor Humano won an Altazor national art prize in 2000.

In 2000, Peirano published the first editions of the popular and enduring comic strip “Chancho Cero” (Zero Pig), which appeared in the children’s magazine of the prestigious Chilean national newspaper El Mercurio. In 2002, Peirano published a compilation book of the strip, which was later re-edited and re-released in 2006.

Peirano teamed up with Álvaro Díaz again in 2002 to create the TV production company Aplaplac. One of their first projects was the successful satirical puppet show 31 Minutos (31 Minutes), launched in 2003 on Chile’s national TV channel TVN. The show was so popular that it was turned into a movie, 31 Minutos, La Película, in 2008 and won Altazor awards for both directing and writing in 2004.

Pedro has achieved international recognition as the co-writer of the successful films The Maid (2009), with Sebastián Silva, and No (2012). Peirano resumed his successful partnership with The Maid's Sebastián Silva in 2011 to co-write and co-direct Gatos Viejos (Old Cats). No, which dealt with the Chilean national plebiscite of 1988, has been nominated for Best Foreign Film in the 85th Academy Awards. Peirano also co-wrote the film Joven y Alocada (Young and Wild, 2012) which won the World Cinema Screenwriting Award at the 2012 Sundance Festival.

In 2012, Peirano released the graphic novel El Club de los Juguetes Perdidos (The Lost Toys Club).

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