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With a Fisher-Price camera in his hand when he was 5 years old and tucked in his crib beside a movie set during the first month of his life, Argentina’s Nico Puenzo was obviously destined to be a film director. “From then on I never stopped taking pictures,” Puenzo says. He grew up in an audiovisual family – his father is an Oscar-nominee director and his brothers direct commercials and movies. He has been immersed in filmmaking since he was born.Puenzo began working on commercials and films while still very young. As a teenager he went from working with a film crew to being a cameraman, and a little later, a director of photography, notably with Sergio Bizzio on Bomba and with Lucia Puenzo on Wakolda. He later studied film direction at Argentina’s National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts. He began directing commercials at age 24 for such clients as Coca-Cola, Budweiser, Unilever, MasterCard, Honda and Chevrolet. Together with his brother, the director Pepe Puenzo, he founded the Puenzo Hermanos production company with offices in Buenos Aires and Santiago, Chile. In March 2013 he signed his first representation in the United States with Carbo Films.Nico Puenzo’s commercials are known for the kinetic energy captured in their intense visual compositions, the touches of comedy and special effects that he loves, and for his brilliance as a storyteller. He tells new directors to always start from zero. “That’s the way I think every time I read a new script. I believe it’s important to look for and decide on the right point of view from which to direct each project and try to make sure that its not a run-of-the-mill point of view. Always destroy any certainties you might have about how things must be done and get rid of all those ready-made formulas that pop into your head to standardize the work,” the director says.Production company: Carbo Films, U.S.A.Contact: Nico Puenzo at info@carbofilms.com.Tel.: 1-310-823-5400{Watch video;www.produ.tv/popup.html?noti=7071}