2019/2020/2021/2022
Spain
Manuel Puro’s film career began in 1995 as an assistant casting director working with directors including Guillermo del Toro, Nicolas Roeg and Richard Attenborough. In 2000 he was headhunted by Michael Foster, co-chairman of Europe’s leading talent agency ICM, to work with A-list clients including Cate Blanchett, Rachel Weisz, Michael Caine, Hugh Grant, Ben Kingsley and Julie Christie. From mid 2002 Manuel was head of development at SKA Films – Matthew Vaughn and Guy Ritchie’s production company. In January 2007 he returned to his first love and founded Puro Casting, an award winning international casting company working across feature films, television, computer games, music videos, commercials and shorts. Projects include MOON and MUTE directed by Duncan Jones, SHAUN THE SHEEP: FARMAGEDDON for Aardman Animation and PLANET OF THE APES: THE LAST FRONTIER, the first in-house video game to come out of Andy Serkis’ The Imaginarium. In 2017 Manuel created The Acting Habit, an innovative online platform where actors from all over the world can share their work, receive and give feedback, experiment creatively and learn new technical skills. Manuel is regularly invited to host mentoring sessions with organisations such as the National Film and Television School, iFeatures, the Edinburgh Film Festival and the Directors Guild of Great Britain. He has held casting workshops all over the world and is a member of the Casting Society of America. He was a juror at the Sitges Film Festival in 2018 and the invited casting expert at the Frontieres Finance and Packaging Forum held in Helsinki 2019. Manuel was the winner of Mandy / Casting Call Pro’s inaugural Casting Director of the Year Award – voted by actors for the casting director they felt most comfortable with and who they thought got the best out of them.