‘Inmate #1: The Rise of Danny Trejo’ doc hits Mill Valley Film Festival

The Mill Valley Film Festival has announced a Special Presentation of the US & International Premiere of INMATE #1: THE RISE OF DANNY TREJO, featuring an onstage conversation with star Danny Trejo.

With nearly 400—and counting—film and television credits since 1985, Danny Trejo is one of the most prolific and recognizable actors around. But his remarkable ascent to beloved Hollywood hero notorious for tough guy roles in Heat, Breaking Bad, and the Machete series was as hard-earned as it was unexpected. In this moving, funny, and revealing portrait, Trejo candidly traces his own sensational out-of-the-ashes journey from troubled kid growing up in Pacoima, CA, to teenage drug addict and San Quentin prison inmate, to ubiquitous film star, restaurateur, philanthropist, and role model. With help from his most ardent champions, including his children, friends, and famous colleagues (Robert Rodriguez, Cheech Marin, and Michelle Rodriguez), Brett Harvey’s affecting profile is as raw and intimate as it is a buoyant celebration of an exceptional life, telling a story of unlikely survival, rare humility, and a profound transformation that led to a real-life Hollywood ending.

Danny Trejo has had a prolific career in the entertainment industry, yet his road to success has been hard earned and anything but typical, from imprisonment to helping young people battle drug addiction, to acting and producing. Trejo has starred in dozens of films including Desperado, Heat, the From Dusk Till Dawn franchise, Con Air, Once Upon A Time In Mexico, the Spy Kids movies, Grindhouse, Machete, Machete Kills, Dead In Tombstone, and Muppets Most Wanted. Danny’s recent television work includes recurring roles on Sons of Anarchy and King of the Hill, and he has appeared on episodes of Modern Family and Breaking Bad, among others. Most recently, Trejo reunited with Robert Rodriguez for season two of El Rey’s TV series From Dusk Till Dawn. Trejo also regularly lends his voice to animated projects, including the WB feature Storks, Guillermo del Toro’s The Book of Life, regular roles on Netflix’s The Adventures of Puss in Boots and Nickelodeon’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and will most recently be heard in the upcoming Dora and the Lost City of Gold.

The 42nd Mill Valley Film Festival runs October 3-13, 2019.

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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