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Born in San Diego, CA; educated at UCLA (film). Nava won critical acclaim for his first two features, both produced on minimal budgets and both co-written by his wife, filmmaker Anna Thomas: THE CONFESSIONS OF AMANS (1976), a medieval drama, won the best first feature award at the Chicago International Film Festival; and EL NORTE (1983), a gripping account of Guatemalan émigrés struggling to survive in Southern California, earned an Oscar nomination for best screenplay. He fared less happily with his first attempt at big-budget Hollywood filmmaking, the overblown A TIME OF DESTINY (1988), but again favorable reviews for 1995's MY FAMILY/MI FAMILIA and the biopic SELENA (1997).
Other notable credits include WHY DO FOOLS FALL IN LOVE (1998, director), "American Family" (2002, TV series - creator, exec. producer, writer, director), KILLING PABLO (2002, producer & director), FRIDA (2002, screenplay) and BORDERTOWN (2006 - producer, director & writer).
1 nomination |
Nominated for Writing (Best Screenplay written directly for the screen)