Academy Award-winning filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron and Participant Media are partnering on a new untitled film, to be directed and written by Cuaron. Production is slated to begin this fall in Mexico.

The movie chronicles a year in the life of a middle-class family in Mexico City in the early 1970s.

The project will be produced by Cuaron, Gabriela Rodriguez (“Gravity,” “Children of Men”), and Nicolas Celis (“Desierto,” “Heli,” “The Untamed”). Jeff Skoll, David Linde, and Jonathan King of Participant Media will executive produce.

“This film is close to my heart and my first in Mexico since Y Tu Mamá También. I am thrilled to be making it with the Participant team,” said Cuarón.

The pic marks Cuaron’s follow-up to his smash hit “Gravity” which landed Cuaron a best directing Oscar. The film went on to make $716 million worldwide including $274 million domestically.

Following “Gravity”, insiders across the industry were curious what Cuaron’s movie might be and several sources said his intentions had always been to do something something on the smaller scale rather than a big-budget pic like “Gravity.”

“Alfonso is a master storyteller, who breaks cultural boundaries around the world by skillfully connecting audiences through the power of cinema. We are elated to be joining him on this film,” said Linde, CEO of Participant Media.

This year at Toronto, Participant is presenting four films at the festival: Peter Berg’s Deepwater Horizon starring Mark Wahlberg; Denial starring Rachel Weisz, Tom Wilkinson and Timothy Spall; J.A. Bayona’s A Monster Calls; and Pablo Larraín’s critically acclaimed Neruda starring Gael García Bernal.

Cuaron is repped by UTA.

Alfonso Cuarón is back! The filmmaker has remained relatively quiet since winning Best Director at the Oscars three years ago for “Gravity,” but at a press conference (via Filmeweb) in Mexico earlier today, he confirmed he has finished production on his next movie, a family drama titled “Roma.” This is the first time the title has been revealed.

News broke last September that Cuarón would be directing a new movie set in Mexico, his first since “Y Tu Mamá También” made him a star on the international film circuit. At the time, the only details around the project were that it would be set in the 1970s and follow the year in the life of a middle-class family. The director is remaining tight-lipped on plot details for now, but he did reveal just how important it was for him to tell this story.

“Returning to my country with this specific project was something very personal, because we made a film set in the ’70s, with many elements and experiences of my childhood,” the director told press. He referred to the film as “quite a universal story.”

The movie is called “Roma” because of how Cuarón has seen Mexico City develop over the past four decades. Changes in infrastructure and the arts have made it a Roman City in the director’s eyes. He didn’t elaborate further on the story, though The Playlist reports the film will include a major historical event called the the Corpus Christi Massacre, in which soldiers killed liberal student protesters.

As for why he finally decided to return to Mexico, Cuarón explained, “I can live abroad, but my head always thinks about Mexico and as a Mexican I am always aware of what is happening in my country…returning to Mexico to make movies was a necessity.”

He also described making the new film using an anecdote Guillermo del Toro once told him.

“[Del Toro] told me that certain movies are like a box of cereal with a prize included, because when you’re a kid, you eat it all up to know what you got,” he said. “‘Gravity’ was for me that little toy, and I made the decision to use it to go back to Mexico and make the film I had always dreamed of.”

If this really is the movie Cuarón has always wanted to make, then consider us even more excited. The cast hasn’t been revealed yet either, though it is believed to be made up mostly of local actors.

“Roma” is targeting a 2018 release date.

The New York Film Festival has gotten out front of the coming onslaught of slate announcements to declare that Alfonso Cuarón’s Spanish-language drama ROMA will be the Centerpiece of the 56th New York Film Festival. The pic will make its New York premiere at Alice Tully Hall on Friday, October 5, 2018. That means ROMA, which was acquired and will be released by Netflix, will make its world premiere elsewhere and the expectation is that will be at Venice, where Cuarón first unveiled his Oscar-winning film Gravity.

The Film Society of Lincoln Center announces Alfonso Cuarón’s ROMA as Centerpiece of the 56th New York Film Festival (September 28 – October 14), making its New York premiere at Alice Tully Hall on Friday, October 5, 2018. Produced by Esperanto Filmoj and Participant Media, ROMA is a Netflix release and will launch globally and in theaters later this year.

Secure your seat at Centerpiece with a Festival Pass.

In Alfonso Cuarón’s autobiographically inspired film, set in Mexico City in the early ’70s, we are placed within the physical and emotional terrain of a middle-class family whose center is quietly and unassumingly held by its beloved live-in nanny and housekeeper (Yalitza Aparicio). The cast is uniformly magnificent, but the real star of ROMA is the world itself, fully present and vibrantly alive, from sudden life-changing events to the slightest shifts in mood and atmosphere. Cuarón tells us an epic story of everyday life while also gently sweeping us into a vast cinematic experience, in which time and space breathe and majestically unfold. Shot in breathtaking black and white and featuring a sound design that represents something new in the medium, ROMA is a truly visionary work.

New York Film Festival Director and Selection Committee Chair Kent Jones said, “I was absolutely stunned by ROMA from beginning to end—by the craftsmanship and the artistry of everyone involved, by the physical power and gravitational force of the images, by the realization that I was seeing something magical: a story of ongoing life grounded within the immensity and mystery of just being here on this planet. Alfonso Cuarón’s film is a wonder.”

“I am honored ROMA has been selected for the Centerpiece slot at this year’s New York Film Festival,” said Cuarón. “NYFF has a longstanding history of celebrating meaningful and compelling filmmaking and it felt right to return to the festival with ROMA—an incredibly personal, illuminating, and transformative project for me.”