Alex Heffes’ original soundtrack for Miss Bala – the story of a woman who is unwillingly drawn into a dangerous world of cross-border crime – will be released on January 25th by Sony Music Masterworks.
Film description and album track list follow.
Miss Bala opens on February 1st.
MISS BALA ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK
AVAILABLE JANUARY 25 VIA SONY MUSIC MASTERWORKS
WITH MUSIC BY GOLDEN GLOBE-NOMINATED COMPOSER ALEX HEFFES
NEW YORK, NY – Sony Music proudly announces the release of MISS BALA (ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK) featuring original music by Golden Globe nominee Alex Heffes (One Day in September, The Last King of Scotland, Touching the Void) – available everywhere Friday, January 25. The movie will debut in U.S. theaters in Friday, February 1.
Directed by Catherine Hardwicke and with a screenplay by Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer, Miss Bala tells the story of Gloria (Gina Rodriguez), who finds a power she never knew she had when she is drawn into a dangerous world of cross-border crime. Surviving will require all of her cunning, inventiveness, and strength. The movie stars Gina Rodriguez, Ismael Cruz Córdova and Anthony Mackie. The film is produced by Kevin Misher and Pablo Cruz, with Mauricio Katz, Gerardo Naranjo, Catherine Hardwicke, Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer, Samson Mucke, Arturo Sampson, Andy Berman and Jamie Marshall
serving as executive producers.
“I’ve always been a big fan of Catherine Hardwicke’s films and Miss Bala has all the energy and edge that is so characteristic of her work,” says composter Alex Heffes of the soundtrack. “So I was excited to set about creating the musical world of Miss Bala and Tijuana provided a great musical backdrop to draw on. The gritty action called for the score to have a dark edge, so we ended up fusing a tough synth-driven sound with guitars and Latin percussion. As the lead character Gloria gradually outwits her captors and spreads her wings it felt like she needed her own action sound so you will hear her theme played out on high strummed guitars to give the shin that Gina Rodriguez brings to the character on the big screen.
MISS BALA (ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK)
Artist: Alex Heffes
Release Date: January 25, 2019
Gloria & Suzu
Meeting Lino
Cafe
Police Car
The Spa
Gloria Drives
Safehouse Explosion
Reich Interrogates
Returning to Suzu’s
Gloria’s Phone is Gone
Swapping the Sim
Crossing the Border
Tracking Chip
The Bullring
Gloria Starts a Fire
Get Up
Shooting Range
The Snitch
Seeing Suzu
Gloria Goes to the Pagent
Are You Ready
Finding Suzu
Gloria’s Escape
Arrest
ABOUT ALEX HEFFES
Golden Globe nominated composer Alex Heffes has over 60 film and TV scores to his name. It was his scores to Kevin Macdonald’s Academy Award-winning films One Day in September, The Last King of Scotland and BAFTA-winning Touching the Void that first won him international acclaim. Alongside his long collaboration with Macdonald, he has worked with many of cinema’s top filmmakers such as Stephen Frears, Mira Nair, Catherine Hardwicke, Peter Webber and Tim Burton earning him the reputation as a composer with a unique voice who can communicate with directors at a deep level.
Alex was born in the UK and was educated at a full time specialist music school where he was immersed in music every day from a young age. It was in these early years that he first heard the music of John Williams as well as Mahler, Debussy and the jazz greats which all inspired his love of composing. After graduating from Oxford with a first-class degree he worked as an arranger with artists such as Elton John and Blur while scoring dozens of short films, commercials and theatre works.
It was his iconic score to Kevin Macdonald’s The Last King of Scotland that first sent Alex to Africa where he recorded and researched music for the film creating a unique blend of world music and orchestral scoring. Since then he has been associated with many of the finest depictions of Africa on film, such as Idris Elba’s Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, Mira Nair’s Disney drama The Queen of Katwe and the 8 hour reboot of the TV classic Roots (winning the best TV miniseries score of the year at the Hollywood Music In Media awards). Most recently, Alex provided an Original Score to The Elephant Queen which takes the audience on the epic journey across the savannah.
Beyond his association with Africa, Alex has scored a huge variety of film genres ranging from horror in Anthony Hopkins’ The Rite, biopic in Stephen Frears’ Lance Armstrong portrait The Program, fantasy in Catherine Hardwicke’s Red Riding Hood, WWII drama in Peter Webber’s Emperor and action in Escape Plan (Stallone and Schwarzenegger) and Bastille Day (Idris Elba). In 2010, Alex scored his second Academy Award-winning documentary feature Inside Job and has since scored many award winning documentaries including Earth: One Amazing Day for BBC Earth Films. Alex collaborated with director Tim Burton on his screen adaptation of Sweeney Todd starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter and his score to State of Play was widely noted for his collaboration with classic British rock producer Flood. His solo album Face to Face features duets with artists such as Ryuichi Sakamoto and Regina Spektor.
Alex received his first BAFTA nomination for his score to the HBO drama Tsunami: The Aftermath. In 2011, he received ‘Discovery of the Year’ by the World Soundtrack Academy and the following year his score to Justin Chadwick’s film Boy was featured at the opening ceremony of the Olympic velodrome at the London Olympics. In 2012 he won the Ivor Novello Award for best film score of the year for The First Grader and in 2013 Alex received a Golden Globe award nomination for his score to Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom. He has been nominated for numerous other awards and in 2015 was invited to become a member of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
TV scores include the hit series Black Mirror for Netflix and 11.22.63 – the Hulu Original eight-part event series starring James Franco based on the Stephen King best-selling novel, executive produced by J.J. Abrams and Stephen King.