Hecho en México includes some of the most acclaimed and striking documentary films from Mexico in recent years. The series explores the role that cultural and social values play in the memory, identity, and resilience of today’s Mexican society, delving into themes of adaptation and resistance in the face of adversity. From the trauma of drug-war related violence, to the challenges of extreme environmental conditions and the daily struggles of indigenous peoples, these films provide a portal into real Mexican lives, telling compelling stories and illustrating social challenges in the best tradition of documentary filmmaking. Outside of a few film festivals, these films have never been shown in the United States.
Devil’s Freedom
Friday, May 11 at 7pm
“What do you get when you kill someone?” a voice asks offscreen. “Power” is the reply from a Mexican gangster who committed his first murder at the age of 14, still in his school uniform. This heartrending documentary devotes as much attention to boys like him as it does to the victims of such crimes, which plague all levels of Mexican society. Everardo González shows how systematic violence holds everyone in Mexico in a death grip. All of his interviewees wear a plain, flesh-colored mask that allows us to recognize their emotions while granting them a certain degree of anonymity. This results in candid stories of kidnapping, murder, rape and other forms of violence. By presenting perpetrators and victims in the same way, González underlines the complex nature of Mexico’s kidnapping epidemic: the chances of having a gun pointed at you are just as good as you pointing one at someone else.
Directed by Everardo Gonzalez. Winner, Amnesty International Film Prize, Berlin International Film festival 2017. Winner, Best Mexican Film, Best Documentary and Best Cinematography, Guadalajara International Film Festival 2017.74 min. In Spanish with English subtitles.
Tickets for Devil’s Freedom available here.
Maize in Times of War
Saturday, May 12 @ 4:30pm (English subtitled version)
Sunday, May 13 @ 2pm (Spanish subtitled version)
A Q&A via Skype with director Alberto Cortés will follow both screenings!
“We have always lived here taking care of this seed”
Making “milpa” is an act of resistance, a profoundly political one. Maize In Times Of War traces the yearly cycle of four Indigenous maize plots (called milpas due to the diversity of crops they entail) in different regions of México. This film draws the exceptional process of growing maize, the delicacy of selecting seeds and preparing the land that will receive them, the tenacity and the nuances involved in taking care of the whole process, until the harvest arrives after working for months and the family enjoys the vital uses of its fruits.
Directed by Alberto Cortés. Official Selection Guadalajara Film festival 2016, San Diego Latino Film festival 201. 90 min. English version: In Tseltal, Ayuukj, Wixárika and Spanish with English subtitles. Spanish version: In Tseltal, Ayuukj, Wixárika and Spanish with Spanish subtitles.
Plaza de la Soledad
Saturday, May 12 at 7pm
A Q&A via Skype with director Maya Goded will follow the screening!
Age does not daunt the women in PLAZA DE LA SOLEDAD, who inhabit Mexico City as sex workers. Maya Goded interviews a swath of middle-aged women whose life experiences prove to be as much a mosaic as Mexico itself. They view their professions as a livelihood through which they maintain ownership of their destinies by their own means, avoiding machísmo’s influence to a certain extent. They radiate femininity amid their joys and hardships, and command it in dances and seduction techniques they render for men in vulnerable or low places. They support each other, and persist through the trials they face in their caste. Each person before the camera illuminates the tough lifestyle she lives and the thick skin she’s grown in order to survive. Goded empowers the women in the film as they speak for themselves and about themselves in their cultural microcosm.
Directed by Maya Goded. Official selection, Sundance Film Festival 2016. 85 min. In Spanish and Mixteco with English/Spanish subtitles.
Tickets for Plaza de la Soledad available here.
The Swirl
Sunday, May 13 at 4:30pm
A Q&A via Skype with director Laura Herrero Garvín will follow the screening!
Perched on the bloated banks of the Usumacinta River in Chiapas, Mexico, El Remolino was forged decades ago by five families who saw promise in the area’s dense jungle and lightly mountainous landscape. Today, the town struggles to keep its school open, its farms dry enough to yield viable crops, and its livestock from drowning in the rainy season deluge. While many have fled, strikingly graceful and stoic siblings Pedro and Esther Benitez remain to conquer not only the flooded terrain but also the ghosts of a painful shared childhood. Pedro dreams of finding a loving husband and adopting a child. Esther wants to resurrect her studies and see her children graduate into thriving careers. Considerations of feminine identity and power, memory, and the influence of family poignantly converge in director Laura Herrero Garvin’s languid and beautifully filmed observation. This is a documentary shot with such dreamy yet acute depth and clarity that one can see almost anything in the water’s reflection.
Directed by Laura Herrero Garvín. Official Selection, Ambulante Film Festival, Full Frame Film Festival, Docs/MX Film Festival, Locarno Film Festival. 73 min. In Spanish with English subtitles.
Tickets for The Swirl available here
Artemio
Sunday, May 13 at 6:45pm
Director Sandra Luz López Barroso IN PERSON for a Q&A after the screening!
Anthropologist-filmmaker Sandra Luz López Barroso quietly observes ten-year-old Artemio as he joins his mother in Mexico. Born and raised in California, he is now far from everything he knows. But as long as his wonderfully strong-willed yet loving mother Coco is unable to obtain a visa, they must spend their days in the sleepy rural town of Cacalote, where time seems to have stood still.
Directed by Sandra Luz López Barroso. Special Mention for a Mexican Feature-Length documentary, Morelia Film Festival 2017. Official selection Hot Docs 2018. 47 min. In Spanish with English subtitles.
Preceded by La casa de los Lúpulos, directed by Paula Hopf. 22 min.
