Films & Schedules - MEXICO

Following a car accident, Roberto is left grieving the death of his wife and raising his emotionally distant yet self-sacrificing daughter Alejandra alone. The broken family uproots their lives in Puerto Vallarta and moves to Mexico City in hopes of starting anew. After Lucia focuses on Alejandra as she simultaneously attempts to deal with both her mother’s death and a drunken, teenage mistake that makes her the target of cruel harassment and abuse from her classmates. Ashamed and unable to tell her distressed father or anyone else about the escalating bullying at school, Alejandra’s silence ultimately takes a dreadful toll....

Following a car accident, Roberto is left grieving the death of his wife and raising his emotionally distant yet self-sacrificing daughter Alejandra alone. The broken family uproots their lives in Puerto Vallarta and moves to Mexico City in hopes of starting anew. After Lucia focuses on Alejandra as she simultaneously attempts to deal with both her mother’s death and a drunken, teenage mistake that makes her the target of cruel harassment and abuse from her classmates. Ashamed and unable to tell her distressed father or anyone else about the escalating bullying at school, Alejandra’s silence ultimately takes a dreadful toll. This exquisitely told tale of the heartbreaking pain of insensitive bullying won the main prize in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival and is this year’s Mexican submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. (93 mins.)

First Feature.

Sponsored by the Consulate of Mexico in Portland and Chipotle.

FILM REVIEW

Interests: New Directors, Narrative Feature, Spanish Language.

Winner of the Grand Prize at the Critics’ Week at the Cannes Film Festival and a New York Film Festival selection, Esparza’s lyrical film captures the reality of the life of a migrant worker who struggles on both sides of the border. Pedro returns home to a small mountain village in Guerrero after years of working in the US. His daughters feel more distant than he imagined, and his wife Teresa is delighted that he’s back but troubled by their circumstances. With the money he has earned, he can create a better life for his family and maybe even start...

Winner of the Grand Prize at the Critics’ Week at the Cannes Film Festival and a New York Film Festival selection, Esparza’s lyrical film captures the reality of the life of a migrant worker who struggles on both sides of the border. Pedro returns home to a small mountain village in Guerrero after years of working in the US. His daughters feel more distant than he imagined, and his wife Teresa is delighted that he’s back but troubled by their circumstances. With the money he has earned, he can create a better life for his family and maybe even start the band with his cousins he has dreamed about for years. But work back home remains scarce and the temptation of heading back north of the border remains as strong as ever. (110 mins.)

First Feature.

Sponsored by the Consulate of Mexico in Portland.

FILM REVIEW

Interests: New Directors, Narrative Feature, Spanish Language.

Reygadas’s enigmatic, visually ravishing film presents the occurrences around Juan and Natalia, a wealthy couple living in a stunning house in the lush countryside with their two little children and their pack of dogs. Mundane domestic events are punctuated by a series of disparate, occasionally fantastical subplots within a tableau of overwhelming beauty haunted by mysterious sinister forces. “In this expressionistic Mexican film, magnificent dreamlike exteriors together with memories and dream sequences tell the story of one man’s ability to resist temptation and stop himself from sinning. The story is at times told from the perspective of Satan, showing us...

Reygadas’s enigmatic, visually ravishing film presents the occurrences around Juan and Natalia, a wealthy couple living in a stunning house in the lush countryside with their two little children and their pack of dogs. Mundane domestic events are punctuated by a series of disparate, occasionally fantastical subplots within a tableau of overwhelming beauty haunted by mysterious sinister forces. “In this expressionistic Mexican film, magnificent dreamlike exteriors together with memories and dream sequences tell the story of one man’s ability to resist temptation and stop himself from sinning. The story is at times told from the perspective of Satan, showing us the world through the Devil’s ambivalent eyes. The use of a nonlinear storyline gives way for emotions, hopes, and dreams of a family looking for redemption and the meaning of life.”—Stockholm Film Festival (115 mins.)

Selected Filmography: Japón (02), Battle in Heaven (05), Silent Light (07)

Winner of the Best Director Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

Sponsored by the Consulate of Mexico in Portland.

FILM REVIEW

Interests: Narrative Feature, Spanish Language.