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Federico Cecchetti's Journey to the Land of the Tarahumara

Annual Top Films Lists

Top 200 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2023: #179. Federico Cecchetti’s Jíkuri

Top 200 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2023: #179. Federico Cecchetti’s Jíkuri

Jíkuri

Mexican filmmaker Federico Cecchetti was one of the lucky half-dozen filmmakers to participate in the Cannes The Residence (32nd edition) with his sophomore project then titled “Letters from the Land of the Tarahumara” and then “Journey to the Land of the Tarahumara,” and now Jíkuri. After a long gestation period, Cecchetti landed Sylvie Testud, Olivier Rabourdin and François Négret for a meeting of the minds set in 1936 in the Tarahumara mountains backdrop type of drama. Produced by Machete, L.A.-based Amplitud and France’s Thierry Lenouvel, Cecchetti first got noticed with his Ariel Awards (Mexico’s Oscars) nominated with El Sueño del Mara’akame in 2017.

Gist: The life of Rayenari changes when the poet Antonin Artaud arrives to his village seeking the spiritual knowledge of the Tarahumara. Rayenari introduces him to the Peyote ceremony. However, the poet abandons the ritual and loses his soul. Sometime later, Rayenari discovers through dreams that Artaud has been committed to a mental hospital. It will be through this connection that Rayenari will help his friend to recover what he lost.

Release Date/Prediction: This could land at a major film fest – our money is on a run at the Golden Bear at the Berlinale.

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).

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