Winner of the prestigious Caméra d’Or in 2019 for his debut Our Mothers (we were on hand – check out our coverage) Guatemalan filmmaker César Díaz‘s highly anticipated sophomore feature receives its world premiere next week in the glorious lieu that showcases the Piazza Grande offerings at the Locarno Film Festival. Continuing in the same cinematic exploration of Guatemala’s brutal civil war as in his previous film (watch our interview), starring Bérénice Béjo (in Spanish), Mexico 86 is originally set in 1976. Death threats force Maria, a Guatemalan rebel activist fighting against the corrupt military dictatorship, to flee to Mexico, leaving her son behind. A decade later, when he comes to live with her, she is forced to choose between her duties as a mother and continuing her revolutionary activism. Díaz digs into his own past to inform the tense and intimate thriller. In the exclusive clip below we find Maria caught between a rock and a hard place:
Exclusive Clip: Bérénice Béjo is Fight-or-Flight in César Díaz’s Mexico 86
Eric Lavalléehttps://www.ericlavallee.com
Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist, and critic at IONCINEMA.com, established in 2000. A regular at Sundance, Cannes, and Venice, Eric holds a BFA in film studies from the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013, he served on the narrative competition jury 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 was a New Flesh Juror for Best First Feature at the Fantasia International Film Festival. His top films for 2023 include The Zone of Interest (Glazer), Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell (Pham Thien An), Totem (Lila Avilés), La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher), All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (Raven Jackson). He is a Golden Globes Voter.
