Tag: Cinema of Mexico
Dreams | 2025 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
Magnificent Obsession: Franco Finds Love is a Hopeless Place
Michel Franco lassos Jessica Chastain into his continued class conflict examinations in Dreams, an intimate portrait...
The Devil Smokes (and Saves the Burnt Matches in the Same Box) | 2025 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review
Devil May Care: Bucio’s Tantalizing Premise Fizzles Out
With an enigmatic premise and a formidably morbid title, Ernesto Martinez Bucio’s debut The Devil Smokes...
Cheating Death: Michel Franco’s ‘Dreams’ Set for 2025 Major Film Fest Premiere
Despite having gone into production in the summer of 2023 (in Mexico City and San Francisco), Dreams was not a film that Michel Franco...
La cocina | Review
Soap Kitchen: Ruizpalacios Underwhelms & Over Bakes Food Drama
Making his English language debut with fourth feature La Cocina, based on the notable stage play...
Perdidos en la noche (Lost in the Night) | Review
Night Moves: Escalante Cultivates a Moody, Capricious Mystery
Replete with a slew of customary features encountered in a fatalistic film noir, Amat Escalante’s fifth feature,...
Interview: Amat Escalante – Lost in the Night
From the very onset with his feature debut Sangre (2005), filmmaker Amat Escalante has proposed a cinema of provocation that simultaneously critiques corruption and...
Interview: Lila Avilés – Tótem
Among the titles competing for the Golden Bear at the 2023 Berlinale, the sophomore feature by Mexican filmmaker Lila Avilés brims with vitality. It...
Tótem | Review
Life and Death of the Party: Aviles’ Bustling Ensemble Piece Balances Pain & Profundity
Taking place over the course of one frenetic day, Lila...
Sujo | 2024 Sundance Film Festival Review
Goodbye Horses: Valadez & Rondero Explore a Valley of Violence
Working as co-directors on their latest feature Sujo, Fernanda Valadez and Astrid Rondero once again...
Memory | Review
Remembrance of Things Past: Franco Bargains for Benevolence in Purgative Love Story
“Memory is something so complex that no list of all its attributes could...
2024 Oscars: Lila Avilés’ Tótem is Mexico’s Nomination for Best International Film
In a flurry of announcements for the Best International Film category, we now learn that Mexico has selected Lila Avilés' brilliant sophomore feature, Tótem...
Robe of Gems | Review
Trojan Women: Lopez Crafts Collage of Complicity in Stellar Debut
For her directorial debut Robe of Gems (Manto de gemas), Natalia López Gallardo resists expectations...
Interview: Natalia López Gallardo – Robe of Gems (Manto de Gemas)
Largely known as a film editor for having worked with partner Carlos Reygadas on 2007 masterwork Silent Light and with further collaborations with the...
Now in Production: Carlos Reygadas Currently Filming “Estela de sombra”
Carlos Reygadas is currently in production on his sixth feature film, Estela de sombra. We suspect that filming in taking place in his native...
House Hold: Sideshow & Janus Films Move into Berlinale Fave “Tótem”
Winner of the Ecumenical Jury Prize and easily among the top films at this year's Berlinale, Lila Avilés' sophomore feature Tótem had already racked...
Top 200 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2023: #66. Lila Avilés’ Totem
Totem
A project that would have shot sometime around the summer of '21, auteur Lila Avilés reteamed with actress Teresa Sanchez and Lazua Larios (from...
Top 200 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2023: #68. David Zonana’s Heroic
Heroic
A sophomore feature that we thought might drop in '22 will instead break out this month at Sundance. Mexican filmmaker David Zonana who gave...
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...
La caja (The Box) | Review
Father Knows Best: Vigas Caps His Father/Son Trilogy with Blunt Brutality
In his long-gestating follow-up to 2014 Golden Lion winner From Afar, Venezuela’s Lorenzo Vigas...
Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths | Review
The Unexpected Virtue of Indulgence: Iñárritu Repeats Himself with Repetitive, Soulless Extravaganza
“The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple,” said Oscar...
Alonso Ruizpalacios Prepares New Dish “La Cocina” with Rooney Mara
Mexican auteur cinema appears to be moving northwards (more specifically, NYC) as Michel Franco will not be the only one to film there this...
NYC Staycation: Jessica Chastain & Peter Sarsgaard in New Michel Franco Film
We learned that Cannes and Venice winning filmmaker Michel Franco was possibly circling the country of Poland for his next project. Well, the filmmaker...
Sundown | Review
Slaughter House Rules: Franco Continues with Cinema of Distress
The English playwright Robert Bolt wrote “Death comes for us all. Even for kings he comes.”...
Top 100 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2022: #26. Lila Avilés’ Totem
Totem
As highlighted in our countdown there are many reasons to be excited for the new year in Mexican and new auteur cinema when we...
Top 100 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2022: #50. Alejandra Márquez Abella’s El norte sobre el vacío
El norte sobre el vacío
After successfully launching her sophomore feature Las niñas bien at the Toronto Intl. Film Feature in 2018, Mexico City based...
New Order | Review
How Does It Feel, To Treat Me Like You Do?: Franco Flies Into Traumas of Totalitarianism
It’s a sign of the times, wherein an apocalyptic...
Kokoloko | 2020 Tribeca Film Festival Review
Love is Bolder Than Death: Naranjo Returns to his Roots with Lo-Fi Melodrama
All’s fair in guerilla love and warfare, at least from the male’s...
Summer White | 2020 Sundance Film Festival Review
Sons & Lovers: Patterson Explores the Trouble with Sharing the Love in Subdued Debut
The subject of the single mother is a scenario rife for...
Devil Between the Legs | 2019 Toronto Intl. Film Festival Review
If Bleak Street Could Talk: Ripstein’s Not Afraid of Virginia Woolf in Sordid Marital Melodrama
Arturo Ripstein, one of Mexico’s most enduring and influential auteurs,...
Interview: Lila Avilés – The Chambermaid (La Camarista) | 2018 Marrakech Intl. Film Festival
Going beyond dirty towels and fully stocked mini bars, Lila Avilés' The Chambermaid shines a white sheets bright light on an a workforce that...
Interview: Carlos Reygadas – Our Time
Casting his wife, children and himself in his fifth feature film, Carlos Reygadas explores the tricky negotiations of being in an open relationship and...
Our Time | Review
Love Like Poison: Reygadas Returns with Frustrating but Forthright Marital Drama
Interminable? Yes. Navel-gazing? Perhaps. But furious in its candor? Absolutely. Carlos Reygadas returns for...
Interview: Michel Franco – Las hijas de Abril | 2018 Marrakech Intl. Film Festival
Having been ardent fan of this filmmaker since being introduced to his minimalist essay on how an assault on the affluent can infuse toxicity...
ROMA | Review
Going Home Again: Cuarón Aces Return to Mexico with Autobiographical, Intimate drama
From one woman reaching the shore to another going back to it, from...
Off Set 2018 TIFF Portrait Series: The Good Girls
Her feature debut Semana Santa was selected for the 2015 edition of TIFF, and so it was a special homecoming of sorts for her...
Off Set 2018 TIFF Portrait Series: The Chambermaid
This year's TIFF presented two portraits about Mexico's working class. We have Alfonso Cuaron's take and then we have theatre director turned filmmaker Lila...
