Arturo Ripstein
1943 (81 год)Ripstein got his break into movies working as an uncredited assistant director for Luis Buñuel. In 1965, he directed his first feature, Tiempo de Morir. Written by Carlos Fuentes and Gabriel García Márquez, it began a tradition of making independent films written by high-profile Latin-American authors. His 1981 film Seduction was entered into the 12th Moscow International Film Festival. His 1989 film Love Lies was entered into the 16th Moscow International Film Festival. In 1997 Ripstein won the National Prize of Arts and Sciences, the second filmmaker after Buñuel to do so. Some of Ripstein's films, especially the earlier ones, "highlighted characters beset by futile compulsions to escape [their]destinies". Many of his films are shot in tawdry interiors, with bleak brown color schemes, and seedy pathetic characters who manage to achieve a hint of pathos and dignity. Asi Es la Vida, according to Jonathan Crow, "boldly reworks the ancient Greek drama Medea, employing a dizzying array of flashbacks and Brechtian devices". Deep Crimson, according to the New York Times, is "a ferociously anti-romantic portrait of an obese nurse and a seedy small-time gigolo whose bungling scheme to swindle a succession of lonely women out of their life savings turns into a killing spree."
Principio y fin
Arturo Ripstein
Ernesto Laguardia, Julieta Egurrola
The film tells the story of the Boteros, a middle-class Mexican family struggling against poverty after their father's death. Ignacia (Egurrola) is the Boteros mother, a desperate woman who chooses to sacrifice the destiny of her three older children, in order to protect Gabriel (Laguardia) the youngest one. She believes Gabriel will climb the social structure and bring back the lost fortune to the family. But destiny has other plans for the Boteros and tragedy will overcome eventually. Based on the novel of Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz.
The Beginning and the End
Internet Junkie
Alexander Katzowicz
Antonio Birabent, Ángela Molina
Many stories happen simultaneously through Internet. In the real world, people are lonely, isolated, desperate for finding love, friendship and tenderness. They project themselves as superheroes, with infinity of friends and hypersex. They live asphyxiated in front of their machines, unable to live with the people that surround them, exasperated for finding a pinch of love in the fantasy of the net. Outside the virtual world, they do not exist.
Internet Junkie
Time to Die
Arturo Ripstein
Marga López, Jorge Martínez de Hoyos
A man comes home after serving 18 years in jail for murder in this routine western. Although the man killed in self defense, rumors in town circulated that he murdered the victim in cold blood. The ex-con wants to get his life together, but the two sons of the slain man are gunning for the man who killed their father.
Time to Die
There Are No Thieves in This Village
Alberto Isaac
Julián Pastor, Rocío Sagaón
When a young boy steals billiard balls from a local saloon, a stranger is charged with the crime. The local layabouts find there is no reason to hang out at the bar without being able to shoot pool, and the boy entertains thoughts of forming a gang to steal more billiard balls in hopes of making money.
There Are No Thieves in This Village
El imperio de la fortuna
Arturo Ripstein
Ernesto Gómez Cruz, Blanca Guerra
Poor Dionisio finds himself as recipient of the good fortune, but soon he forgets that everything that goes up also has to go down, and that in the depressing nothingness of his town it is easy to die.
The Realm of Fortune
Los novios de mis hijas
Alfredo B. Crevenna
Amparo Rivelles, Julio Alemán
Mama has four daughters in their late teens. some of them might be more interested in careers than husbands, but she's hoping she'll find a highly suitable young man for each of them. If there are any out there that meet her standards.
Los novios de mis hijas
El santo oficio
Arturo Ripstein
Jorge Luke, Diana Bracho
A plague is spreading through 16th century Mexico, and the Inquisition of the Roman Catholic Church is rooting out Jews, for they are believed to be its cause. At his father's funeral, a monk observes his family practicing Jewish burial rite, and he reports them, leading to devastating consequences for the whole family.
The Holy Inquisition
La mujer del puerto
Arturo Ripstein
Damián Alcázar, Alejandro Parodi
Perla, a prostitute and the star in a miserable cabaret in the docks, falls in love with a sailor without knowing that he is her brother. Tomasa, Perla's mother, tries to prevent this incestuous relationship at all costs, but fails to do so. Set in a sordid environment, the director makes no concessions in this tragic love affair, which is narrated from three different points of view.
La mujer del puerto