
Lucila Balzaretti
1920 - 2012She ventured into journalism by writing a film column in the newspaper El Popular and in the magazine México al día, where José Revueltas and other writers also collaborated. In 1942, while preparing a report on the play El inspector, then directed by Seki Sano, she met Ignacio Retes, whom she married two years later. In 1946 she participated in the founding of La Linterna Mágica and made her debut as an actress in the play Mariana Pineda (1946) under the pseudonym of Lucila Alarcón. Shortly after, she acted in Los zorros (1946), Israel (1948) and Santa Juana (1948), all directed by Retes himself. Later she left her stage name to continue appearing as Lucila Balzaretti in the plays El aria de la locura (1953), Terminal (Bus stop), Una ciudad para vivir (1954), La feria distante (1955), A media luz los tres (1957) and Nacida ayer (1958), among others. She also had a brief participation in one of the revivals of A Streetcar Named Desire, a Seki Sano version.
She was the mother of film director Gabriel Retes, with whom she participated in the films Chin Chin el teporocho, El bulto, Flores de Papel, Arresto domiciliario.
Broken Flag
Gabriel Retes
Manolo Fábregas, Aarón Hernán
When a group of young filmmakers witness and film a crime of passion, the most outrageous blackmail of the century begins. By means of a fantastic plan, the filmmakers send to the murderer, a financial and industrial big shot, a copy of the movie that incriminates him and they demand him an improvement of the standard of living for the working class.
Broken Flag
El Bulto
Gabriel Retes
José Alonso, Gabriel Retes
After being in a comma for 20 year, Lauro (Retes) wakes up in a very different Mexico than the one he lived on. Ideas, hopes, ways-of-life and customs have changed, and Mexicans of the nineties are strangers for a man sleeping since 1971. Lauro will have to deal with the changes brought by the History, and will have to accept that the future is never as we imagined it when we were young.
El Bulto
Chin chin el Teporocho
Gabriel Retes
José Luis Avendaño, Jorge Balzaretti
Rogelio’s story, a young man of humble origin in the neighborhood of Tepito, who falls in love with the daughter of a wealthy grocer, Michelle, but his marriage to her will be a failure and he will end up as a one more drunk.
Chin-Chin el Teporocho
Sucesos distantes
Guita Schyfter
Angélica Aragón, Fernando Balzaretti
One couple (Carlos & Irene) are having troubles, because he suspects that Irene's hiding something about her past in Russia. To make things worst her ex-husband goes to Mexico and tells Carlos that her other ex-husband also is going to claim her as his property.
Sucesos distantes
Arresto domiciliario
Gabriel Retes
Lucila Balzaretti, Gabriel Retes
Because of a millionaire fraud, a man is condemned to house arrest, and the only place where he can serve sentence is his mother’s house, affected with Alzheimer disease. The arrival of the man disrupts the life of the people who live with the elder woman. With turns of the screw, the story feels dramatic, but it also contains certain amount of irony. It talks about human and family relations with a total absence of violence.
House Arrest
Flores de Papel
Gabriel Retes
Ana Luisa Peluffo, Gabriel Retes
On the thinnest of pretexts, a horde of homeless people descend on the apartments of two members of the comfortable middle class and proceed to loot and vandalize both homes, leaving the next morning with many of the belongings they found there, as well as one of the residents who has opted to join them. This political allegory is based on two plays by the Chilean playwright Egon Wolff.
Paper Flowers
El reventón
Archibaldo Burns
Ana Luisa Peluffo, Juan David Burns
Wild-partying hippie-artist-dilettantes end up forming a revolutionary terrorist cell. The misfit Gato loses a lot of money in bets and his father throws him out of his house. Ál leaves his girlfriend Laura for his lover, the married Adriana. Out of money Gato and Ál becomes urban guerrilla when they plan to kidnap Gato's rich father.
El reventón
El nacimiento de un guerrillero
Gabriel Retes
Manuel 'Flaco' Ibáñez, Jorge Santoyo
The lives of Rolo, Chino and Boby take different courses since the student movement of the 60’s. Some years later, the friends meet again. Rolo has turned into a guerrilla fighter, Boby into a businessman and Chino into an embittered and solitary man.
Hard Years: The birth of a guerrilla fighter