Alfonso Cuarón’s Venice triumph highlights importance of Mexican filmmakers

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September 17, 2018

Cuarón and his Venice Film Festival award. EPA-EFE/Ettore Ferrari

Alfonso Cuarón has won the Golden Lion at the 2018 Venice International Film Festival for Roma, his most personal film. The win highlights the importance of Mexican filmmakers in a film culture that is usually dominated by Americans.

Cuarón and his colleagues, Guillermo del Toro and Alejandro González Iñárritu – or the “Three Amigos” as they are known – have become popular fixtures at the Venice festival. Jury president del Toro was the winner of the 2017 Golden Lion for The Shape of Water, while Iñárritu’s Birdman opened the festival in 2014 – an honour shared by Cuarón’s Gravity in 2013.

All three have won Oscars for best director at the Academy Awards – and Cuarón is now a serious contender for best director in 2019 for Roma to follow his award for Gravity in 2014.

Roma is a Mexican Spanish and indigenous language (Mixtec), black and white art film. It is a highly personal project by Cuarón that features the point of view of Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), a domestic servant working for a middle-class family – a character based on the Cuarón’s family servant, Lobi. It is an intimate film of Cuarón’s youth in the hip Mexico City district of Colonia Roma which blends family history with the social and political Mexico of the early 1970s.

Another newsworthy element of Roma’s success is the way in which the story of the film, and its distribution and exhibition, folds into the developing story of Netflix. That Netflix has chosen Cuarón’s semi-autobiographical drama as the flagship production for its new distribution model reveals much about the streaming company and the way it is challenging existing screen culture.

It tells us that Netflix wants to work with the best directors in the world and that it will support high-quality, non-English language productions that are likely to win prestigious awards. It also tells us that Netflix will support a director-led model for films that avoid big stars and special effects – Roma’s protagonist Cleo is played by Yalitza Aparicio, a non-professional actor who is a teacher in real life.

Netflix offers an alternative to traditional models that restrict these art films to a limited festival run and restricted theatrical release with low box-office takings.

Netflix has used Roma to break a deadlock with festivals seen in Netflix’s previous refusal to agree to a theatrical release, and Cannes film festival’s resulting refusal to allow Roma and other Netflix productions to enter into competition if they aren’t slated for theatrical distribution in France. The new Netflix model introduced by Roma enters films in festival competition and agrees to limited theatrical distribution, but also bypasses lengthy delays between cinema and streaming release.

Following Venice, Roma is playing in competition at Telluride, Toronto, London, New York and Copenhagen. It will be followed by an (as yet unspecified) limited theatrical release, and a global release on the streaming site, scheduled for December 1, 2018. Cuarón has highlighted this as a principal attraction of working with Netflix.

Working as his own cinematographer as a result of the lack of availability of his longtime collaborator Emmanuel Lubezki, Cuarón made a film to be seen on the big screen. It has state-of-the-art sound design and was shot on 65mm using the Alexa65 digital camera. This resulted in a “really pristine, almost never-before-seen black and white”, according to David Linde, the film’s producer. But the filmmakers also wanted the film to be seen by a global audience, an ambition that can be realized by its release on the biggest streaming platform in the world.

The high level of backing for a Mexican art film may appear to be a risky move for Netflix, but it follows its approach of support for a certain type of auteurist filmmaker, those who have a track record of excellence and are embraced by both festival and global audiences. These are directors who can be trusted to create high-quality films or series (examples include the Coen brothers, Paul Greengrass, Martin Scorsese, Steven Soderbergh, and Lana and Lily Wachowski).

While Netflix has been celebrated for investing in new and exciting voices and embracing diversity, directors have to jump through many hoops to be rewarded with such a high-profile distribution and exhibition platform.

As a multi award-winning director, Cuarón belongs to a Netflix executive class of director. Cuarón had to achieve stratospheric brilliance with his award-winning Gravity to be given such first-class treatment for a film set in Mexico City. That he has been able to make his most personal film yet is due entirely to his profile and status secured largely in filmmaking outside of his home country (with the exception of his low-budget Y Tu Mamá También). Cuarón has, to his credit, used his privilege to make a Mexican film that has a focus on the sort of working-class character that is severely underrepresented in mainstream cinema.

Once you all stop pretending to care for Mexican cinema because Cuarón’s “Roma” is out, you should actually seek out other great, recent Mexican films that didn’t get much attention:

-Güeros
-Tempestad
-Devil’s Freedom
-The Untamed
-The Chosen Ones
-Everything Else

— Carlos Aguilar (@Carlos_Film) August 30, 2018

But while Cuarón himself is a great cheerleader for Mexican cinema his success is unlikely to lead to a wider distribution and exposure of Mexican films in general. Some of the most talented voices of recent Mexican cinema find themselves restricted to the limited distributions of the festival and art cinema circuits.

There is a rich cinematic culture in Mexico – and there are a number of directors deserving of wider international acclaim. These include: Fernando Eimbcke, Amat Escalante, Michel Franco, Maya Goded, Tatiana Huezo, Issa López, María Novaro, Alonso Ruizpalacios, Juan Carlos Rulfo and Carlos Reygadas.

There is much to celebrate in Netflix’s new film production, exhibition and distribution model – and in Roma’s success, particularly in the wider distribution it offers to filmmakers and increased access to films for its subscribers. Nonetheless, this model is still reserved for filmmaking royalty, and the festival, theatrical release and streaming platforms afforded Roma is an exception.

Most high-quality non-English language films will, unfortunately, remain unseen by large audiences.

Deborah Shaw is a reader in film studies at the University of Portsmouth. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

Mexican film Roma front-runner for Oscars after Toronto festival

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MND Staff

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September 17, 2018

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After winning the top award at the Venice Film Festival and receiving a rousing reception at the Toronto International Film Festival, Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón’s new film Roma has emerged as a clear front-runner for the next Academy Awards.

The film, according to The Washington Post, has all the characteristics of a strong contender, including “great reviews, sumptuous photography,” an Oscar-winning director, great performances by non-actors and “insights into race, class, feminism and United States-Mexican relations.”

But Roma also has one big problem, The Post said: Netflix, rather than a big established studio, is distributing it.

That fact provides Hollywood, which votes on the Oscars, with a conundrum: should it reward a deserving film regardless of where it appears, or should it favor a movie from a traditional distributor to cater to fears about its own obsolescence?

“This is a big moment — for Netflix but also for the film business,” an unidentified Hollywood agent told The Post. “If Roma can’t win, Netflix can never win.”

The global streaming service has a deep desire for industry recognition but paradoxically it opposes broad theatrical releases — the means via which that recognition traditionally comes.

Netflix appears set to only allow Roma to have a limited exclusive theatrical release, qualifying it for contention in the Oscars, before it will also be made available on its online platform.

So if Roma is able to win the Academy Award for best picture, “it will show that many Oscar voters are willing to let the old ways die,” The Post said.

Cuarón, who won the best director Oscar for Gravity in 2013, pitched Roma to the production company Participant Media, which financed the film and later sold the worldwide distribution rights to Netflix.

Set in Mexico City in the 1970s, the Spanish-language black-and-white film explores Cuarón’s childhood memories and is centered around two indigenous domestic workers who take care of a small family in the middle-class neighborhood of Roma.

Film industry analysts quoted by The Post were skeptical about the chances of Roma winning an Oscar with only a token theatrical release.

One unidentified consultant said “oh, they care, believe me,” when asked if voters would opt against the film if it doesn’t have a substantive cinema run.

In turn, Cuarón said Netflix was being treated unfairly in the debate.

“Everyone focuses on Netflix but no one looks at the other side: the exhibitors [theater owners]” he said.

“They’re living in the ’90s. They need to be in the present.”

Source: The Washington Post (en)

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Too many bodies: stinky trailer containing 157 angers residents

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MND Staff

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September 17, 2018

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The smelly semi containing the unwelcome cargo.

Finding a suitable place to park a trailer containing 157 unidentified bodies is proving to be a difficult task for authorities in Jalisco.

Due to a lack of space in state-run morgues, the Jalisco Institute of Forensic Sciences (IJCF) placed the corpses in a refrigerated trailer that until last Thursday was left in a warehouse in La Duraznera, a neighborhood in the municipality of Tlaquepaque.

But after residents complained of fetid odors, Mayor María Elena Limón ordered the state government to remove the trailer from Tlaquepaque, setting a period of 48 hours within which to do so.

Limón also said that municipal authorities were not notified by their state counterparts of the decision to store the corpse-filled container in Tlaquepaque, which is part of the Guadalajara metropolitan area.

The state government complied with the mayor’s order, moving the trailer to a litter-strewn property in the municipality of Tlajomulco de Zúñiga, where it was left outdoors directly behind the Paseos del Valle housing estate.

But that only achieved to transfer the same problem from one place to another.

Soon after the trailer’s relocation, Paseos del Valle residents also began to complain about offensive smells, some even claiming that blood was spilling out of the container. Some threatened to set it on fire.

Tlajomulco authorities, like those in Tlaquepaque, said they hadn’t been informed either of the plan to park the makeshift morgue within municipal limits. They too asked for it to be removed.

Consequently, on Saturday the state government once again relocated the morgue-on-wheels, this time leaving the 157 bodies in a warehouse belonging to the state Attorney General’s office (FGE) in an industrial area of Guadalajara.

In response to the situation, the Jalisco Human Rights Commission (CEDHJ) has initiated an investigation and reminded the IJCF that in accordance with established protocols it is required to establish a forensic cemetery where unclaimed bodies held by state authorities can be buried.

Before burial, DNA samples must be collected from all the victims, the CEDHJ said.

“The graves or burial niches must be marked using durable materials with the file number . . . that corresponds to the remains. All the information about the burials must be duly documented and added to both the State Bank of Forensic Data and the case file in the Attorney General’s office,” the organization said.

State authorities last month began the construction of a forensic cemetery on land donated by the municipality of Tonalá but work quickly stalled due to complaints by neighbors.

However, Jalisco Interior Secretary Roberto López Lara said the graveyard will be ready by the end of next month and will have the capacity for the burial of around 700 bodies in its first stage.

The 157 bodies currently stored in the refrigerated trailer are victims of violent crime presumably at the hands of members of organized crime groups.

There have been more than 1,500 homicides in Jalisco to date this year, a figure that has already exceeded the total number of murders in the state during all of last year.

The Jalisco New Generation Cartel, considered Mexico’s most powerful and dangerous criminal organization, is believed to be behind much of the violent crime committed in the state.

Source: El Universal (sp), El Financiero (sp)

Nuevo León mayor warns his departure could trigger narco-troubles

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César Hernández

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September 17, 2018

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Departing Mayor Fernández warns of danger ahead.

A mayor in Nuevo León has warned of a possible surge in violence after his term ends in October.

San Pedro Garza García Mayor Mauricio Fernández Garza made the dire prediction despite claiming earlier this year that criminal gangs had been eradicated from the municipality.

Fernández was speaking following Saturday’s discovery of a body wrapped in plastic. Rolando López Salinas, who had been kidnapped September 4, had been tortured before he was assassinated. Found with the body was a message attributed to a drug trafficking organization.

Anonymous government sources told the newspaper Reforma that the victim had ties with two leaders of the Beltrán Leyva cartel, and that he was executed by a rival gang.

Mayor Férnandez’s second and last term at the helm of municipal affairs is scheduled to end on October 31. He stated that his departure could be seen by criminals as creating a power vacuum over which they could fight.

“My stepping down will provoke some changes. There are people that know that things are very strict [in terms of security],” explained the National Action Party mayor.

Fernández has insisted that the Beltrán Leyva cartel does not operate in San Pedro: ” . . . I had a very strong confrontation with them, [but the cartel] has been eliminated from San Pedro for a very long time.”

Still, the mayor said relatives of the cartel’s leaders could still be living in the municipality.

Fernández boasted in July that San Pedro was cartel-free. He also quoted from a survey by the national statistics institute which indicated residents had the lowest perception of insecurity among the country’s municipalities.

The new mayor is Miguel Treviño, who ran in the July 1 election as an independent.

Part of the Monterrey metropolitan area, San Pedro Garza García is one of Mexico’s wealthiest municipalities.

Source: Reforma (sp)

Insecurity cancels independence celebrations in Guerrero, Puebla

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César Hernández

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September 17, 2018

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Saturday's 'grito' of independence in Morelia, Michoacán.

There was neither a “shout for independence” nor military parades in several municipalities of Guerrero and Puebla after local authorities suspended the traditional celebrations due to insecurity.

Mayors in at least six Guerrero municipalities, including Atoyac de Álvarez, Petatlán, Coahuayutla, Huamuxtitlan, Cochoapa el Grande and Copanatoyac, took to social media to inform constituents that there would be no Independence Day celebrations this year.

They were concerned about exposing citizens to danger should there be violence.

In at least three of those municipalities there have been confrontations recently between gangs, including the Cartel del Sur and Los Rojos, which cost the lives of at least five people as they vie for control over opium poppy cultivation and trafficking.

State security spokesman Roberto Álvarez Heredia said security has been reinforced on the Autopista del Sol between Mexico City and Acapulco, where there has been in increase in theft.

Authorities have also reinforced security in the Montaña region and the municipalities of Cochoapa El Grande and Tlapa de Comonfort after the mayor-elect of Cochoapa was abducted two weeks ago.

Elsewhere in the state, 75 municipalities celebrated the Grito de Independencia without any disturbances to report, apart from a slight scare caused by a 3.4-magnitude earthquake.

In Puebla, meanwhile, eight municipalities suspended their independence festivities due to similar concerns over security.

Acatlán, Santa Clara Ocoyucan and Ciudad Serdán were among those that cancelled celebrations due to the violence generated by fuel thieves.

Public Security Secretary Jesús Morales Rodríguez explained that state police have been deployed for some time in the affected municipalities but conditions were such that they could not guarantee the safety of large gatherings of people.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

San Miguel de Allende is Uber ‘gold mine’ in Guanajuato

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MND Staff

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September 17, 2018

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Uber's Crespo: 'gold mine' in Guanajuato. — Uber's Crespo: a 'gold mine.'

San Miguel de Allende is a “gold mine” in Guanajuato for ride-hailing service Uber, according to the company’s Mexico communications director.

Saul Crespo told the newspaper El Financiero that San Miguel generates the highest average hourly earnings of any of Uber’s markets in the state.

It is also a particularly lucrative city for Uber’s drivers, he said, adding that 60% of journeys in the city are requested by foreigners.

San Miguel de Allende is a large expat hub and is also a popular tourist destination. It was recently ranked the world’s top city for the second year in a row.

Uber, the world’s most popular app-based taxi service, started operations in Guanajuato three years ago and now “directly generates 10,600 economic opportunities and helps transport 768,000 Guanajuato residents,” Crespo said.

He also stated that Uber has become one of the state’s economic engines, with a total of 14% of the state’s population either using the company’s services or partnering with it as a driver.

Apart from San Miguel de Allende, Uber also operates in Guanajuato, León, Salamanca, Celaya and Irapuato.

“It gives us a lot of pride to be part of the development of the state and to see positive results and to gain the confidence of Mexicans, Guanajuato residents and tourists,” Crespo said.

“Guanajuato has two of the most productive cities in the region, eight out of every 10 [Uber] vehicles in León and Celaya are on the road most of the time,” he added.

Crespo said that Uber’s goal is to continue growing in Mexico and to resolve the problems it has in some parts of the country.

Taxi drivers have protested against the company in several parts of Mexico, including Quintana Roo, where Uber suspended its services in April while the state Congress made changes to the Mobility Law before returning in May to more protests.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

5 assassination victims found in truck in Uruapan

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César Hernández

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September 17, 2018

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Michoacán state police discovered five bodies in the back of an abandoned pick-up truck in the municipality of Uruapan on the weekend.

The victims had been shot and showed signs of torture.

Although the five men have not been identified, investigators suspect they died as a result of a vendetta between organized crime gangs.

The avocado-producing municipality has found itself in the midst of a territorial war between the Viagra gang and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), making it one of the most violent areas in the state, alongside Morelia, Apatzingán, Zamora, Mújica, Churumuco and Lázaro Cárdenas.

Also in Michoacán, the deputy police chief of Aquila in the Sierra-Costa region was the target of a gunman yesterday near municipal headquarters. The shooter was apprehended at the scene; the police officer was reported in stable condition.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Mexico’s most powerful cartel has also been safest from prosecution

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MND Staff

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September 17, 2018

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The film students believed to have been Jalisco cartel victims.

Of all Mexico’s notorious drug cartels the one identified by Mexican and United States authorities as the most powerful and dangerous has also been the safest from prosecution, statistics show.

Between September 1, 2017 and June 30, 2018, the federal Attorney General’s office (PGR) successfully obtained sentences against 378 criminals including 82 who were members of organized crime groups, according to the Organized Crime Investigation Unit (Seido).

However, not one of those convicted was a leader or member of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), which the federal government and the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) consider Mexico’s most powerful drug trafficking organization.

In the 10-month period between June 2016 and September 2017, the PGR obtained just seven sentences against CJNG members or just 5% of the total number of prosecutions against drug cartel members.

Authorities in both Mexico and the United States last month raised the rewards offered for the cartel’s leader, Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, to a combined US $6.6 million.

While Oseguera — considered to be the principal instigator of violence in Mexico — has remained elusive, marines arrested his wife Rosalinda González Valencia in May on charges of money laundering and organized crime.

However, González was released from prison on bail earlier this month after a judge ruled that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute her for organized crime.

The CJNG was founded in 2009 but over the past three years has expanded its influence to become Mexico’s most dominant cartel, putting the organization in direct confrontation with rival gangs throughout the country, sparking violent turf wars for the control of territory.

Among the highest profile crimes it is alleged to have committed in 2018 are the torture and murder of three students in Guadalajara, an attack on state Labor Secretary Luis Carlos Nájera, also in the Jalisco state capital, and the disappearance of three Italian men in Tecalitlán.

The cartel also allegedly supports Mexico City crime gang La Unión de Tepito, which is believed to be responsible for a fatal attack Friday night at Plaza Garibaldi, a square known as the capital’s home of Mariachi music.

While authorities have had little success in apprehending and obtaining sentences against CJNG members, it has a slightly better record with members of other high-profile criminal organizations although record levels of violent crime indicate that the federal security strategy hasn’t functioned as planned.

Over the past year, the PGR has obtained the highest number of sentences against members of the Sinaloa Cartel, with 15, followed by those belonging to the Zetas and La Familia Michoacana, with 13 each.

The former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, was extradited to the United States in January 2017 and is currently awaiting trial, while his son Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar was last week added to the DEA’s 10 most wanted fugitives list.

In the 10-month period to June 30,2018, the PGR also obtained sentences against six members of the Gulf Cartel, four members of Los Caballeros Templarios and one member each of the Juárez Cartel and the criminal gang known as La Línea.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Oaxaca lychee growers plan to expand their production

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MND Staff

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September 15, 2018

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Lychee producers in Oaxaca are betting that demand for their product will continue to grow even though the fruit is rarely consumed in their home state.

There are currently 1,500 hectares of land dedicated to lychee production in the Mixe and Papaloapan Basin regions of the southern state but next year growers forecast they will plant an additional 300 hectares.

Most of their yield goes to the United States, with smaller quantities shipped to other states in Mexico and European countries such as Germany and Spain.

Rafael Torres Rivera, president of a Oaxaca lychee growers’ association, told the news website NVI Noticias that lychees can yield prices of 35 to 40 pesos (US $1.80 to $2.10) a kilo in the United States whereas locally they sell for just eight to 10 pesos.

He explained that producers in Oaxaca harvest their crops in April and May, which is earlier than other lychee-producing states including Veracruz, Puebla, San Luis Potosí, Jalisco and Sinaloa.

“[The fact] that Oaxaca is the first state in the country to produce [lychees] during the year helps us to position ourselves in the market,” Torres said.

Yields were particularly good this year, with some growers harvesting up to eight tonnes of lychees per hectare compared to yields which dropped to as low as two tonnes per hectare in recent years.

However, Torres said that only 700 of the 1,500 hectares of lychee trees are currently producing because the other 800 hectares were only planted recently and the trees haven’t yet matured.

Apart from planting more trees, producers also hope to increase profits by harvesting even bigger bumper crops and by diversifying the use of their lychees.

“The goals are to surpass eight to 10 tonnes harvested per hectare, to work on the added value of the fruit [by producing] jams and dried lychees but also to plant 80,000 trees on another 300 hectares,” Torres said.

Growers are also increasingly producing lychees using only organic fertilizers.

Lychee trees, which are native to China, were first planted in Oaxaca 24 years ago.

Source: NVI Noticias (sp)

Company wins environmental award in UK for its air purifier

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MND Staff

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September 15, 2018

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This 'tree' does the work of 300 real ones.

A Mexican company won a prestigious innovation award for its air purification system at the Contamination Expo Series 2018 held in Birmingham, England, this week.

BiomiTech beat out six other finalists in the innovation category with its Biourban 2.0 system, which uses microalgae to transform contaminants such as carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides into oxygen.

The technology used in the system is 100% Mexican.

“A single Biourban [system] is capable of carrying out the photosynthesis process and returning oxygen equivalent to [that released annually by] more than 300 trees,” BiomiTech founding partner Jaime Ferrer told the newspaper Milenio.

“But we’re not replacing them. At crossroads, in urban infrastructure where contamination is found, roads where cars drive on a daily basis, at intersections where buses stop . . . These are places where we can’t plant 300 trees but we can complete the same function through a natural biological process,” he explained.

BiomiTech’s purification system is four meters high and designed in the form of a tree with a steel casing.

Its apex has a three-meter diameter and contains 500 liters of microalgae capable of filtering up to 99.7% of the particles it captures.

The system is also equipped with a sensor to monitor air quality and wireless internet capability to transmit the data it collects. Waste microalgae can be used as a raw material for products such as biogas and biofuels.

“The most important cities in the world with significant pollution problems have highly-advanced sensors that measure contamination . . . but very few do something to control the problem. This is the first technology, which through a 100% biological and natural process, enables contamination to be reduced,” Ferrer said.

The first Biourban system was installed in Puebla a year ago but the company hopes to expand to other parts of the country.

Over the course of a year, the filtration system has the capacity to capture more than 13 million cubic meters of air and release oxygen equivalent to that released by 368 young eucalyptus trees.

Earlier this year, BiomiTech was also the winner of the Latam Edge Awards, which supports the expansion of Latin American technology companies in the United Kingdom.

“It was very gratifying because they recognized Mexican talent abroad. The [Latam] prize consisted of 125,000 pounds in services, marketing, offices and advertising with the aim of starting operations in the United Kingdom,” Ferrer said.

“. . . It makes me very proud to say that we’re being recognized at an international level but there’s still a lot to do in our country.”

Source: Milenio (sp)