Modern day pirates have carried out another heist in the Gulf of Mexico.
On Tuesday night, a group of 10 armed thieves stole equipment, tools, materials and other items from a Campeche Bay oil platform owned by the state oil company Pemex.
According to a Milenio newspaper report that cited platform workers, hooded thieves dressed in military-style attire arrived at the offshore pumping complex in three vessels at approximately 7 p.m.
They boarded the platform and subdued workers from Pemex and oil services company Grupo Evya. The thieves subsequently forced the workers to load valuables onto their boats. The plunder was completed in approximately three hours.
The crime was reported to the navy’s maritime traffic control center at 10:20 p.m. – about 20 minutes after the heist had ended. There were no reports of injuries.
The robbery came a month after a group of five pirates attacked a vessel in the Gulf of Mexico owned by the company Protexa. The thieves got away with equipment, tools and personal items worth more than 1.5 million pesos (US $73,000).
In January, thieves stole self-contained breathing apparatuses, radios and tools from a Campeche Bay oil rig in a 1.25-million-peso heist.
Pirate attacks on oil platforms and vessels in the Gulf of Mexico are relatively common. Some Pemex oil rig workers have said they’re afraid they could be killed while working and living offshore.
A 2020 study detailed the modus operandi of pirates who operate in the Gulf of Mexico. It said that pirates armed with guns, machetes and knives operate in groups of up to 15 to carry out attacks, usually at night. They use small boats with powerful motors to reach oil and gas platforms before stealing equipment and money from crew members. Pirates often carry radios tuned to navy bands to avoid detection.
The study also found that the response by the Mexican navy is usually slow, with vessels taking up to seven hours to reach the crime scene, giving pirates plenty of time to escape.
Firefighters put out a car fire caused by an armed gang sowing terror in San Cristobal de las Casas on Tuesday over control of extortion territory.
Crime groups control or are seeking to control public markets, commercial districts and the distribution of basic foodstuffs across much of Mexico — and in many cases, they’re willing to use violence to achieve their goals.
The tactics used by organized crime have come into sharp focus this week due to events in Guerrero and Chiapas, but the happenings there are preceded by similarly distressing occurrences in other states.
In Chilpancingo, a string of murders of people who worked in the poultry industry – including distributors of fresh chicken to markets – shut down most chicken stalls at the city’s markets this week. Meanwhile, a dispute over control of the largest market in San Cristóbal de las Casas triggered a frightening show of force from one crime group on Tuesday.
Organized crime’s desire to make money via extortion and broader criminal control of markets, commercial districts and food supply chains is far from unique to those cities. Extortion is a problem in most states, and business owners who don’t comply with criminals’ demands run the risk of paying for their decisions with their lives.
María del Carmen Ruiz Hernández, small business leader in Xalapa, Veracruz, was shot and killed in 2019, a crime attributed to organized crime groups operating protection rackets.
Cuauhtémoc Rivera, president of the national small business association ANPEC, told the newspaper Milenio that the only states where crime is not a significant problem in markets and other shopping areas are Yucatán, Aguascalientes and Querétaro. In much of the country, an increase in extortion demands and general insecurity has put businesses “against the wall,” he said.
Official data shows that México state has the worst extortion problem in the country, with almost 1,400 reported cases in the first four months of the year. The other states in the top five for extortion between January and April were Nuevo León, Guanajuato, Jalisco and Zacatecas. However, many such cases – if not the majority – go unreported.
In Guanajuato, 32 people have been killed in the businesses where they worked so far this year, according to Milenio. All but three of the attacks occurred in Celaya, a city where extortion has long been a problem. Among the businesses where the murders have occurred are auto repair shops, butchers, florists and market stalls. Most recently, the organizer of a tianguis, or outdoor market, was shot dead. Milenio also reported that decapitated human heads have been left outside public markets in Celaya on at least two occasions this year.
In Veracruz, four vendors of food products have been murdered this year. Two of the victims were butchers in Coatzacoalcos who were apparently killed for refusing to make extortion payments. Two female fruit and vegetable vendors were murdered in Cosoleacaque for the same reason last November. Milenio reported that the failure to make extortion payments has also led to businesses being set on fire and homes being shot at in the Gulf coast state. Violence related to the refusal to pay extortion has been a problem in Veracruz for years.
In southern México state, criminal groups have controlled the distribution and sale of products such as chicken, eggs, tortillas, cigarettes and construction materials for years, according to residents who spoke with Milenio. Residents of Sultepec, a municipality on the border with Guerrero, say that the prices for many products are high because criminals monopolize the market.
Extortion is also a major problem in the metropolitan area of Toluca, the México state capital, where fresh chicken shops have been one of the main targets. Four chicken and egg vendors at the city’s main wholesale market were murdered in 2020 for failing to make extortion payments.
In neighboring Guerrero, former bishop Salvador Rangel Mendoza said late last year that the distribution of beer and soft drinks was among the activities of crime groups. Earlier this month, violence and threats from organized crime forced tortilla shops, schools and public transport to shut down in Zihuatanejo, a Guerrero resort town.
Rivera said that crime groups control markets for certain products in the cities of Acapulco, Chilpancingo and Taxco – all located in Guerrero – as well as in Ixtapan de la Sal, a México state municipality close to the border with Guerrero. In some cases, they steal goods from distributors and sell them themselves, but crime groups’ main way of controlling a market is by collecting extortion payments from business owners and/or forcing them to buy products at inflated prices from certain suppliers under their influence.
While crime groups start out extorting stable small businesses, in some places, even more informal businesses are targeted.
“They fix the final prices,” Rivera said, referring to crime group’s influence over retailers. The ANPEC chief also said that the size of typical extortion payments – usually paid monthly or weekly – has increased from 200 pesos to 500 pesos (about US $25) in some places.
“The geography of crime in the country is marking life in at least two-thirds of the national territory. The symptoms are noted in the southeast, in places like Oaxaca, Michoacán, Guerrero, … in Mexico City in boroughs like Cuauhtémoc and Miguel Hidalgo [and] in Coahuila, Nuevo León, Zacatecas,” Rivera said.
“… These groups focus on stable businesses like taco restaurants, [small inexpensive eateries called] fondas [and] shops. That’s where they start, and people don’t report them because in a lot of areas, the line between police and criminals isn’t clear. The crime economy is very active,” he said.
“There is evidence that these gangs are, little by little, taking control of … the distribution and commercialization of products. This is [a] very delicate [situation],” Rivera said before adding that decisive action could stop the problem from getting worse.
Another place where criminal activity has affected the availability of chicken is Ciudad Hidalgo, Michoacán, located about 100 kilometers east of the state capital of Morelia. Residents were left without chicken and red meat earlier this year due to a dispute between the Los Correa Cartel and a cell of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel called Grupo X, Milenio reported.
“We closed due to insecurity,” said Óscar Mañón, a chicken vendor in the Emiliano Zapata market. “… They’re letting us work now, but I don’t know whether [the same thing] could happen again.”
According to Ciudad Hidalgo Mayor José Luis Téllez, butcher shops and chicken shops closed after receiving threats from both crime groups involved in the dispute. Prior to the monthlong meat dearth, which began in late January, a group of armed men attacked the municipal slaughterhouse and killed five workers.
In Oaxaca, extortion complaints have increased in the coastal municipalities of Santiago Pinotepa Nacional and Santiago Jamiltepec over the past three months, according to local authorities. Business owners say they have received phone calls and messages from criminals demanding payments and threatening consequences if they don’t comply. The extortionists have acted on those threats in Pinotepa Nacional, where a butcher and two other people were recently killed.
In Baja California, fishermen are regularly extorted by organized crime who demand a percentage of sales and control prices, Tijuana newspaper Seminario Zeta reported in February.
Extortion is also a problem thousands of kilometers to the north in Tijuana, Baja California, especially in Sánchez Taboada, which has been described as the most dangerous neighborhood in the country’s most dangerous city. According to Baja California Attorney General Ricardo Iván Carpio, criminals collect extortion payments from a range of businesses in the area, including auto repair shops and butchers.
However, authorities are making progress in their fight against the crime, Carpio said, noting that 50 priority targets, including extortionists, have been arrested in the past 13 days.
Though daylight savings time was established by presidential decree, López Obrador said it would be better if it was ended by the legislature.
President López Obrador announced Wednesday that he will send a bill to Congress to eliminate daylight saving time.
The bill will go to either the Chamber of Deputies or the Senate next week, he told reporters at his regular news conference.
“I’m going to send it because I have the studies and I have a survey,” López Obrador said, explaining that the government asked people whether they want daylight saving time or not.
The president said earlier this month that government studies showed that the savings generated by daylight saving time are “minimal and the harm to health is considerable.”
López Obrador said Wednesday that the Interior Ministry conducted a telephone survey last week and found 71% support for elimination. He didn’t reveal how many people were polled but pledged to present the survey results next week.
AMLO indicated that he was unconcerned by the possibility that opposition lawmakers will stop his bill from becoming law, asserting that he was doing his bit by getting the initiative to Congress. Asked whether he would eliminate summer time by decree if lawmakers don’t approve his bill, he responded:
“It’s better that it’s done in Congress. … It’s better off being a reform to some of the secondary laws than a constitutional reform.”
Former president Ernesto Zedillo established the nationwide observance of daylight saving time by decree in early 1996.
AMLO said June 1 that there was a good chance that the practice of changing clocks twice a year at the start and end of daylight saving time would be terminated this year. On Monday he responded to concerns that the elimination of summer time would have an adverse effect on the economy, rejecting claims that the stock market will fall and there will be higher inflation.
“No, no, nothing will happen. … It’s very probable that there won’t be summer time [in the future] because people don’t want the time change,” López Obrador said.
These are just the flowers decorating inside the church.
In a back room of a former monastery in San Pedro Cholula, Puebla, a couple of dozen people were working intently on flower arrangements that would soon fill the church for the Fiesta de Floricultores (Floriculturist Festival), an event that’s taken place in Cholula for over 100 years.
Most of these people come from San Pedro Mexicaltzingo and San Pablo Tecamac, two of Cholula’s neighborhoods.
“This is one of the most important events for the barrios,” said Diego Percino Mancilla. “The two barrios are in charge and organize the event, but other barrios come to help.”
“The two barrios are dedicated to selling flowers,” explained John O’Leary, a local photographer who has documented fiestas and daily life in Cholula for 52 years. “One hundred years ago, most of the people in the two barrios grew flowers. Now, few do.”
Cholula residents carry part of a large floral arrangement to hang over the church door during the Fiesta de Floricultores.
But many people still make floral arrangements.
The Fiesta de Floricultores was first celebrated in 1900. “This [fiesta] is to give thanks to God and to the Virgin of the Remedios,” said Rolando Percino Toxqui, one of the event’s organizers who has been participating since 1980.
Work on the floral arrangements started on Saturday, June 11. “People worked 15 hours on Saturday,” said Percino Mancilla, “and 18 on Sunday. We worked partway through the night.”
As a band played “The Man on the Flying Trapeze,” workmen struggled to place the top part of the arrangement that adorned the door.
A cargador transports the Virgin of Los Remedios statue. The responsibility is an honor to residents, says University of the Americas in Puebla anthropologist Tim Knab.
According to Felix Mones, a member of the Hermandad de Cargadores (The Brotherhood of the Carriers) — the group responsible for carrying figures of the Virgin and other various saints — the piece weighs 400 kilos (880 pounds).
The Virgen de los Remedios is one of the most revered images in Mexico. In Cholula, a figure of the Virgin is usually kept inside the Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de los Remedios, the church that sits atop Tlachihualtepetl, the Great Pyramid. On Monday, June 13, the figure was carried in procession to the monastery where a mass was first held in the Capilla de Naturales (one of the chapels) before it was installed in the monastery.
On Monday, the brotherhood carried the figure in procession from the church to the monastery, the Convento de San Gabriel. A mass was held in one of the capillas (chapels) there before the figure was installed.
A second, longer mass was held in the monastery itself. Then the figure was once again displayed in procession around the atrium, trailed by several hundred people.
Another large floral display is installed over the church’s entrance.
Stops were made at each of the four capillas, where people crowded around the figure, some reaching out to touch it. After each stop, a different cargador helped carry the figure.
“To be chosen to carry the statue from one capilla to the next, a person has to be a member of the cargadores and be chosen by the mayordomo in charge of the event,” said Tim Knab, an anthropologist at the University of the Americas in Puebla (UDLAP). “It’s an honor to be chosen.”
After the procession, the figure was returned to the monastery, where it will stay for several days before returning to the Santuario de La Virgen de los Remedios.
The fiesta is a major undertaking.
A small but varied group of residents put everything together for the fiesta in marathon sessions over a few days.
“There are very few who commit to this,” said Percino Toxqui. “It is much time and money. We do it because of our faith and our beliefs. It makes us happy to do this.”
Escuela Telesecundaria Josefa Vergara, a public school in the El Salitre neighborhood of Querétaro city.
A junior high school in Querétaro city has switched to online learning after news broke about two teenagers setting fire to a fellow student last week in a classroom in which no teacher was present.
According to relatives of a 14-year-old named Juanito, the two other students sprayed alcohol on Juanito’s chair, and after he sat down, he stood up because he was feeling wet. At that point, they approached him with a lighter.
“One of the children set him on fire with a lighter, and it would not go out until he managed to take off his pants,” said Eugenia Eduardo Marcelino, the anguished mother.
As of Wednesday, the victim had undergone two surgeries at the Hospital del Niño y la Mujer, and Eduardo said her son will need skin grafts due to the depth of the burns, according to news reports.
The incident occurred June 6 at Escuela Telesecundaria Josefa Vergara, a public school in the city’s El Salitre neighborhood, where officials this week decided to cancel in-person classes from June 15 through the end of the school year in late July. The school, which had been holding on-site classes in the mornings, will return entirely to virtual learning.
The school’s director told reporters that no teacher was present in Juanito’s classroom during the incident because one teacher was out recovering from cancer and another was in a parent-teacher meeting, leaving a good portion of the school under the care of a head teacher. The school has 272 students and 12 staff members, according to MejoraTuEscuela.org.
The burn victim’s mother said it was a teacher who had given the alcohol to the two students, the newspaper AM de Querétaro reported. She also accused the school of seriously dropping the ball after the incident: No ambulance was called, meaning her son was not examined by emergency medical technicians; a teacher took her son to a clinic rather than to a hospital; and no report was filed with law enforcement.
Moreover, she said, she didn’t find out what had happened until her daughter, who attends the same school, came home with Juanito’s backpack two hours later.
Earlier this week, parents demonstrated outside the school and demanded the dismissal of the school’s director, Gricelda Quiterio Mendoza. In addition, they called for the firing of the head teacher for not being aware of the situation, AM de Querétaro reported.
The paper also reported that Juanito had been subjected to previous harassment because he comes from an indigenous community and speaks an indigenous language. His mother said she had requested a change of school because of the harassment, but the school had not given the go-ahead.
Reqronexión reported this week that the two aggressors have been suspended but will be able to continue their online learning, and an internal investigation has been launched by the state.
State Attorney General Alejandro Echeverría said the case is under investigation from both a criminal standpoint and to ascertain whether school officials saw to it that the minor received proper care and treatment, the newspaper Reforma reported. “I am taking special interest in this,” he said.
A day after the incident, relatives of the victim and the parents of the aggressors were brought together to talk things over. The parents of the accused children reportedly agreed to pay for medical expenses, but only if the victim’s family did not sue them or pursue legal avenues, so any such deal appears to be off the table.
According to AM de Querétaro, social media has erupted with people demanding justice, imploring that the accused students and school officials do not go unpunished.
Pedestrians with and without face masks in Mexico City.
Health authorities in the United States have raised their risk assessment of the COVID-19 situation in Mexico from Level 2 “moderate” to Level 3 “high.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued new travel advice for Mexico on Monday, advising U.S. citizens to make sure they are up to date with their COVID-19 vaccines before traveling here.
“If you are not up to date with your COVID-19 vaccines, avoid travel to Mexico,” the CDC said. “… If you have a weakened immune system or are at increased risk for severe disease, even if you are up to date with your COVID-19 vaccines, talk with your clinician about your risk, and consider delaying travel to Mexico.”
A fifth wave of coronavirus infections began in Mexico in early May, according to health experts, but the increase in new case numbers has been more notable in June. There are currently 49,210 estimated active cases after the Health Ministry reported 9,452 new cases on Wednesday. The estimated active case tally has increased by over 200% this month after ending May at about 16,000.
San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, was the site of a drawn-out conflict between armed civilians Tuesday afternoon. The U.S. government advises visitors to proceed with caution when traveling in the southern state.
Earlier in the pandemic, tourists were blamed for high case numbers in destinations such as Quintana Roo and Baja California Sur, which are currently among the states with the highest number of active cases on a per capita basis. Mexico has never required incoming travelers to show a negative COVID test result or go into mandatory quarantine. The United States dropped its own testing requirement for incoming travelers last Sunday.
The U.S. Department of State acknowledged the CDC’s reassessment of the COVID risk in Mexico in an updated travel advisory issued Monday, but didn’t change its advice for individual states. It continues to advise U.S. citizens not to travel to Colima, Guerrero, Michoacán, Sinaloa and Tamaulipas due to crime and kidnapping.
Eleven states – Baja California, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, Guanajuato, Jalisco, México state, Morelos, Nayarit, Sonora and Zacatecas – are on the “reconsider travel” list due to crime or crime and kidnapping.
Chiapas, where armed men sowed terror during a lengthy show of force in San Cristóbal de las Casas on Tuesday, is one of 14 federal entities where the State Department advises travelers to “exercise increased caution.” Campeche and Yucatán are the only states where “normal precautions” are advised.
Among the general advice the State Department offers to travelers in Mexico is to use toll roads when possible and avoid driving alone or at night; exercise increased caution when visiting local bars, nightclubs, and casinos; do not display signs of wealth, such as wearing expensive watches or jewelry; and be extra vigilant when visiting banks or ATMs.
While some states have outlawed cockfighting and bullfighting, both remain legal in Nayarit. DepositPhotos
The Supreme Court (SCJN) has invalidated a three-year-old decree that gave bullfights and cockfights intangible cultural heritage status in Nayarit.
Four of five Second Chamber justices voted in favor of revoking the decree, which also designated charrería (an equestrian sport), regional and state rodeos, horse races and the training of dancing horses as cultural heritage of the Pacific coast state.
The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by Cuenta Conmigo Tepic, a civil society association primarily focused on the delivery of food aid and environmental and mental health issues.
The SCJN ruled that bullfights, cockfights and the other activities are not deserving of intangible cultural heritage status. A majority of justices agreed that animals are not things at the indiscriminate service of humans but rather “species deserving of respectable treatment.”
Organizers of bullfights, cockfights and the other events have been able to access financial support from the government due to the cultural heritage designation, but the SCJN ruled that it was improper for such funding to go to activities that are not “generally accepted … by the community.”
The court made it clear that its ruling doesn’t ban bullfights or cockfights or declare them to be unconstitutional.
The Nayarit decree was presented to state Congress by former governor Antonio Echeverría in December 2018 and approved in May 2019.
Several other states have given bullfights and/or cockfights intangible cultural heritage status, while some have banned the blood sports. Cultural heritage declarations in effect in other states are at risk of revocation as a result of the SCJN’s ruling with regard to Nayarit.
Moments before the attack, the caretaker was caught on video patting the animal.
A 23-year-old man died in a Michoacán hospital Tuesday two days after being attacked by a Bengal tiger.
The man, identified only as José de Jesús, was bitten on both arms Sunday by a privately owned tiger he cared for in Peribán, a municipality on the border with Jalisco.
Video footage shows the man putting his hand through an enclosure and briefly patting the tiger before the attack occurred. He was using his other hand, which is not visible in the footage, to feed the feline.
José de Jesús was taken to a local hospital for treatment but was subsequently transferred to Morelia, where he died on Tuesday afternoon. According to an El Universal newspaper report, the tiger keeper refused to allow his arms to be amputated and his health consequently deteriorated. The man had diabetes and that disease, coupled with his injuries, caused him to have a fatal heart attack.
According to the director of the Benito Juárez Zoological Park in Morelia, the federal agency Profepa has asked him if the zoo could take the tiger.
The owner of the tiger, as well as other exotic pets, including a lion, said that he has the appropriate permits to keep the animals. He also said that he covered his employee’s medical costs. But the newspaper La Voz de Michoacán reported on Wednesday that the federal environmental agency Profepa had found that the tiger was being kept improperly in a mesh netting cage. Authorities have contacted the Benito Juárez Zoological Park in Morelia about the possibility of taking custody of the animal, the director of the park told the newspaper.
“This type of species is always easier to get on the black market,” zoo director Julio César Medina Ávila said. “I don’t know if this was the case; Profepa and the [state] Attorney General’s office need to determine that. They’ve gotten in touch with me to find out if we can receive [the tiger] after Profepa’s investigation or if [the owners] don’t have the proper permits.”
It was at least the second incident in the Mexican news this week involving a Bengal tiger: in Tecuala, Nayarit, a cell phone video that caused a stir on social media showed a tiger briefly wandering a residential neighborhood before it was captured by a youth who put a rope around its neck.
The animal appeared to have escaped from a house, according to witnesses, who told El Universal that the animal had escaped confinement previously.
Hurricane Blas, a Category 1 storm located off Mexico’s Pacific coast, continues to intensify, but is not forecast to make landfall.
The United States National Hurricane Center (NHC) said at 4:00 p.m. CDT Wednesday that Blas – which strengthened from a tropical storm earlier in the day – is about 450 kilometers south-southeast of Manzanillo, Colima, and has maximum sustained winds of 140 kph.
“Blas is moving toward the west-northwest near 6 mph (9 kph) and this motion is expected to continue over the next several days with gradual acceleration,” the NHC said in an advisory.
“Maximum sustained winds have increased to near 85 mph (140 kph) with higher gusts. Additional strengthening is forecast during the next 24 hours followed by gradual weakening through the end of the week.”
There are no coastal watches or warnings in effect, but “swells generated by Blas are affecting the coast of southwestern Mexico and are likely to continue over the next several days,” the NHC said. “These swells are likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions.”
Blas is the second named storm of the eastern Pacific hurricane season after Agatha, which made landfall May 30 as a Category 2.
The National Water Commission (Conagua) warned that Blas would cause torrential rain of up to 250 millimeters in parts of Guerrero and Michoacán Wednesday afternoon and evening and intense rain of up to 150 mm in Jalisco, Colima and Oaxaca.
“The rain could cause landslides, increases in the levels of rivers and streams, overflows and flooding,” it said. Conagua urged people to be alert to weather advisories and follow the instructions of authorities.
Michael Rowe presenting his 2015 film Early Winter at the Morelia International Film Festival in Michoacán.
Costa Rican-born singer Chavela Vargas is quoted as saying, “We Mexicans are born wherever the hell we want!” This quote might also apply to Australian–born Mexican director Michael Rowe.
Rowe grew up working-class in a town called Ballarat, near Melbourne, Australia, a world away from Mexico. Since age 12, he had been a prolific writer, convinced that his destiny was to “… change the face of English-language poetry…”
He earned a scholarship to college, but he was pressured to study archaeology. This caused one of a number of life “crises” that would eventually steer him to where he is now.
Still in college, he took his savings and went to Guatemala as an exchange student. There, he decided that indeed he wanted to be a writer and upon returning home, changed his major to English literature.
Promotional poster for Rowe’s film Manto Acuífero, known in English as The Well.
Not too long after, his plays and poetry began to get noticed, and things looked promising.
This initial success caught the attention of a theater group he highly admired, Australia’s Gudrun’s Stockings, who contacted him looking to collaborate on a project. He was highly flattered, but he was also working through another existential crisis.
He was absolutely sure of his destiny to be a major poet until his readings took him to the work of T.S. Eliot. Everything before made him think “I can do that,” but not Eliot; it was far beyond him. Devastated, he focused on plays, figuring that even if he couldn’t be the poet he wanted to be, he could at least make a living from plays.
The offer from Gudrun’s Stockings seemed ideal until he found out that the project was for television, something he and others at the time felt to be way beneath serious writers. So he did what any self-respecting artist would do: he bought a plane ticket out of Australia as far away as he could go.
He landed in Texas, then took a bus to Mexico City, again finding himself with no job and nearly broke. It was also 1994, the year of Mexico’s economic crisis. Despite all this, he found work as an English teacher and eventually began writing for English-language journals in the city.
His plan was never to stay in Mexico, but rather to travel the world, but Mexico worked its magic on him, and he is still here.
However, he had gone “cold turkey” from creative writing, he says, in part because he could not bring himself to write about Mexican characters in English. It didn’t seem right, and his Spanish was not yet good enough.
The lack of creative outlet affected his emotional health, and he decided to try writing plays in Spanish, figuring the intense use of dialogue and the present tense would be less strenuous on his still-developing linguistic skills.
Michael Rowe winning the Caméra d’Or at Cannes in 2010.
Of course, playwrights want their work staged, but that means having connections, and Rowe had none. In 1996, he entered a screenwriting course at the Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica, Mexico’s major cinema school. He completed the course, then looked for a director for his scripts for the next eight years.
He figured that if any of his scripts were going to get filmed, he would have to do it himself. He again quit his job and spent his savings to write a script and buy a camera. The result was Año Bisiesto (Leap Year). It was a long circuitous route, but the film caught the attention of a Cannes scout, leading to Rowe winning the Caméra d’Or, the prize for budding filmmakers.
This was the break he’d been looking for: Mexican and other funding sources that ignored him before were more amenable. He has since written and directed three more films, two in Mexico and one in Canada: Manto Acuífero (2013), Early Winter (2015), and Danyka (2020). He has also opened his own film school, the Escuela Itinerante de Cine y Narrativa (The Itinerant School of Film and Narrative).
Being a foreigner helps more than it hinders, in part because of malinchismo (“reverse racism,” he calls it), but also because foreigners bring a different perspective. Año Bisiesto focuses on an indigenous woman who is portrayed not only as a professional but also as having an active sex life, something not seen before on film in Mexico.
Rowe has chosen to keep Mexico as his professional base, even though he could have gone anywhere else after the Cannes win. Mexico allows him to be creative on his own terms as much as possible — not really the case in countries like Australia, Canada and the United States, he says.
As a filmmaker, he is 100% Mexican. He developed his craft here, and it is strongly influenced by Mexican writers and filmmakers such as Vicente Leñero, Fernando Eimbcke, Carlos Reygadas and Alejandro González Iñárritu, an artistic generation that has pushed for a more idiosyncratic style of filmmaking over the commercial and industrial work done in English-speaking countries. Rowe’s work is known in Australia, but it is considered foreign.
Cinematographic politics plays a role too. All filmmaking in countries like Australia and Canada is dependent on state monies and therefore state political priorities.
Hollywood is, well, Hollywood. Mexican filmmaking is also heavily dependent on state grants, but Rowe feels their system is “… as decent as you can get.” Films to receive funding are selected by committees of film professionals instead of bureaucrats.
Posters for two of Rowe’s movies, Año Bisiesto (Leap Year) and Danyka.
This leaves out much of the political agendas that, frankly, would shut out many of his scripts, since they deal with topics and ethnic groups that certain governments would rather he not handle.
At the moment, he is taking a kind of break from feature filmmaking and working on smaller projects. The practical reason is that his wife is currently the minister of culture, which means that he cannot apply for grant money in Mexico.
This year, he worked on a small film with private funding. Next year, despite his reservations, he is working on his first Australian production.
Leigh Thelmadatter arrived in Mexico 18 years ago and fell in love with the land and the culture in particular its handcrafts and art. She is the author of Mexican Cartonería: Paper, Paste and Fiesta (Schiffer 2019). Her culture column appears regularly on Mexico News Daily.
