DAY 1 @LondonMexFest: Programme Highlights (Films, Talks, Music…)

FILMS:
Expiration Date / Fecha de Caducidad
2011 | Mexico | 35mm | Color | 110 min
MORELIA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL (MEXICO, 2011), SPECIAL JURY AWARD, MOSCOW FILM FESTIVAL (RUSSIA, 2012)
The life of compulsive Ramona is turned upside down when she finds out, after a long search, that Osvaldo, her only son, has died.

Shorts Programme 1: Documentary and Fiction
Curated by the Mexican Film Institute IMCINE and The Morelia International Film Festival

SCI-FI CLASSICS FROM MEXICO
The Planet of the Female Invaders
Presented thanks to the generous support of 
Alfonso Rosas Priego, Cinematográfica Calderón, Filmoteca Unam, Fundación Televisa, and Steve Seid
All prints courtesy of Filmoteca UNAM
Text and descriptions by Steve Seid (Video Curator, Pacific
Film Archive, Berkeley Art Museum, USA)
The future was never easy for Mexico. It was something made elsewhere as Mexico gazed on its past, dwelling on pre-Cortesian glories gone. North of the border, the United States developed the technologies of modernity, even exporting theories and images of the future. What here was an indigenous genre, the science fiction film, was in Mexico an appropriated one in which its own popular artifacts and idiosyncratic myths were grafted to an imported trope.
A robot in mortal battle with an Aztec mummy; a masked wrestler repelling an invasion from Mars; Venusian babes in bathing suits falling for a charro from Chihuahua—often these films had bottom-of-the barrel budgets, meaning they had to skimp on the pie-plate props and the otherworldly attire as well. But beyond the rayguns, spandex space suits, and trashcan robots, mass conceptions about sex roles, technology, machismo, tradition, and xenophobia ooze from these films like an alien Blob. Enormously popular throughout the fifties and sixties, these wry and engaging sci-fi flicks say a little about Mexploitation and a lot about the popular imagination.

PHOTOGRAPHY
Lucha Libre By Lourdes Grobet
Lourdes Grobet started Lucha Libre project since 1980 as an important part of Mexican popular culture.. The sport involves many costumes and masks leading it to a sport- carnival air which is much appreciated by Mexicans. She has published the following books: Lourdes Grobet: (2005), Espectacular de Lucha Libre (2005) and Family Portraits (2008).

INDUSTRY PANELS
International Production and Distribution
FEATURING: Mara Fortes (Morelia International Film Festival), Elena Fortes and Eva Parenteau (Ambulante Documentary Film Festival), Julián Levín and Cristina Garza (CANANA)

MUSIC
AMANDITITA (LIVE PERFORMER)
Amandititita (real name Amanda Lalena Escalante Pimentel) is a Mexican songwriter. In 2008 her debut record The Anarcumbia Queen (Reina de la Anarcumbia ) was released by Sony Music.
Amandititita studied at General Society of Mexican Writers (Sociedad General de Escritores de Mexico) and later continued in Ed. Escritores UNAM. Her lyrics are characterized as an urban chronic, ironic and with an ingenious language. The characters of her lyrics are contemporary archetypes, everyday circumstances with dark humor. She calls it anarcumbia: a mixture of cumbia with electronic music.
With two records released by Sony Music, Amandititita has become a media phenomenon. Her music is popular with radio stations all over Mexico and USA. She has performed throughout the United States, in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston and other cities. METROSEXUAL, LA MUY MUY, LA MATAVIEJITAS, LA GUERA TELEVISA and ODIO A MI JEFE are some of her songs that have become top hits on the radio. Her songs have also been played as soundtrack for movies like RUDO Y CURSI, DRAMAMEX and SIN NOMBRE.
Amandititita is a polemic and controversial figure, and in a short time she set her place as an urban cronist reaching the top places on the Mexican Billboard and was nominated in three different categories by Premios Oye, from radio. She received the Journal Graphics Award as female revelation of the year.
Known as an influential female voice through her lyrics, she is one of the Mexican Corregidoras included in the Bicentennial Celebration of the Mexican Independence.
She performed in a MVS reality show of ten episodes, about her everyday life. In 2009 she was invited to deliver an award during the MTV awards.
Amandititita is currently recording her third album.
For full programme and tickets click here.
Source: Latam Film