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Cine para todxs 2023: La Civil by Teodora Mihai

The Morelia International Film Festival (FICM) presents Cine para todxs 2023, a program that will screen Mexican, contemporary and classic films, which have had a significant impact on the history of national cinema, in community spaces.

All the works screened in this program have been made by filmmakers who have been part of past editions of the FICM, such is the case of La civil (2021) by Teodora Mihai.

This edition of the program, which will take place from July 31 to October 8, 2023, has the valuable support of the Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografía (IMCINE) through the Fomento al Cine Mexicano (FOCINE) program.

La civil is a film about Cielo, mother of Laura, a teenage girl kidnapped by a cartel, a criminal organization, in northern Mexico. Despite the payment of several ransoms, Laura is not released. When the authorities do not support the search, Cielo takes matters into his own hands and finds help with Lamarque, a military man with an unconventional modus operandi, in exchange for information. Her collaboration will drag her into a terrible cycle of violence.

The film had a special screening at the 19th Morelia International Film Festival (FICM), and it was awarded the Prix du Courage, in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival.

About the Director

Teodora Ana Mihai was born in Bucharest, during the Ceausescu regime. In 1989, she was reunited with his parents who had fled to Belgium the previous year. She discovered her love for cinema when she was a high school student in San Francisco, California. Then, she studied film at Sarah Lawrence College in upstate New York. Back in Belgium, she began working in the industry as a script supervisor and assistant director. However, after several years in various film productions, Teodora decided to devote herself to her own film projects. 

After directing her first documentary Waiting for August (2014), which won more than 10 international awards (including Best Documentary Feature at Karlovy Vary IFF and Hot Docs) and was subsequently nominated for the European Film Awards, Teodora recently directed her first feature-length fiction film, La Civil.

To write the script of La Civil, located in Mexico, she collaborated with the award-winning Mexican novelist Habacuc Antonio De Rosario, as part of the Torino Film Lab program. Teodora was also selected to participate with this project in the Cinéfondation Residence, for the winter session 2017-2018.

Where Can You Watch It?

La Civil is available on the Star Plus streaming platform, whose basic subscription costs $219 MXN. The film is also part of the Cine para todxs 2023 screenings. During late July and early August it was screened at Cine Club en Cartelera, in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato; at Teatro Mariano Matamoros, in Morelia, Michoacán; at El Cine Club, in Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo; and at Cine Teatro Emperador Caltzontzin, in Pátzcuaro, Michoacán.

The last screening:

• Sunday, September 10 at 4:00 p.m. | Museo Arocena in Torreón, Coahuila