10 · 27 · 22

The Alejandro Galindo Program Ends with a Special Presentation of Fundación Televisa and LOS DINEROS DEL DIABLO

Omar Sosa Topete

The last film in the Alejandro Galindo Program was screened at the 20th FICM. The event was attended by Daniela Michel, founder and general director of the Morelia International Film Festival (FICM); Rafael Aviña, film critic and researcher at the Cineteca Nacional and the UNAM Film Library; Héctor Orozco, photography researcher and curator; and Alicia Lebrija, Executive President of Fundación Televisa; Los Dineros del Diablo (1953)

“The movie that you are going to see today is a movie that Galindo made in three weeks. It is inspired by a real red top tabloid case,” added Rafael Aviña.

Los Dineros del Diablo tells the story of an extremely dedicated worker, a role played by Roberto Cañedo, whose life falls apart when he meets a cabaret dancer called Estrella, played by Amalia Aguilar.

As is customary at the festival, each year a program is dedicated to screening classic Mexican films with the aim that Mexican visual culture is not lost and continues to permeate new generations. “It is a privilege to be able to be here. How fortunate we are that our paths met more than 15 years ago when we began awarding the Ojo Award”, said Alicia Lebrija, director of Fundación Televisa.

The films are rescued by Fundación Televisa with the support of the Cineteca Nacional, the UNAM Film Library, The Film Foundation, and the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), among many other organizations.

“Films are the property of the Televisa Foundation because we have to protect, promote and, of course, restore them; but they are the nation's patrimony. This is an extremely important Mexican cultural heritage,” added Alicia Lebrija.

This year, celebrating the fact that 11 editions ago Fundación Televisa began to hold a photo exhibit of the history of Mexican cinema, television and other media during the festival, a compendium of all the photographs that have been exhibited to date was presented in a book commemorating this milestone.

LOS FERNÁNDEZ DE PERALVILLO by Alejandro Galindo at the 20th FICM

Daniel G. Hernández

The film Los Fernández de Peralvillo, directed by Alejandro Galindo, was presented at the 20th edition of the Morelia International Film Festival (FICM).

Daniela Michel presented the film, thanking the international guests interested in learning about the work of director and film critic Rafael Aviña, who thanked Daniela Michel and FICM for bringing these retrospectives of classic Mexican cinema.

The film tells us the story of Mario, a fatherless man who lives in Peralvillo with his two sisters and his mother. Desperate to improve his living conditions, he hangs out with bad people, becoming rich and powerful. Thanks to this he ends up despising his people and little by little he is left alone. With the intention of redeeming himself, he takes a tour of Peralvillo. However, destiny is in charge of collecting the debts.

Rafael Aviña explained that the film shows a dark period in the country, which was experienced during the six-year term of President Miguel Alemán. It was a time when corruption, ambition, and abuse of power abounded.

DOÑA PERFECTA Continues the Alejandro Galindo Program

Omar Sosa Topete

Doña Perfecta (1951), directed by Alejandro Galindo, was the next film presented as part of the program dedicated to this prolific Mexican filmmaker. Alejandro Pelayo, the Director of the Cineteca Nacional, was in charge of presenting the show.

Unlike Galindo's other works, Doña Perfecta departs from the city environment and from the criticism of social classes that the director was known for in his films.

Doña Perfecta is an adaptation of the novel of the same name, written by Benito Pérez Galdós, and tells the story of how José while visiting his aunt, Doña Perfecta, falls in love with his cousin. During the plot, José's progressive thinking is opposed to Doña Perfecta's religiosity and upright ethics.

In the cast of this film, we find names like Dolores del Río, who was awarded the Ariel Award for Best Actress, and Carlos Navarro, who would win the Ariel Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1951.

"I really like Doña Perfecta because I think it is Dolores del Río's most mature film," added Alejandro Pelayo to later start the film.

Rafael Aviña Presents HAY LUGAR PARA DOS at the Morelia International Film Festival

Daniel G. Hernández 

The well-known film critic, Rafael Aviña, was present at the 20th Morelia International Film Festival to present Hay lugar para dos (1949), a film by Alejandro Galindo, a sequel to the film ¡Esquina Bajan! (2022)

Hay lugar para dos tells the story of Gregorio, a bus driver who meets Kitty at a party, falls in love and leaves Cholita, his pregnant wife, for her. Cholita goes to live with her friends and opens a taqueria with them. Time passes, Kitty and Gregorio have an accident; she is left disfigured and he is arrested. Once free, Gregorio looks for Cholita to reconcile with her.

"It is always a pleasure for everyone to see there’s a new generation of young moviegoers, that will always be very appreciated," said Rafael Aviña to the audience that came to see the film.

The director explained that the film, around the time it was filmed, represented a Mexico that no longer exists, and reflects attitudes and behaviors that currently cause conflict and displeasure in society.

"I'm not saying that it’s normal, but violence against women or machismo was normalized. It was an issue that had to do with the times,” he says, emphasizing that “it is over.”

The conference was also attended by the director of broadcast operations at the UNAM Film Library, Jorge Martínez Micher.

UNA FAMILIA DE TANTAS Continues the Galindo Program

Omar Sosa Topete

“Galindo specialized in drama, street, urban melodrama. I think that he is a great social chronicler,” said Alejandro Pelayo, Director of the Cineteca Nacional, producer and film director, winner of an Ariel Award for Best Debut Film; when presenting Una familia de tantas, part of the Alejandro Galindo Program

The film was awarded nine Ariel Awards, including Best Film and Best Director. "I think it's one of Galindo's best films, without a doubt," Pelayo added.

The film has the participation of David Silva, Fernando Soler, Martha Roth, Carlos Riquelme and Eugenia Galindo in its cast.

Una familia de tantas tells the story of the Cataños, a conservative and well-off family, who would see their beliefs, stability, and rules affected when a vacuum cleaner salesman comes to their house and falls in love with a young woman ready to marry

The Alejandro Galindo Program Begins with a Screening of CAMPEÓN SIN CORONA, Presented by Rafael Aviña

Omar Sosa Topete

The Alejandro Galindo Program began at the 20th Morelia International Film Festival (FICM) with the screening of Campeón sin corona (1946, Dir. Alejandro Galindo) attended by Daniela Michel, founder and general director of FICM; Rafael Aviña, film critic, chronicler, author and researcher at the Cineteca Nacional; and Jorge Micher, Subdirector of Diffusion of the General Directorate of Cinematographic Activities of the UNAM Film Library.

The program’s purpose is to screen the works of one of the most influential directors of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema, restored with the invaluable support of the Cineteca Nacional, UNAM Film Library, Fundación Televisa, Raúl y Rodolfo de Anda/Cinevisión, America Movil, David Agrasánchez/Nuevo Cinema Latino, Sr. Carlos Vasallo, and STPC of the RM.

The screening began with a few opening words from Daniela Michel, who said: “A great effort is made each year, with the aid of UNAM Film Library and Cineteca Nacional, to find these films and present their restored versions[...]. In this case, we are going to dedicate the program to Alejandro Galindo, who is one of the great great masters of Mexican cinema, who had a fairly long career, a very interesting career, and who is the responsible for some of the most interesting films in our cinema.”

Alejandro Galindo (Monterrey, Nuevo León; 1906) emigrated as a child to Mexico City, where he acquired an immense passion for cinema by being in constant contact with Germán Camus's México Films Studios. He abandoned his studies in odontology to join the Famous Player Studios —later Paramount— in Los Angeles. Upon his return to Mexico, he already had what he needed to position himself as one of the most important screenwriters in the country and create a cinema that combined technical craftsmanship and the bittersweet national reality. Thus, melodrama, comedy, crime films and more accompanied Alejandro Galindo in the development of one of the most consistent, thoughtful, and sensitive filmographies in the country. 

“Alejandro Galindo is without a doubt the great portraitist of Mexico City. In the forties, Emilio “El Indio” Fernández’s vibrant cinema represented the rural face, the tragedy, and held up a mirror to country life, but the counterpart was needed; the contrast, that city, that metropolis that was Mexico City […]. All these urban stories with characters from the lower or upper-class neighborhoods also had to be represented and, without a doubt, one of the great directors who did it was Alejandro Galindo,” said the expert, Rafael Aviña.

His first great film is, Campeón sin corona (1946), starring David Silva, with whom he would form an incredible team throughout his career. Rafael Aviña added that “it is one of the ten best films of Mexican cinema. Its premiere was announced as the biggest event in national cinema and a distinction worth mentioning, is that he took his camera to neighborhoods like La Lagunilla; he showed the taco stands, the boxing arenas, La Olímpica, its cantinas, its dance halls, something that had not been done before in Mexican cinema until 1945 with Galindo.”

Campeón sin corona tells the emotive and brutal story of a neighborhood boxer haunted by his own fears in his struggle to overcome and triumph. From this film on, Galindo was on his way to becoming the master of urban cinema and the quintessential portraitist of relatable and marginalized and characters.

¡Esquina, bajan! (1948), also starring David Silva, who was a recurrent actor in Galindo’s filmography, was also presented during the program.

This feature film from the Golden Age of Mexican cinema tells a common story for the Federal District, currently CDMX. An urban dispute between two carrier lines that want control of the Zócalo-Xochicalco route and annexes to the Mexican capital. Gregorio del Prado, a bully and lovesick driver will be decisive in resolving the confrontation.

Galindo's cinema is a sample of urban art that portrays a social lineage of relatable, marginalized, and real characters, intermingled with the dichotomy of the social problems of Mexico in the nineties. Many of which still exist today in our collective unconscious, disrupting a form of documentary by presenting it through the fictional gaze of the Mexican director.