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Iria Gómez Concheiro presents Antes del Olvido at the 16th FICM

Marco Mejía @MiqkelMejia

The film Antes del Olvido, by the director Iria Gómez Concheiro, offered a press screening on Tuesday morning in Room 1 of Cinépolis Centro, within the 16th edition of the Morelia International Film Festival (FICM). The screening was attended by the director, the producer Rodrigo Ríos Legaspi and the actors Mercedes Hernández and Sebastián Fonseca.

The plot focuses on Fermín, a diablero (nicknamed that way because of the handcarts, or “diablitos", they use at supply markets) who lives in a neighborhood in downtown Mexico City. One day, a company colluded with the government threatens to evict the neighborhood and turn it into a shopping center. Faced with the threat of eviction, the tenants will join together in solidarity to get out of their self-absorption and fight for a common cause.

After the screening, Iria Gómez Concheiro explained that the story came from the eviction problem that is constantly taking place in Mexico, as well as being inspired by the neighborhoods portrayed in films from the golden age of Mexican cinema:

"200 neighborhoods in downtown Mexico City were affected and that was an important reference, there was also an inspiration in the films of the Golden Age, the cinema of Buñuel and its neighborhoods, that implied a challenge and a contemporary neighborhood had to be suggested, although the problem is universal and occurs in several cities around the world."

Rodrigo Ríos, the producer of the film, commented on the budget constraints and how they resolved them: "We are like the production of resistance because we went after our ideas and the film cost only four million pesos. We had to create a production model, as a cooperative scheme that would allow us to do what we wanted without sacrificing the aesthetic part, and it was achieved ".

Actor Sebastian Fonseca said that Antes del Olvido will serve to vindicate the view of young Mexicans, who are sometimes thought to be apathetic to socially problematic:

"They have painted us as an apathetic generation and this film shows that it is not like that and that we are a rebellious youth that seeks to organize itself, we are the youth that is going to change this world like the character, Maco, wants to".