10 · 23 · 10 Quentin Tarantino steals the limelight Share with twitter Share with facebook Share with mail Copy to clipboard Clara Sánchez Translated by Cindy Hawes Tarantino arrived at about 6 p.m. to introduce the Mexican film El ataúd del vampiro (The Vampire's Coffin) by Fernando Méndez, accompanied by Alejandro Ramírez, president of FICM. The director said that he was very excited to be in Morelia to present the film that was screened in the United States in the sixties. He said he was only a baby then, but in the seventies he was able to see it. He brought the English-language version -- about 10 minutes of it were cut for the U.S. audience. Tarantino said the film is from his personal collection --one of his favorites that belongs to the sequel El vampiro, starring Germán Robles who was to Mexico what Bela Lugosi was to London or Christopher Lee was to England. He said young people who grew up in the United States were going to love the film. Daniel Birgman, producer of the movie, gave Tarantino a DVD collection by Abel Salazar. Tarantino watched the film alongside Daniela Michel, director of FICM; Mexican director Guillermo Arriaga also was present. At the end of the first screening, he introduced the second in his collection: La momia azteca vs el robot humano (The Human Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy) by Rafael Portillo. He said the film was very popular in the United States. K. Gordon Murray Productions distributed the movie that was cut, dubbed and adapted for U.S. audiences. Tarantino said it not only has a place in Mexican cinema, but also in the culture of fantasy cinema. He confessed that although the copy of the film was his, he had never seen it before, and that he was pleased to be viewing it for the first time in Mexico with Mexicans.
