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Salvador Espinosa's (NO SÉ) CÓMO SER Presented at the 23rd FICM

Brian V. Soto

(No sé) cómo ser (2024) by Salvador Espinosa premiered at the 23rd Morelia International Film Festival (FICM), at a screening attended by the director, Arcelia Ramírez, Memo Villegas, and Tato Alexander, who not only starred in the film but also wrote the screenplay.

The director began the presentation by thanking the audience present at the screening: “We are very excited, a little shaken up to be moving around the city, but happy to see you here. This film is a comedy. It does also have something of a romantic comedy about it, but I think it is a comedy about generational conflict. It's basically a movie about not knowing how to be.” 

Majo and Cris, a Millennial couple in their thirties, spend Majo's birthday at his parents' house. Majo hopes he will finally propose, but when she realizes that Cris doesn't believe in marriage, tensions rise. As boomers and millennials clash over their values, love, and expectations, the masks come off and the party turns into an alcohol-fueled identity crisis, where the characters no longer know “how to be.”

Arcelia Ramírez talked about the film's content, saying, “These are the gifts that the meetings at this festival give you. I saw Salvador and Ricardo. I ran into them here, and two weeks later, they sent me this awesome screenplay. I thought, I have to do this because I have to do this. It's the kind of comedy that Mexican cinema needs,” she concluded.

Finally, Memo Villegas added, “As a viewer, I can say that it's a film that makes me very proud to see myself in. You don't always get to act in the kind of film you'd like to see, but this film is just that.”