Mexican films garner two prizes in the “Un Certain Regard” section at Cannes festival

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Two Mexican films competed this Friday in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival, the second most important of the event, and both – “Noche de Fuego” (Prayers for the Stolen) and “La Civil” (The Civilian) – were rewarded with a prize.

These two feature films also had a common background: the collateral damage of violence in Mexico; the first from the point of view of three girls and the second focused on the desperate struggle of a mother to recover her daughter, kidnapped by a cartel.

“Noche de Fuego”, Tatiana Huezo’s first fiction film, received a Special Mention from a jury chaired by British director and screenwriter Andrea Arnold and including Argentine filmmaker, producer, and screenwriter Daniel Burman.

The three girls in this film, set in the mountains of Guerrero, learn to survive and become invisible in a small town marked by the collateral effects of the war against drug trafficking. Still, this constant vigilance does not extinguish their innocence and concerns.

“I feel thrilled, excited, satisfied, totally proud of this film. I didn’t expect to come to Cannes with my first fiction, nor to enter a room of more than 1,000 people with this film to share it with such an amazing audience,” Huezo told the press after receiving the award.

The filmmaker dedicated the award to all Latin American women educating their daughters and “teaching them that they can be free.”

Equally moved was the director of “The Civilian”, the Romanian Teodora Ana Mihai, whose debut film, awarded with the Courage Award, has been co-produced by the Mexican Michel Franco, the Belgian Jean-Pierre, and Luc Dardenne and the Romanian Cristian Mungiu, all of them also directors.

“It is a beautiful award that I dedicate to the families who are searching for their loved ones. It seems to me that it is a subject that needs a platform,” she said.

“La Civil”, starring Arcelia Ramírez and Álvaro Guerrero, shows how far a mother is capable of going to find her little girl. From that search oozes a critique of the corruption of the system and the abandonment of those who have lost a loved one.

“How good that we are here together to present this strong reality,” she said of the fact that two feature films that “deal with the same subject from two different points of view” have been distinguished at Cannes, whose 74th edition began on July 6 and close this Saturday.

FOCUS ON INNOVATION

Un Certain Regard gives space to more innovative and daring films by usually lesser-known or novice filmmakers. “It is a great pleasure to put new names on the map of international cinema,” said the general delegate of the event, Thierry Frémaux, about this section.

The Originality Award went to “Lamb,” the debut feature by Icelandic director Valdimar Jóhansson starring Noomi Rapace, and France’s Hafsia Herzi received the Ensemble Award for “Bonne Mère.”

The Jury’s distinction went to Austrian Sebastian Meise for “Great Freedom”, while the Grand Prize of this official section was awarded to Russian Kira Kovalenko for “Unclenching The Fists”.

The traditional festival celebration took place after a year’s hiatus due to the pandemic, in an edition in which controls have been tightened to avoid contagions, with the requirement of a health certificate or a negative covid test that must be renewed every 48 hours.

“We have done between 50,000 and 80,000 tests in total, and there have been about 70 or 80 positives. It is important to know that there has been no cluster in a theater, which tens of thousands of people have attended every day. Let’s keep the cinemas open,” Frémaux said at the award ceremony.