Marcela Fernandez Violante

Marcela Fernández Violante (Mexico City, June 9, 1941) is a Mexican filmmaker, first generation of the University Center for Cinematographic Studies (CUEC) 1964, graduated from CUEC in 1969 with a specialty in Script and direction. She also studied Dramatic Literature at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the UNAM.She directed various films such as Frida Kahlo (1972) and Anyway, Juan is your name (1974). She is also a researcher, critic and lecturer. Marcela Fernández Violante holds the personal distinction of having been the only woman who managed to sustain a career as a filmmaker in a medium very little prone to female experiences.

Career

Filmography

His first work, Azul (1967) 16 mm, in B/W, won the Silver Goddess for Best Fiction Short Film. In 1968, filming of the feature film Gayosso gives discounts began, which was interrupted due to the outbreak of the student conflict. As a student he participated in the filming of the documentary El Grito by director Leobardo López Aretche, about the events that culminated in the tragedy of Tlatelolco on October 2, 1968.

In 1972 she made the documentary Frida Kahlo about the work of the Mexican painter, being the first woman to address the subject of Frida Kahlo. This documentary obtains a Silver Goddess and an Ariel Award for Best First Film; It won the award for best short film at the Guadalajara Film Festival in 1973, also won the special jury prize at the London festival in 1974, and was exhibited at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1974.

By virtue of the success of that short film, in 1974 the filming of the film Anyway Juan is your name began, the first feature film produced by the UNAM, which deals with the subject of the Cristero War in the Mexican shoal in the year 1927, and the consolidation of the PRI as the ruling party. By virtue of the policy of freedom of expression in cinema, of then President Luis Echeverría, the film was able to be shown commercially although it severely criticized the Catholic Church and the Mexican Army. The film participated in the New York Film Festival in 1976, and the Havana Film Festival in December of that year.

On television, Marcela Fernández Violante participates as producer and host of the series Espacio de la filmoteca, sponsored by UNAM, broadcast from 1974 to 1976, on television channel 11, a series dedicated to film criticism and appreciation.

In 1977 he filmed his second feature film, Cananea, based on the first strike that took place in Mexico in 1906, and the subsequent repression of Mexican workers at the hands of the &# 34;rangers", hitmen hired in Arizona by the owner of the mine, Colonel Green. Cananea wins the award for best photography (Gabriel Figueroa) at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Czechoslovakia 1978), and participates in the Tashkent film festival, in the former USSR, in 1979.

He adapted the play Misterio en Estudio Q by playwright Vicente Leñero, and in 1979 he began filming Misterio, a film starring Helena Rojo and Juan Ferrara, in which the madness of a soap opera actor is addressed. Formal experiment that plays with the levels of reality/unreality in which the protagonists of a soap opera develop. Misterio won 8 of the Arieles awards in 1981, and obtained recognition from the jury at the Cattolica film festival, Italy, in 1983.

In 1981 he ventured into the children's genre, with the film In the country of light feet, a work that narrates the adventures of a white boy or "chavochi" in the Tarahumara mountain range in the State of Chihuahua, denouncing logging exploitation and the misery of the Tarahumara Indians. The film won the best children's film category at the Berlin Film Festival in 1983.

In 1982 she made the short documentary Matilde Landeta, a pioneer of national cinema, being the first director to project the life and work of the pioneer on screen.

In 1986 he filmed the film Nocturno amor que te vas a film produced by the UNAM, which narrates the tragedy of the dead of the Tula River, whose main character is played by actress Patricia Reyes Spíndola. This work obtains the Ariel award for best female performance.

In 1992, filming began on Golpe deluck, an adaptation of the play Comfortable monthly payments by Luis Eduardo Reyes, which narrates the adventures of a bureaucrat and his family, who are deprived of their jobs by virtue of a Salinista-style budget cut. This film was not liked by the system, so it did not participate in any national or international film exhibition.

On the centenary of the arrival of the Lumière brothers' cinema, he participates with the episode "Of present body", as part of the film Enredando shadows a co-production between Spain, Mexico, Cuba and Argentina.

In 2001, filming began on the film Acosada based on the novel De Piel de Víbora by Patricia Ramírez, a feminist film starring Ana Colchero.

CUEC teacher

He studied Dramatic Literature at UNAM and coordinated, between 1970 and 1971, the UNAM Children's Film Club. Starting in 1974, she joined CUEC as a full-time teacher. She is a professor in the subjects of scriptwriting and filmmaking at CUEC; In 1975 she coordinated the Casa del Lago Film Workshop and, from 1978 to 1982, she was technical secretary of CUEC, a school of which she became director from 1984 to 1988.

He has published a series of articles that deal with cinema and its techniques. He edited the volume Teaching and the film phenomenon: memory of the XXV years of the CUEC, 1963-88 (1988), and has also given free workshops on film appreciation and analysis in different institutions.

In the academic field, the filmmaker has also collaborated as a speaker at the universities of Loyola in New Orleans, UCLA in California and NYU in New York, in the film courses of these institutions.

Other jobs

As an international jury, Marcela Fernández Violante has participated in the Havana festivals in 1980, Moscow in 1981, Huelva, Spain in 1987 and, more recently, in the Mar de Plata festival, Argentina in 2005.

She is currently the General Secretary of the Union of Film Production Workers of the Mexican Republic (STPC), is a member of the General Society of Writers of Mexico (SOGEM), and chairs the Matilde Landeta Cultural Association, which promotes the Contest National Feature Film Scripts for authors and film adapters.

Prizes

-1988 - He was awarded the Filmoteca Medal for his active participation in the creation and dissemination of cinema.

-1998 - In 1998 he received a special recognition for his 25 years of academic work at UNAM.

-2000 - He received the Silver Medal of Director's Merit for his 25 years of cinematographic activity from the Mexican Society of Directors.

-Diosa de Plata (Best Fiction Short Film for Azul).

-Ariel Award (Best Documentary Short Film by Frida Kahlo).

-2023, Receives the Ariel de Oro Award granted by the Mexican Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences (AMACC) in recognition of all his contribution and film work.

Filmography as a director

• Blue (1967)
• The Ball (fiction short film)
• The Perse (fiction short film)
• Gayy gives discounts (fiction short film)
• Frida Kahlo (documentary short film) 1972
• Anyway, John's your name (1974)
• Cananea (1978)
• Mystery (1980)
• In the country of light feet (The child Rarámuri(1981)
• Matilde Landeta, pioneer of national cinema Television Programme (1982)
• Night love you leave (1987)
• Lucky shot (1992)
• Shading shadows (episode "To present body", 1998)
• Harassed (2002)