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Mexico / All works

Feature film

Angel of Fire

Ángel de fuego

Dana Rotberg · 1992

Synopsis

Alma, thirteen, is a trapeze artist and fire-spitter at the Fantasía circus, a wretched circus in Mexico City where she has always lived. She is expecting a child by her father, Renato, an old, sick clown. After his death, she leaves the circus and meets Refugio, a woman preacher who leads, with Sacramento and Noé, a puppet troupe, the Messengers of the New Covenant, who perform passages from the Bible in poor neighbourhoods. With them she seeks redemption.

Context

The director's second feature film, which she wrote with Omar Alain Rodrigo, co-produced with León Constantiner and Tita Lombardo and edited with Sigfrido Barjau, under the banner of the Mexican Film Institute. Photographed by Toni Kuhn, it brings together Evangelina Sosa (Alma), Lilia Aragón (Refugio), Roberto Sosa (Sacramento) and Alejandro Parodi (Renato). It opened the Directors' Fortnight at Cannes in 1992 and was released in Mexico the same year.

Who it is for

An hour and a half in Spanish, on a harrowing subject, mixing the bizarre and violence; the film can be seen on the platform FilminLatino.

Prizes and reception

International Critics' Prize at the Havana festival in 1992, best performance prize at Porto for Evangelina Sosa; nominated for many Ariel awards.

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