Mexican Golden Age cinema

While Hollywood devoted itself to the war effort, Mexico became in the forties the leading producer of Spanish-language films, exported across Latin America. Emilio Fernández and the cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa built an image recognisable among all others: immense skies, sculpted clouds, indigenous faces framed like icons. Beside that lyricism, Ismael Rodríguez filmed the cheerful poverty of the Mexico City slums, and de Fuentes had already told the revolution from the side of Pancho Villa's men.

works 5

• Feature filmLet's Go with Pancho Villa¡Vámonos con Pancho Villa!Fernando de Fuentes · 1936Six peasants join Villa in 1914 and discover what the revolution costs.Cinema
• Feature filmAnother DawnDistinto amanecerJulio Bracho · 1943An activist hunted by a governor's killers finds, in Mexico City, a woman he once loved.Cinema
• Feature filmPortrait of MariaMaría CandelariaEmilio Fernández · 1944A young Indian woman from Xochimilco, rejected by her village and by the man who loves her, at the beginning of the century.Cinema
• Feature filmThe Kneeling GoddessLa diosa arrodilladaRoberto Gavaldón · 1947A married man gives his wife a statue that has the features of his mistress.Cinema
• Feature filmWe the PoorNosotros los pobresIsmael Rodríguez · 1948A carpenter from the outskirts of the capital, his adopted daughter, and the misfortunes that hound them.Cinema