MÓNICA DEL CARMEN
Spotlight
VLAFF welcomes back the extraordinary Mónica del Carmen!
Mónica del Carmen is a world renowned Indigenous actress from the Sierra Sur in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico. She graduated from the National School of Theatre Arts in Mexico City in 2004. In 2021, she received the Ariel (Mexico’s Film Academy Awards) nomination for Best Actress for her performance in the film New Order by Michel Franco. In 2020, she won the Ariel Award for Best Supporting Actress and was nominated in the same category for the Mexican Film Journalists Association’s Diosas de Plata award for her role in the film Asfixia by Kenya Márquez.
In 2011, for her extraordinary lead performance in Michael Rowe’s Leap Year (Año bisiesto), she won the Ariel Award for Best Actress, was named Best Actress by the Mexican Online Critics Association, and won the Best Actress award at the XL MODOLIST International Festival in Kyiv, Ukraine. Leap Year won the Camera d’Or for Best First Feature at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010.
Mónica del Carmen has worked with many leading Mexican directors such as Michel and Victoria Franco, Michael Rowe, Alonso Ruizpalacios, Kenya Márquez, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Daniel Giménez Cacho, Patricia Arriaga Jordán, Julián Hernández, Roberto Fiesco, Gabriel Ripstein, among others.
A COP MOVIE
Mónica del Carmen in attendance
Director: Alonso Ruizpalacios
Mexico | 2021 | Spanish with English subtitles | 97 min
View IN-PERSON at The Cinematheque: Monday, Aug 29 at 6:00 PM
Despite its simple title, Mexican filmmaker Alonso Ruizpalacios’ latest feature is far from a simple shoot-’em-up cop movie. It’s more like a cop movie written by Jacques Derrida, directed with nods to Wes Anderson and Jean-Luc Godard and then remixed by Abbas Kiarostami in its efforts to tear down the fourth wall. – Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter
Mónica del Carmen in attendance
Director: Michel Franco
Mexico | 2021 | English and Spanish with English subtitles | 81 min
Starring Tim Roth, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Mónica del Carmen
View IN-PERSON at The Cinematheque: Saturday, Aug 27 at 8:45 PM
Mónica del Carmen has worked with director Michel Franco in numerous projects, including roles in the award-winning films New Order and After Lucia.
It is not a coincidence that Sundown takes place in Acapulco. It is shocking for me to witness the city where I spent childhood vacations turn to an epicentre of violence. Sundown springs from a necessity to explore a place that seems increasingly distant and foreign. This exploration of all perspectives present in Acapulco is also a character study, and a study of family dynamics. The sun occupies a primordial place; it hits always aggressively and directly. The image imperatively has to reflect two things: The characters’s emotional states and the violence prevalent in their surroundings. – Director Michel Franco