Chicuarotes + Q&A with Thomas Benski
Event Information
About this Event
PLEASE NOTE Q&A ONLY AVAILABLE ON THE 19TH
Directed by Gael García Bernal
Narrative Feature / Mexico / 95 mins
Strand: Viva Voce: Stories of Women
UK Premiere
Screening: Thursday 19th September 21:00 | Friday 20th September 18:00
Review:
Gael García Bernal is an international star who has been at the very centre of the resurgence in Mexican cinema since the turn of the millennium. His second feature film as director, after 2007’s DEFICIT, sees the star return to the Mexico City slums from which he made his name in AMORES PERROS. Cagalera (Benny Emmanuel) and Moloteco (Gabriel Carbajal) are two teenage tearaways trying to hustle their way out of the San Gregorio Atlapulco district of Mexico City. They are ‘Chicuarotes’, a slang name given to local residents of this slum area, but Cagalera, in particular, longs to be something more. Hatching a plan to get himself and his girlfriend - Sugehili - as far away as possible from home, Cagalera ropes Moloteco into a series of ever more desperate, elaborate, and downright ridiculous crimes. Deftly straddling the divide between absurdly comic crime caper and hard-hitting gangland crime drama, Bernal’s sophomore effort is a freewheeling, high-octane rampage through the desperate landscape of Mexico City’s southside suburbs. / Review by Rohan Berry Crickmar
Credits:
Director: Gael García Bernal
Writer: Augusto Mendoza
Producers: Marta Nuñez Puerto, Gael García Bernal, Thomas Benski
Cast: Benny Emmanuel, Gabriel Carbajal, Leidi Gutiérrez, Daniel Giménez Cacho, Dolores Heredia