FILMS/
COCHOCHI
Cochochi
New Directors
Mexico/England/Canada, 2007, 87 minutes
SHOWTIMES
Thu, May 1 / 6:30 / Kabuki / COCH01K
Sun, May 4 / 3:15 / Kabuki / COCH04K
Mon, May 5 / 6:30 / PFA / COCH05P
CREDITS
- prod
-
Pablo Cruz, Donald K. Ranvaud
- scr
-
Israel Cárdenas, Laura Amelia Guzmán
- cam
-
Israel Cárdenas, Laura Amelia Guzmán
- editor
-
Yibrán Asuad, Israel Cárdenas
- mus
-
Israel Cárdenas
- cast
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Antonio Lerma Batista, Evaristo Lerma Batista
- source
-
Ondamax Films, 1360 Monad Terrace, Suite #1, Miami Beach, FL 33139. TEL: 305-535-3577. EMAIL: info@ondamaxfilms.com
Adventuring into the remote and exotic terrain of Mexico’s Tarahumara Indians, filmmakers Laura Amelia Guzmán and Israel Cárdenas have crafted a film that uses indigenous nonprofessional actors to tell a simple but transcendent story of daily life. Two young brothers, Evaristo and Tony, perhaps a bit cocky at just having successfully finished the school year, are charged with delivering a package by their grandfather. The boys take their first plunge into adult-like decisionmaking when they take along the grandfather’s horse—a rural Lexus in comparison to the donkeys they usually ride—without his permission. Before long, they lose the horse. As they negotiate the Tarahumara social network that spreads across empty mountains, meeting a panorama of inhabitants, from kindly old folk to citified, rowdy youth, the boys become separated. The challenges of navigating unfamiliar territory, completing a mission and, in the end, being honest with themselves and others about their mistakes reveal for them how complicated and unpredictable life will become. One suspects that the filmmakers have been exposed to the work of Bolivia’s Jorge Sanjinés, whose stories of indigenous people told with nonprofessional actors and the simplest of camera techniques have established a unique Latin American subgenre. In their debut, Guzmán and Cárdenas push the envelope further when it comes to elliptical storytelling, weaving a complex web of micro-anecdotes and dramatic twists that mount to suspense and, ultimately, revelation.
—Miguel Pendás
In Tarahumara and Spanish with English subtitles. Presented with support from the Consulate General of Mexico, San Francisco. New Directors Prize contender. West Coast Premiere. Sponsored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Wells Fargo, Univision 14 and Telefutura 66.
