Perdida

(Perdida)
Viviana García | Documentary

2011 | 96 minutes | Mexico

After being told that her family had made some of the worst films in the history of Mexican cinema, Viviana García Besné unearths 100 years of cinematic legacy.

Synopsis

After being told that her family had made some of the worst films in the history of Mexican cinema, Viviana spent many years ashamed of that legacy and distanced herself from everything that the Calderón family had ever done.

But a chance encounter sparked her interest and led to a 3-year quest to uncover the story of a family that had been involved in all aspects of the film business in Mexico and the United States — theaters, distribution, and production — whose rise and fall throughout the 20th century closely mirrored that of Mexican cinema as a whole, a once-powerful film industry that was now virtually nonexistent.

The story that Viviana discovered through old film reels, photographs, newspaper articles, clips from the family's film vaults, and interviews with the survivors of Mexican cinema's golden eras included tales of romance and stories about movie and music legends like Ricardo Montalbán and the mambo king Damaso Perez Prado. This journey allowed her to make peace with a legacy of film pioneers.

Reviews

"Mexican film history gets an amusing and surprisingly personal overhaul in "Perdida," as Viviana Garcia Besne -- granddaughter of the Calderon dynasty -- gleefully liberates skeletons from closets and apocryphal footage from forbidden vaults in an earnest albeit frequently hilarious effort to clear things up about her family's unorthodox contributions to the art." - Peter Debruge, Variety

"Its interest to film buffs — especially those with tastes toward the psychotronic — is undeniable. —Rod Lott, Film Attack

Citation
Main credits

García, Viviana (film director)
García, Viviana (screenwriter)
Tremps, Alistair (film producer)

Other credits

Cinematography and editing, Viviana García-Besné; music, Anahit Simonian.


Citation
Cataloging
Keywords
cinema biography documentary woman,activism,untold stories,Mexican film history crossborder history,production,movies,classic films,Immigrants,Calderón family,Producciones Calderón,Santo,,Calderon Films,cinema studies,film studies,cinema,film,movies,motion pictures,film history,film production,film criticism,cinema history,cinema production,cinema criticism,movie history,movie production,movie criticism,history of cinema,history of film,culture,identity,identity politics,culture wars,left wing,right wing,intersectionality,identity groups,civilization,literacy,humanism,cancel culture,online culture,cultural revolution,cultural diffusion,culture shock,popular culture,pop culture,material culture,cultural capital,cultural assimilation ,family,kin,fellowship,household,immediate family,extended family,multigenerational family,multigenerational household,kinfolk,family tree,genealogy,nuclear family,modern family,family tree,biography,autobiography,biopic,memoir,life history,bio,biographer,biographical,personal account,personal history,diary,personal narrative,sketch,profile,personal letters,letters,journal,personal record,women,womanhood,gender, girl,girlhood,mother,motherhood,female,cis woman,cis female,trans woman,trans female,women’s rights,women’s issues,lady,ladies,gentlewoman,madame,miss,missus,mrs.,dame,damsel,ingenue,lass,maid,maiden,belle,gal,ladyfriend,girlfriend,dear,darling,widow,matron,dowager,gender,gender equality,gender pay gap,women’s liberation,women’s rights,communications,journalism,news,information,media,new media,newspaper,newspaper,blogs,news site,news app,pulling string,gathering string,reporting,fourth estate,news media,journalists,journalist,reporters,reporter,latin american studies,caribbean american studies,island studies,latin american culture,latin american history,latin american politics, caribbean american culture,caribbean american history,caribbean american politics, latin american languages,latin american and caribbean studies,hispanic american studies,hispanic people,hispanic culture,hispanic politics; "Perdida"; Pragda Films
Clips
No clips are available yet.
Festivals

Diosa de Plata - Best Documentary; Luciana Carbajal Award - Best Documentary; Telluride Film Festival; Festival Internacional de Cine de Morelia; BAFICI

DIRECTOR: Viviana García

NATIONALITY: Mexico

YEAR: 2011

GENRE: Documentary

LANGUAGE: Spanish

COLOR / B&W: Color

GRADE LEVEL: High School, College, Adult

SUBTITLE/CC: AVAILABLE

AUDIO DESCRIPTION: NOT AVAILABLE

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