Official Selection - Competition 2002 / Cuento de hadas para dormir cocodrilos / Mexico 2002
Archangel suffers from chronic insomnia; his wife has left him, taking their small autistic son with her. He sets off for his native village to see his dying father for the last time. There he finds the origins of his problems, discovering things about his family’s past which were closely linked with historical events in Mexico, but he is unable to escape his fate.
Archangel lives in the city, he is troubled by the departure of his wife and his small autistic son Gabriel, and he suffers from chronic insomnia. He receives news from his brother that their father is dying and he sets off for a desolate rural settlement to see the old man for the last time. When he arrives in his native village, to his surprise, he finds out that both father and brother are long dead. Searching for his own roots, he discovers a curse which has afflicted his family for several generations: his great grandfather, desperate to get his hands on family property, killed his own brother. Archangel also discovers why he suffers from insomnia. The story of his family and ancestors began in 1860, and was influenced by events in Mexican history, such as the reign of President Benito Juárez, the French occupation, the reformation war, the Mexican revolution and mass emigration to the United States. Archangel’s memories return to his childhood – his mother had run off with another man, and he himself had been thrown out by his father after a serious argument with his brother. He tries for a reconciliation with his wife but, in the end, is unable to escape his fate.
100 min / Black & white, 35 mm
Director Ignacio Ortíz Cruz
/ Screenplay Ignacio Ortíz Cruz
/ Dir. of Photography Patrick Murguia
/ Music Lucía Álvarez
/ Editor Ignacio Ortíz, Menahem Peňa, Sigfrido Barjau
/ Producer Juan Carlos Prieto
/ Production IMCINE
/ Cast Arturo Ríos, Ana Graham, Luisa Huertas, Mayra Serbulo, Dagoberto Gama
Ignacio Ortiz Cruz (b. 1957, Oaxaca, Mexico) initially studied medicine at Mexican National University (UNAM), later scriptwriting and filmmaking at the Film Training Centre (C.C.C.). He wrote the scripts for the films Benjamin’s Wife (1990), Married Life (1992), Deserts of Seas (1993) and No Sender (1994). In 1994 he made the short film The Man Who Doesn’t Listen to Bolero and the feature Shore of the Earth. Apart from his film work he has also completed a stage adaptation of Woody Allen’s film Interiors and he wrote the stage play Blasted based on a text by Sarah Kane. In 1995 he was awarded a grant to study film and video from the McArthur-Rockefeller Foundation, and in 1997 he became as a member of the National Filmmakers Organisation. Cruz received an award for his screenwriting work at the Nantes film festival in 1999.
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