Ricardo Castro is from a neighborhood in Mexico City called Cuajimalpa, make no mistake. However, half his family lives in the northern state of Sinaloa, a region that he visited for many years during the holidays. His intention with his first feature, The (Almost) Legends (Los (casi) ídolos de Bahía Colorada), which can be found on Netflix, was to present a completely different portrait of Sinaloa from what we are used to. The intention was to somewhat remove the negative connotation perceived of the state, to tell us a kind of modern tale of two brothers in what is, paradoxically, their search for identity and their place in the world. 

“The search for identity in our film is not only about exploring its visual concept, on a simply aesthetic level, but also in our characters. Our protagonists have to accept themselves as they are to become original, and that’s when they finally find their calling,” says the director. 

The regional Mexican music is the backbone of the story. It is the sound heard in the streets of Culiacán, Badiraguato, or Mazatlán, well-known Sinaloan towns. And that idea was the origin of Castro’s film: a soundtrack based on the traditional tambora drum. 

“My interest stems from telling a story about the reconciliation of these two half-brothers after the death of their father. My mother died seven years ago, and I always compare Sinaloa to Italy. These are places inhabited by families whose members love or hate each other all the time. They are raucous and tightly-knit. And to tell this anecdote I have to talk about what I know, and that is my roots. The band El Recodo was always on at my house, and, back then, my ears bled; but now, something strange has happened that led me back to all this and made me grow fond of it. I think that as we get older, we also learn to appreciate where we come from,” the director adds. 

Ricardo is a graduate of the Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica and, at one point, he thought that not being able to see his first film on the big screen was like “taking a bullet to the heart and spirit, for any film creator.” However, he never thought that being a young director he would have his debut film reach so many corners of the world, that it would be subtitled in different languages, or even that he would receive messages from fans in countries as far away as Poland. 

“The fact that something so personal resonates with so many people around the world is incredible to me. The exposure of our cinema today, I think, is due to streaming platforms. This seems wonderful to me, because not only can new filmmakers make films, but also, at the same time, we can continue to see the work of the masters. Finally, all generations have gone into the pot and the possibility this brings is that we are all talking about a different Mexico,” concludes the director.

Behind The Great Seduction (La gran seducción) lies the professionalism and passion of producer Nicolás Celis, who entrusted this new version, very Mexican in style, to Celso García, a director who has made himself stand out for his sensitive look at the most ordinary and routine events in life. Proof of this is his short film The Water and the Milk (La leche y el agua) and the feature film The Thin Yellow Line (La delgada línea amarilla). 

“You can virtually see any story with different lenses, eyes, and light levels. I like to approach the stories that come to me, or that I propose, from an extremely bright point of view. The Great Seduction came to me at an important and precise moment in my life, and I tried to approach it from the brightest and most positive point of view possible,” the director says from Brussels, where he currently lives. 

García is also the type of filmmaker who has served as a kind of witness to the different ways and models of making films in recent years. From works subsidized by scholarships to making big studio remakes like My Best Friend’s Wedding (La boda de mi mejor amigo) and the production of highly personal anecdotes like The Thin Yellow Line. 

“I like microcosms. I like to close myself in. Zooming in on small communities, on people who are ignored in the world. Characters that others do not turn to look at. What attracted me the most to The Great Seduction was taking a look at a community of 120 people who live separated from the world, and who, out of necessity, set themselves a goal by forming a commune that will not rest until it achieves its goals,” says the director bluntly, trying to discern the common denominator that unites his films. 

There are other versions of The Great Seduction in France and Canada; however, according to the director, the plot fits perfectly with the idiosyncrasies of rural Mexican communities. “In Mexico, and throughout Latin America, we are experiencing a very interesting and unique moment in cinema. Somehow the situation is polarizing. On the one hand, we see very commercial films that are very well produced, supported, and sheltered by studios and platforms. On the other hand, we are seeing productions that are entirely independent, with interesting proposals. And it’s not a bad thing. It seems to me that the new generations of filmmakers are taking full advantage of this situation. They are using technologies, investing less money. We are definitely at an important point,” García adds. 

“I think that in the times of crisis we are currently experiencing, the audience takes refuge in films. In them, we find the spirit and heart that saves us from all this,” he states strongly.

Among the range of thematic possibilities in national cinema, we find titles as unique as A Deadly Invitation (Invitación a un asesinato). A film that is closer to the new forms and trends within global cinematography: the difficulty of categorizing a particular production. It is no longer about a classic western, a romantic comedy, a drama, or an action film, but it’s about a mix that leads to enrichment in risks that invariably excite the viewer. 

“We are constantly evolving. We are experiencing a domestic production boom. I come from making documentaries, low-budget films, where even with my partner and wife, Mariana Franco, we have had to mortgage our house to be able to produce our next film. Then Netflix comes and offers us A Deadly Invitation. The thing is that, today, there are different scenarios that I never imagined would happen when I was a film student. In 20 years, we have experienced an evolution with its respective shifts in the way we make our films. Always alive. Always intense,” states José Manuel Cravioto. 

Cravioto is responsible for titles that range from documentaries like the award-winning The Last Heroes of the Peninsula (Los últimos héroes de la península), a benchmark for the genre at the time, to the playful Being: Café Tacvba (Seguir siendo) about the emblematic Mexican rock band. He then explored fiction with Mexican Gangster (El Más Buscado) or Malvada. A Deadly Invitation is something completely different in his filmography. The story is based on the popular novel by Carmen Posadas, probably the funniest from the famous author. The action takes place on a luxury cruise where eight guests are suspects, as there is a crime to solve. 

“My criteria in the past when choosing my next project were: Where is this film going to take me? What festivals will I visit with it? Which distributor will get it into the theatres?” For me, Netflix is like a big theater, a huge multiplex, a huge movie complex where you virtually walk in and choose from an impressive catalog. A Deadly Invitation is my first choice based on these criteria and that is something that excites me,” says Cravioto with certainty, who finds in the mix of genres an invitation for the audience to experience something unique, different from what they are used to. 

“I despise the chilango accent (from Mexico City) and I love David Lynch.” Those were the only two recommendations that author Fernanda Melchor made to director Elisa Miller when she gave her the rights to what is considered one of the most powerful Mexican fiction titles published in recent years. This is Hurricane Season (Temporada de huracanes). 

Melchor, as a journalist of her calibre, has good intuition. Miller, among other achievements in filmmaking, won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for her short film Watching It Rain (Ver llover). 

Here the challenge was clear: how to bring to the screen that unique universe that is born from Melchor’s prose. It is an invitation for the reader to collaborate actively with their own imagination in order to create that cosmos full of magic and violence. 

“I found myself immersed in a totally neurotic process. A rundown with color cards that defined each of the characters. I began to study many adaptations of books to film and to ask myself how these great filmmakers did it. I was completely possessed by the text,” Miller confesses, about the choice of her very personal process to transfer the page to the big screen. 

“Something very curious happened, because in the end, the film turned out just as I read it. It was something mysterious. I remember that, one time, my partner, cinematographer María Secco, told me: ‘You have to surrender to the film.’ We had to tell this story. There were many very complicated things in this process. We made a promise to tell this dark and painful anecdote from the sludge, immersed in the mud. I’m still crying. I cried on set, making the music, editing, even still to this day. This was a story that chose us.” 

Miller definitely believes that the journey that Hurricane Season will take is unlike anything she had done in the past. It will be seen in 190 countries simultaneously. 

“It seems crazy to me. I confess that I find it incredible to have managed to have them buy a story this heavy, real, and powerful from us. Based on a book by a female author. Directed by a female filmmaker. I feel like this film is filled with a lot of glass ceilings because it’s so painful. We are talking about a national reality that breaks your heart and, suddenly, having this distribution window seems incredible to me,” Miller reveals, while meditating on the unique launch of this production on Netflix. 

Miller concludes: “I think that national identity in our cinema is a very large and magical prism. We are so many things in this country. I think we tell stories to make sense of our lives. Suddenly we ask ourselves: ‘What is all this?’ We try to explain certain things to ourselves through stories, frequently because the violence that is tearing this country apart hurts us. Cinema entails an act of putting yourself in another person’s shoes, and this starts with the filmmaking team all the way to the audience itself, in order to grow in empathy and compassion.”