This award winning film will be screened as part of the Fall Global Urban Humanities seminar, Mexico City: Spaces/Cultures/Histories.
The past and the present collide as filmmaker Natalia Almada brings to life audio recordings about her great-grandfather Plutarco Elías Calles, a revolutionary general who became president of Mexico in 1924. In his time, Calles was called El Bolshevique and El Jefe Maximo (the Foremost Chief). Today, he is remembered as El Quema-Curas (the Priest Burner) and as a dictator who ruled through puppet presidents until he was exiled in 1936. Through recordings by Calles’ daughter, El General moves between the memories of a daughter grappling with history’s portrait of her father and the weight of that same man’s legacy in Mexico today. Time is blurred in this complex and visually arresting portrait of a family and country living in the shadow of the past.
The film won the Directing Award at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. The Director, Natalia Almada, will attend the screening and take questions after the film ends.