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La Perla (Spanish with French subtitles)
Location
Main screening room
Date
March 13th, 2023
Duration
86 min
Cycle
Mélos mexicains (1944-1959)

Inspired by North American cinema, we look at a forgotten body of work, buried in our archives: Mexican melodramas, made in the 1940s and 1950s. With it's many stars (especially Maria Felix), Mexico has established a real system, driven by a very cinematic vibe : the excess of feelings. The rarity of those gems is the reason why most of them will be presented in french.

Programmed with the collaboration of Marie-Laure Poiré Bleau.

La Perla
Directed by
Emilio Fernandez
Language
Spanish with French subtitles
Actors
Pedro Armendáriz, María Elena Marqués, Fernando Wagner
Origins
Mexico
Year
1947
Duration
86 min
Genre
Drama
Format
16 mm
Synopsis

A young Indian couple resist the foreigners who want to dispossess them of a splendid pearl that comes from their ancestors.

La Perla

Emilio Fernández

Emilio Fernández was a director, screenwriter, actor, and producer born in northern Mexico to a Kickapoo mother and a father who was a colonel in one of the armies of the 1910 Mexican Revolution. His involvement in Mexico's revolutionary events forced him to flee the country and move to the United States in 1923, following the failure of a revolutionary coup led by Adolfo de la Huerta. He settled in Hollywood and worked as an extra, notably serving as the double for actor Douglas Fairbanks. Considered one of the greatest Mexican directors of the 20th century, he won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1946 for his film María Candelaria.

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About Emilio Fernández
Selected filmography
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