I'm Leaving Now
Hot Docs, the Canadian documentary film festival which is the largest event of its type in North America, has announced its lineup for its 25th edition which includes the special sidebar Made in Mexico, featuring six films from south of the border.
Participating in the Made in Mexico sidebar are Sandra Luz López Barroso's Artemio, an award-winning tale of reverse migration, in which visa issues force a young American-born boy and his mother to move from California back to a rural Mexican town and face the challenges of distance and displacement together; Daniela Rea Gómez's Eternity Never Surrendered, which follows two women who mourn their missing loved ones: a husband claimed by organized crime, and a mother disappeared by a corrupt government. Facing these overwhelming absences while rebuilding their own lives becomes a battle with memory itself.
Having its world premiere as part of Made in Mexico is Lindsay Cordero and Armando Croda's I'm Leaving Now / Ya me voy, which tells the story of an undocumented worker who plans to return to Mexico after scraping by in Brooklyn for 16 years, but secret betrayals have warped the family he remembers and an unexpected romance makes him reconsider his path in this deeply intimate story.
Mamacita by José Pablo Estrada
In Mamacita—also in its world premiere—when the extravagant 95-year-old matriarch of an upper-crust Mexican family is promised a documentary by her 14th grandson, José Pablo Estrada, the filmmaker stumbles upon her haunted past, blowing open a dark family history of secrets and lies spanning five generations. In Luciana Kaplan's Rush Hour, three long-distance commuters in Los Angeles, Istanbul and Mexico City question their quality of life and reflect on the hours they've lost as they traverse congested highways and crowded subways on their way to and from work.
The intensely human documentary Witkin & Witkin by English-born director Trisha Ziff explores the divergent art practices of two identical twins—a renowned photographer and his brother, a painter, who couldn't be more different—and their complex relationship as they reach a crossroads in their lives.
Made in Mexico will also screen the short films Familiar Tale by Sumie Garcia, Tecuani, Hombre Jaguar by Nelson Adape and Isis Ahumada, and Symphony of a Sad Sea by Carlos Morales.
The 25th edition of Hot Docs will take place April 26-May 6 in Toronto, Canada.
