Diana Bracho Movies

A man in his mid-twenties reveals an unusual attitude about love and mortality in this offbeat romantic drama. Ilan (Miguel Angel Silvestre) is a mathematician who has unique ideas about love -- he believes that a connection between two people is like a formula that's dependent on the right set of random integers falling into place. That doesn't stop Ilan and his pals Eric (Felix Gomez) and Andy (Juan Diaz) from spending their free time looking for the ideal woman, and one day when they're in a café and Ilan spies beautiful Lisa (Barbara Goenaga) playing his favorite song on the jukebox, he suspects he may have finally found the girl for him. However, not long after encountering the woman of his dreams, Ilan learns that he's contracted a virulent form of melanoma that can only be treated with radical chemotherapy. To the chagrin of his mother (Diana Bracho), Ilan decides against the treatment and instead decides to take his chances with fate, and he similarly chooses to let Lisa come to him in his final months -- if they are meant to be together, she'll approach him, and otherwise he'll regard their meeting as a brief moment of good fortune. 3:19 was the first feature film from writer and director Danny Saadia, and was adapted from his award-winning short film Genesis 3:19. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Five women from wildly divergent backgrounds find themselves swapping views on feminism, politics, and culture in this talky ensemble drama. Magdalena (Diana Bracho) is the coordinator of Mexico City's Latin American Women's Film Festival, and she's brought together five women to review and rate the year's entries. Joan (Geraldine Chaplin) is a lesbian film writer from New York whose views on the cinema are just as extreme as her position on gender politics. Maruja (Ana Torrent) is a mainstream film producer from Spain. Mariana (Carmen Montejo) is a veteran filmmaker whose career broke new ground for women in the Latin American film industry. Balsher (Carola Reyna) is a political filmmaker exiled from her native land. And Julia (Haydee de Lev) is a woman from Uruguay who has spent nearly a decade and a half in prison. As the women gather to watch a variety of different films made by women, they often find themselves arguing about the issues raised by the films and about how they impact women and society as a whole. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this historical drama from Mexico, Damian Delgado plays Topilzin, a writer and the illegitimate son of Montezuma, who finds himself at odds with his nation's new leadership after Tenocchititlan's rule is put down by the Spanish Army in 1520. Topilzin refuses to adopt the new state-imposed religion and, after narrowly avoiding arrest following an incident in which he throws a rock at a friar, he's turned over to the police by his brother, and arrested in the presence of Hernando Cortes (Inaki Aierra) and his lover, Tecuichpo (Elpidia Carrillo), the daughter of Montezuma. Thanks to the pleas of Cortes and Tecuichpo, Topilzin's life is spared, and instead he is flogged in public by Capt. Quijano (Honorato Magaloni). After his punishment and an ensuing spiritual epiphany, Topilzin gives up his career as an author to become a monk, and he joins an order led by Fray Diego (Jose Carlos Rodriguez), the friar he once attacked. La Otra Conquista proved to be a big box-office success in Mexico, enjoying the biggest opening weekend of any Mexican film in history on its home turf. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Mexico's most famous bandito rides again only to find himself defeated in the war between the sexes in this romantic comedy from debuting director Sabina Berman, the author of the play on which the screenplay is based. Gina, a forty-something year-old divorcee is ready to settle down again. Unfortunately, her free-thinking intellectual of a boy friend Adrian wants commitment free sex and nothing more. It just so happens that Adrian is writing a book about Pancho Villa and has come to embrace the outlaw's macho values when it comes to women. Finding his macho attitudes decidedly unfulfilling Gina dumps Adrian in favor of a sensitive, New Agey and much younger man, Ismael. To staunch the copious bleeding of his wounded pride, Adrian immediately embarks upon a campaign to win Gina back. The spirit of Villa comes to Adrian's aide, giving him advice at every turn. Unfortunately, Villa's attitudes died many years ago and every time his suggestions fail, a horrible, bloody wound appears on his ghostly body. Will Adrian ever learn his lesson and let his macho posturing die with his hero? ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Romelia's granddaughters have always believed that granny (Dolores Beritain) was a widow. When they accompany her to her hometown to look over a property she has recently inherited, they are surprised to discover that for all those years she was only separated from from her husband, Dr. Roman (Pedro Armendariz, Jr.), and that it is he who has only recently died and left her the inheritance. There is a mystery here that goes back to the 1930s, and through a series of flashbacks, the story is told. This multi-generational drama of revenge and honor is based on Roman, The Widower, by Rosario Castellanos. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Five separate stories written by Pedro F. Miret are each interpreted by a different director in this 100-minute compilation film. The first story, "Service à la Carte," (director Victor Saca) is about a gentle, unassuming young man who is harassed in the hallway of his apartment building every day by the same, obnoxious neighbor. His "revenge" is non-violent, but very ingenious. The second story, "New Fire," (director Carlos García Agraz), is a sardonic, comic view of the clash between the pre-colonial civilizations in Mexico and the modern heirs of colonialism. A young man has been invited to a costume party and when he shows up as an Aztec warrior in full dress, he faces a disastrous evening. The third story "Reflections," (director Daniel González) features a man on a date with seduction on his mind -- until a UFO shows up. The fourth story "Last Showing," (director Diego López) has some late-night movie-goers caught in an unexpected trap. The fifth and last tale "Silent Night" (director Gerardo Pardo) degenerates into a story of mindless violence from a simple premise of lost sleep and a car alarm that will not shut off. The five vignettes entertain in different ways, though the first two episodes are especially well-wrought. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this French-Mexican-Spanish film that hops back and forth between the narration's present and its past, viewers watch Antonieta (Isabelle Adjani) as she is involved in the turbulent Mexican political scene in the first decades of the 20th century -- as she goes to Paris and commits suicide in the Notre Dame cathedral of that city, and then, in a confusing segment of the film, as she is seen with the present-day Parisian author (Hanna Schygulla) who is researching the story of Antonieta's death and who is a witness to her suicide. The film does not follow that chronology exactly, rather introducing the Parisian author first, and taking the author to Mexico for her research where she sees film clips from the political turmoil of the 1910s-1920s and gradually gets to "know" Antonieta -- though in the end, it could be said that no one seems to know Antonieta really well, or why she would want to kill herself. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

A middle-class family makes room for an elderly houseguest, only to discover her presence opens the door for evil in this atmospheric tale of terror. Aunt Alejandra (Isabela Corona) is an elderly woman who relocates to Mexico City and informs her nephew that she's moving in with him. The nephew agrees, despite the fact he and his family are struggling financially and Alejandra is well off enough to easily support herself. Relations between Aunt Alejandra and the family soon become strained, but no one in the family is aware of her secret -- she's a witch and soon uses her powers to take revenge against the children of the household. As the mother and father find their lives torn apart by the death of three of their children, they discover that their youngest daughter seems to have learned a few tricks from her aunt. La Tia Alejandra was directed by noted Mexican producer/director Arturo Ripstein, whose previous terror films have included Profundo Carmesí and El Castillo de la Pureza. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Because his papers are not in order, the man in this story(Gregorio Casal), has been expelled from the country he has been visiting. For the same reason, he cannot enter the neighboring country. Instead, he is stuck on a bridge connecting the two. But he is a man of principle; when his plight becomes public knowledge in both countries, and each country is prepared to relax its rules and let him in, he refuses to leave the bridge, on the grounds that the rules themselves need to be changed. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Originally Actas De Marusia, this Mexican film re-creates a dark chapter in the history of Chile. The scene is a small Chilean mining town in 1907. Suffering under the despotic rule of the British mine owners, the workers stage a revolt. The government's solution is to utterly destroy the town rather than allow the rebellion to spread. Letters from Marusia was adapted from a novel by Patricio Manns, which in turn was based on eyewitness accounts of the 1907 massacre. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The long arm of the Inquisition, or the "Holy Office," reached at least as far as 16th-century Mexico (known as New Spain at the time). Many Spanish Catholics of Moorish or Jewish origin found it expedient to flee to the New World to escape the suffocating attentions of the Inquisition. In Spain, simply being descended from these suspect peoples is sufficient to guarantee a gruesome death by immolation. In the New World, it took slightly more. This 1974 Mexican film deals with the suffering of one family of conversos who are secretly practicing Judaism and are betrayed to the Inquisition by a family member. Interestingly, a small family clan of such secret Jews was discovered in New Mexico as recently as the late 1980s. They managed to keep their faith a secret for nearly five hundred years. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide