El Ciruelo

by Emiliano Altuna, Carlos Rossini

Mexico, 2008
HD-Cam
Colour
Length: 70’
Language: Spanish

Italian premiere

Slowly, and unavoidably, the tiny village of El Ciruelo, in the mountains of the Sierra di Nayarit in Mexico, is disappearing. Due to the construction of an artificial basin, the waters from the El Cajón river are flooding and submerging this region. The slow rise of the river bed brings with it the end of this town. Long, silent sequences show, from the water, the brick houses and white church submerged by the river in an atmosphere of melancholy ending. The objects from recent daily life float, immobile. The water takes over the sites where men have lived for centuries. The silence is broken by the sound of the cars in which the village families are preparing to depart. They have been forced, against their wishes, to abandon their houses and their history, and to try to adjust to life in the nearby village that the State has built, El Nuevo Ciruelo. Here the houses are all alike, in fact they seem cast from a mould. Even the cemetery has been rebuilt, but the women say that these tombs “say nothing”.

Emiliano Altuna, Carlos Rossini
Both men were born in Argentina in 1978. Emiliano Altuna studied filmmaking in Barcelona, Carlos Rossini in Mexico. In 2004 they founded the production company, Bambù Audiovisual, where they write, direct, and produce.

Director: Carlos Rossini, Emiliano Altuna
Screenplay: Carlos Rossini, Emiliano Altuna
Photography: Lauracarmen Magaña, Carlos Rossini, Emiliano Altuna
Editing: Pedro G. García, Carlos Rossini ,Emiliano Altuna
Sound: Daniel Hidalgo
Producer: Christiane Burkhard, Carlos Rossini, Emiliano Altuna
Production Company: IMCINE - Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografía CONACULTA - Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes FOPROCINE, Prysma Film
Bambú Audiovisual

IMCINE - Instituto Mexicano de
Cinematografía
Insurgentes Sur 674
Col. Del Valle
03100 Mexico D. F., Mexico
T. + 5255 54 485394
F. + 5255 54 485380
dirprom@imcine.gob.mx
www.imcine.gob.mx