El Ciruleo
Emiliano Altuna, Carlos Rossini / Mexico / 2008 / 70 min / Colour
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
Credits
Language Spanish Screenplay Carlos Rossini, Emiliano Altuna Cinematography Lauracarmen Magaña, Carlos Rossini, Emiliano Altuna Sound Daniel Hidalgo Editing Pedro G. García, Carlos Rossini, Emiliano Altuna 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