Perdida

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After being told that her family had made some of the worst films in the history of Mexican cinema, Viviana spent many years ashamed of that legacy and distanced herself from everything that the Calderón family had ever done.

But a chance encounter sparked her interest and led to a 3-year quest to uncover the story of a family that had been involved in all aspects of the film business in Mexico and the United States — theaters, distribution, and production — whose rise and fall throughout the 20th century closely mirrored that of Mexican cinema as a whole, a once-powerful film industry that was now virtually nonexistent.

The story that Viviana discovered through old film reels, photographs, newspaper articles, clips from the family's film vaults, and interviews with the survivors of Mexican cinema's golden eras included tales of romance and stories about movie and music legends like Ricardo Montalbán and the mambo king Damaso Perez Prado. This journey allowed her to make peace with a legacy of film pioneers.

"Mexican film history gets an amusing and surprisingly personal overhaul in "Perdida," as Viviana Garcia Besne -- granddaughter of the Calderon dynasty -- gleefully liberates skeletons from closets and apocryphal footage from forbidden vaults in an earnest albeit frequently hilarious effort to clear things up about her family's unorthodox contributions to the art." - Peter Debruge, Variety

"Its interest to film buffs — especially those with tastes toward the psychotronic — is undeniable. —Rod Lott, Film Attack

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Main credits

García, Viviana (film director)
García, Viviana (screenwriter)
Tremps, Alistair (film producer)

Other credits

Cinematography and editing, Viviana García-Besné; music, Anahit Simonian.

MARC Record See Worldcat record

Keywords

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