Adela Sequeyro

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Adela Sequeyro Haro (born March 11, 1901 in Veracruz , † December 24, 1992 in Mexico City ; also known as Perlita ) was a Mexican actress , film director , journalist and writer . She was one of the first female directors of Mexican film and worked at the time of silent films and after the emergence of talkies.

Life

Adela Sequeyro Haro was born on March 11, 1901 in the Mexican port city of Veracruz . Her family belonged to the middle class and had to leave the city as a result of the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution in 1910 and moved to Cuautilán , a suburb of Mexico City . In the Mexican capital, Sequeyro was a student at the English-French school. She started working as a journalist at a very early age. In the 1920s she first appeared as an actress in several silent films, mostly at the side of Ricardo Mutio , sometimes using the name Perlita . She made her debut in the film El hijo de la loca by José S. Ortiz in 1923. During the filming, she got to know the direction and developed her taste for melodrama . In 1925, Adela Sequeyro took part in a competition organized by the newspaper El demócrata , the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation and Kino Olimpia to show which Mexican woman could make a film. In addition to Sequeyro, Elena Sánchez Valenzuela, another early director of Mexican film, took part. The previously unknown Honoria Suárez emerged as the winner . Adela Sequeyro later stated that she lost due to a misunderstanding by the jury.

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Adela Sequeyro worked as a journalist for El demócrata, El universal ilustrado, Revista de revistas and El universal taurino. In this position, she met some important cultural workers, including the cartoonist Ernesto García Cabral , the painter and future director Adolfo Best Mugard , the author Arqueles Vela and the artist Matías Santoyo . At that time she was also active as a poet. In doing so, she did not follow avant-garde currents, but rather turned to romanticism .

As a result of the development of talkies in Mexico, Adela Sequeyro turned back to film. Among other things, she played in the 1933 film El prisionero trece by Fernando de Fuentes, which was received positively by critics . Adele Sequeyro wanted to join the film industry workers union, but was refused. Sequeyro then founded the production company Exito in 1935 together with some film technicians and with the support of the Banco de Crédito Popular . With this company she produced her first own film, Más allá de la muerte , in which she was assistant director and actress, wrote the screenplay and appeared as a producer. The film was not financially successful, so the production company went bankrupt. In 1937 Sequeyro founded another production company called Carola with her husband, Mario Tenorio . Sequeyro's film La mujer de nadie premiered on October 27, 1937 at the Belmolri Cinema in Mexico City . In his work Historia documental del cine mexicano, the Mexican film historian Emilio García Riera praised the artistic execution of the first Mexican sound film to be directed by a woman. He highlighted Alex Phillips' camerawork , beautifully designed sets, and Sequeyro's sense of framing that would cover the thinness of the story. Although the film was recognized artistically, it was not financially successful. Despite the financial difficulties, Adela Sequeyro was able to realize her last film Diablillos de arrabal the following year . The theme of the youth gangs was a concession to her husband. This film did not bring financial success either. Sequeyros had to give up the rights to her film.

After her third film, Adela Sequeyro gave up her career in the film industry. In the 1950s she started working as a journalist again. In the following decades she was repeatedly plagued by diseases. Filmmaker Marcela Fernández interviewed Violante Adela Sequeyro for his 1987 book about the female pioneers of Mexican film . This book brought Sequeyro back to mind, and she received recognition for her achievements. In the last years of her life, she was cared for by her daughter. Adela Sequeyros died on December 24, 1992 in Mexico City at the age of 91.

The three films in which Adela Sequeyro directed, was responsible for the script and took over the production, were considered lost. While Más allá de la muerte and La mujer de nadie were found, Diablillos de arrabal is still missing. With these discoveries came a reassessment of the importance of Sequeyro.

Filmography

actress
Director
scriptwriter
Producer
Film editor

literature

  • Eduardo de la Vega Alfaro, Patricia Torres San Martín and Julianne Burton-Carvajal: Adela Sequeyro, Mexican Film Pioneer , in: Journal of Film and Video, Vol. 44, No. 3/4, Latin American Cinema: Gender Perspectives (Fall 1992 and Winter 1993), pp. 27-32.
  • David R. Maciel, Joanne Hershfield: Mexico's Cinema: A Century of Film and Filmmakers. Sr Books, 1999, ISBN 978-0842026826 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b de la Vega Alfaro, Torres San Martín and Burton-Carvajal, p. 28.
  2. ^ Maciel, Hershfield, p. 38.
  3. ↑ de la Vega Alfaro, Torres San Martín and Burton-Carvajal, p. 29.
  4. ↑ de la Vega Alfaro, Torres San Martín and Burton-Carvajal, p. 30.
  5. ↑ Maciel, Hershfield, p. 39.
  6. ↑ a b de la Vega Alfaro, Torres San Martín and Burton-Carvajal, p. 27.
  7. ↑ a b de la Vega Alfaro, Torres San Martín and Burton-Carvajal, p. 31.
  8. ↑ David E. Wilt: "The Mexican Filmography 1916 through 2001" . McFarland & Co Inc, Jefferson NC 2004. page 39.
personal data
SURNAME Sequeyro, Adela
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sequeyro Haro, Adela (full name); Perlita
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Mexican actress, film director, journalist and writer
DATE OF BIRTH March 11, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Veracruz
DATE OF DEATH December 24, 1992
Place of death Mexico city