Los Lobos (film)

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Movie
Original title Los Lobos
Country of production Mexico , USA
original language Spanish , English , Cantonese
Publishing year 2019
length 95 minutes
Rod
Director Samuel Kishi Leopo
script Samuel Kishi Leopo,
Sofía Gómez Córdova ,
Luis Briones
music Kenji Kishi Leopo
camera Octavio Arauz
cut Yordi Capó ,
Carlos Espinoza Benítez ,
Samuel Kishi Leopo
occupation

Los Lobos is a film drama by Samuel Kishi Leopo , which celebrated in October 2019 at the Busan International Film Festival made its debut and in February 2020 as part of the Berlin International Film Festival presented and next to the Grand Prize of the International Jury of the section Generation Kplus awarded the Peace Film Award has been.

action

Lucía, who comes from Mexico, crosses the US border in Ciudad Juárez with her two sons, 8-year-old Max and his little brother Leo . Albuquerque is the destination of their trip. Because the apartment of Mr. and Mrs. Chang, which they had in mind, seems too expensive to her, she tries to find another apartment with her two sons. But because they are even more expensive or they would have to share the bathroom with other tenants, they accept the Changs offer. Lucía has to pay $ 500 a month for the shabby, unfurnished one-room apartment on the outskirts of the city. First of all, the three of them make their new place really clean.

It is important for them that they learn English as quickly as possible. Lucía speaks her boys vocabulary on tape, although she does not speak the language herself. She sets strict rules for Max and Leo. You should keep the apartment clean and not go outside, because all sorts of dangers lurk outside. Max and Leo don't know why their father, who worked as a policeman, left the family and now all the responsibility for the children rests on Lucía's shoulders.

Every day Max and Leo wait anew for their mother to come home, sometimes a long time because some of their many jobs are often very far from their new home. The boys are bored in the barren apartment. Sometimes her landlady, Mrs. Chang, drops in, brings food, lets the boys help her with carrying the shopping bags and cooks for her. But not everyone is so nice to them. When the two boys unexpectedly get a visit from a group of children that Max met on one of his secret excursions through the new neighborhood, they don't want to tell their mother about it at first. But because Lucía has to find out that the cookie jar and all her savings are gone, the children confess to her what happened. However, Kevin, whom they suspect, denies stealing the money.

Mrs. Chang shows the boys the comforts of living in the USA. On Halloween she lets them in on the traditions of this day and shows them how they can get lots of sweets if they just walk from door to door and speak the right words. When on Halloween evening the missing tin with the savings suddenly appears at the door again, Lucía takes her two boys and visits a Kiddieland amusement park with them. Although this is not Disneyland 12 hours away that Max and Leo really wanted to see, the three of them have fun there too.

production

“The place where we shot is called the“ War Zone ”. It's a neighborhood where people buy food and drugs with unemployment checks and then lock themselves in their homes for two weeks. If there's money, they'll come out again. It is an everyday life with a lot of drugs and a lot of loneliness. [...] I got to know the district as an aggressive, but paradoxically, warm place. I liked that."

- The director on the outskirts of Albuquerque

Directed by Samuel Kishi Leopo , who draws on his own childhood experiences in the film and is therefore autobiographical. When Leopo was five years old, his mother left his father and took him and his three-year-old brother Kenji to the United States on the false promise that they would "go to Disney". They crossed the border on tourist visas saying they wanted to visit Disneyland. His mother had no job, no shelter, and spoke no English. Her possessions were just a few clothes to change, a few toys and a Fisher Price audio recorder , the director said. Her mother locked her in a small apartment while she went to work. She had recorded stories on the recorder, but also the "house rules" that she had to observe.

Director Samuel Kishi Leopo

He came to Santa Ana , California with his mother , said Leopo, but when he did research for the film there, he discovered that the place had changed a lot. Therefore, the filming took place in the second largest Mexican city Guadalajara and in Albuquerque . On both sides of Central Avenue in the largest city in the US state of New Mexico with around 560,000 inhabitants, there is a district called the "War Zone". The director describes this “war zone” as a neighborhood in which people buy food and drugs with the unemployment check and then lock themselves in their houses for two weeks: “If there is money, they come out again.” The everyday life there is shaped by drugs and loneliness. The streets are mostly deserted during the day because of the heat, but also because there is little coexistence. Leopo explains that he got to know the district as an aggressive but, paradoxically, warm place: “I liked that. Not everything is darkness. There is light. That's what I wanted to tell you about in this film ”. In Albuquerque, Leopo had also found this feeling that reminded him very much of the Santa Ana of the 1980s.

The two child actors in the roles of Max and Leo, Maximiliano and Leonardo Nájar Márquez , are actually brothers. They both come from Tlajomulco de Zúñiga in the Mexican state of Jalisco and were selected from around 900 auditing children. Martha Reyes Arias plays her mother Lucía.

The director works a lot for his film with his brother Kenji Kishi Leopo , who is a musician and also put together the film music.

The film premiered on October 15, 2019 at the Busan International Film Festival. From February 24, 2020, the film was shown in the Generation Kplus section of the Berlin International Film Festival . Leopo had already presented his film Somos Mari Pepa there in 2014 . For Los Lobos, the director works with many of those involved in his first contribution to the Berlinale and also with the Jalisco State Film Commission. Before the coronoavirus pandemic, the plan was to release the film in Mexican cinemas in late April or mid-May 2020. At the end of August 2020, the film was presented in the children's and youth program at the Molodist International Film Festival , which took place in a hybrid version.

Awards

Berlin International Film Festival 2020

Miami Film Festival 2020

  • Award for best film in the HBO Ibero-American Competition

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Eva-Chistina Meier: Berlinale director Samuel Kishi Leopo: “Not everything is darkness”. In: taz.de, February 22, 2020.
  2. ↑ Los lobos / The Wolves. In: berlinale.de. Retrieved March 18, 2020.
  3. ↑ a b c d Cinta mexicana “Los lobos” ganó the Gran Premio del Jurado Internacional and the Festival de Berlin. In: infobae.com, March 1, 2020 (Spanish)
  4. ↑ a b c d Gabriela Martínez: Los lobos, una carta de amor: Entrevista a Samuel Kishi. In: moreliafilmfest.com, March 13, 2020 (Spanish)
  5. ↑ https://news.yahoo.com/figa-films-nets-samuel-kishi-124633416.html
  6. ↑ https://www.quora.com/What-is-Albuquerques-War-Zone-and-why-is-it-call-that-way
  7. ↑ https://www.abqjournal.com/1057743/residents-clean-up-southeast-abq-area.html
  8. ↑ 150 films: International film festival “Molodist” announced the program. In: cinema.in.ua, August 8, 2020.
  9. ↑ 19 Berlinale films nominated for the Amnesty Film Prize 2020. In: amnesty.de, February 20, 2020.
  10. ↑ 70th Berlinale: The Awards / The Prizes. In: berlinale.de. Retrieved March 18, 2020 (PDF; 293 KB)
  11. ↑ 'When Liberty Burns' and 'La Llorona' Win Top Jury Awards At 37th Miami Film Festival; 'The Fight' and '90 Minutes' Take Audience Awards. In: miamifilmfestival.com, March 23, 2020.