| Canoa: A Shameful Memory | |
|---|---|
 Criterion Collection DVD cover | |
| Directed by | Felipe Cazals |
| Screenplay by | Tomás Pérez Turrent |
| Produced by | Roberto Lozoya |
| Starring | Arturo Alegro |
| Cinematography | Álex Phillips Jr. |
| Edited by | Rafael Ceballos |
Release date |
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Running time | 115 minutes |
| Country | Mexico |
| Language | Spanish |
Canoa: A Shameful Memory (Spanish : Canoa: memoria de un hecho vergonzoso) is a 1976 Mexican drama film directed by Felipe Cazals, based upon the San Miguel Canoa Massacre. [1]
The film is a dramatic re-enactment of real-life events that took place in 1968 in the small village of San Miguel Canoa in Puebla, Mexico. There, a group of five young employees of the Autonomous University of Puebla intended to spend the night en route to a hike up La Malinche. The group was viciously set upon by villagers who had been manipulated by a local right-wing priest to believe them to be Communist revolutionaries and deserved lynching.
The film is shot in a documentary style and examines the pervasive atmosphere of repression in the country following wide-spread protests over the government's spending on the 1968 Summer Olympics, eventually leading to a massacre of hundreds of protestors in Mexico City.
The film was shot in the town of Santa Rita Tlahuapan, with Cazals paying 14,000 pesos per week to the town priest to do so. [2] [3]
It was one of the first movies to express the tone of the time of the setting: Mexico 1968, when student turmoils were spread across the country. It was entered into the 26th Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the Silver Bear - Special Jury Prize. [4]
The film was both a critical and a box-office success. [5] Mexican filmmakers Guillermo del Toro and Alfonso Cuarón have praised the film. [6] The film ranked 14th on the list of the 100 best films of Mexican cinema, according to the opinion of 25 film critics and specialists in Mexico, published by Somos magazine in July 1994. [7]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 86% of 7 critics' reviews are positive. [8]