All Entries in the "culture" Category
Filmmakers document consequences of U.S. immigration raid
Back in May 2008, U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials rounded up 389 undocumented workers in the Agriprocessors Inc. kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa. The raid was the largest in U.S history.
Two weeks later, filmmakers Jennifer Szymaszek and Greg Brosnan started filming “In the Shadow of the Raid,” a documentary film showing at the [...]
Death in El Salvador
The killing of documentary maker Christian Poveda represents a sad loss for a region much in need of greater understanding.
Video: ‘I’ve never been afraid’: Director, recently slain, talks about filming El Salvador’s gangs
Photographer and filmmaker Christian Poveda was shot dead in El Salvador Sept. 2, 2009. He spent more than 16 months, every day, with the mara gangs of San Salvador to make the 2009 documentary “La Vida Loca.” This is footage from an interview conducted by the Los Angeles Times’ Deborah Bonello with Poveda a few [...]
Christian Poveda, “la Vida Loca” director, killed in El Salvador
Reports have surfaced that French photographer and director Christian Poveda has been shot and killed in El Salvador, possibly by the gangs that his recently released documentary “La Vida Loca (the Crazy Life)” focused on.
Reuters reports:
Suspected Salvadorean gang members killed French filmmaker Christian Poveda, whose 2008 film “La Vida Loca” crudely depicts the hopeless lives [...]
Art museums struggle in Mexico City
For Mexico, which prides itself on a unique artistic tradition, the crisis resulting from the global economic meltdown and swine flu is particularly acute, and is being felt by the country’s artistic community and museums.
Video: Hairless dogs in competition; meet Mexico’s Xoloitzcuintles
Spend any time on the streets of Mexico, and you will eventually see them. Mexico’s hairless brown or red-skinned dogs — the Xoloitzcuintle (pronounced sholo-squint-lay).
Mexico City fans practice Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ moves
Mexico City’s Michael Jackson fans got together Tuesday morning to practice the recently deceased singer’s famous “Thriller” dance in front of the Palacio de Bellas Artes downtown.
Video: Mexico City mural makeover
A government project mobilized more than 1,000 youngsters earlier this month to clean up and repaint a graffiti-covered wall in the south of the city, as part of an urban spruce-up scheme for the summer.
Mexico beats U.S in soccer showdown
A T-shirt for sale outside Mexico City’s Stadium Azteca yesterday afternoon, during a World Cup qualifying match between the U.S and Mexico, which Mexico won 2:1.
Human rights hit the big screen in second film festival
Mexico’s second annual human rights film festival, supported by a number of organizations here including the Mexico branch of Amnesty International, the Ambulante documentary film project and Mexico City’s Human Rights Commission, opens at the end of the week.
Video: Mexican day laborers are ‘Los Bastardos’ in fictional work
At first glance, “Los Bastardos” seems a surprising film for a Mexican director to make.
Mexican image of Brazil wins World Press Photo prize
Mexican photographer Carlos Cazalis was one of the winners in this year’s World Press Photo contest. The photographer was given first prize in the Contemporary Issues section for this image he took in São Paulo, Brazil, last year.
The photo shows a man sleeping, wrapped in a blanket against the cold, outside São Paulo’s elite [...]
New buses reform Mexico City’s Reforma
Avenida de la Reforma is a six-lane traffic artery that cuts all the way across Mexico City and is one of the most-transited roads here, both day and night. But commuters might enjoy a little less traffic, noise and pollution from now on: The city has just introduced 173 new buses that will replace the [...]
How funny will Mexicans find ‘Bruno’?
It will be interesting to see how Sacha Baron Cohen’s new movie, Brüno, is received here in Mexico when it launches in cinemas at the end of September.
Video: Mexico’s Rivera murals get restoration treatment
Mexico City’s Diego Rivera murals are undergoing restoration treatment.
Mexican band mourns MJ with tribute
A Sonoran Norteño group in Mexico, Los Picadientes del Caborca, have come up with a purely Mexican version of MJ’s classic, “Billy Jean.”
Blumpi: Annul the Vote?
How will you vote this Sunday?
Jorge Flores-Oliver, Blumpi (1978).
Mexican freelance illustrator, cartoonist and writer.
Contributes for Milenio Semanal, La Tempestad and Tierra Adentro.
Member of the board of Replicante magazine.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/blumpi/
http://brutalblumpi.blogspot.com/
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Wives left behind by migrants in Mexico suffer poorer mental health
Mexican women left behind by husbands who migrate to the United States in search of work were one of the focuses of the documentary “Los Que Se Quedan,” or “Those Who Remain,” by Carlos Hagerman and Juan Carlos Rulfo, which we’ve mentioned a number of times here on La Plaza.
In response to those [...]
Video: “Tracing Aleida” director on making the film and Mexico’s “dirty war”
This is a longer version of an edited interview with the director Christiane Burkhard about her documentary film project, “Tracing Aleida”.
Intersections of Mexico City and Los Angeles
For those of you who follow other bloggers here in Mexico City, or are a regular visitor to my links, you will know Daniel Hernandez, creator of Intersections, and an author and journalist living here in Mexico City.
Daniel is currently in Los Angeles where he is going to be speaking at MOCA as part of [...]
Journalists reporting, and surviving, Ciudad Juárez, Mexico
The Committee for the Protection of Journalists reports on journalists working in the northern border town of Ciudad Juarez.
Cafe Tacuba Uncut
For the hardcore Cafe Tacuba fans out there, here is the uncut material from the interview that I did with two of the band members.
More jump ship from The News
Only four of the original 14 people rehired by Grupo Mac to man the News, Mexico City’s struggling English-language newspaper, remain at the title.
Jumex Collection owner says architectural choice not `malinchismo’
It’s not “malinchismo”, no way. I’ve always believed that the internationalization of projects can benefit and nourish the vision of many people in the country where the projects originate as well those who receive the works from abroad.
How Cafe Tacuba sprained my ankle
This is probably the least exciting location from which I have filed a dispatch. My sofa, in my third-floor apartment, my snowball-like foot propped up on a couple of cushions as I look out onto the cloudy Mexico City panorama this morning.
What happened? Well, it’s all Cafe Tacuba’s fault really.
I interviewed two of the [...]
Video: Gallery takes graffiti off the streets
“Cavemen Did It First” is the first permanent art space in the city dedicated exclusively to graffiti.
First Stop in the New World: Taxi Ride
This is the final in our series of extracts from David Lida’s book “First Stop in the New World,” which has just come out in paperback. The book is divided between long chapters that deal with topics of great importance in Mexico City (crime, inequality, food, sex and even shopping), and shorter chapters that provide [...]
First Stop in the New World: the Reality of Crime
This week MexicoReporter.com is publishing a series of extracts from David Lida’s book “First Stop in the New World,” which has just come out in paperback. The book is divided between long chapters that deal with topics of great importance in Mexico City (crime, inequality, food, sex and even shopping), and shorter chapters that provide [...]
Coleccion Jumex moves closer to Mexico City action
La Coleccion Jumex, one of the largest private collections of contemporary art open to the public in Latin America, is planning to move from its location on the outskirts of Mexico City closer to the action in the capital’s center.
Flour or corn tortillas?
I now realize that flour tortila love is a big part of my So-Cal identity, and I’m not the only one.
First Stop in the New World: Street Children in Mexico City
Her face is oval and nut-colored, with the enormous eyes of a gazelle. Montse’s expression is serious, cautious, pensative.
Preview the Mexican movies hitting Los Angeles in Hola Mexico festival
L.A. audiences would seem to need no introduction to Mexican cinema.
First Stop in the New World: Where the Money is, and Isn’t
This week MexicoReporter.com is publishing a series of extracts from David Lida’s book “First Stop in the New World,” which has just come out in paperback. The book is divided between long chapters that deal with topics of great importance in Mexico City (crime, inequality, food, sex and even shopping), and shorter chapters that provide [...]
Fiction series on Mara Salvatrucha wins Webby Award
“The Ten Commandments of la Vida Loca, ” received the Webby Award for best drama series during a weekend ceremony in New York.
First Stop in the New World: dollar-a-dance hostess
This week MexicoReporter.com will be publishing a series of extracts from David Lida’s book “First Stop in the New World.”
Video: American design duo launches arts and culture mag in Nicaragua
Nicaragua’s culture, arts and music scene is the focus of a new magazine launched by two American designers living in the country’s capital, Managua.
Picture perfect this morning – Chapultepec lake
Clouds reflected in one of the lakes in Chapultepec Park early this morning.
Editorial: The News – what about the writers?
I wanted to add more details to the dispatch I filed today for the Los Angeles Times and MexicoReporter.com on the changes at the News. There were some details that didn’t seem worth including for the LATimes readers, but I wanted to share them with you here.
