NATALIA ALMADA

2012 MacArthur “Genius” fellow and two-time recipient of the Sundance Documentary Directing Award for El General in 2009 and Users in 2021, Natalia Almada's directing credits include–Todo lo demás (New York Film Festival 2016), El Velador (Cannes 2011), Al Otro Lado (Tribeca 2005) and All Water has a Perfect Memory (Sundance 2002). She lives in Mexico City and San Francisco.

MACARTHUR FELLOWSHIP INTERVIEW
ALPERT AWARD INTERVIEW
TEDx SAN MIGUEL TALK
BOMB MAGAZINE INTERVIEW
ART 21
INDIANA UNIVERSITY CINEMA TALK
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FILMOGRAPHY

El Velador, 2011

Todo lo demás, 2016

Doña Flor is a bureaucrat. It is in everything that comprises her, her non-descript beige blouse, practical heels and knee-length skirts. For over three decades she has attended frustrated and indignant citizens to whom she is nothing but an invisible, lifeless bureaucrat, and has returned each evening to her cat and solitary apartment where she makes obsessive lists of the people she attended to during the day. Inspired by Hannah Arendt’s idea that bureaucracy is one of the worst forms of violence, "Todo lo demás" explores the interior life of Doña Flor as she attempts to resurface. A kind of “observational narrative” the film is a mesmerizing contemplation on solitude.

AVAILABLE THROUGH CINEMA TROPICAL

El Velador, 2011

El Velador, 2011

From dusk to dawn EL VELADOR accompanies Martin, the guardian angel whom, night after night, watches over the extravagant mausoleums of some of Mexico's most notorious Drug Lords. In the labyrinth of the cemetery, this film about violence without violence reminds us how, in the turmoil of Mexico's bloodiest conflict since the Revolution, ordinary life persists and quietly defies the dead.

AVAILABLE THROUGH ICARUS FILMS

El General, 2009

El General, 2009

In 1910 a revolution erupted in Mexico, among its rallying cries "the right to vote." Nearly a century later "Sufragio Efectivo" is heard again as thousands take to the streets. Through the legacy that filmmaker Natalia Almada inherited as the great-granddaughter of Mexican president Plutarco Elias Calles (1924-1928), one of Mexico's most controversial revolutionary figures accused of having been a "Dictator", "Iron Man" and "Nun-Burner", yet also acclaimed for having been the "father of modern Mexico," El General is a portrait of a family and a country under the shadow of the past.

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Al Otro Lado, 2005

Al Otro Lado, 2005

An aspiring corrido composer from the drug capital of Mexico faces two choices to better his life: to traffic drugs or to cross the border illegally into the United States. From Sinaloa, Mexico to the streets of South Central and East L.A., “Al Otro Lado” explores the world of drug smuggling, illegal immigration and the corrido music that chronicles it all.

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All Water Has A Perfect Memory

All Water Has A Perfect Memory, 2001

”All Water has a Perfect Memory” is a poignant experimental documentary that explores the effects of tragedy and remembrance on a bi-cultural family. This moving piece lyrically meditates on the cultural and gender differences between the filmmaker's North American mother and Mexican father as they evoke the loss of their child.

AVAILABLE THROUGH WOMEN MAKE MOVIES

Altamura Films / Natalia Almada
natalia@altamurafilms.com
USA (+1 347) 228 8368
MÉXICO (+52 55) 5207 4401