Bajo California: El limite del tiempo
Mexico,
1998, 96 min
Shown in 1999
CREDITS
- dir
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Carlos Bolado
- scr
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Carlos Bolado, Ariel García
- cam
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Rafael Ortega, Claudio Rocha
- editor
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Carlos Bolado
- cast
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Damián Alcázar, Jesus Ochoa, Fernando Torre Laphan, Claudette Maillé, Gabriel Retes
- source
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IMCINE, Tepic #40, Mexico D.F, 06760 Mexico. FAX: 52-5-564-4187. EMAIL: prominent@imcine.gob.mx
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COMMENTS
Skyy Prize contender. Carlos Bolado in person.
OTHER
Carlos Bolado’s Under California is a riveting examination of a man’s odyssey into family, identity, nature and the healing power of art. Damián is a successful environmental artist who’s been the driver in a hit-and-run accident with a pregnant woman crossing the Mexico-U.S. border. Tormented by guilt, Damián, whose own wife is about to have their first child, abandons his home to seek redemption. He embarks on a physical and spiritual journey to his ancestral homeland in Baja California, traveling to the remote mountain village in the Sierras where his grandmother is buried. While crossing the harsh, sun-drenched desert, Damián’s belief in the power of ritual and his art are put to the test as he confronts the ghosts of those who dwelt there—and, ultimately, faces his own mortality. Finally, in a place where pre-Columbian cave paintings echo the ages, Damián regains his passion for life and comes full circle in his search for atonement. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Amiens International Film Festival (France), this magical, richly textured first feature by one of Mexico’s top film editors (Like Water for Chocolate) is a remarkably subtle and mesmerizing film of great intelligence, emotional power and visual beauty.
—Julia Segrove-Jauriqui
FACTOID #27
A surrealist stop-motion animator, the Czech Jan Svankmajer, was the first recipient of the Golden Gate Persistence of Vision Award in 1997. The POV Award honors the lifetime achievement of a filmmaker who works outside of feature-length narrative filmmaking.
