Que Viva Mexico ! film screening

About

Sergei Eisenstein’s Que Viva Mexico! (Da zdravstvuyet Meksika!, 1979) has been described as his “greatest film plan and his greatest personal tragedy.” Eisenstein’s lesser known film was a passion project which sought to create an expansive cinematic representation of Mexico’s cultural and political history from Mayan civilisation to its revolution from Spanish conquest in the early 1800s. Commissioned by the Mexican Film Trust and financiers Upton and Mary Sinclair in 1930, the film was shot between 1930-1932.The film has been praised for its exploration of Mexican folklore and mythicism, with Eisenstein’s roots in Soviet avant garde and unorthodox editing styles reinforcing themselves in this portrayal of Mexico. Although various versions exist of this project, SEAGER will be showing the most well-known and acclaimed; Grigori Alexandrov’s 1979 cut.