Casals, Felipe (1937–)

Felipe Casals (b. 28 July 1937), Mexican film director, born in France but raised in Zapopán, Jalisco, and Mexico City. Casals studied film in Paris. He is one of the leading directors of the generation of 1968, which contributed greatly to a brief flowering of Mexican cinema in the 1970s. Among the most celebrated of his films are Canoa (1974), El apando (1975), Las poquianchis (1976), El año de la peste (1978), Bajo la metralla (1982), Los motivos de Luz (1985), and El tres de copas (1986). In 2006 he won the Mexican Silver Ariel award for his film Vueltas del citrillo. Casals's films are characterized by hard-hitting, violent portrayals of Mexican national issues, particularly social strife and the underclass. Most of his films have been produced by the state. He received the Ariel from the Mexican Film Academy for best director for El año de la peste and Bajo la metralla. He has filmed other minor features for the video market, such as Las abandonadas and a musical biography of the popular singer Rigo Tovar, entitled Rigo es amor.

See alsoCinema: From the Silent Film to 1900 .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Luis Reyes De La Maza, El cine sonoro en México (1973).

E. Bradford Burns, Latin American Cinema: Film and History (1975).

Carl J. Mora, Mexican Cinema: Reflections of a Society: 1896–1980 (1982).

John King, Magical Reels: A History of Cinema in Latin America (1990).

Additional Bibliography

García Tsao, Leonardo. Felipe Cazals habla de su cine. Guadalajara: Universidad de Guadalajara, 1994.

                                          David Maciel