Maria Candelaria (1944)

María Candelaria is a 1944 Mexican film directed by Emilio Fernández and starring Dolores del Río and Pedro Armendáriz. It was the first Mexican film to be screened at the Cannes International Film Festival where it won the Grand Prix (now known as the Palme d'Or) becoming the first Latin American film to do so. María Candelaria would later win a Silver Ariel award for Best Cinematography.

The film came to be regarded as one of Fernández's best works in which he portrays the indigenous people of Mexico with innocence and dignity. Fernández has said that he wrote an original version of the plot on 13 napkins while sitting in a restaurant. He was anxious because he was dating Dolores del Río and could not afford to buy her a birthday present. The film was first entitled Xochimilco and the protagonist was named María del Refugio.

Major themes in the film include melodrama, indigenousness, nationalism, and the beauty of Mexico. María Candelaria is one of Mexico's most beloved films of all time, and was ranked thirty-seventh among the top 100 films of Mexican cinema.

Synopsis

A young journalist presses an old artist (Alberto Galán) to show a portrait of a naked indigenous woman that he has in his study. The body of the movie is a flashback to Xochimilco, Mexico, in 1909. The film is set right before the Mexican Revolution, and Xochimilco is an area with beautiful landscapes inhabited mostly by indigenous people.

Actors