El Prisionero 13/ Prisoner 13

Mexico (1933) /76min/Black&White

Director: Fernando de Fuentes
Screenplay: Miguel Ruiz, Fernando de Fuentes
Cast: Adela Sequeyro, Alfredo del Diestro, Arturo Campoamor.
Music: Guillermo A. Posadas
Cinematography: Ross Fisher

The film focuses on the drunkard Colonel Carrasco, whose wife Marta leaves him taking his young son. The child, Juan, grows into an admirable and well-mannered young man. Having been promoted to a higher rank of power amidst the Mexican Revolution, the indulgent and corrupt Colonel accepts a bribe to free a revolutionary, Felipe Martinez, from his prison. Martinez has been sentenced to execution at the hands of a firing squad. Carrasco asks to have the revolutionary replaced by absolutely anyone. In a twist of fate, that anyone turns out to be his own long lost son Juan. El Prisionero 13 (Prisoner 13) is part of the trilogy of films made by Fernando Fuentes concerning the Mexican Revolution. Like many of the young Mexican directors of 30s, the greatest influence than De Fuentes received in those years was without a doubt the work of Russian director Sergei M. Eisenstein, who started visiting Mexico in 1930.

UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE EMBASSY OF MEXICO