Que Viva Mexico!

Russia (1979) /90min/Black&White

Director: Sergei M. Eisenstein
Screenplay: Grigori Aleksandrov , Sergei M. Eisenstein
Cinematography: Eduard Tisse

Eisenstein shot somewhere between 175,000 and 250,000 lineal feet of film (30 to 50 hours) before, for a variety of reasons, the Mexican Film Trust stopped production, and still was not completed as planned by Eisenstein. Again for several reasons, Eisenstein was not allowed to return to the United States to construct a finished film, nor could the footage be sent to the USSR for completion by him there.
Eisenstein shows us Mexico in this movie, its history and its culture. He believes, that Mexico can become a modern state. He had no idea what to expect in Mexico, it was just all in the realm of imagination and fantastic expectations. In Alexandrov’s 1979 version, which attempts to be as faithful as possible to Eisenstein’s original vision, the film unfolds as follows. The prologue is set in the time of Maya civilization, later it shows life including marriage and motherhood in Tehuantepec and in the last part it depicts the celebration of the Holy Virgin of Guadalupe, and then bullfighting in the Spanish colonial era.

Awards: Gold Prize in Film festival of Moscow, 1979

UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE EMBASSY OF MEXICO