Al otro lado

Last updated
Al Otro Lado
Alotroladoposter.jpg
Directed by Gustavo Loza
Written byGustavo Loza
Produced by Elisa Salinas
Starring Adrian Alonso
Carmen Maura
Jorge Milo
Vanessa Bauche
Cinematography Gerónimo Denti
Patrick Murguia
Serguei Saldívar Tanaka
Edited byRoberto Bolado
Juan Fernández
Music by Hector Ruiz Quintanar
Distributed by Imcine
Release date
  • June 1, 2004 (2004-06-01)
Running time
90 minutes
LanguageSpanish

Al Otro Lado ("To The Other Side") is a 2004 Mexican film directed by Gustavo Loza. [1] The film follows the story of three children, one from Mexico, Cuba, and Morocco, as they attempt to deal with realities of immigration in their societies. The film won three awards at the Lleida Latin-American Film Festival in 2006, including Best Film and the Audience Award; Vanessa Bauche won best actress at the festival for her performance. [2] Al Otro Lado was also the Mexican candidate for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 78th Academy Awards, but was not selected as one of the final five nominees. [3]

Contents

Plot

Mexico

Priciliano, the first boy introduced in the story, has a very strong bond with his father. At the beginning of the film, his father tells him a story about a princess who was kidnapped by a conquistador and commits suicide in the lake he and his friend have been playing in. He is trying to teach his son the importance of respecting the dead, a very prevalent theme in Mexican culture. However, Priciliano is struck with grief when his father leaves his family to go find work "al otro lado" (on the other side). He is particularly upset because he is about to celebrate his ninth birthday, which his father will be missing. Frustrated, he attempts to cross the river to the other side with his friend and nearly drowns but is rescued by the ghost of the princess his father told him about. An older man in the community tells Priciliano that it is important to stay with his family because they need him, and the boy accepts his role as "the man of the house" in his father's place and begins to learn how to live everyday life without him.

Cuba

The second boy introduced in the story, Ángel, is ashamed of his mother, who may be a prostitute. He was told before the story began that his father is a famous person and lives "al otro lado." Desperate for a sense of pride, he and his friend, Walter, attempt to cross the ocean in a primitive raft to find his father. In their attempt, however, their raft is hit and overturned by a large wave. Walter drowns in the ensuing chaos, while Ángel miraculously escapes. He doesn't have the courage to tell his friend's mother of what happened and feels extremely guilty. He has dreams of Walter by the ocean. In the dreams, Walter yells at him that he must tell his mother the truth. His grandfather notices something is wrong and urges his mother to talk to him. He tells his mother a little of what happened in the ocean and why they were there, and his mother figures out the rest and tells him that his father knows nothing of Ángel's existence. But tells him that he is all that she and his grandfather have and vice versa. Ángel learns to be content in his situation and the cinematography suggests that his friend's death is no longer a burden to him, but a memory to carry with him.

Morocco

Fátima is a girl who runs away from home to find her father, bringing only a picture of him with her. She is intercepted, though, by human traffickers, who take her to Spain on their boat. Once the traders arrive, a woman who works with them refuses to send Fátima with the other girls because Fátima is too young and she had only asked for seven girls. This woman, who does not speak Arabic, takes Fátima in and eventually softens enough to drive Fátima to Málaga and help her find her father. The father is with a Spanish woman, but once confronted with his daughter, he leaves the other woman to return Fátima home. The movie ends with a shot of the two of them in front of their home village.

Related Research Articles

<i>From the Corner of His Eye</i>

From the Corner of His Eye is a novel by best-selling author Dean Koontz, released in 2000. It is the story of a boy named Barty Lampion, a ruthless killer named Junior Cain, and a girl named Angel, born as the result of a rape.

Vanessa Bauche Mexican actress

Vanessa Bauche is a Mexican television, theatre and film actress.

<i>Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman</i> Japanese short story collection

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is a collection of 24 short stories by Japanese author Haruki Murakami.

<i>Sexo, amor y otras perversiones</i> 2006 Mexican film

Sexo, amor y otras perversiones is a 2006 Mexican film made up of eight short films directed by the renowned Mexican film directors:

<i>El diario de Daniela</i>

El diario de Daniela is a Mexican child telenovela produced by Rosy Ocampo for Televisa in 1998.

<i>Marina</i> (2006 TV series)

Marina is a Spanish-language telenovela that aired on United States-based television network Telemundo. It premièred on October 16, 2006. The final original episode aired on Thursday, June 28, 2007.

<i>The House Across the Bay</i> 1940 American film

The House Across the Bay is a 1940 film directed by Archie Mayo, starring George Raft and Joan Bennett, produced by Walter Wanger, written by Myles Connolly and Kathryn Scola, and released by United Artists. The supporting cast features Lloyd Nolan, Walter Pidgeon and Gladys George.

<i>Winner Take All</i> (1932 film) 1932 film

Winner Take All is a 1932 American pre-Code drama film directed by Roy Del Ruth and starring James Cagney as a boxer. The film also features a single scene of George Raft conducting a band that had been lifted from Queen of the Nightclubs, an earlier film and lost film. Cagney and Raft would not make a full-fledged film together until Each Dawn I Die seven years later.

<i>Tears in the Rain</i> 1988 television movie

Tears in the Rain is a 1988 television film directed by Don Sharp and starring Sharon Stone and Christopher Cazenove. It was one of a series of films produced in the Harlequin Romance Movie Series (USA).

<i>La Rosa di Bagdad</i> 1949 Italian film

La Rosa di Bagdad is a 1949 Italian animated film by Anton Gino Domeneghini. In 1952, the film was dubbed into English, retitled The Singing Princess and dubbed by Julie Andrews as her first venture into voice-over work. The film was reissued in 1967, at the height of Andrews' subsequent Hollywood career. It is often cited as one of the first animated films from Europe and in Technicolor together with The Dynamite Brothers. It also Italy's first film in Technicolor.

The title "Manana Sera Otro Dia" is the name of a Mexican telenovela. It began in 1976, with principal actors Jacqueline Andere and Eduardo Fajardo. The title in English means "Tomorrow will be another day", similar to Scarlett O'Hara's famous lines, optimistic of future victory, in the 1939 film Gone with the Wind. In the Spanish title, the accented word "será" is pronounced as "say-Rah" but often the word for day is not accented.

<i>Tres mujeres</i> Mexican telenovela

Tres mujeres is a Mexican telenovela produced by Roberto Hernández Vázquez for Televisa in 1999-2000. When it came out it was such a success that they added 3x the normal amount of chapters. There are 280 Chapters when there are normally about 100 chapters. The Telenovela ended in 2000, which made it the longest Telenovela produced by Televisa until Clase 406.

The Boy and the Pope is a 1987 Colombian film that tells the story of a nine-year-old Mexican boy named Angel who wants to meet the Pope after he is a victim of the 1985 Mexico City earthquake.

Friends from the Other Side / Amigos del Otro Lado (1993) is a bilingual (Spanish/English) Latino children's book written by Mexican American/Chicana scholar Gloria E. Anzaldúa and illustrated by Consuelo Méndez Castillo. It is loosely based on Anzaldúa's early life in South Texas and tells the story of a young Chicana girl, Prietita, living near the US-Mexican border who befriends and helps a young Mexican boy, Joaquín, who has recently immigrated.

Natalia Almada

Natalia Almada is a Mexican-American photographer and filmmaker. Her work as a filmmaker focuses on Mexican history, politics, and culture in insightful and poetic films that push the boundaries of how the documentary form addresses social issues. Her films include "Everything Else " (2016), El Velador (2011), El General (2009), All Water Has a Perfect Memory (2001), and Al Otro Lado (2005), and her work has appeared at numerous national and international venues, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Sundance Film Festival, the Guggenheim Museum, the Munich International Film Festival, and the Cannes Directors' Fortnight. She won the 2009 Sundance Directing Award Documentary for her film "El General". She is a 2012 MacArthur Fellow and the first Latina filmmaker to win the award.

La otra familia is a 2011 family drama film starring Jorge Salinas, along with Luis Roberto Guzmán, Bruno Loza, Carmen Salinas and Ana Serradilla. It was directed and written by Gustavo Loza. The film was produced by the Black River Productions company and Barracuda Films. The filming began in 2010 in Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico, and was released on March 25, 2011.

<i>Dame Chocolate</i> American Spanish-language telenovela

Dame Chocolate is an American Spanish-language telenovela, which was produced by the United States-based television network Telemundo and aired from March 5 until October 5, 2007. This limited-run serial stars Génesis Rodríguez as a sweet, simple girl who leaves rural Mexico for Miami in the US to fulfill her destiny in the chocolate business. Elements of this romantic soap opera resemble Ugly Betty, the Tammy films, The Beverly Hillbillies and No Holds Barred.

<i>The Red Turtle</i> 2016 animated fantasy drama film

The Red Turtle is a 2016 animated fantasy drama film co-written and directed by Dutch animator Michaël Dudok de Wit and produced by Toshio Suzuki from Japan. The film is a co-production between Studio Ghibli and several French companies, including Wild Bunch, and tells the story of a man who becomes shipwrecked on a deserted island and meets a giant red female turtle. The film has no dialogue. It premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival. The film was nominated for the Best Animated Feature Film for the 89th Academy Awards.

<i>Palm Trees in the Snow</i> 2015 Spanish film

Palm Trees in the Snow is a 2015 Spanish romantic drama film directed by Fernando González Molina. Penned by Sergio G. Sánchez, the screenplay is based on the novel of the same name, Palmeras en la nieve, by Luz Gabás.

<i>¿Qué culpa tiene el niño?</i> 2016 film directed by Gustavo Loza

¿Qué culpa tiene el niño? is a 2016 Mexican comedy film directed by Gustavo Loza and distributed by Adicta Films. The film premiered on 13 May 2016, and stars Karla Souza, and Ricardo Abarca.

References

  1. ↑ Finnegan, Nuala. 2013. "Framing childhood, mediating identity: Re-imagining the family in Gustavo Loza's Al otro lado.Transnational Cinemas 4(2), 231-252.
  2. ↑ "La mexicana 'Al otro lado' copa los premios de la Muestra de Cine Latinoamericano de Lleida". 7 April 2006.
  3. ↑ "Hollywood Reporter: Hong Kong, Palestine, Mexico select Oscar contenders". 28 September 2005.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.