El velador (Mexico, 2011): A Theater Near You

Film - Documentary | July 15 | 5:30 p.m. |  PFA Theater

Sponsor: Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

(The Night Watchman). “El Jardin,” a cemetery in the notoriously narco-friendly city of Cualican, Sinaloa, is a bustling necropolis where the literal spoils of drug trafficking find their resting place. The cemetery is filled with lavish, multistoried mausoleums built by cartel kingpins as tribute to their infamy. Natalia Almada, whose last film, El general, was a favorite at Sundance, follows an impassive watchman who minds the ever-expanding graveyard. As workmen construct the next grotesque crypt, lamentations of the bereaved can be heard echoing through the sepulchers. These are not grievings for the kingpins, but for the victims of violence, whose fate is one of the many empty graves.

—Steve Seid

• Written, photographed by Almada. (72 mins, In Spanish with English Subtitles, Color, DigiBeta, From Icarus Films)

Tickets: $5.50 BAM/PFA members and UC Berkeley students,  $6.50 Non-UC Berkeley students, senior citizens (65 & over), disabled persons, and young adults (13-17),  $9.50 General admission

Event Contact: 510-642-0808