Films: Here and There

Here and There
Aquí y allá

Mexico, 2012, 110 Minute Running Time
Genre/Subjects: Drama, Latino, Social Issues
Programs: Contemporary World Cinema, New Directors Showcase
Language: Spanish English Subtitles

DIRECTOR: Antonio Méndez Esparza
Producer: Ori Dov Gratch, Tim Hobbs, Pedro Hernández Santos
Editor: Filippo Conz
Screenwriter: Antonio Méndez Esparza
Cinematographer: Barbu Balasoiu
Principal Cast: Teresa Ramírez Aguirre, Pedro de los Santos Juárez, Lorena Guadalupe Pantaleón Vázquez, Heidi Laura Solano Espinoza

Director Antonio Méndez Esparza’s feature-length debut, Aquí y Allá, garnered the Critic’s Week Prize at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. Pedro returns to his village in Mexico after years of working in the U.S. to reunite with the family he left behind. His daughters have grown up without him, and while he re-establishes himself as father and husband, he tries to realize his dream of starting a band—his own version of the ‘”American Dream.” He struggles to balance the life he had “there” and the life he returns to. From the get-go, we are intimate observers of the imminent and painful collapse of the situation.


Pedro’s wife, Teresa, is skeptical yet impassive; his younger daughter, Heidi, adoring; and moody older daughter Lorena is bored and rebellious. Meanwhile, Pedro mentors a young dropout faced with a dismal future who wants to try his luck at a life across the border. When Teresa becomes pregnant and suffers complications, she lands in the hospital. Soon, Pedro’s economic struggles force him to make a difficult decision: stay and be the man of the family, or return to the U.S. to be a better provider, albeit from afar.


The location of Tlapa, Guerrero, provides a slice of typical Mexican life. Slow-moving and subtle but richly layered, Aquí y Allá is a delicate character and cultural study. As it piles on the emotional drama, it highlights the stresses of emigration on family and examines the endless cycle of movement between the U.S. and its neighbor to the south.


- REBECCA CARO

Click here for Information on Group Rates and Discounts!

You might also enjoy...

• 

  Beauty

  Argentina , 2012 , 83 min. Yola, an indigenous girl employed as a maid in a remote village in Argentina, learns a hard truth of modern society. As the family she works for prepares a coming-out party for their daughter, Yola is taken advantage of in a devious, unexpected way.... more
• 

  Color of the Ocean

  Germany , 2011 , 95 min. Writer/director Maggie Peren weaves the lives of her three main characters—a disgruntled cop, a benevolent tourist, and an illegal immigrant—into a story of intrigue set in the Canary Islands. In Color of the Ocean, no good deed goes unpunished as their fates intertwine.... more
• 

  Germania

  Argentina , 2012 , 75 min. A Volga German family on a farm in northern Argentina is beset by a mysterious plague, and some neighbors suspect divine punishment. Argentinian director/writer Maximiliano Schonfeld’s drama provides no answers.... more
• 

  La Camioneta

  USA , 2012 , 71 min. A document of the beauty, joy, fear, and danger that surround an ordinary vehicle. An American school bus auctioned off for a few thousand dollars finds new life in the hills of Guatemala, where organized crime rules the lives of all who pass through.... more