Maria Novaro

María Novaro (born María Luisa Novaro Peñaloza; September 11, 1951, in Mexico City) is a Mexican film director. She was among the first generation of female filmmakers to graduate from a film school in Mexico. She has made six feature films and fourteen short films. Within the Mexican film industry, she has been a cinematographer, sound mixer, director, screenwriter and editor. Today, Novaro is one of the best known Mexican filmmakers to come out of the New Mexican Cinema and her films express Millian's idea of cinema in feminine.

Education María Novaro studied sociology at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, UNAM. After gaining some interest in filmmaking she decided to study film at the Centro Universitario de Estudios Cinematográficos based in UNAM. In 1981, while at the Centro Universitario de Estudios Cinematográficos, she made her first short films Lavaderos, sobre las olas and De encaje y azúcar all on a super 8 camera. Later became a member of the Cine Mujer collective, which was a women's film collective interested in women's stories and creating opportunities for women in the Mexican film industry, and who joins her countryman and fellow director Jaime Humberto Hermosillo in her desire to make films that contemplate the macho-dominated culture of Mexico— she from the feminine perspective (not feminist, she insists), he from the homosexual one. It is this collective in which Novaro directed Es la Primera Vez in 1981. In this short film, a young girl goes on a journey to the Guerrero coast in search for a mother that abandoned her. The theme of a female protagonist on a journey through contemporary Mexico in search of something or someone is established in this short film and is carried out throughout her films. Lola, named after the protagonist, tells the story of a woman that has been abandoned by her daughter's father. She is confronted with isolation and hopelessness in vast Mexico City as she tries to relocate her daughter's father. Many feminist criticizes the passive Lola character and the way in which she cannot overcome her abandonment. However, Novaro has said that she refuses to be limited by taking a political stance and does not consider her work to be feminist. In an interview with Isabel Arredondo, Novaro has said that with Lola, she was not only interested in the story of Lola and her child but the film was a way to “reflect profoundly on women, motherhood and Mexico City”. Therefore, Lola being controlled by her emotions makes her an accurate depiction of a woman going through abandonment.

Danzon As she was finishing the editing of Lola she decided to write a much lighter story and in collaboration with her sister wrote Danzón (1991)

Novaro decided to play with the traditional melodrama genre, which is very popular amongst Mexican women, by adding humor to the movie.

El Jardín de Eden The Garden of Eden (1994) was filmed in Tijuana and its surroundings on both sides of the border between Mexico and the United States. It was a co-production with France and Canada. Premiered at the Venice Festival of 1994, it had a wide European distribution. It received a Coral Prize in Havana, the Glauber Rocha Award from the Latin American specialized critics, and the best actor award at the Festival de Cartagena (to Bruno Bichir). This film was not shown on Mexican screens as a result of the recent North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), in which cinema was not protected as a cultural exception.

Sin Dejar Huella Without Leaving a Trace (2000) is a road movie that was filmed in a long journey from Ciudad Juárez to the Mexican Caribbean coast in Quintana Roo. Starring Tiaré Scanda and Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, it was a co-production with Spain and had its world premiere in San Sebastián. Awarded as the best Latin American film at the 2001 Sundance Festival, she also won the Audience Award at the Los Angeles Latino Festival, the Audience Award at the Guadalajara Festival and the Critics' Award. He won two Ariel awards: for best photography and best special effects.

Las Buenas Hierbas The Good Herbs (2010), starring Úrsula Pruneda, Ofelia Medina, and Ana Ofelia Murguía, premiered at the Rome Festival, where she won the Best Female Performance Award (shared with her three protagonists). On this occasion, she e fully explored the world of mother-daughter relationships, Alzheimer's and ethnobotany.

Winning eight Maguey awards at the Guadalajara Festival, including the audience award for the best film, best screenplay, best female performance (Ursula Pruneda) and best photography, among others. She received two awards at the Amazonas Film Festival (best screenplay and best female performance) and also received two Ariel awards, one for better female co-act (Ofelia Medina) and another for visual effects (Alejandro Valle). In the Festival of Sto. Domingo received the best music award (La Lengua) and won the Grand Coral Third Prize at the Havana Film Festival that same year. Distributed mainly in Asian countries, it was commercialized for more than a year in several cities in Japan. Tesoros is thoroughly lit by bright warm colors and an eye for a palette of blues and yellows and standout reds that transfer the soft tones of the seascapes to open door houses, even a school, whose walls and shelves are spangled with lively toys and students’ paintings. When Novaro was questioned about her unusual choice of style for her new film she answered, “I was interested in making something different from what we normally get with children’s films. I wanted to make it very real. Although there is the fantasy in the children’s lives, I wanted to find a way for that fantasy to be completely linked to the real world, a world as experienced by children in my country. So I wrote the story to happen in this place, a paradise, though part of one of the most violent states in all Mexico, the state of Guerrero.” The recurrence of themes such as motherhood, female friendship and absent males provides an establishment of the protagonist turning to her fellow women for help and guidance. Novaro has also stated that in each film she has sought to tell the stories of one of the many Mexicos that exist. She is the scriptwriter of all her films; three of them were written in collaboration with his sister Beatriz Novaro. She has also been an editor and producer. She is currently reworking “La Lista”, a script that won the 1996 Cosme Alves Neto Award in Brazil for the best Latin American screenplay but never had the chance to film. Other projects that she failed to carry out in her difficult time during the second half of the 90s were: a film adaptation of Carlos Montemayor's novel, “Guerra en el paraíso”, and a screenplay by Rosa Nissan and Beatriz Novaro entitled “Suculentas” (based in Nissan's novel: The Journeys of My Body.) She has had a successful career in film teaching since 1996, teaching courses and workshops at CUEC, CCC (Cinematographic Training Center), at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, the University of Texas, Columbia University, SAE Institute-Mexico and in several Mexican states such as Chiapas, Sonora, and Nuevo León. She has thus contributed to the formation of several generations of filmmakers in Mexico. In 2006 he founded (along with a group of young filmmakers who graduated from the CCC and his former students) the production house Axolote Cine which to date has produced “Los Últimos Cristeros”, “Wadley” and “El Calambre”, by Matías Meyer, “Tormentero” and “Cephalopod”, by Rubén Imaz, “Strange but true”, and “Malaventura”, by Michel Lipkes, “Calle López” by Gerardo Barroso and Lisa Tillinger, “Mosca” and “La Nación Interior”, by Bulmaro Osornio, “Las Marimbas del Infierno”, by Julio Hernández. Axolote Cine was also the producer of “Las buenas hierbas”.

In 2007 she produced, together with Laura Imperiale, the film “Quemar las naves” by Francisco Franco Alba. For her most recent film, “Treasures”, she founded the Cine Ermitaño production house. Among the acknowledgments to her work are: the Guggenheim Scholarship (2005), the Gateways Grant (2003), the Rockefeller-MacArthur Scholarship (1992–93) and she has been a member of the National System of Creators in Mexico in several periods. Member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (USA), the Film Academy of Spain and AMACC in Mexico. Retrospectives and tributes to her work have been made; at Casa de América, Madrid (2010), a Tribute to her Artistic Career at the Monterrey Festival (2009), the MUSA recognition granted by Mujeres en la Cine y la Televisión A.C. (within the framework of the International Film Festival of Guanajuato, 2013) and a retrospective exhibition shared with Werner Herzog and Apichatpong Weerasethakul within the Film Festival in Kerala, India (2010), among others. She has 3 children (Mara, Santiago, and Lucero) and 3 grandchildren (Andrea, Dylan and Jacinta), and she always includes them in her curriculum.

Award and Nominations Film Awards Nominations Una Isla Rodeada de Agua (1985) Silver Ariel for Best Short Fiction Film Azul Celeste (1988) Golden Danzante award at the Huesca Film Festival Lola (1989) Silver Ariels at the Mexican Ariel Awards for Best First Work and Best Screenplay OCIC award at the Berlin International Film Festival Coral award at the Havana Film Festival for Best First Work Permio ACE for Best First Work in Cinema Silver Ariel for Best Original Story El Jardín del Edén (1994) Grand Coral Second Prize at the Havana Film Festival Silver Ariels for Best Direction and Best Original Story Sin Dejar Huella (2000) Latin American Cinema Award at the Sundance Film Festival in 2001 Silver Ariel for Best Screenplay Golden Shell at the San Sebastián International Film Festival Las Buenas Hierbas (2008) Grand Coral Third Prize at the Havana Film Festival Lola (1989) Silver Ariels at the Mexican Ariel Awards for Best First Work and Best Screenplay OCIC award at the Berlin International Film Festival Coral award at the Havana Film Festival for Best First Work Permio ACE for Best First Work in Cinema Silver Ariel for Best Original Story Tesoros (2017) Premio de la Competencia Internacional del Festival Internacional de Mujeres en el Cine (FIM Cine) in Brazil Best Directed at the Film for Kids Festival in China Best Edited at the Habana Best Picture in Seattle, Valencia and San Diego Save The Children Award Chrystal Bear Generation for Kplus - Best Film at Berlin International FilmFestival

Filmography Feature Films Year English Title Spanish Title 2017 Treasures Tesoros 2008 The Good Herbs Las Buenas Hierbas 2000 Leaving no Trace Sin Dejar Huella 1994 The Garden of Eden El Jardín del Edén 1991 Danzón Danzón 1989 Lola Lola

Short Films Year English Title Spanish Title 2006 Traducción Simultánea Traducción Simultánea 2006 La Morena La Morena 1998 “Entangled Shadows” episode of When We Began to Speak “Edredando Sombras” Cuando Comencamos a Hablar 1993 Of Autumn Otoñal 1988 Light Blue Azul Celeste 1985 Perverted Pervertida 1985 An Island Surrounded by Water Una Isla Rodeada de Agua 1983 Dear Carmen Querida Carmen 1982 7 a.m 7 a.m 1982 With Me You’ll Have a Good Time Conmigo la Pasarás Muy Bien 1981 It’s the First Time Es la Permiera Vez 1981 Sugar and Lace De Encaje y Azúcar 1981 Above the Waves Sobre las Olas 1981 The Washers Lavaderos