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Jorge Fons' MIDAQ ALLEY Celebrates 30 Years at the 23rd FICM

Sofía Alvarado

Jorge Fons' Midaq Alley (1995) celebrated its 30th anniversary with a special screening at the 23rd Morelia International Film Festival (FICM).

Inspired by the novel by the same name by Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz and adapted for film by Vicente Leñero, Midaq Alley portrays the country's urban and social environment through intertwined stories starring Salma Hayek, Juan Manuel Bernal, Bruno Bichir, Daniel Giménez Cacho, María Rojo, Ernesto Gómez Cruz, and Tiaré Scanda.

This film is one of the most acclaimed and referenced by Mexican and international critics; it has become a classic of Mexican cinema in recent decades due to its fragmented narrative structure, which tells the same story from different perspectives. It won eleven Ariel Awards and competed to represent Mexico at the Oscars. The feature film was also praised at international festivals such as Berlin and Havana, and received a nomination for Best Spanish Language Foreign Film at the Goya Awards.

During the presentation at the Matamoros Theater, producer Daniel Birman Ripstein said that the restoration took four years, but the film turned out exactly as Jorge Fons had planned.

Tiaré Scanda said that working on this movie was the beginning of many of their acting careers and that she feels lucky to be part of one of the best casts a Mexican movie has ever had. “ Working with Jorge Fons was one of the greatest privileges of my career.”