Cinema Releases - The Echo

The Echo

Autumn/Winter 2023

In El Eco, a remote village in northern Mexico, life consists of the most elementary things. Being a child here is an intense experience from day one, involving nature, animals and people. But also love, intimacy, illness and death. And education – at least for the younger generation.

Tatiana Huezo has made a name for herself as a sensitive and poetic documentarian (e.g. Tempestad, Forum, 2016). Accompanying three families in her new work, the notion of meandering becomes an informing principle as she brilliantly weaves a host of faces and gestures into a kaleidoscope of unpretentiousness. Almost incidentally, she portrays the care-working matriarchy in a country notorious for its innumerable kidnappings of women and girls. A tender film that celebrates the grace of animals and the children of this earth alike.

Encounters – Winner Best Director

Berlinale Documentary Award

Berlin Film Festival Encounters – Winner Best Director

Berlinale Documentary Award

Tatiana Huezo Director

Filmography Selected

Mexican-Salvadoran filmmaker Tatiana Huezo gained an international reputation with her feature debut, The Tiniest Place (2011), which screened at more than 80 international festivals.

Her work has been widely recognized around the world and acknowledged by the Mexican Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences with eight Ariel Awards; among them Best Documentary and Best Director for Tempestad, which premiered in the 66th Berlinale Forum; as well as Best Film for Prayers for the Stolen, which premiered in Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival, where it received a special mention from the jury.

Tempestad and Prayers for the Stolen were both selected by the Mexican Academy to represent Mexico in the Academy Awards and the Goya Awards.

Her previous film, Prayers for the Stolen, had a successful festival run and was nominated for the 37th Annual Film Independent Spirit Awards as well as the DGA Awards in the category of Best Director. It was also shortlisted for Best International Feature Film at the ‘Academy Awards’ in 2021.

Tatiana graduated from the Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica (CCC) and has a Master’s Degree in ‘Creative Documentary’ from the Universidad Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona.

She has given conferences and has taught classes around the world.

Her academic activities also include editing the book El Viaje, rutas y caminos andados para llegar a otro planeta produced by the CCC and Documenta Madrid.

1997 CAUSTIC TIME (Tiempo caustico) Short Fiction

2001 THE CORE OF THE EARTH (El ombligo del mundo) Short Fiction

2005 FAMILY PORTRAIT (Retrato de Familia) Short Documentary

2011 THE TINIEST PLACE (El lugar más pequeño) Documentary - Mar del Plata International Film Festival – FIPRESCI award, AMACC Ariel Award ‘Best Documentary Feature’

2015 THE EMPTY CLASSROOM (El aula vacía) Fiction (Multiple Directors) - UNICEF Childhood and Adolescence Award – ‘Best Film’

2015 ABSENCES (Ausencias) Documentary Short– AMACC Ariel Award – ‘Best Short’

2016 TEMPESTAD Documentary - Berlin Film Festival - Forum, Sheffield International Documentary Festival – ‘Tim Hetherington Award’, ‘AMACC Silver Ariel Award’, ‘Best Director’, ‘Best Feature Documentary’, ‘Best Director’

2021 PRAYERS FOR THE STOLEN Fiction (Noche de Fuego) Feature – Cannes Film Festival – Un Certain Regard, ‘Special Mention’, San Sebastián Film Festival – ‘Horizons’ Award

2023 THE ECHO (El Eco) Docufiction – Berlin Film Festival Encounters – ‘Berlinale Documentary Award, ‘Best Director’ Award

"This exquisitely textured film observes how children’s lives echo those of their parents, repeating for generations on the same constantly inconstant land, until somebody breaks the pattern. Harshly poetic view of Mexican childhood...Huezo observes this splintering community with unsentimental tenderness.
After her lauded narrative feature 'Prayers for the Stolen,' the filmmaker returns to her documentary roots for this finely textured rural family portrait, though viewers could easily mistake it for fiction."

Tatiana Huezo returns to her first cinematographic love in this moving and beautifully photographed documentary about teenagers in a Puebla community.

Lucy Virgen, The Film Verdict

"Rural kids are the captivating heart of Tatiana Huezo’s intimate doc... with a portrait of a remote Mexican village.
Intimately observed exploration of tough and tender realities. The Echo focuses on three families, three generations of females in particular... The action flows with the rhythms of play and labor, joy and and grief, thanks to sensitive editing... School children are often right on the frontline with their parents, watching, learning, doing. Taking it all in, they’re smart and inquisitive, kids at their most unself-conscious and open, and with Ernesto Pardo’s extraordinary camerawork holding them close, you might find it hard to let them go. You might wish that Huezo would perhaps return for a follow-up, a Mexico-set spin on Michael Apted’s indelible Seven Up flms."
Sheri Linden, THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

"Fascinating and strikingly photographed account of life in rural Mexico...
An intimate, immersive portrait of a way of life – its rhythms, hardships and its communal joys – told through the eyes of the young people who rarely question it.
There’s a tenderness and sensitivity to the filmmaking... The work of cinematographer Ernesto Pardo (who also shot Tempestad, as well as Ai Wei Wei’s documentary Vivos) is outstanding: his deft, curious lens captures the children’s engagement with and exploration of the world around them. Huezo’s use of sound is urgent and emphatic – before we get to see anything at all, she creates a three-dimensional soundscape that hints at the perils of this beautiful, savage corner of the natural world."
Wendy Ide, SCREEN

"True to its title, The Echo is about the background, about leftovers, and things left unsaid and never done. It could literally refer to echoes of parenting or growing up, but there is much more than that. In this remote Mexican village, myths are still alive, and it’s not just animals but also plants that have souls. It is a beautiful film that manages to be simultaneously restrained and immersive, poetic and earthy."
Vladan Petkovic, CINEUROPA

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Cast:

Montse		Montserrat Hernández Hernández
Luz Ma		Luz Maria Vázques González
Sarahí		Sarahí Rojas Hernández
Abuela Angeles		María de los Ángeles Pacheco Tapia

Crew:

Director		Tatiana Huezo
Writer		Tatiana Huezo
Director of Photography		Ernesto Pardo
Sound Recordist		Martin de Torcy
Post Production		Marco Hernández Calvo
Editors		Lucrecia Gutiérrez (AMEE), Tatiana Huezo
Composers		Leonardo Heiblum, Jacobo Lieberman
Sound Design		Lena Esquenazi
Sound Mix		Jaime Baksh (CAS), Michelle Couttolenc (CAS)
Postproduction		Marco Hernández Calvo
Co-producers		Viola Fügen, Michael Weber, Doris Hepp
Executive Producer		Maya Scherr-Wilson
Producers		Tatiana Huezo, Dalia Reyes
Production Company		Radiola Films
Co Production Companies		The Match Factory, ZDF Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen
With the Support of:		Insituto Mexicano de Cinematografia
		(through the Focine programme)
		ZDF/arte, Film und Medienstiftung NRW
		IDFA Bertha Fund, Chicken & Egg Pictures

		Mexico/Germany 2023 102 mins
		1.89:1 DCP 4K / 5.1