Mexico’s Alberto Ordaz: ‘Mexican Cinema Now Has a Vanguard, New Ideas’
A former medical examiner who performed autopsies, Alberto Ordaz knows more about corpses than most directors. He is now bringing degrees in criminology and psychology and a genre auteur fanboy sensibility to bear in a budding filmmaking career.
Most immediately, Ordaz is competing at Morelia with “HHL,” set in a dystopia whose authorities dope the masses with a drug extracted from the brains of the recently deceased. “HHL” is backed by Feroz Carmesi Films and Jaime Romandia’s Mexico City-based Mantarraya, Carlos Reygadas and Amat Escalante’s producer.
Ordaz is already preparing his next short, which he describes as a sci-fi, suspense thriller, a ghost story with a sexual identity twist. He’s also writing and seeking financing for two features, one turns on boy werewolf and his difficult coming of age, the other inspired by the true story of doctor Alfonso Quiroz Cuarón, Mexico’s first forensic detective, Ordaz said.
Titled “The Strangler of Tacuba,” the movie will explain how Cuaron was key in capturing Mexico’s first recognized serial killer, Goyo Cardenas, Ordaz added.
The young helmer professes his admiration for a long list of classics Alfred Hitchcock, Kubrick – and more modern classics, including Alex de la Iglesia, David Cronenberg, Sono Sion and Park Chan-wook.
Mexico is currently at the forefront of Latin America’s genre revival, producing movies which often yoke the fantastic, an auteur sensibility and a social consciousness.
“Mexican cinema is going through an amazing time,” said Ordaz. “It has a vanguard, which is refreshing, and new ideas,” he added.
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