Canoa: A Shameful Memory


Canoa: A Shameful Memory is a 1976 Mexican drama film directed by Felipe Cazals, based upon the San Miguel Canoa Massacre.

Plot

The film is a dramatic re-enactment of real-life events that took place in 1968 in the small village of San Miguel Canoa in Puebla, Mexico. There, a group of five young employees of the Autonomous University of Puebla intended to spend the night en route to a hike up La Malinche. The group was viciously set upon by villagers who had been manipulated by a local right-wing priest to believe them to be Communist revolutionaries and deserved lynching.
The film is shot in a documentary style and examines the pervasive atmosphere of repression in the country following wide-spread protests over the government's spending on the 1968 Summer Olympics, eventually leading to a massacre of hundreds of protestors in Mexico City.

Cast

Release

It was one of the first movies to express the tone of the time of the setting: Mexico 1968, when student turmoils were spread across the country. It was entered into the 26th Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the Silver Bear - Special Jury Prize.

Reception

The film was both a critical and a box-office success. Mexican filmmakers Guillermo del Toro and Alfonso Cuarón have praised the film.