Filmmaker Natalia Almada MFA 01 PH has earned valuable new support from Sundance to continue “working at the vanguard of inventive artistic practice in story, craft and form.” In October the Utah-based nonprofit announced that she is one of four filmmakers to be named 2018 Art of Nonfiction Fellows. The program provides “artists with a distinct voice and vision” unrestricted grants and year-long fellowship tracks tailored to their individual creative goals.
Almada, a native of Mexico and recipient of a 2012 MacArthur “genius” award, is known for making expressive films that combine deep personal reflection with critical social commentary. Her 2011 documentary El Velador (The Night Watchman) addresses the heartbreak of ongoing drug wars by focusing on a single worker at one of the rapidly growing cemeteries where Mexico’s most powerful drug lords are buried. Todo lo demás (Everything Else), her most recent film—and first narrative feature—presents a portrait of extreme isolation, “a low-key character study whose gently repetitive rhythms mask an unusually keen sense of nuance and subtlety,” as New York Timescritic Jeannette Catsoulis puts it.
Made while Almada was a MacArthur Fellow, the film follows the monotonous daily routine—ripe with rituals—of a 63-year-old government clerk in Mexico City named Doña Flor (played by Adriana Barraza), who exists largely removed from meaningful human contact…Click to read more