Arturo Ripstein was born in 1943 in Mexico City. The son of one of Mexico’s greatest film producers, Alfredo Ripstein Jr., he was introduced to cinema from an early age. He began his career under the guidance of Luis Buñuel, his mentor, as an assistant director on The Exterminating Angel (1962). He directed his first feature film in 1966, Time to Die, written by Carlos Fuentes and Gabriel García Márquez and financed by his father.
Since then, he has directed over 60 films, including several masterpieces that establish him as one of the greatest directors – if not the greatest – in Mexican cinema. Many of these works resulted from collaborations with his wife, screenwriter Paz Alicia Garciadiego; their first film together was The Realm of Fortune (1986), which won nine Ariel Awards (Mexico’s top film awards), including Best Film, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay.
Other notable films by Ripstein include The Holy Office (1974), The Queen of the Night (1994), and No One Writes to the Colonel (1999), all nominated for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival; Deep Crimson (1996), which premiered in Competition at the Venice Film Festival and won the Golden Osella for Best Screenplay, Best Original Score, and Best Production Design; Divine (1998) and Such Is Life (2000), both premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes; and The Ruination of Men (2000), which won the Golden Shell, Best Screenplay, and the FIPRESCI Prize at the San Sebastián Film Festival.
Ripstein’s work maintains a profound connection to the tradition of classical Mexican cinema and, within it, to its most distinctive genre: melodrama. He transforms it into films that blend beauty and raw visceral intensity, compassion and violence, imbued with a melancholy that embraces all “sinners,” no matter how dark their truth. The director will be present at this edition of LEFFEST, which pays tribute to him.
