Jorge Fons participated in more than 20 films in which he was the director for the most part, although he also did television, his most outstanding films marked Mexican cinema and his productions included actors who are today important elements of the show in Spanish.
Jorge Fons offered us a cinema of rupture, critical and social, which is now more necessary than ever, in films like ‘Los albañiles’ and ‘Rojo dawn’ and many more.
We hug your family, your friends.
Thank you for your legacy, Jorge, for teaching us forms of resistance. pic.twitter.com/Mpj3M5UKp9
— IMCINE (@imcine)
September 22, 2022
Even though his filmography is extensive, we will mention 4 productions that you should know to appreciate Fons’ work in past decades.
The Alley of Miracles (1995)
Based on a book of the same name by the Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfuz inspired by the alleys of Cairo in the 1940s. This Mexican film adaptation by Vicente Leñero, directed by Jorge Fons, takes place in the 1990s in the heart of downtown history of Mexico City.
The story takes place from three different perspectives: Don Ru, the owner of the bar where most of the men meet to drink and play dominoes, Alma, the beautiful girl from the neighborhood who is looking for passion, and Susanita, the spinster owner of the neighborhood. where Alma and other characters live.
The production won 11 Ariel awards from Mexican cinema.
Actors who are great consecrated today participate in this film, such as: Margarita Sanz, Daniel Giménez Cacho, María Rojo, Salma Hayek, Bruno Bichir, Luis Felipe Tovar, Juan Manuel Bernal and Ernesto Gómez Cruz.
The Cubs (1973)
Based on the book of the same name by the Peruvian winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature (2010) Mario Vargas Llosa, which is adapted to the reality of Mexico at the time, unlike the affluent Lima neighborhood of Miraflores.
The premise is that when he bathes in the showers at his school, the Cuéllar boy is bitten by a dog, so he loses his testicles. Such an act leaves sequels in life. When he meets the model Tere, she falls in love with him but she rejects him when she finds out about his condition and for that reason he decides to commit suicide.
This production received recognition at the San Sebastián International Film Festival.
Among the actors that appear in the film are: José Alonso, Helena Rojo, Carmen Montejo, Gabriel Retes and Pedro Damián.
The Masons (1976)
A social drama that portrayed the life of construction workers and the extremely poor situation in which their work takes place and their struggle to get out of poverty in a complex period in Mexico at the end of the 70s.
In 1977 he participated in the Berlin International Film Festival for which Fons’s work won the Silver Bear in its XXVII edition.
The actors Ignacio López Tarso, David Silva and José Alonso are the protagonists of this story that keeps certain validity in the conditions that these workers face.
Red Dawn (1989)
The first film that portrayed the events of the fateful October 2, 1968 in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas de Tlatelolco in a Mexico City that had the eyes of the world on it.
It begins with an ordinary morning in the life of a middle-class family that lives in an apartment facing the square. Two of the children of this family are students and are militants of the student movement. As the hours go by and with Operation Galeana, the life of the family will be directly involved in the bloody events.
The filming was carried out clandestinely in May 1989, since they did not receive financing or approval from the Ministry of the Interior to start filming. It lasted “canned” for just over six months due to the censorship that was given to the production, however, the federal government in turn authorized the distribution in a censored version, claiming a spirit of greater openness to freedom of expression and modernity in Mexico on October 17, 1990.
In this historical drama that settled the history of Mexico, the following participated: María Rojo, Héctor Bonilla, Jorge Fegan, Ademar Arau, Bruno Bichir, Demián Bichir and Eduardo Palomo.
He won 11 Ariels in 1990 in the history of the Mexican Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences.