La mujer de nadie
This bold melodrama is the very first Mexican sound film directed by a woman. Adela Sequeyro wrote, directed and played the main part of Ana María, a woman who flees her oppressive hacienda for a bohemian existence full of romance, intrigue and risks. With wit, style and courage, she wins back her freedom. NOBODY’S WIFE was – and is still – a groundbreaking story about female autonomy on the big screen.
Against the backdrop of the 1930s, when the Mexican film sector was still in development and the tension between artistic independence and state-promoted nationalism palpable, Sequeyro positions the woman not as moral symbol but as active subject. With expressive close-ups, minimal dialogue and at the time provoking camera angles, she opens a specific female erotic universe in which – as the title proudly declares –a woman can belong to no one. A radical statement in a culture in which women, in films and in real life, often have to “belong” to someone: as mother, daughter, wife or sex worker.
Sequeyro uses melodrama as a way of self-determination. Ana María’s “I belong to no one” is no pose, but a consequently chosen way of life: love or desire is never the price for security, recognition or identity. At the same time, Sequeyro dissects masculine poses, rivalry and romantic claims with humour and precision. The result is a film that can be watched lightly, but stays substantively radical—and which finally gives Sequeyro the often forgotten role of pioneer in film history she deserves.
The screening on 18 March will be introduced by Bart Versteirt (CINEA) and researcher, curator and programmer Camilla Beier, co-founder of Invisible Women, a collective of archive activists who expose the gender gap in film archives and rewrite women filmmakers in film history. For Invisible Women she curated Stronger Than Love: ¡Too Much Mexican Melodrama!, a traveling programme focusing on female voices, in front of and behind the camera, in which this film is included.
This special screening was formed in collaboration with CINEA, KASK CINEMA, Film Plateau, Invisible Women and Acervo Filmoteca UNAM.
