NEW RESTAURATION!- Considered the first Mexican horror film, La Llorona is a romantic melodrama with expressionist and supernatural elements based on the chilling tale of the ‘wailing woman’.
A ghost from Hispanic American folklore that originated in the pre-Hispanic world, she is the grieving soul of a woman who drowned her children. Repentant and cursed, she searches for them at night by rivers, towns, and cities, frightening those who see or hear her with her overwhelming cry. Her legend has a great diversity of versions.
The technical mastery it demonstrates is nothing less than admirable, and its attachment to Mexico’s folkloric tradition and history is an essential sign of its identity. The film was newly restored from a single 16 mm projection print in 2021 by The Permanencia Voluntaria Archives, in collaboration with Filmoteca UNAM, Academy Film Archive, and Cinema Preservation Alliance.
The story behind the filming and the legacy of this iconic film is explained in Behind the Scenes: La Llorona (also in Pragda´s collection), directed by Viviana García Besné. The great-granddaughter of La Llorona producer Jose Calderón, García Besné is the founder of The Permanencia Voluntaria Archives, whose main objective is to rescue, preserve, and restore Mexico’s popular cinematographic history.
