We Are Mari Pepa

(Somos Mari Pepa)

Samuel Kishi Leopo / Mexico / 2013 / 95 min
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  • Berlin International Film Festival

  • Ariel Awards

    Best revelation actor and actress nominee, best music nominee

  • Morelia Film Festival

    Best Film Award Nominee

  • Miami International Film Festival

  • AFI FEST American Film Institute Film Festival

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Synopsis

Spanish with English subtitles

With Alejandro Gallardo, Arnold Ramírez, Jaime Miranda, Moisés Galindo, Petra Iñiguez Robles

Alex has big plans for his summer in Guadalajara. He hopes to get a girlfriend, make money with a new job, learn a new song with his band, Mari Pepa, and win the upcoming “Battle of the Bands” concert. His summer expectations quickly become impossible to fulfill as he realizes everything in his life is shifting. Increasingly worried about his deteriorating grandmother, Alex realizes he must learn to deal with loneliness and begin to say goodbye to his innocence.

Armed with a full cast of local untrained actors and based on the director/writer’s personal memories, We Are Mari Pepa is a love letter to, and a voyage through, the alleys and garages of Atemajac, Jalisco. Establishing director Samuel Kishi Leopo as a new, exciting voice in independent Mexican cinema, the film skillfully and comically captures the breakdown of adolescent rebellion in a period in which boys are forced to become men.

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About the Director
Samuel Kishi Leopo was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1984. He studied audiovisual arts at the University of Guadalajara. His work has appeared in over one hundred national and international exhibits and festivals, including the Berlinale, Clermont-Ferrand (France), and International Critics’ Week at Cannes.

Samuel Kishi Leopo - Los Lobos

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In 2009, he premiered his short film Luces negras (Black Nights). This was followed by Acerca del drama de los calcetines in 2010. In 2011, Mari Pepa won Best Short Film at the Guadalajara International Film Festival. A year later, it won an Ariel Award, granted by the Mexican Academy of Film Arts and Sciences, and the Jalisco State Youth Prize.

In 2013, Kishi Leopo finished his debut feature-length film, We Are Mari Pepa (Somos Mari Pepa, 2013). It premiered the following year in the Generation 14Plus section of the Berlinale. The film received Ariel nominations for Best Original Music, Best Actress, and Best Male Revelation; it won the CCAS award Toulouse Latin American Film Festival.

In 2019, Kishi Leopo premiered his second feature film, Los Lobos (2019), at the Busan International Film Festival. It was also included in the Generation Kplus 2020 section at the Berlinale, winning the Grand Prix of the International Jury Kplus and the Cinema for Peace Award.

More recently, he directed the TV series I Am Your Fan: The Party Continues and Nobody Will Miss Us.

Press

“An unpretentious production as well as an essay-homage to adolescence and its ups and downs -at times poignant, bittersweet or terribly pathetic-, which manages to transcend its subject thanks to the humanity and simplicity of its characters.” – Mabel Salinas, Premiere

“A magnificent example of the fruits of an independent filmmaking system. We hope many will learn from them and achieve a great wave of provincial Mexican auteur cinema.” – Christian Sida Valenzuela, Letras Libres

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