New Mistakes
Directors and Producers Michel Franco and Victoria Franco, Producers Elena Fortes, Paula P. Manzanedo, and Erendira Nuñez Larios
Logline
A provocative and uncomfortable meditation on the roots of hatred and intolerance and the expressions of contemporary antisemitism, New Mistakes explores a Mexican-American Jewish student’s journey as she creates a film confronting the complexities of her family history and of visiting Holocaust sites.
Phase of Support: Production
Michel Franco - Director, Producer
Michel Franco was born in Mexico City in 1979 and has put Mexican cinema in the global spotlight. The films he has written, directed and produced include Chronic (Best Screenplay Award at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival), Las Hijas de Abril (Jury Prize, in Certain Regard at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival), and Después de Lucía (Top Prize, in Certain Regard at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival). Among the films he has produced are 600 Millas (directed by Gabriel Ripstein and winner of the Best First Feature Award at the 2015 Berlinale) and From Afar (directed by Lorenzo Vigas, winner of the Golden Lion at the 2015 Venice Film Festival). Also, he was member of the jury at La Biennale Cinema 2017.
In 2020, his film New Order, a dystopian drama, was awarded with the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize at Venice Film Festival 2020. Only one year later, Michel came back to the festival to premier his latest film, Sundown, a drama filmed in Acapulco, Mexico, starring Tim Roth and Charlotte Gainsbourg.
Victoria Franco - Director, Producer
Victoria Franco was born on October 15th, 1983 in Mexico City. There, she studied Cinema and Television at CENTRO, School of Design, Film and Digital Media. In 2013, Victoria did a one-year research in Mexico City, to deeply depict children in street situations. In collaboration with Hermengildo Zegna and Casa Alianza, she filmed a documentary to raise awareness of this matter and help children living in this condition. The same year, with her brother Michel Franco, she co-directed A los Ojos, a fiction feature film which was premiered at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. The film mixes real life events with fictional elements. After that, Victoria continued with her anthropological research, but this time focusing in deprived and helpless women.
In 2014, she wrote and directed Borde, a short film that explores the life of a single mother with five children and no opportunities. Shortly after, she analyzed orphanage and social injustices in her short film Reconciliados. Victoria has collaborated in all Michel Franco’s films. This has helped her to acquire great experience and learning, which has been an additional enhancement to her career as filmmaker.
Project logline and bios courtesy of the grantees.