MUÑE
Yo sé como arreglar las cosas!
USA, 2019, 16mm, 15 min
Written, directed and produced by Catalina Jordan Alvarez in her hometown
*Streaming online as part of Oxford Film Festival May 22-29, Q&A May 23, 4pm EST*
Written, directed and produced by Catalina Jordan Alvarez in her hometown
*Streaming online as part of Oxford Film Festival May 22-29, Q&A May 23, 4pm EST*
"Shrink-wrapped baby doll toes, skillet-fried roaches, salvage yard showdowns: MUÑE is a delightfully unhinged romp through rural Tennessee, the likes of which you’ve never seen before. Elizabeth De Razzo mesmerizes as the title character, a headstrong Mexican woman who refuses to do as she’s told." - Indie Grits Film Festival
CAST
Elizabeth De Razzo (Eastbound & Down, The Greasy Strangler, The 33)
Clare Gundersen, Estela Ingles, David Roby and Grace Holtz
CREW
Written, directed and edited by: Catalina Jordan Alvarez
Producers: Rebecca Feldbin & Elizabeth De Razzo
Assistant Director: Rebecca Feldbin
Director of Photography: Michael Wellenreiter
Assistant Camera: Brian Branam
Sound: Althea Mengxi Rao
Production Design: Grace Holtz
Music: Courtesy of Dandelion Fiction
Elizabeth De Razzo (Eastbound & Down, The Greasy Strangler, The 33)
Clare Gundersen, Estela Ingles, David Roby and Grace Holtz
CREW
Written, directed and edited by: Catalina Jordan Alvarez
Producers: Rebecca Feldbin & Elizabeth De Razzo
Assistant Director: Rebecca Feldbin
Director of Photography: Michael Wellenreiter
Assistant Camera: Brian Branam
Sound: Althea Mengxi Rao
Production Design: Grace Holtz
Music: Courtesy of Dandelion Fiction
Recipient of a Philadelphia Independent Media Finishing Fund grant and a Kodak Eastman film sponsorship
Jury Prize, Ohio Shorts, Wexner Center for the Arts (US)
Honorary Mention of the Jury, Cormorán Film Festival (Spain)
Best Emerging Filmmaker, Queens World Film Festival (US)
Jury Prize, Ohio Shorts, Wexner Center for the Arts (US)
Honorary Mention of the Jury, Cormorán Film Festival (Spain)
Best Emerging Filmmaker, Queens World Film Festival (US)
Shot in my hometown in rural Tennessee, MUÑE is about a Mexican immigrant who doesn’t want to clean houses. Muñe knows how to fix appliances, and looks for parts in a steel salvage yard. She and the southern family who own it eventually connect by eating insects together. I grew up in the rural town where MUÑE takes place, with a Colombian mother and an American father, as an insider and outsider to both cultures. The film includes various sequences in which I employ an editing technique similar to Martin Arnold’s forward-and-back looping. The effect reveals the players of the narrative as robotic caricatures rather than authentic representations of Mexicans and Tennesseans. The satirization of social norms derives from contemporary theories about gender performativity.
