The Devil Never Sleeps

A documentary which is, above all, a familial, tragicomic melodrama, breaks the conventions of realist cinema and works in the tradition of the Latin American telenovela, depicting the crises that befell the family of the director. The inciting incident is a telephone call informing Lourdes Portillo that her uncle Oscar Ruiz Almeida has been killed by a bullet to the head. Her aunt says it was suicide, others say it was an assassination. Lourdes listens intently to all the gossip and undertakes her own investigation. While she hunts for clues, her family’s secrets are slowly unveiled, and the history of Mexico emerges. “Each devil has their devil,” says the director. With a forty-year-long career and more than a dozen films, she approaches regional problems of social, political and cultural justice with an intensely personal commitment and style—revealing that making films can be a powerful light against forces of injustice.