Past Film/Video | Documentaries

La Mami

(Laura Herrero Garvín, 2019)

A woman with gray hair sits with her right hand resting on the side of her face. A pair of eyeglasses sit atop her head.

Go behind the scenes at the Cabaret Barba Azul in Mexico City, where La Mami presides over its sisterhood of female performers.

Dońa Olga, the eponymous La Mami, oversees the women’s dressing room at the mythical nightclub, tending to the dancers’ physical and emotional needs while dispensing such pearls of wisdom as, “Men are only good for two things: for nothing and for money.” Focusing on the camaraderie that develops between Doña Olga and newcomer Priscilla, this gem of a documentary explores life at the club from an entirely female perspective, offering a grounded and intimate portrait of an enclosed world where women try to make a transactional workplace safer for themselves. Winner of the Cinema Tropical Award for Best Film. In Spanish with English subtitles. (79 mins., DCP)

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IMAGE CAPTION
La Mami, image courtesy Cinema Tropical.

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"This remarkable portrayal of female friendship offers a poignant, elemental take on the lives of working-class women in urban Mexico today."
Beandrea July, New York Times

Unorthodocs 2022 is organized by the Wexner Center for the Arts and curated by Chris Stults, Associate Curator of Film/Video. 

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Past Film/Video

La Mami