Ximena Cuevas

Mexican Erotica

Mexican Erotica is a collective reappropriation film that explores sex and eroticism from various artistic and aesthetic points of view. A journey of textures, sensations and unmissable pleasures.

This Is Not Berlin

Seventeen-year-old Carlos doesn't fit in anywhere, not in his family nor with the friends he has chosen in school. But everything changes when he is invited to a mythical nightclub where he discovers the underground LGBTQ nightlife scene: punk, sexual liberty and drugs.

Beauties of the Night

What happened to those vedettes who represented the mexican cabaret’s exotic beauty in the ‘70s and ‘80s? Four decades after the end of their roles, they tell their stories with dignity.

Cinepolis, the Film Capital

"Perhaps Cuevas' most chilling work, Cinepolis forecasts an image-driven invasion of everyday life, picture-perfect and unnoticed. This alien intrusion comes in the form of a fully branded consumerscape that cheerily foists fast food along with the fantasy. Irreverent and biting, Cuevas fights back with the only weapon available--images of the enemy, and the enemy’s images." --Steve Seid, Pacific Film Archive, 2004

Staying Alive

Blind man: “It is bad to be alone.” The Creature: “Alone, bad.” —The Bride of Frankenstein It can be so bad to be alone that even an artificial heat is better than none.

La Tombola

Take back the airwaves: Mexico’s video art doyenne Ximena Cuevas books herself onto the tabloid talk show Tombola, toying at first with whimsical deconstruction until she turns the whole affair on its head by seizing the televisual flow itself.

The Door

La Puerta makes us spin out of control in the long and cruel corridors of an institutional nightmare.

Soulmates

The innocence of creating a mirror, only to repeatedly crush it underfoot.

Hawai

An upper class wedding in Mexico City where the guests fantasize about the exotic faraway dreamscape that is their “Hawai”.

Contemporary Artist

After working in solitude at the studio, the artist leaves, uncomfortable with the idea of having to put on a face for the art world, where they expect you to say something articulate in order to grab the curator's attention. - Video Data Bank

Contemporary Artist

After working in solitude at the studio, the artist leaves, uncomfortable with the idea of having to put on a face for the art world, where they expect you to say something articulate in order to grab the curator's attention. - Video Data Bank

Natural Instincts

Short experimental horror documentary on media racism

Natural Instincts

Short experimental horror documentary on media racism

Kansas Avenue

Dorothy doesn't reach her dream of the Emerald City. Rather, she will have already been over the rainbow by the time she arrives at the worst corner in Kansas.

Divine

"La Nueva Jerusalem" is a small community of believers lead by Papá Basilio and Mamá Dorita. They're waiting for the second coming of Christ, so they've abandoned the world, searching for a new spiritual life. Mamá Dorita sees in young Tomasa the signals of the chosen one. The young girl will be the new leader in "La Nueva Jerusalem".

Of Present Body (or the perpetual spirals of pleasure and power)

Through the montage of film fragments from the Mexican Golden Cinema, pain, violence, repressed sexuality and Mexicanness are explored. This production is part of a twelve-short film project entitled "Enredando Sombras".

Diablo en la Piel

The palms of Lana Turner's hands were full of scars; the technique she used in order to achieve melodrama was to tighten her fists, digging her fingernails into them until she began to cry. Day after day, soap opera actresses smear Vick's Vaporub into their eyes in order to cry. The effect of these false tears are the tears of the public. In Devil in the Flesh we see the camera's tricks, and even so the action seems dramatic. This piece once again exemplifies my fascination with the artificial: the fabricated emotions; the Christian looking for pain in order to live out Passion; the discomfort of the everyday melodrama; the emptiness that defeats everything

Cuerpos de papel

Mixing samba, sex, and lovers' lies, this beautiful short is a visual meditation on sexuality, loss, jealousy, and intimacy.

Half-Lies

A video poem about the nature of social relations and mass media, Half Lies exposes the seemingly innocuous ways we distort truth. Harmonious families, trade treaties, and current events are among the mediated realities that Cuevas interrogates. Half Lies makes the viewer question the half truths we encounter daily. The video walks the haunting gray area between documentary and drama, creating a world that is both shockingly grotesque and startingly authentic. Using mass-mediated images, animation, image manipulation, and fantasy, Medias Mentiras interprets the chaotic landscape of politics, urban chaos and everyday existence.

Red Dawn

On October 2, 1968, a student uprising descends into violence after the Mexican government begins to use lethal force against the protesters.

Parrot's Saliva

A short by Ximena Cuevas