Film About Mexican Jewish Community

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With the Jewish New Year of Rosh Hoshana pending, a new film about Mexican Jews "My Mexican Shivah" has recently been released

"It's a very assimilated community. Everybody sees Mexico as a profoundly Catholic country, and the moment you talk about a Mexican Jew people start laughing, but there's no contradiction at all."

The movie portrays a family from the Polanco neighborhood — the heart of the 100,000-strong Mexican Jewish community — as it struggles to follow the strict shiva rules in spite of a flurry of telenovela-like adversities, including a drug bust, a romance between cousins and the sudden appearance of a despised ex-lover of patriarch Moishe.

Shot in a documentary style, the movie also carefully portrays the traditional rituals of Jewish mourning, including the cleansing of the deceased's body.

"Everybody thinks I'm Jewish," Springall, a Mexico City-based gentile, says in Spanish. "In some countries where I have showcased the movie, they tell me that only a Jew could have done this film."

Springall consulted several rabbis who approved the movie, "so it's kosher," he jokes.

"When you touch religious or theological subjects, you need to ask the experts," says Springall. "I did the same with 'Santitos'" — his 1999 movie dealing, among other things, with apparitions by St. Jude.

"Of course, I read a lot. If I wanted to, in two years I could be a rabbi."

Although several movies have reflected the Jewish experience in Latin America — particularly in Argentina — "My Mexican Shivah" is only the second Mexican film about the subject, after Guita Schyfter's "Like a Bride" (1994).

"But Guita's movie is about the Sephardic tradition and is spoken in Ladino language," says Springall, referring to the Jews expelled from Spain in the 15th century.

"I speak about the Ashkenazi community, which comes from Poland, Russia and Lithuania. That's why some characters speak in Yiddish."

"My Mexican Shivah" is recently made its U.S. theatrical debut in New York, where it premiered last year — even before it showed it Mexico — to rave reviews at the New York Jewish Film Festival.

Springall is hoping the film will be released in other parts of Mexiox in the fall, riding the wave of international interest in the New Mexican Cinema.

Springall also produced "Cronos," Guillermo Del Toro's 1993 big break, before making it to Hollywood.

"After many years of struggle, we have raised the Mexican cinema's standing, but only to a certain point," says Springall.

"Now, the tendency is to leave the national industry and become more international," he adds with a hint of regret, since he's planning to shoot his next film in Spain — about Sephardic Jews there.