Mexico has a rich tradition of genre films, both serious and outrageous, and that shouldn’t be a surprise because the country has an incredible selection of mythologies and histories to pull inspiration from. Back in 2020, the Mexican director Carlos Matienzo Serment made a short film called Tekenchu, featuring the mythical half-bird-half-man creature called the “Nahual”, which can be found in stories from all over Mexico. That short won awards at several festivals, so Matienzo Serment decided to re-tell his story in extended form, as a full-length feature. He just finished it, it’s called Tekenchu: The Rite of the Nahuales and it had its world premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam last week. And it is very much worth checking out. In the film,…
