Felipe Cazals

Canoa: A Shameful Memory

Canoa: A Shameful Memory

One of Mexico’s most highly regarded works of political cinema, Canoa: A Shameful Memory reimagines a real-life incident that had occurred just eight years before its release, when a group of urban university employees on a hiking trip were viciously attacked by residents of the village of San Miguel Canoa who had been manipulated by a corrupt priest into believing the travelers were communist revolutionaries. Director Felipe Cazals adopts a gritty documentary style to narrate the events in Canoa while referencing the climate of political repression that would lead to the massacre of student protesters in Mexico City shortly thereafter. The resulting film is a daring commentary on ideological manipulation, religious fanaticism, and mass violence, as well as a visceral expression of horror.

Film Info

  • Mexico
  • 1976
  • 115 minutes
  • Color
  • 1.85:1
  • Spanish
  • Spine #862

Director-Approved Special Edition Features

  • New, restored 4K digital transfer, supervised by director Felipe Cazals, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
  • New introduction by filmmaker Guillermo del Toro
  • New conversation between filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón and Cazals
  • Trailer
  • New English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: An essay by critic Fernanda Solórzano

New cover by Adam Maida

Purchase Options

Director-Approved Special Edition Features

  • New, restored 4K digital transfer, supervised by director Felipe Cazals, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
  • New introduction by filmmaker Guillermo del Toro
  • New conversation between filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón and Cazals
  • Trailer
  • New English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: An essay by critic Fernanda Solórzano

New cover by Adam Maida

Canoa: A Shameful Memory
Cast
Enrique Lucero
Priest
Ernesto Gómez Cruz
Lucas García
Rodrigo Puebla
Pedro
Roberto Sosa
Julián González Báez
Arturo Alegro
Ramón Calvario Gutiérrez
Carlos Chávez
Miguel Flores Cruz
Jaime Garza
Roberto Rojano Aguirre
Gerardo Vigil
Jesús Carrillo Sánchez
Jorge Fegán
Commander
Alicia del Lago
Lucas’s wife
Manuel Ojeda
Silvestre
Malena Doria
Guadalupe
Salvador Garcini
Delfino
Baltasar Oviedo
Odilón
Juan López Moctezuma
Narrator
Credits
Director
Felipe Cazals
Screenplay
Tomás Peréz Turrent
Executive producer
Roberto Lozoya
Cinematographer
Álex Phillips Jr.
Editor
Rafael Ceballos
Sound
Manuel Topete
Special effects
Federico Farfán
Makeup
Felisa Ladrón de Guevara

Current

Guillermo del Toro on a Landmark of Mexican Political Cinema
Guillermo del Toro on a Landmark of Mexican Political Cinema
A potent combination of faux-documentary and horror-film techniques, Felipe Cazals’s 1976 Canoa: A Shameful Memory reimagines the brutal killings that occurred in 1968 in San Miguel Canoa, where villagers attacked a group of visiting university emp…
Canoa: A Shameful Memory: The Devil in Disguise
Canoa: A Shameful Memory: The Devil in Disguise

Religious fanaticism and anti-Communist hysteria give way to mass violence in this groundbreaking work of Mexican political cinema.

By Fernanda Solórzano

​Jon Dieringer’s Top 10
​Jon Dieringer’s Top 10

The founder of the website Screen Slate picks a selection of favorites, including an ’80s indie gem, shockers ranging from Eraserhead to Canoa, and two films that capture the “twilit feeling of childhood.”

Guillermo del Toro’s Guide to the Collection
Guillermo del Toro’s Guide to the Collection

Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro shares heartfelt appreciations for eleven of his favorite films in the collection.