Welcome back to Double Feature, the IDS film podcast where the powers that be let us in a podcast booth to give you hot takes and maybe some lukewarm ones too.
With years of internationally acclaimed work, a distinct philosophical look at the nature of connections and a new film with 10 Academy Award nominations, Mexican writer and director Alfonso Cuarón has made a name for himself as a critical darling with an eternally-fresh artistic eye.
On this week’s episode of Double Feature, hosts Annie Aguiar and Chris Forrester discuss arguably his two most personal works: 2001’s coming-of-age drama “Y Tu Mamá También” and 2018’s black-and-white tale of a live-in housekeeper, “Roma.”
“Y Tu Mamá También” follows two teenage boys who go on a road trip with an older married woman, but it’s so much more than the wacky sex romp that it sounds like it is. It even earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay, despite some controversy over explicit sex and drug use.
When it came time to make “Roma”, Cuarón decided to shoot the film himself in addition to writing, directing, co-producing and co-editing it. The story is focused on Cleo, a housekeeper in the home of a middle-class family in Mexico City in 1970.
Cleo is played by first-time actress Yalitza Aparicio, whose Oscar nomination for Best Actress marks the first time an Indigenous woman has been up for the prize.
