Bad Actor

A close scene is being shot on a film set. After the take, Sandra Navarro makes a complaint: she says she was raped during it. Daniel Zavala denies it. The shoot stops. The production company tries to close the matter, lawyers arrive, and each side builds its own account. Outside, Daniel is declared guilty; work is cancelled and contracts are broken. Sandra is not listened to and is questioned. The film does not tell the viewer which side is telling the truth, and the narrative is built on that uncertainty. Jorge Cuchí writes and directs. Alfonso Dosal plays Daniel and Fiona Palomo plays Sandra; Gerardo Trejoluna is in the cast. It is a Mexican production. The film screened at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival on 3 November 2023 and reached Mexican cinemas on 4 April 2024. It was nominated at the Ariel awards for best film, best actress and best actor. The matter it treats is the balance of power on a set; the film builds the event not as a legal question but as a problem of a workplace. The narrative makes neither character sympathetic and makes taking a side difficult. The film is about the film industry itself; producers, agents and the press are inside the narrative. The narrative delays a piece of information to the end and that too gives no full closure. Its limit is method; the uncertainty reads as evasion to some viewers and the narrative stays cold. Who it is for: viewers who like Mexican cinema and narratives of moral uncertainty. Who it is not for: it is uncomfortable, cold, and the ending contested.