Οne of the most successful Mexican directors of the last 20 years, Jaime Humberto Hermosillo has gained notoriety and acclaim by making films about traditionally taboo subjects. He was born in the conservative Mexican town of Aguascalientes in 1942. He moved to Mexico City, dreaming of becoming a playwright. In the 1960s, the Mexican film industry was in great upheaval. The old guard was still controlling the nationalized studios, but young filmmakers had begun to challenge the status quo. In 1961, a film magazine entitled Nuevo Cine gave voice to a new cinema movement. An issue of Nuevo Cine dedicated to Luis Bunuel inspired Hermosillo to become a filmmaker. The Universidad Nacional de Mexico opened a film studies department in 1963 and provided him with the means of studying the history and aesthetics of film. Eventually, he bought a 16mm camera and made his first short film. This opened no doors in a Mexican film industry reluctant to take chances. Hermosillo wouldn't be able to make his next film for another four years. But by 1972, the Mexican studio system knew it had to open up to younger filmmakers and to more modern subject matter. Since then, Hermosillo has emerged as one of Mexico's finest and most thought-provoking filmmakers. Sometimes attacked in his own country, consistently honored in Europe and Canada, and virtually ignored in the United States, Mexico's only openly gay film director has made a career out of satirizing middle-class hypocrisy and debunking bourgeois myths.
