1944 film by Emilio Fernández
María Candelaria is a 1944 Mexican melodrama film written and directed by Emilio Fernández and starring Dolores del Río and Pedro Armendáriz. It was the first Mexican film to be screened at the Cannes International Film Festival where it won the Grand Prix (now known as the Palme d'Or) becoming the first Latin American film to do so. María Candelaria would later win a Silver Ariel award for Best Cinematography.
The film came to be regarded as one of Fernández's best works, in which he portrays the indigenous people of Mexico with innocence and dignity. Fernández has said that he wrote an original version of the plot on 13 napkins while sitting in a restaurant. He was anxious because he was dating Dolores del Río and could not afford to buy her a birthday present. The film was originally titled Xochimilco and the protagonist was named María del Refugio.
Major themes in the film include melodrama, indigenousness, nationalism, and the beauty of Mexico. María Candelaria is one of Mexico's most beloved films of all time, and it was ranked thirty-seventh among the top 100 films of Mexican cinema.
Plot summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.