With Mexicans cleaning up at the Oscars, we went to the source of the talent – CUEC, Mexico City’s prestigious film school – and asked the students to make short films about ‘their’ Mexico City. Here are the remarkable results

A brief history of CUEC, Mexico City’s prestigious film school

It’s a heady time for Mexico’s film-makers internationally, one perhaps not seen since the country’s golden age of cinema in the 1940s and 50s. Fifteen-odd years since Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro González Iñárritu broke out with, respectively, Y Tu Mamá También and Amores Perros, the two men have won consecutive Oscars for best director: Cuarón for Gravity and Iñárritu for Birdman (Or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance). Their cinematographer, Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezki (also from Y Tu Mamá), nabbed the award for both. Meanwhile Guillermo del Toro has grown into an A-list Hollywood director, and Gael García Bernal, who shot to stardom in those early films, has forged an impressive international career not just in acting but directing and, through his company Canana, production.

Cuarón and Lubezki have another thing in common, too: they both went to the prestigious CUEC film school. So we knew that by challenging CUEC’s first-year class to make us a series of three-minute films about Mexico City, we’d be presented with something interesting.

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Last week, the students screened the results for us at their new facilities on the campus of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City’s southern suburbs. Below we present some of the best work – insights into Mexico City that we found to be entirely unexpected, moving and funny.

But when asked about the state of Mexican film, the students quickly revealed they had an axe to grind about how difficult it is to distribute independent Mexican films, even in Mexico City. New subsidies that allow companies to write off investments in film have helped increase the total number of Mexican films being made, says Stacy Perskie, the production manager in Mexico City for the new Bond film Spectre. “It is helpful for developing a skill-set. Now instead of having 10 films a year of which maybe one is good, we have 70 a year of which maybe 10 are good.” Nevertheless, the CUEC students told us, distribution remains a huge hurdle: independent cinemas are getting put out of business by huge chains that show mainly Hollywood blockbusters, and what few indie Mexican films manage to squeeze into the programming schedules barely get two or three days on screen. As the saying goes, one wit pointed out: “So far from God, so close to the United States.”

At any rate, here are the students’ three-minute films. I say again: these are first-year students, in fact first-semester students. With talent like this, it’s enough to make you hopeful that the days of judging Mexican directors by their Oscar haul are numbered.

(All films are in Spanish with English subtitles.)

Lights Out

Lights Out. By Arturo Campos Nieto, Juliette Clenet, Samantha Mendez Badillo, Toberto Telles Alcantara, Antonio Torres Gastelum and Rodolfo Vilchis Conde

Lights Out tells the story of two vendors at a metro station, who have a unique worldview ... for a surprising reason. “We wanted to show the details in the city that often get overlooked,” Arturo Nieto told us. Are the man and woman a couple? “We think there’s definitely something going on.”

El Ritmo de la Ciudad (The Rhythm of the City)

The Rhythm of the City. By Andrea Perez Su, Bernardo Chavez Castellanos, Octavio Rivera Ramirez and Ruben Servin Victoria

Instead of a typical narrative, The Rhythm of the City takes its story from the changing sounds of the course of a single Mexico City day – from rush hour morning to nightclubs after dark. “We had to film in the club with a secret camera,” the film-makers explained.

24 Boleros Pasajeros (Fleeting Boleros)

Fleeting Boleros. By Diego Ruiz. Cinematography: Morus Gonzalez. Sound design: Jose Juan Sanchez. Producer: Mauricio Sanchez. Camera Assistant: Jorge Franco. Sound assistant: Frederic Moreau

Fleeting Boleros is an attempt by director Diego Ruiz to get under the skin of a different way of being in Mexico City: living poor but with dignity as part of a musical troupe that has existed for several generations. The Argueta family of boleros (Jorge, Kevin and Armando Argueta), who play under the name Soul of the Angel, came to the CUEC screening in full costume. Patriarch Armando told us that the presence of his daughter – who has since left the band – helped attract goodwill. Luckily, he said, he has many infant granddaughters ...

Selenium Blanche Neige

Selenium Blanche Neige. By Ximena Montiel, Monica Burciaga, Diego Granadillo, Angel Segovia and Judith Gutierrez.

Many of the students told us they’d set out to make a different film, but soon found themselves captured by a story they found along the way. So it was with Selenium Blanche Neige, a hilarious look inside the life of transvestite hot-dog vendors in the Zona Rosa neighbourhood.

Cronica de una Marcha (Chronicle of a March)

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Cronica de una Marcha. Dir: Juliette Clenet

Juliette Clenet’s camera came in handy when she found herself in the middle of a protest over the 43 students who vanished near Ayotzinapa. Once again, events dictated the film’s subject – she’d originally set out to make a different movie entirely – but it was Juliette’s idea to pair the footage with a poem by Alejandro Perla, which gives the film its power. That, of course, and the swimming man ...