Carlos Armella
Writer / Director
Mexico
Born in Mexico City. Studied at the Film Training Center (CCC – Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica), and at The London Film School, in the UK.
His short film Tierra y Pan (Land and Bread – 2008) won over 15 international awards, including the prestigious Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, where 2 other of his short films have been selected: Poem (2003) and Las Manos Limpias (The Clean Hands – 2012).
He co-directed the feature-length documentary Toro Negro (Black Bull – 2005), award winner at San Sebastian, Havana and Morelia film festivals, among others.
His feature film En La Estancia (The Land of Silence – 2014), premiered at the Rotterdam Film Festival, and won awards and special mentions at festivals in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Italy and the U.S.
He has directed several short and medium length documentaries for film and TV. In 2015/16 he directed several episodes of the series Club de Cuervos (Club of Crows), and in the U.S. he directed the controversial documentary limited series Cuando Conocí Al Chapo (The Day I Met El Chapo – 2017), both projects produced by Netflix.
In 2018 he concluded his feature-length documentary Banda, and he shot his second feature film, titled ¡Ánimo Juventud! (Go Youth!), released in 2020.
Project
The Living
Andrés is a journalist who travels to La Piedad, in rural Mexico, to investigate the disappearance of his colleague and ex girlfriend, Eva. La Piedad is a forsaken town devastated by drug cartels, where everyone seems to have suffered the death or disappearance of a loved one. Confronted with the grief of the inhabitants, Andrés decides to get involved in an experimental and hazardous plan conceived by Eva before her disappearance. Dead people reemerge from the ground, exposing hundreds of mass graves. These decomposing bodies, having no memory or understanding of their situation, are a living testimony of the atrocities committed by other human beings. The inhabitants of La Piedad are suddenly filled with hope, as they reclaim those they had lost. But they soon realize that their recovery does not bring justice nor peace to their lives. Andrés will try to expose his findings to the world, but he faces the threats of both the military and the cartel, who will try to silence the truth.
