Leduc, Paul (1942–)

Paul Leduc is a Mexican film director. Leduc was born on March 11, 1942, in Mexico City, where he attended the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and studied architecture and theater before receiving a scholarship to study film direction at the Institute of Graduate Film Studies in Paris. Upon his return to Mexico in 1967, he organized numerous film clubs and began his career as an assistant director and producer of various important documentaries. Under the government of Luis Echevarria (1970–1976), Leduc took advantage of the increased support for alternative film production and was able to gain financial support for his first feature film. This debut was his acclaimed Reed: México insurgente (1970), which depicts and demystifies the Mexican Revolution. A series of noted and controversial films followed. Frida, naturaleza viva (1985) played an important part in establishing Leduc's reputation. One of the most creative and original directors of current Latin American cinema, Leduc is equally adept at narrative film and documentary. He has consistently preferred to work as an independent film director. Leduc's other films are Historias prohibidas de Pulgarcito (1981), La cabeza de la hidra (1983), Como vas (1989), Barroco (1990), Latino Bar (1991), Dollar Mambo (1993), and El Cobrador: In God We Trust (2006).

See alsoCinema: Since 1990 .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Luis Reyes De La Maza, El cine sonoro en México (1973).

E. Bradford Burns, Latin American Cinema: Film and History (1975).

Carl J. Mora, Mexican Cinema: Reflections of a Society: 1896–1980 (1982).

John King, Magical Reels: A History of Cinema in Latin America (1990).

Additional Bibliography

Lynd, Juliet. "Art and Politics in Paul Leduc's Frida: Naturaleza viva." Romance Languages Annual 10, no. 2 (1998): 696-702.

Paranaguá, Paulo Antonio, ed. Mexican Cinema. Translated by Ana M. López. London: British Film Institute, 1995.

                                        David Maciel