Emilio Fernández

Emilio Fernández (1904-1986), Mexico's best-known motion-picture director, whose films portray the stark misery of the country's poor and explore Mexican identity. Fernández, sometimes known as El Indio (The Indian), was born near El Hondo, Coahuila, to a Spanish father and an Indian mother.

Fernández's films, influenced by Russian director Sergey Eisenstein and American director John Ford, are epics of people who have been pushed to the margins of society and for whom existence is a struggle. In Maria Candelaria (1943), for example, a couple is shunned for entering into a mixed-race relationship. In the course of the film, the woman contracts malaria, is denied quinine, and is ultimately stoned to death by her fellow villagers. El Impostor (The Imposter, 1957) is the story of a university professor who loses his job on a point of honor. Turning to a life on the land, he is mistaken for his dead cousin, whose identity he adopts. He then tries to earn a living in politics, which makes him a target for assassination. The film presents life as a succession of closing doors, and proposes that in Mexico it is difficult to avoid life's traps.

Fernández, who directed a total of 42 films, received several international awards throughout his career.