Discussion Guide

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Through his daughter's recordings, the film moves between the memories of a child grappling with history's portrait of her father and the weight of his legacy on the country today. As an outreach tool, this complex portrait of family and country raises important questions about legacy, historical interpretation, how memory and history are constructed and the dream of democracy, justice and equality and the enduring fight for them.

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[A] remarkable documentary, provocative and impressionistic, based on questions rather than assertions...9 out of 10 stars.

— Cynthia Fuchs,PopMatters

A tour de force of cinematic imagination bristling with beauty, contradiction and the epic scope of Mexico's last 100 years of history.

— Cara Mertes, Sundance Documentary Institute

For seven years General Plutarco Elías Calles has loomed indestructible in the Mexican picture, like a Toltec pyramid — huge, harsh, mysterious. His name adds naturally to the list of dictatorial gladiators that the world watches with mixed feelings...He has been called a Mexican Mussolini, an Indian von Hindenburg, a Latin American Lenin.

— Anita Brenner, The New York Times, 1937