Streetwalker

Matilde Soto Landeta (1913-1999), was among the first female directors in Mexican cinema. Born into a wealthy family, Landeta worked her way up in the film industry from makeup artist via script supervisor and assistant director to finally director, and financed her own projects when the male-dominated industry wouldn’t.

Her third film, Streetwalker (Trotacalles), has an explicitly feminist lens on the exploitation of women. It is the story of two estranged sisters whose paths cross again after many years. Middle class and married, Elena (Miroslava Stern) has been seduced by an unscrupulous swindler, who happens to be the pimp of Maria (Elda Peralta), a prostitute. But are the sisters really so different under the skin?

It would be another 40 years before Matilde Landeta was able to direct another film.

We appreciate the support of Marcela Fernández Violante // DCP courtesy of Filmoteca UNAM

Truly radical for its time, in the way that it so clearly positions marriage as equivalent to prostitution, and makes husbands equivalents to pimps.

First Impressions