Specific Pictures
Award-Winning Non-Fiction Films

Paulina

A collaboration with filmmaker Vicky Funari and participant Paulina Cruz Suárez, the award-winning experimental feature Paulina interweaves documentary and fiction styles to explore radically different perspectives and memories about the life of a vital, resilient woman. In the 1950’s, when Paulina was a child in a rural Mexican village, her parents traded her away for land rights. The villagers ostracized her and the town boss raped her, keeping her as his unwilling mistress throughout much of her adolescence. At 15, she took control of her destiny and escaped to Mexico City to begin a new life. Now middle-aged, Paulina returns to her village to confront her family and encounters a web of intrigue and denial. Broadcast internationally on Sundance Channel and Televisa-Mexico.

A favorite at the Sundance Film Festival, it has a magical glow.

San Francisco Chronicle


A remarkable documentary… simultaneously devastating and inspiring… assured, intelligent filmmaking… a testament to what the human spirit can endure and rise above.

New York Times

Paulina ranks as an important study of gender and class politics, and as a powerful reminder that even the most seemingly humdrum life is significant.

Time Out New York