Ángeles Cruz (born 1969) is a Mexican actress, film director, and screenwriter. As a filmmaker, she has focused on themes of ostracism, female sexuality, and gender violence. In a 2022 interview, she explained, "I have three imbalances: I come from an indigenous community, I am a woman, and I am a lesbian – things that have been stereotyped and placed in an emerging situation of survival." Her work has been recognized with three

Ariel Award The Ariel Award () is an award that recognizes the best of Mexican cinema. Given annually, since 1946, by the Academia Mexicana de Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas, Mexican Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences (AMACC), the award reco ...

Biography

Ángeles Cruz is originally from Villa Guadalupe Victoria in , a mostly indigenous community high in the mountains of

Oaxaca Oaxaca, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Oaxaca, is one of the 32 states that compose the political divisions of Mexico, Federative Entities of the Mexico, United Mexican States. It is divided into municipalities of Oaxaca, 570 munici ...

. She grew up primarily speaking Spanish, but learned some

Mixtec The Mixtecs (), or Mixtecos, are Indigenous Mesoamerican peoples of Mexico inhabiting the region known as La Mixteca of Oaxaca and Puebla as well as La Montaña Region and Costa Chica of Guerrero, Costa Chica Regions of the state of Guerre ...

from her father. In her community there was no electricity, no water, and no cinema. She saw only one film in her first sixteen years, ', which her father had in

16 mm 16 mm film is a historically popular and economical Film gauge, gauge of Photographic film, film. 16 mm refers to the width of the film (about inch); other common film gauges include 8 mm film, 8 mm and 35mm movie film, 35 mm. It ...

. "When I saw the film for the first time in a cinema, it changed me, transformed me; it totally pulled out the rug," she recalled. She wanted to be an

agronomist An agriculturist, agriculturalist, agrologist, or agronomist (abbreviated as agr.) is a professional in the science, practice, and management of agriculture and agribusiness. It is a regulated profession in Canada, India, the Philippines, the Uni ...

and dedicate herself to farming, but her family had to relocate, first to

Tlaxiaco Tlaxiaco () is a city, and its surrounding Municipalities of Oaxaca, municipality of the same name, in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. It is located in the Tlaxiaco District in the south of the Mixteca Region, with a population of about 17,450. The ...

, and later to

. There, she switched to studying theater, a decision she credits to her high school teacher Sergio Santamaría. Cruz studied at the Miguel Cabrera Center of Artistic Education in Oaxaca, and later completed a licentiate in acting at the INBA Theater Art School in Mexico City. In 1994, she began getting roles in cinema. Her first film as an actress was the Swedish-Danish drama ''La hija del puma'' about massacres that occurred in Guatemala against the indigenous people. Her performance was nominated for the

Guldbagge Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role The Guldbagge for Best Actress in a Leading Role is a Sweden, Swedish film award presented annually by the Swedish Film Institute (SFI) as part of the Guldbagge Awards (Swedish: "Guldbaggen") to Film actress, actresses working in the Swedish film ...

. In 2011, Cruz started writing her own stories, and directed a short film made from one such script, ''La tiricia o cómo curar la tristeza''. It was produced by the

Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografía The Mexican Film Institute (, IMCINE) is an agency of the Mexican federal government, under the auspices of the Secretariat of Culture, that supports the development of national film production and the film industry. History IMCINE was establis ...

, and won the

for Best Short Film in 2013. She continued with the shorts ''La carta'' and ''Arcángel'', followed by her first feature, '' Nudo Mixteco'', starring and Noé Hernández, which tells three stories of women living in indigenous communities in Oaxaca. Regarding the film's explicit love scenes between women, Cruz said,

Filmography

Films as director

* ''La tiricia o cómo curar la tristeza'' - short; 2012 *''La carta'' - short; 2014 *''Arcángel'' - short; 2018 *'' Nudo Mixteco'' - 2021 *'' Valentina or the Serenity'' - 2023

Films as actress

TV series as actress

Awards and nominations

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cruz, Angeles 1969 births 21st-century Mexican actresses Actresses from Oaxaca Living people Mexican film actresses Mexican film directors Mexican lesbian actresses Mexican LGBTQ rights activists Mexican women film directors Mexican women's rights activists Mexican LGBTQ film directors