MEXICO CITY (awp/afp) – A Mexican filmmaker, author of a documentary on Pancho Villa, died in an accident while delivering meals in Mexico City to earn a living, proof of the precariousness of artists in Mexico, lamented his colleagues on Friday.
Gregorio Rocha, 65, died in hospital on Thursday in a motorbike accident while working for a home meal delivery app, media and other filmmakers reported.
Mr. Rocha had achieved a certain notoriety in 2003 for a documentary film “Los rollos perdidos de Pancho Villa” (“The Lost Reels of Pancho Villa”), based on archive footage attributed to the hero of the Mexican Revolution.
The documentary had received several awards in Mexico, Spain and the United States.
“He died distributing meals for an app: honest but precarious work to the limits of indignity,” critic Sergio Huidrobro lamented on Twitter, hailing a great defender “of audiovisual memory”.
The filmmaker and producer José Antonio Cordero also felt that he was unworthy “to be a great filmmaker” and “to die as a delivery man”.
The Secretary (Minister) of Culture, Alejandra Frausto, expressed her “sadness” by saluting “a man of cinema, who was dedicated “to the production of cultural, historical and social documentaries”.
Mexico is a country of actors and directors devoted to Hollywood, such as Gael Garcia Bernal and Alfonso Cuaron.
Other filmmakers and creators denounce the lack of means allocated by the current government to culture.
A total of 52 delivery workers have died in road accidents in less than two years, the collective “Not a deliveryman less” told AFP at the end of 2021, which claims social rights for delivery people.
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