The Fifth Penalty

There are two tragedies in life: one is not to achieve what the heart wants... the other is to achieve it.

Memory mechanisms are mysterious: we only see the stories we choose in order to construct our own reality. Every mark is a message in time, the invocation of an absence. To travel in the memory is to walk in time, zigzagging, a long road permeated by a dark, indecipherable logic… if we could choose seven moments to sum up our entire life, which ones would they be? The Dance of the Memory is a documentary-essay that guides us in that autobiographical search, where image and memory intertwine. It mixes archive material with an aesthetic and subjective tone.

Jose is a biologist who suddenly needs to return to his hometown because his mother has passed away. She left him a large inheritance with a very important message: He must accomplish the expectations she had for him in life. Jose falls in love with Estela, his teenage neighbor, whose father has serious money problems and is also terribly sick.

An exploration of the place where I spent my childhood: the house of my grandparents. From that space memory is reconstructed, with the intention of seeing through the eyes of childhood in search of another perspective of life and death, past and present.

An acting teacher, who once dreamed of becoming a soccer player, revisits the story of "El quinto penalti" —a short film created with his brother that is rumored, according to legend, to bear a resemblance to a renowned Mexican movie. Moving between the pitch and the film set, the documentary reflects on how cinema and soccer share the same terrain.

After father's death, Alejandro takes a trip back home. It's a journey that leads to reconciliation with the past, to understand the loss and appreciate what is important in life.

Aurelio is an eight year old boy whose mother is very sick. One night, he sees her crossing a door, when he follows her, Aurelio finds himself in the world of the dead. There, he finds "La muerte" (The death), who then becomes his mentor and helps him finding his mom. When he finally finds her, he must decide whether go back to his world or stay there with his mom.

A young artist named Massad doesn't know he has the power to talk to the spirits. When he faces the struggle of his community with a serious drought, he will have to become the spirit of the deer in order to save his loved ones embracing the powers of shaman.

16 year-old Juan Carlos was homeless on the streets of Mexico City for years before landing at IPODERAC, a social enterprise that houses runaway boys and supports them through the production and sale of artisanal cheese. It is here, among goats, cheese and 71 new brothers that Juan Carlos transforms from a victim to a leader, shattering everyone's expectations of him and proving the power of forgiveness.

Set of stories of couples who sign either their love or death sentence. Intimate, specific and diverse situations that give a panorama of the vast terrain of love relationships. Life is not the opposite of death, but rather its intermediate point. The opposite of death is love, because that is where the human being is more alive than ever.