Gabriel Retes

Gabriel Retes

Birth : 1947-03-25, Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico

Death : 2020-04-20

History

José Ignacio Gabriel Jorge Retes Balzaretti (March 25th, 1947 – April 20th, 2020) was a Mexican film director, writer, producer, and actor. His 1977 film Paper Flowers was entered into the 28th Berlin International Film Festival. His 1979 film Broken Flag was entered into the 11th Moscow International Film Festival. His 1999 film A Sweet Scent of Death was entered into the 21st Moscow International Film Festival.

Profile

Gabriel Retes
Gabriel Retes

Movies

Taken Identity
Screenstory
Felino, his girlfriend and his two friends, have their film rejected from every film festival, so they decide to submit it as major filmmaker Tomas Guevara latest film.
Taken Identity
Producer
Felino, his girlfriend and his two friends, have their film rejected from every film festival, so they decide to submit it as major filmmaker Tomas Guevara latest film.
Taken Identity
Director
Felino, his girlfriend and his two friends, have their film rejected from every film festival, so they decide to submit it as major filmmaker Tomas Guevara latest film.
Taken Identity
Screenplay
Felino, his girlfriend and his two friends, have their film rejected from every film festival, so they decide to submit it as major filmmaker Tomas Guevara latest film.
Taken Identity
Tomas Guevara
Felino, his girlfriend and his two friends, have their film rejected from every film festival, so they decide to submit it as major filmmaker Tomas Guevara latest film.
Vile
Abel
After a life full of guilt for having been an executioner, Abel Carbajal receives a visit from Ángela, a young woman seeking revenge against him. Unknowingly, both will find their own redemption.
El viaje de Keta
Keta is a professional makeup artist with a big butt and large thighs, but she also has big dreams. The truth is that Keta with her overweight, her addiction to marijuana and her pink hair can not get a job anywhere, so she ends up as a drug dealer handing out goods to her neighbor - who is addicted to all kinds of painkillers-, to an actress of soap operas as schizophrenic as a cocaine addict; also going through a swinger couple, a prude housewife, a not so prude nun and a host of characters that will surely make more than one viewer is reflected.
Cómo Filmar Una XXX
Ulises Alpuyeca, a film initiate, wants to make his debut feature and he accepts the first opportunity offered to him to direct a film, without knowing that it is foing to be a porn movie. Gudelio Medina, photographer and Ulysses's old mate, convinces him to do it. All participants in the film, start, unaware of the main porn star gender, making room for hilarious entanglements, but once committed to the project they must discover how to shoot a porn movie and in the process, just maybe, discover love.
Cómo Filmar Una XXX
Writer
Ulises Alpuyeca, a film initiate, wants to make his debut feature and he accepts the first opportunity offered to him to direct a film, without knowing that it is foing to be a porn movie. Gudelio Medina, photographer and Ulysses's old mate, convinces him to do it. All participants in the film, start, unaware of the main porn star gender, making room for hilarious entanglements, but once committed to the project they must discover how to shoot a porn movie and in the process, just maybe, discover love.
Given In Love
Producer
A romance between the painters and writers: Dr. Atl and Nahui Olin arises in this era, the 20's, while Jose Vasconcelos founded the Ministry of Education and call all the intellectuals of the country for this project. Mr. President Alvaro Obregon, who feels devotion for the intellectuals allows one of the most important cultaral crusades of our history. In this liberal atmosphere where gays, the divorce, the vote for women, began to be accepted, several of our protagonists are given in love within a whirl of ideas, passions, political and ideological propositions.
Given In Love
Dr. Atl
A romance between the painters and writers: Dr. Atl and Nahui Olin arises in this era, the 20's, while Jose Vasconcelos founded the Ministry of Education and call all the intellectuals of the country for this project. Mr. President Alvaro Obregon, who feels devotion for the intellectuals allows one of the most important cultaral crusades of our history. In this liberal atmosphere where gays, the divorce, the vote for women, began to be accepted, several of our protagonists are given in love within a whirl of ideas, passions, political and ideological propositions.
Given In Love
Screenplay
A romance between the painters and writers: Dr. Atl and Nahui Olin arises in this era, the 20's, while Jose Vasconcelos founded the Ministry of Education and call all the intellectuals of the country for this project. Mr. President Alvaro Obregon, who feels devotion for the intellectuals allows one of the most important cultaral crusades of our history. In this liberal atmosphere where gays, the divorce, the vote for women, began to be accepted, several of our protagonists are given in love within a whirl of ideas, passions, political and ideological propositions.
Given In Love
Director
A romance between the painters and writers: Dr. Atl and Nahui Olin arises in this era, the 20's, while Jose Vasconcelos founded the Ministry of Education and call all the intellectuals of the country for this project. Mr. President Alvaro Obregon, who feels devotion for the intellectuals allows one of the most important cultaral crusades of our history. In this liberal atmosphere where gays, the divorce, the vote for women, began to be accepted, several of our protagonists are given in love within a whirl of ideas, passions, political and ideological propositions.
Puerto Padre
Chico
As a teenage orphan from Chira Island searches for his godfather on the mainland, his innocent memory of childhood is gradually replaced by an unsettling reality upon learning the truth about his origins.
Almost Thirty
Papa Emilio
Hilarious romantic comedy which main essence is based on the maturation process that young people face when entering their thirties. When their options come to settling down and starting a family or pursuing and achieving what they've always dreamed of, even though this could become a risk for their economic and emotional stability.
Buscando la ola
Director
A man impersonates another one and lives many situations that will commit him to act in a surprising way facing the Surf World Championship 2009.
Borrar de la Memoria
Moto Adulto
A love story turned assassination against the backdrop of the 1968 student massacre whose unresolved status is finally resolved in tense life threatening conditions. The story of a stubborn journalist who undertakes the clarification and bringing to justice of the heinous murder of one student forty years later represents a dedicated effort to force a country from denial to reconciliation and closure of tragic social and political events in a country´s history. A nation cannot allow official cover-ups that seek to delete and erase from the collective memory events that prevent a nation´s march towards social justice.
House Arrest
Gabriel
Because of a millionaire fraud, a man is condemned to house arrest, and the only place where he can serve sentence is his mother’s house, affected with Alzheimer disease. The arrival of the man disrupts the life of the people who live with the elder woman. With turns of the screw, the story feels dramatic, but it also contains certain amount of irony. It talks about human and family relations with a total absence of violence.
House Arrest
Screenplay
Because of a millionaire fraud, a man is condemned to house arrest, and the only place where he can serve sentence is his mother’s house, affected with Alzheimer disease. The arrival of the man disrupts the life of the people who live with the elder woman. With turns of the screw, the story feels dramatic, but it also contains certain amount of irony. It talks about human and family relations with a total absence of violence.
House Arrest
Director
Because of a millionaire fraud, a man is condemned to house arrest, and the only place where he can serve sentence is his mother’s house, affected with Alzheimer disease. The arrival of the man disrupts the life of the people who live with the elder woman. With turns of the screw, the story feels dramatic, but it also contains certain amount of irony. It talks about human and family relations with a total absence of violence.
Bienvenido/Welcome 2
Director
A mexican filmmaker brings his movie to a Latin American festival. The problem is that the movie is spoken in english and the copy comes without subtitles in spanish. The reaction of the participants, press and jury is not expected.
Mujeres en el acto
Screenplay
These women think, due to her social position, that they live in a “bubble of soap”. Nevertheless, when this mirage explodes, they remain in the air, in a free fall. Based on a novel by Ricardo Garibay.
Mujeres en el acto
Director
These women think, due to her social position, that they live in a “bubble of soap”. Nevertheless, when this mirage explodes, they remain in the air, in a free fall. Based on a novel by Ricardo Garibay.
@Festivbercine.ron
Screenplay
A group of young filmmakers want to register a movie in a famous festival, but they are rejected so they decide to register at the Guadalajara Film Festival using the name of an old retired famous filmmaker. Everything gets complicated when the movie is accepted in Guadalajara, but on condition that the director goes to the festival.
@Festivbercine.ron
Director
A group of young filmmakers want to register a movie in a famous festival, but they are rejected so they decide to register at the Guadalajara Film Festival using the name of an old retired famous filmmaker. Everything gets complicated when the movie is accepted in Guadalajara, but on condition that the director goes to the festival.
Caribe
Mr. Lloyd
Vicente and Abigail run a banana plantation in Limon Province, on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. Abigail's half-sister Irene, about whom Abigail knew nothing, comes to introduce herself. Banana prices start falling, threatening the plantation's finances. An oil company works with the government to get off-shore drilling rights, over local objection. Vicente is at the center of each cross-current. Will he fall for Irene? Can he save the plantation? Will he sell out to corporate offers?
Green Stones
Mariana is the adopted daughter of a businessman. When her father dies she searches for an stolen car while looking for her own identity.
A Sweet Scent of Death
Director
Ramón is secretly in love with Adela. One morning, he discovers her corpse among the oat fields
The Comet
After witnessing the arrest of her father for publishing "subversive" material against the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, Valentina escapes taking a sack of gold coins with her in order to hand it over to rebel Francisco I. Madero, who is in San Antonio, Texas. That is how Valentina begins a long journey as a member of a traveling circus, where she finds love next to Victor, who, fascinated by the cinematographer, films everything that occurs before his eyes, in times of great political turbulence.
Coup at Daybreak
Emiliano
The film follows the events of the night of February 4, 1992 in Caracas, Venezuela. That night a group of military rebels staged a coup d'etat. Venezuelans found themselves as virtual prisoners. As the coup starts and fighting takes place from a military base which is in the center of the city's most affluent areas, with both luxury high rises and palatial mansions. The area of La Carlota provides a wealth of very interesting, often flamboyant and typical characters of the Latin America upper middle and upper classes. They are among the most affected. Various vignettes in these different characters' homes are developed. These people's reactions, lifestyles, vices, and humanity come out in a very honest fashion under duress.
Under California: The Limit of Time
Caminante
Damian is a married artist living in Los Angeles with his wife. After Damian accidentally hits a woman with his car and flees the scene, he seeks atonement and travels alone to Mexico, both to find peace and to reconnect with his family roots. Assisted by local guide Arce, Damian locates his grandmother's resting place and searches for redemption through a long trek in the arid wilderness of his ancestral land.
Ship of Dreams
Executive Producer
Four men and two women illegaly board a cargo ship from Buenaventura, Colombia to New York. All their dreams and frustrations confronts them while they attempt not to be discovered by the ship crew. They all seek the "American Dream".
Bienvenido-Welcome
Mariano Pacheco / Guevara
During a business trip a married man has an affair with a blonde who leaves him the message "Welcome to the world of Aids"
Bienvenido-Welcome
Writer
During a business trip a married man has an affair with a blonde who leaves him the message "Welcome to the world of Aids"
Bienvenido-Welcome
Director
During a business trip a married man has an affair with a blonde who leaves him the message "Welcome to the world of Aids"
El Bulto
Writer
After being in a comma for 20 year, Lauro (Retes) wakes up in a very different Mexico than the one he lived on. Ideas, hopes, ways-of-life and customs have changed, and Mexicans of the nineties are strangers for a man sleeping since 1971. Lauro will have to deal with the changes brought by the History, and will have to accept that the future is never as we imagined it when we were young.
El Bulto
Lauro
After being in a comma for 20 year, Lauro (Retes) wakes up in a very different Mexico than the one he lived on. Ideas, hopes, ways-of-life and customs have changed, and Mexicans of the nineties are strangers for a man sleeping since 1971. Lauro will have to deal with the changes brought by the History, and will have to accept that the future is never as we imagined it when we were young.
El Bulto
Director
After being in a comma for 20 year, Lauro (Retes) wakes up in a very different Mexico than the one he lived on. Ideas, hopes, ways-of-life and customs have changed, and Mexicans of the nineties are strangers for a man sleeping since 1971. Lauro will have to deal with the changes brought by the History, and will have to accept that the future is never as we imagined it when we were young.
La mudanza
Director
Between chargers, noise and improvisedly placed furniture, a couple experiences a violent marital crisis, ignoring that they are observed by many characters that will soon face them with their own demons. Inspired by a work by Vicente Leñero, Gabriel Retes orchestrates a portrait without concessions of the hell of the marriage institution and love chaos, made in video format in 1990 and completed by the filmmaker more than a decade later.
The Naked City
Producer
A gritty tale of survival set against a city ripe with violence and corruption. The Naked City tells the tale of Alfonso and Aurelia, who with their infant daughter flee the scene of a traffic accident they inadvertently caused, leaving several people seriously injured. On the run, they check into a hotel in a different part of the town. By coincidence, or fate, the hotel is about to be attacked by a violent gang, who resume to hold everyone hostage, moving room to room raping, killing and brutalizing the guests. When it is turn to visit with the young couple it is their time to decide to succumb to the violence, or fight back.
The Naked City
Writer
A gritty tale of survival set against a city ripe with violence and corruption. The Naked City tells the tale of Alfonso and Aurelia, who with their infant daughter flee the scene of a traffic accident they inadvertently caused, leaving several people seriously injured. On the run, they check into a hotel in a different part of the town. By coincidence, or fate, the hotel is about to be attacked by a violent gang, who resume to hold everyone hostage, moving room to room raping, killing and brutalizing the guests. When it is turn to visit with the young couple it is their time to decide to succumb to the violence, or fight back.
The Naked City
Bar Owner
A gritty tale of survival set against a city ripe with violence and corruption. The Naked City tells the tale of Alfonso and Aurelia, who with their infant daughter flee the scene of a traffic accident they inadvertently caused, leaving several people seriously injured. On the run, they check into a hotel in a different part of the town. By coincidence, or fate, the hotel is about to be attacked by a violent gang, who resume to hold everyone hostage, moving room to room raping, killing and brutalizing the guests. When it is turn to visit with the young couple it is their time to decide to succumb to the violence, or fight back.
The Naked City
Director
A gritty tale of survival set against a city ripe with violence and corruption. The Naked City tells the tale of Alfonso and Aurelia, who with their infant daughter flee the scene of a traffic accident they inadvertently caused, leaving several people seriously injured. On the run, they check into a hotel in a different part of the town. By coincidence, or fate, the hotel is about to be attacked by a violent gang, who resume to hold everyone hostage, moving room to room raping, killing and brutalizing the guests. When it is turn to visit with the young couple it is their time to decide to succumb to the violence, or fight back.
Hard Years: The birth of a guerrilla fighter
Cinematography
The lives of Rolo, Chino and Boby take different courses since the student movement of the 60’s. Some years later, the friends meet again. Rolo has turned into a guerrilla fighter, Boby into a businessman and Chino into an embittered and solitary man.
Hard Years: The birth of a guerrilla fighter
Script
The lives of Rolo, Chino and Boby take different courses since the student movement of the 60’s. Some years later, the friends meet again. Rolo has turned into a guerrilla fighter, Boby into a businessman and Chino into an embittered and solitary man.
Hard Years: The birth of a guerrilla fighter
Director
The lives of Rolo, Chino and Boby take different courses since the student movement of the 60’s. Some years later, the friends meet again. Rolo has turned into a guerrilla fighter, Boby into a businessman and Chino into an embittered and solitary man.
Dispárenle a matar
Director
A man gets involved in a murder and his life is radically transformed. He decides to return to his hometown to find his family and an old love. Unfortunately, the police and some drug dealers start harassing him until the man decides to disappear completely.
La muerte de un paletero
Director
Los Naúfragos II:  Los Piratas
Director
The Cast Aways saga continues as the shipwrecked islanders discover a cave full of buried treasures, along with the bones of Pirates. They use the cave as a shelter and plan an escape with the loot. Before their plan is complete, a ship arrives with pirates, lead by a young woman, who have come to claim their treasure as their own, and a battle ensues between them and the shipwrecked islanders.The islanders discover by chance that the new arrivals have no claim to the treasure, and their leader a treasure hunting imposter.
The Castaways of Liguria
Director
A fire started by Harry Thompson destroys the Liguria, a legendary ship of the 19th century, and its treasure of gold and diamonds sinks in the sea. Thompson manages to escape unaware that Albizetti sleeps in the same lifeboat he uses. They manage to arrive at a deserted island, which has also been reached on the opposite shore– by the other survivors of the shipwreck: three children, a woman and three men.
Wild Women
Editor
Women escape from prison to search for a treasure whose location has been revealed to them by a dying old woman.
Wild Women
Producer
Women escape from prison to search for a treasure whose location has been revealed to them by a dying old woman.
Wild Women
Screenplay
Women escape from prison to search for a treasure whose location has been revealed to them by a dying old woman.
Wild Women
Director
Women escape from prison to search for a treasure whose location has been revealed to them by a dying old woman.
Deceitful Appearances
The sexual misunderstandings caused by the real identity of a rich woman serve Hermosillo to satirize the moral and social hypocrisy of the provincial that every Mexican carries inside.
Everyone's Hell so Feared
Rulo
The inner demons of an aspiring writer, whose dissatisfaction has pushed him to alcohol and drugs, lead him to his self-destruction under the guise of confusing political positions.
At a Lame Pace
Ragtag crew of indigents from an asylum for the handicapped form a squadron to defend the Church during the Cristero Uprising.
Broken Flag
Producer
When a group of young filmmakers witness and film a crime of passion, the most outrageous blackmail of the century begins. By means of a fantastic plan, the filmmakers send to the murderer, a financial and industrial big shot, a copy of the movie that incriminates him and they demand him an improvement of the standard of living for the working class.
Broken Flag
Director
When a group of young filmmakers witness and film a crime of passion, the most outrageous blackmail of the century begins. By means of a fantastic plan, the filmmakers send to the murderer, a financial and industrial big shot, a copy of the movie that incriminates him and they demand him an improvement of the standard of living for the working class.
Perfect Woman
David
Sex-goddess movie star tries to adapt to housewife status.
New World
Screenplay
Towards the end of the 16th century, the Spanish conquerors living in the New World faced a serious problem: the evangelization of the indigenous people, who did not understand or accept Christianity due to their unshakable faith in their own religion. The court of the Inquisition cracks down on heretics and the natives prepare for a general uprising ...
New World
Director
Towards the end of the 16th century, the Spanish conquerors living in the New World faced a serious problem: the evangelization of the indigenous people, who did not understand or accept Christianity due to their unshakable faith in their own religion. The court of the Inquisition cracks down on heretics and the natives prepare for a general uprising ...
Paper Flowers
Beto, el dientes
On the thinnest of pretexts, a horde of homeless people descend on the apartments of two members of the comfortable middle class and proceed to loot and vandalize both homes, leaving the next morning with many of the belongings they found there, as well as one of the residents who has opted to join them. This political allegory is based on two plays by the Chilean playwright Egon Wolff.
Paper Flowers
Director
On the thinnest of pretexts, a horde of homeless people descend on the apartments of two members of the comfortable middle class and proceed to loot and vandalize both homes, leaving the next morning with many of the belongings they found there, as well as one of the residents who has opted to join them. This political allegory is based on two plays by the Chilean playwright Egon Wolff.
Chin-Chin el Teporocho
Director
Rogelio’s story, a young man of humble origin in the neighborhood of Tepito, who falls in love with the daughter of a wealthy grocer, Michelle, but his marriage to her will be a failure and he will end up as a one more drunk.
Letters from Marusia
Soldier
Chronicle of the repression that a foreign company exerts on the miners of a small nitrate town in Chile, whose workers decide to claim their most essential rights. A reflection of the historic union struggles in the northern Chile that ended with terrible repressive acts.
The Living Forces
It narrates the phenomenon of the Mexican Revolution, satirically reflected through what happens in a town far from the places where the true Revolution was fiercely fought.
La Bestia Acorralada
Enrique Werner
A man who pretends to be a Dutch immigrant, is discovered by the Israelite Secret Service that he is a German Nazi War Criminal who escaped to Mexico.
Omen
Marcos
While attending the birth of Isabel, the wife of foreigner Felipe, Mama Santos predicts that "something terrible is going to happen in the town." From this omen, calamities will torment the locals.
The Cubs
Gomucio
After having his genitals brutally mutilated during childhood, a man must face prejudice and himself.
Tribulaciones en el seno de una familia burguesa
Director
The Hard Years
Cinematography
Three boys, after participating in the events of 1968 in Mexico, find themselves in the need to get away from the social struggle
The Hard Years
Writer
Three boys, after participating in the events of 1968 in Mexico, find themselves in the need to get away from the social struggle
The Hard Years
Director
Three boys, after participating in the events of 1968 in Mexico, find themselves in the need to get away from the social struggle
Los cacos
A group of Soccer-loving friends devise a plan to make easy money.
Triángulo
Mario
The story of Mother and Daughter for a Husband and Stepfather who was killed by shotgun.
End of the Party
Sangre
A motorcycle gang goes to a mansion where a party is being held and joy turns into tragedy.
They Call Him Marcado
The Kid is a vicious psychopath given to laughing a lot, an actor manqué who leads a gang of looters and rapists, and is incestuous with his father to boot. The town’s resident Mater Dolorosa, madam of the brothel, hires her lover Marcado to kill the Kid, who is of course her son.
El cielo y tú
Joven en iglesia
Priest suffers a head injury, develops amnesia, ends up in a hippie commune.
Ya somos hombres
Juegos de alcoba
Anthology movie -- three anecdotes relating to liberated, post-sixties, sexual behavior. Swinging couples, hippie-style free-love, etc...
Cristo 70
Pedro
Running from the law, young crooks hole up in a small town... and get hooked into performing in the town's Passion Play.
South
Editor
A surreal and horseless approach to classic western tropes.
South
Director
A surreal and horseless approach to classic western tropes.