Documentary Competition

A Cop Movie

Una película de policías

Be prepared to be surprised by this wildly inventive, hybrid documentary drama by Mexican director Alonso Ruizpalacios, following two Mexico City police officers on the beat.

  • Director

    Alonso Ruizpalacios

  • Producers

    Daniela Alatorre, Elena Fortes

  • Screenwriters

    Alonso Ruizpalacios, David Gaitán

  • With

    Mónica Del Carmen, Raúl Briones

  • Mexico 2021. 107min

  • Production company

    UK Distribution Netflix

  • Language

    Spanish

    With English subtitles

This film’s BFI Player premiere is scheduled for the time listed above. You have 24 hours to start watching and 4 hours to complete the film once you’ve started. Tickets can be booked until the end time listed above (subject to availability).

Meet tenacious Maria Teresa Hernández Cañas and her partner Montoya, two lowly police officers trying to maintain law and order in Mexico City. Each narrates and re-enacts the highs and lows of the job in this slick, 1970s-style action movie. With its immersive action sequences and coded language A Cop Movie takes the viewer to the very heart of what policing means in an expansive urban metropolis. A socially insightful and brilliantly corrosive study of institutional corruption, Ruizpalacios (Guëros, Museo) exposes the near impossibility of following the letter of the law when bribery and nepotism is a way of life. Bold, adventurous and ingenious, this genre-defying feature navigates the complexities of roleplay when the viewer cannot be entirely sure of the boundaries between the real and the fictitious.

Maria Delgado

Calling all film fans aged 16 to 25! Book £5 tickets in advance to see this film on BFI Player with your 25 & Under account. Sign up now.

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