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La Llorona (2019 film)

La Llorona ("The Weeping Woman") is a 2019 horror-drama film directed by the Guatemalan filmmaker Jayro Bustamante, a Guatemala-France co-production that reworks the Latin American folk legend of the weeping woman into an account of the Guatemalan genocide of the country's Maya peoples and the failed trial of the general who ordered it.1 It premiered at the 2019 Venice Film Festival in the Giornate degli autori section and went on to 28 wins and 60 nominations at international festivals, including a Golden Globe nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.2 • 3

Key factDetail
Director and writersJayro Bustamante (born 1977), screenplay by Bustamante and Lisandro Sánchez1
ProductionGuatemala-France co-production; La Casa de Producción and Les Films du Volcan; produced by Bustamante, Gustavo Matheu, Georges Renand, and Marina Peralta1 • 4
Languages and runtimeSpanish, Mayan-Kaqchikel, and Mayan-Ixil; 97 minutes5
Premiere2019 Venice Film Festival (Giornate degli autori); also screened at Toronto and San Sebastián2 • 5
Theatrical release22 January 2020 (France); 12 March 2020 (Guatemala)1
Critical scores96% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer (97 reviews) with a 59% audience Popcornmeter; Metascore 79 from 14 critic reviews6 • 7
Awards28 wins and 60 nominations; 2021 Golden Globe nominee for Best Foreign Language Film; Satellite Award winner; Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Foreign Language Film3

Spoilers

Plot and historical inspiration

The film follows Alma, an indigenous woman murdered along with her children during a military attack in Guatemala's armed conflict, with the words "If you cry, I'll kill you" ringing in their ears.6 • 1 Thirty years later, a criminal case is brought against Enrique Monteverde, a retired general who oversaw the genocide, but he is acquitted through a mistrial, and the spirit of La Llorona is unleashed to wander among the living.1 At night Enrique begins to hear her wailing; his wife and daughter attribute it to Alzheimer's-related dementia, unaware that their new housekeeper, Alma, has arrived to mete out the vengeance the trial did not.1

The story is inspired by the real-life indictment of the authoritarian former dictator Efraín Ríos Montt for crimes against humanity, committed against Guatemala's Maya communities.4 The Los Angeles Times identifies the general Enrique Monteverde, played by Julio Díaz, as being inspired by Ríos Montt, and notes that the film's abuse at issue is the genocide of Indigenous Maya peoples at the hands of the Guatemalan military in the 1980s.8 In the traditional legend, La Llorona is the spirit of a woman who drowned her children, and her weeping brings misfortune to anyone who hears it; Bustamante inserts that myth into a contemporary plot about a nation still seeking justice for the victims of its civil war.5 • 9

Cast and style

María Mercedes Coroy plays Alma, with Margarita Kénefic as Carmen, Sabrina de la Hoz as Natalia, Julio Díaz as Enrique Monteverde, María Telón as Valeriana, Juan Pablo Olyslager as Letona, and Ayla-Elea Hurtado as Sara.4 Nicolás Wong Díaz was the cinematographer, and Bustamante edited the film with Gustavo Matheu.4

Critics have described the film's approach as restrained rather than conventionally frightening. The Los Angeles Times reviewer Carolina A. Miranda wrote that it avoids the tropes of horror and plays as cinematic magical realism, with the real horror lying in "the savage acts of men" rather than the supernatural.6 Anna Smith, writing for Deadline Hollywood Daily, observed that the film's terrors are the realities of genocide, particularly for indigenous women.6 Bustamante himself said he doubted Guatemalan audiences would be interested in a film about the genocide, so he disguised it as a horror film.10

The trilogy

La Llorona is the third feature in a trilogy in which Bustamante takes up the three insults he identifies as most damaging in Guatemalan society: "comunista", "indio", and "hueco".11 The earlier films are Ixcanul (2015), his debut about a Kaqchikel-speaking young woman, and Temblores (2019), about an Evangelical Christian man who falls in love with another man.11 • 12 Bustamante has described the three films as dealing with three different abuses that highlight the social divide in relation to discrimination and division in Guatemala.8

Reception and awards

The film premiered at Venice in 2019, screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, and closed the Horizontes Latinos section of the San Sebastián Festival out of competition, after winning the EFADs-CACI award at that festival's Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum.5 • 12 On Rotten Tomatoes it holds a 96% Tomatometer from 97 reviews, with a critics consensus that it "puts a fresh spin on the familiar legend by blending the supernatural and the political"; the audience Popcornmeter stands at 59%.6 Metacritic assigns a Metascore of 79 based on 14 critic reviews, all positive.7

Its awards record includes 28 wins and 60 nominations.2 Among the specific honors are the 2019 GdA Director's Award at Venice's Giornate degli autori, the Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Foreign Language Film (2020), a Satellite Award for Best Motion Picture, International Film (2021), and nominations for the 2021 Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film, the Critics Choice Award, the Chicago Film Critics Association Award, the Goya Awards, and the Ariel Award for Best Latin-American Film.3 The film was released on streaming in the United States on August 6, 2020, and the Criterion Collection issued it on Blu-ray and DVD as spine number 1156 with a director-approved special edition.6 • 4

Not the same film as The Curse of La Llorona

Two unrelated films about the legend appeared in 2019. The Curse of La Llorona is a Warner Bros horror film directed by Michael Chaves, released in the United States in April 2019, which earned $26.5 million in its opening weekend in the United States and Canada and $56.5 million globally across 71 other countries' releases.13 It was widely assumed to be part of the Conjuring Universe because of a cameo by Tony Amendola's Father Perez and its SXSW introduction as "the next entry in The Conjuring Universe", but producer Peter Safran later stated it is not officially part of that universe.14 Bustamante's La Llorona, by contrast, is a Spanish-language Guatemalan-French production with no connection to the Conjuring franchise.1

References

  1. La Llorona, Film Factory Entertainment (sales agent page with credits and synopsis)
  2. La Llorona, La Casa de Producción (production company page)
  3. La Llorona (2019) Awards, IMDb
  4. La Llorona (2019), The Criterion Collection
  5. La Llorona, Jerusalem Film Festival
  6. La llorona (2019), Rotten Tomatoes
  7. La Llorona Reviews, Metacritic
  8. Jayro Bustamante creates subversive retelling of 'La Llorona', Los Angeles Times
  9. TIFF 2019 Programme Book (La Llorona entry)
  10. FACT-FICTION: 'La llorona', Newtral.es
  11. La llorona que llora el genocidio, Semanario Universidad
  12. Horizontes Latinos 2019 announcement, San Sebastián Film Festival
  13. The Curse of La Llorona lideró la taquilla en Estados Unidos, AS
  14. The Curse of La Llorona is getting a sequel, GamesRadar

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026

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La Llorona (2019 film)

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