Mel Novikoff Award: Gary Meyer + “Macario” + “Sour Death Balls”

A village’s Day of the Dead celebration foreshadows a bewitching magical realist fable in director Roberto Gavaldón’s dreamy adaptation of a B. Traven (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre) short story set in colonial Mexico. Impoverished woodcutter Macario (Ignacio López Tarso) has never gone a day without hunger, more acute now that he has five children to feed. His wife produces a rare turkey for him and him alone to eat but when he elects to share it with a mysterious stranger, he gains the power to heal, a gift that enriches the family but also puts Macario in the murderous crosshairs of the Spanish Inquisition. Mexico’s first foreign-language film Oscar® nominee, its star Tarso won the Golden Gate Award for Best Actor when Macario screened at the 1960 Festival. Gabriel Figueroa’s (Luis Buñuel’s The Exterminating Angel) luminous black-and-white cinematography sparkles anew and astonishes in a 4K restoration.

Screens with: Sour Death Balls (Jessica Yu, Festival 1992, 5 min) Kids and grownups accept the sour candy taste challenge. Jessica Yu records the hilarious results.