¡Que viva México!

¡Que viva México! is one of the most intriguing films by Sergei Eisenstein. Shot between 1930 and 1932 in México, it was struck by financial hardship and censorship, leaving it unfinished and edited into different versions throughout time. Eisenstein intended to direct ‘a big poem about life and death’, covering three thousand years of Mexican history, yet he did not achieve to complete it the way he would have intended it. Having received different readings and interpretations with time, Qué viva México! is an open-ended film to continuously revisit Eisenstein’s work.

In this occasion, the screening of the film is an invitation to start a conversation by Sergi Rusca on approaching his work through a queer lens and a preamble to the exhibition Sergei Eisenstein. The Rhythm of Ecstasy: the Sex Drawings, 1931-1948 at the gallery Ellen de Bruijne PROJECTS, Amsterdam (July 12th – August 3rd).

Eisenstein was a prolific and passionate drawer. During his stay in México, Eisenstein made a great number of drawings: some in connection to the film he was shooting, others explicitly erotic and sexual, in which all taboo is lifted and comically subverted. His drawings draw from a vast array of literary, folkloric, and personal references, and denote an interest in approaching sexuality and eroticism unabashedly.

Sergi Rusca

Sergi Rusca is a curator living and working in the Netherlands. His practice focuses on intersectional ecology, with interests in queer studies, philosophy of science, more-than-human worlding, and the semantics of finance. He is currently gallery curator at Ellen de Bruijne PROJECTS, Amsterdam, and assistant curator at RADIUS, centre for contemporary art and ecology, Delft.