Film: Doña Bárbara

“Somehow, I seduced the public,” María Félix (1914–2002) proclaims in her autobiography, Todas mis guerras (All My Wars), though today it’s hard to believe the legendary actress truly underestimated her own power onscreen. It is precisely her powerful performance in pioneering Mexican director Fernando de Fuentes’s Doña Bárbara that gave Felix her enduring nickname, “La Doña.” With successful folk recording artist and star of over fifty films Maria Elena Marqués (1926–2008) by Félix’s side, this story of revenge, vindication, and embattled female empowerment created an indelible image of La Doña as, in her own words, “the number one enemy of the Mexican family morals.”

DIRECTED BY: Fernando de Fuentes, Miguel M. Delgado. WRITTEN BY: Rómulo Gallegos. WITH: María Félix, Julián Soler, María Elena Marqués, Andrés Soler. 1943. 138 min. Mexico. B&W. Spanish. DCP. Digital copy provided by Filmoteca UNAM. Screening courtesy of Televisa Foundation–Univision Foundation.