Matilde Landeta

Matilde Soto Landeta

Matilde was one of the first women cinematographers is Mexico. When she was 14, she traveled to the U.S and saw "Old San Francisco" Directed by Alan Crosland, 1927, and that’s when her passion for cinematography started.

5 years later, her brother Manuel Landeta, an actor at that time helped her get involve as a script girl in 1932. She was the first Women, in Mexico to have a job as a script girl. She worked as a script for 70 movies. Until in 1945 she became Directors assistant for famous directors at that time.

In 1948 she made her debut as a Director for "Lola Casanova." in order to make this film, she had to put her house on mortgage, and funded the TACMA S.A de C.V productions, because no one thought a woman was capable of creating a movie, and didn't want to produce her film.

She was boycotted several times, and her film took more than a year to be premiered at a cheap theater.

She produced a second movie and was also boycotted, and by 1951, producers made sure her career never progressed. She spent 40 years without creating a film, but worked for an American network, writing 110 short films for Howdy Doody.

She later continued directing films and was awarded with the Ariel award. She was the first women to challenge the world of film making in Mexico and inspired many women cinematographers in Italy to do the same. She was also the first cinematographer to portray women as, for what they were. Women with knowledge, feelings and rights. Not prostitutes, like they were currently shown in films.