A Mexican filmmaker, and author of a documentary about Pancho Villa, lamented an accident while serving meals in Mexico City to make a living, a testament to the fragility of Mexico’s artists, colleagues lamented Friday.
Other media and filmmakers reported that Gregorio Rocha, 65, died in hospital Thursday in a motorcycle accident while working on a home meal delivery app.
Mr. Rocha achieved notoriety in 2003 for the documentary “Los rollos perdidos de Pancho Villa” (“The Lost Reels of Pancho Villa”), based on archival footage attributed to the hero of the Mexican Revolution.
The documentary won several awards in Mexico, Spain and the United States.
“He died distributing meals on an app: an honest but risky business to the fullest insult,” critic Sergio Hydrobro slammed on Twitter, praising a great defender of “audiovisual memory”.
Director and producer Jose Antonio Cordero also felt he did not deserve to “be a great director” and “die like a delivery boy”.
The Minister of Culture, Alejandra Frausto, expressed her “sadness” by saluting a “cinema man who has dedicated” the production of cultural, historical and social documentaries.
Mexico is a country of actors and directors devoted to Hollywood, such as Gael Garcia Bernal and Alfonso Cuarón.
Other filmmakers and creators deplore the lack of means the current government is allocating to culture.
52 delivery workers have died in road accidents in less than two years, the “No Less Delivery Worker” group told AFP at the end of 2021, which advocates for social rights for delivery workers.
