Photograph: Guillermo Kahlo/Frida Kahlo & Diego Rivera Archive, Bank of Mexico, Fiduciary in the Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Museum Trust
More than 60 years after her death, painter Frida Kahlo and her Casa Azul in Mexico City are still a source of admiration and inspiration. Her life is as intricate as her paintings and revered all over the world. Here are some iconic images celebrating her life in Caza Azul.
In 1943, Frida posed with her painting “Diego on My Mind” (left) a self-portrait featuring the traditional Tehuana costume. On the right, Frida is holding her pet monkey in the courtyard of her blue house.
Every so often the locations filmed in some of our favorite movies become famous in their own right. Think about the dinosaurs from Peewee’s Big Adventure, the Circus Liquor store from Clueless, or the San Francisco mansion from Full House, close your eyes and you can probably picture them crystal clear.
For the Netflix film Roma, one of its biggest stars has been the house in which many of the film’s scenes were shot. In fact, it’s become a bit of a tourist destination in its own right. And now, as it comes on the market, people are flocking to the property for a chance to see it up close.
The house from Roma is on sale and people are flocking to see it.
Para mudarse al 22 de la Calle Tepeji de la Colonia Roma hay que pagar 760.000 dólares https://t.co/BNvWoinTEA
Besides being a chronicle of a family during a turbulent moment in history and conveying a complex look at class and gender, Alfonso Cuarón’s award-winning Roma is also that rare film where its primary location feels like a character unto itself. In this case, it’s the Mexico City house where the film’s characters live; over the course of watching, you might feel like you live there yourself.
Now, the house in question is on the market — and cinema buffs and architecture fans alike might be intrigued.
The now famous house doesn’t really standout among the neighboring homes – except for a commemorative plaque.
Credit: Rodrigo Arangua/ Getty Images
Although the house is located in one of the city’s most popular neighborhoods – Roma – it’s located in a quiet corner of the colonia and doesn’t really stand out from any of the other houses. Although upon further inspection, you’ll see a plaque that commemorates the most celebrated Mexican film in decades, Roma.
In the 2018 film, Tepeji 22 stood in for Alfonso Cuarón’s boyhood home, and its facade and patio featured in some of the most memorable scenes.
Cuarón spent the first years of his life in the house across the street, Tepeji 21, but preferred the light in the house opposite to shoot his film and the family agreed. The production designer, Eugenio Caballero, changed the window grilles and retiled the patio, which serves as the set piece for the film’s first scene introducing the film’s protagonist, Cleo, the family’s maid, as she washes dog waste from the floor with soapy water.
The home was painstakingly recreated a set to match Cuarón’s memories.
Credit: Carlos Somante / Roma / Netflix
In a Netflix documentary about the making of the film, Cuáron describes how he tried to find as much of the original furniture as he could, contacting relatives across Mexico to ask them to borrow pieces. And it worked, since so many people who saw the film spoke about its authenticity and beauty.
The home’s owners have put it up for sale but aren’t publicly disclosing the price.
When Roma was nominated for 10 Oscars – and won three, including one for Best Director – the Monreal family (who own the property) welcomed tourists who tracked the movie’s locations through Roma and the rest of the city.
“It hurts,” Monreal told The Guardian, of the decision to sell the house, preferring to keep the reasons for the sale private. “It has given us great satisfaction, we love it. You can’t measure everything that we have lived through here, everything this house has given us: shelter, closeness, a united family.”
Despite the rumors that are swirling across social media, the Monreal family has not publicly shared the asking price for the house. A listing for a four-bedroom house on the same street, which is only two blocks long and not much changed since the 1970s, cited an asking price of about US$760,000.
In one many are calling a miracle, some Mexico City residents say that an image of La Virgen de Guadalupe has appeared in their neighborhood, in the middle of a pothole.
Many are so convinced that they’ve turned the site into a holy shrine and visitors from around the city are flocking to the area to pay their respects and offer prayers. But not everyone is convinced with many on Twitter responding with their own supposed visions of the virgin in everything from tacos and heads of lettuce to clouds and tortillas.
Could it be? Did la virgen appear in a Mexico City pothole?
Despite stay-at-home orders, faithful Catholics have been flocking to a pothole in the Mexico City suburb of Nezahualcóyotl. Why? They’re convinced that la Virgen de Guadalupe has made an appearance in a pothole, thanks to an image which residents say bears a miraculous image of the Virgin of Guadalupe.
According to neighbors, the image appeared on December 9 soon after the pothole was filled for the second time in a row.
Locals told the newspaper El Universal that the pothole had been left unrepaired for two years, but then workers showed up to repair it last week. When traffic caused the hole to reopen, a worker came by a second time to fix the hole. That evening, neighbors say, the image of the virgin appeared on the fresh concrete.
Residents in the area have already turned the new holy site into a shrine.
Vecinos de #Neza aseguran que la silueta de la Virgen de Guadalupe apareció en un bache y hasta repartieron tamales. Así fue el hallazgo: pic.twitter.com/T5pgzUg65y
Local resident Beatriz Noriega Ramírez was one of a group of neighbors who taped off the site and surrounded it with candles and flowers in tribute.
“News is already circulating about the appearance of the virgin and people have begun to arrive to say prayers,” she said. “Even sick people have been asking from their cars to be healed.”
Neighbors of the new virgin told reporters that they felt blessed to have Mexico’s most beloved holy figure make an appearance in their neighborhood.
“In these such difficult pandemic times, it’s a message that the virgin is with us,” said a visibly emotional resident.
And the discovery comes just as Catholics celebrated the virgin’s holy day.
Feliz Dia de La Virgen de Guadalupe! Happy Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe! 🙏 pic.twitter.com/34DBFNn7KE
The image appeared on December 9, a holy day for Mexican Catholics for it is the day the virgin is said to have first appeared in Mexico, in 1531, to an indigenous man known as Juan Diego.
Catholics just marked the Virgin of Guadalupe’s feast day on Saturday. Her basilica, in a zone of the city known as Villa Guadalupe, usually attracts 8–10 million visitors in the days leading up to December 12. However, this year police-manned barricades kept all but locals from accessing the streets near the basilica on Friday and Saturday. All church activities on both days at the basilica were canceled to discourage large crowds.
However, many Twitter users reacted with skepticism.
Honestly, we’re just waiting for our tías and abuelas to start sending this around with a blessing attached. It is only a matter of time before we see this photo all over our newsfeeds because of the very family members mentioned above.
And let’s be honest. This isn’t the first time people have claimed to have had a religious figure appear in strange places.
In 1977, a Latina mother in New Mexico became the first person to spot Jesus Christ on a tortilla. As Angelica Rubio recalled for The Eater, the discovery of the tortilla convinced her mother to set up a dedicated shrine to the tortilla to make sure people could come to see the miracle. The tortillas, made by Rubio’s mother every morning, held a surprise one morning as she saw a burn mark in one tortilla that looked just like the Lord Jesus Christ.
