from vk & associates

Set within as century-old travelling circus, director Aaron Schock’s Circo is an intimate portrait of a Mexican family struggling to stay together despite mounting debt, dwindling audiences, and a simmering family conflict that threatens this once-vibrant family tradition. Tino, the ringmaster, is driven by his dream to lead his parents’ circus to success and corrals the energy of his whole family, including his four young children, towards this singular goal. But his wife Ivonne is determined to make a change. Feeling exploited by her in-laws, she longs to return to her kids a childhood lost to laboring in the circus.

Filmed along the backroads of rural Mexico, this cinematic road movie opens the viewer to the luminous world of a travelling circus while examining the universal themes of family bonds, filial responsibility, and the weight of the cultural inheritance. Through an intricately woven story of a marriage in trouble and of a century-old family tradition that hangs in the balance, Circo asks: To whom and to what should we ultimately owe our allegiances?

Tuscon-based indie-rockers Calexico wrote and recorded an extraordinary and evocative score for Circo. Known for their exploration of Southwestern and Latino musical culture as a band, they have also recorded film scores for directors as diverse as Todd Haynes and Michael Mann.

About the Ponce Family:

The Ponce family’s 7-generation-old circus dates back to the late 19th century. Founded by Genaro Ponce, Circo Ponce Hermanos formed during Mexico’s consolidation of the modern circus tradition in the later 1800s when circuses like the famed Circo Atayde emerged. While never quite reaching that size and scale, the Ponce family maintained a 30-member strong circus late into the 1980’s, when family members began to break apart and form their own smaller circuses. Descending from the original circus, there are now about 2 Ponce family circuses of all sizes and shapes still travelling in Mexico.

About Director/ Producer/ Cinematographer/ Writer, Aaron Schock:

Aaron Schock holds a MA in government from Columbia University and worked for several years at a non-profit community development in New York City before moving into filmmaking. His first film, Song of Roosevelt Ave. (2005), an award-winning documentary short about undocumented immigrants in Queens, has played in over a dozen film festivals around the world and at the Queen’s Museum of Art (NYC). Circo is his first feature.

“My hope is that Circo tells both a universal story while allowing the audience to enter into a specific family, tradition, and country. I think that the Ponce family’s dilemma is a universal one experienced by millions of rural Mexicans for whom a way of life that has sustained them for centuries is increasingly unsustainable, and where other options are few.”

Circo is being released in Canada by KINOSMITH INC. KINOSMITH is an independent Canadian film distribution & marketing company founded in February 2007.

To find out more about the film check the Official Website at: www.circomexico.com