Lotería

“Lotería” is an impressionistic documentary comprised of a series of interviews with street vendors, lottery officials, and the children responsible for drawing the winning numbers. These children, referred to as “gritones” (they literally shout out the numbers), are employed because their innocence is considered incorruptible. Rather than taking a conventional reportage approach, “Lotería” presents Mexico’s lottery as a visual and auditory phenomenon. The illusionary quality of the lottery as a part of Mexico’s cultural history is represented through the textured layers of the film’s sound and photography. Shot on both colour and black and white, Super 8 and 16mm, with optical visual effects as well as music recorded on the streets of Mexico City, “Lotería” eschews the traditional expository documentary form, offering instead an imaginative, observational approach. Spanish with English sub-titles.