Toro negro gives deep insight into the life of Fernando Pacheco, a bullfighter in the Mayan Region in southeast Mexico. Fernando is heart-warming and honest, but also an alcoholic, violent and impulsive. Pedro González-Rubio and Carlos Armella follow, almost from the character’s inside, and sometimes with a disturbing closeness, Fernando Pacheco, a.k.a El Suicida (The Suicide), a young bullfighter who fights not in big arenas but at popular parties of small Mayan communities in the Yucatán Peninsula.

Both his private life and his bullfighting are insane. Toro Negro achieves moments of extreme realism that are both fascinating and extremely tense. The scenes of domestic violence between El Suicida and his wife are suffused with a crude intimacy. Toro Negro is a documentary that shows human passions and conflicts with rawness and humor, as we see that sometimes reality is more suspenseful and captivating than any fiction.

Awards

Best Film (Horizontes) – San Sebastian Film Festival 2005
Best Film – Morelia Film festival 2005
Audience Award – Nantes “3 Continents” Film Festival 2005
Best Documentary – Havana International Film Festival 2005
Special Mention for Best Documentary – Nantes “3 Continents” Film Festival
 
Quotes

“Radically human and touching.”-       M. Paco Prieto, Reforma Newspaper

“I was profoundly impressed; the impact was 100% emotional.”- Alejandro González Iñarritu

“A documentary with a proper fiction structure.”-       Sebastián Russo, Miradas de Cine

“Amazing closeness and disturbing at times.”-    Javier Porta Fous, El Amante.com