Venues
Events
VideoFilm
Circo
From first time feature writer/director Aaron Schock
The Ponce family and their family-run “Circo Mexico”, have lived and performed on the back roads of Mexico since the 19th century. Tino, the ringmaster, is driven by his dream to lead his parents’ circus to greater success. He corrals the energy of his whole family, including his parents, his brother and 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’s determined to return her kids to a childhood lost to laboring in the circus.
Set in the beautifully rich milieu of a century-old traveling circus in rural Mexico, CIRCO follows the Ponce family and their family-run circus as they struggle to stay together despite mounting debt, dwindling audiences, and a simmering family conflict.
Through an intricately woven story of a marriage in trouble and of a century-old family tradition that hangs in the balance, the movie asks: To whom and to what should we ultimately owe our allegiances?
Gorgeously filmed along the back roads of rural Mexico, CIRCO is a road movie that opens the viewer to the luminous world of a traveling circus while examining the universal themes of family bonds, filial responsibility, and the weight of cultural inheritance.
An original score by indie rockers Calexico
Aaron Schock (Director / Producer / Cinematographer / Writer) is a Columbia University graduate and worked for several years in non-profit community development in New York City before moving into filmmaking. CIRCO is his first feature.