101 minutes | Mexico | 2012 | Digital Projection
Spanish with English subtitles
The third feature film by acclaimed radio DJ Olallo Rubio is an irreverent rockumentary about the four-time Latin Grammy Award-winning Mexican alternative band Molotov. Formed in 1995, Molotov rapidly became a favorite among Mexican fans for its risqué, playful, and politically-inspired lyrics. Taking the band’s provocative and controversial trademark lyrics as a point of departure, Gimme the Power narrates the history of the popular band while exploring the convoluted political and social contexts of contemporary Mexico.
Olallo Rubio was born in Mexico City on June 3, 1977. When he was two years old, he moved with his family to San Diego California where he grew up immersed in American culture. After several years in San Diego, his parents decided to move back to Mexico City where he remained linked to the US through TV, music and movies. In his teenage years he became deeply interested in American counterculture.
Olallo began his media career in 1995, at the age of 17, working as a radio DJ/host for Mexico’s number one rock radio station at the time: Radioactivo 98.5 FM; in 2002, he became the managing director of the station. In his radio years Rubio fought for freedom of speech by challenging government and corporate censorship and became an opinion leader. After Radioactivo was closed down in 2004, he found an outlet in the Internet, his podcast reached the number 1 spot in the talk radio iTunes charts worldwide, and over 15 million downloads with 80 episodes.
In 2007, he made the documentary So, What’s Your Price? The film was screened in Central Park in New York City as part of the Summer Stage Festival and was part of the official selection at the Latino Film Festival in San Francisco, The Havana Film Festival, and the Guadalajara International Film Festival. So, What’s Your Price? became one of the three highest grossing documentaries in Mexican history. Rubio’s next film, This is Not a Movie marked his fictional feature debut. He returns to nonfiction with Gimme the Power, a rockumentary focused on Mexico’s most controversial rock band Molotov.
Carlos A. Gutiérrez is a film/video programmer, cultural promoter and arts consultant based in New York City. As a guest curator, he has presented several film/video series at different cultural institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, BAMcinématek, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco, CA) and Museo Rufino Tamayo (Mexico City). Along with Mahen Bonetti, he curated the 53rd edition of the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar. He is a contributing editor to BOMB magazine and has served as a member of the jury and the selection committees for various film festivals including the Morelia Film Festival, SANFIC – Santiago Film Festival, The Hamptons International Film Festival, The Asian American International Film Festival and New Fest: The New York Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, among others. He has served as both expert nominator and panelist for the Rockefeller Fellowship Program for Mexican Film & Media Arts and for The Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, as well as a screening panelist for the Oscars’ Academy Awards for film students. He holds MA in Cinema Studies from New York University and a BA in Communications from Universidad Iberoamericana (Mexico City).
New York-based Cinema Tropical (CT) is the leading presenter of Latin American cinema in the U.S. Founded in 2001 with the mission of distributing, programming and promoting what was to become the biggest boom of Latin American cinema in decades, CT brought U.S. audiences some of the first screening of films such as Amores Perros and Y Tu Mamá También. Through a diversity of programs and initiatives, CT is thriving as a dynamic and groundbreaking 501(c)(3) non-profit media arts organization experimenting in the creation of better and more effective strategies for the distribution and exhibition of foreign cinema in this country.
