¡Que Viva Mexico!

Film Screening with Original Soundtrack by Rodrigo Sigal

February 18, 2026 | 7:00 PM

INTS 1128 – CHASS Interdisciplinary Screening Room

FREE and open to the public

Paulo Chagas, Event Coordinator

UC Riverside’s Department of Music presents a special screening of ¡Que Viva Mexico!, Sergei Eisenstein’s iconic, unfinished film project, accompanied by an original soundtrack composed by Rodrigo Sigal and commissioned by UC Riverside.

Although Eisenstein (1898–1948) never completed the film, an edited version of his original footage was released in 1979 and has since become a landmark in film history. ¡Que Viva Mexico! is emblematic of Eisenstein’s transnational aesthetic vision and of a broader historical shift—from the sensory experimentation of modern art to the mass mediation of perception in global culture.

Rodrigo Sigal’s newly composed soundtrack approaches the film from two complementary perspectives. First, he assigns distinct timbral motives to the film’s characters, forging a close identity between image and sound. Second, he structures the music through the film’s visual layers, allowing cinematic montage to inform musical segmentation. The score integrates prehispanic instruments, materials from the 1979 soundtrack, and electroacoustic elements, creating a rich dialogue between past and present.

Commissioned by UC Riverside in 2021, this work offers a powerful reimagining of a silent-film classic and resonates with themes of Mexican cultural history and ritual, including connections to Día de los Muertos and other festive traditions.

🎥 Rodrigo Sigal on ¡Que Viva Mexico!:

https://youtu.be/mO2wnUDV_Cg

Jorge Rodrigo Sigal Sefchovich (Mexico City, 1971) is a composer, cultural organizer, and professor of Music and Artistic Technologies at the National School of Higher Studies (ENES), Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Morelia, where he co-founded the undergraduate program in Music and Artistic Technologies. His work focuses on electroacoustic music and the creative use of new technologies.

Since 2006, Sigal has served as Director of the Mexican Center for Music and Sonic Arts (CMMAS), leading national and international initiatives in artistic creation, education, research, and cultural management in sound and music. In 2024, he received the Bellas Artes Medal in Music from Mexico’s National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature (INBAL).

Sigal holds a PhD from City University of London, completed postdoctoral research at UNAM, and has received numerous fellowships and grants, including Fulbright, FONCA, and support from UNAM and the DeVos Institute for Cultural Management. He is a Level I member of Mexico’s National System of Researchers (CONACYT). For over two decades, he has been a member of the interdisciplinary collective Lumínico, is the director of the Visiones Sonoras Festival, and serves as editor of the journal Ideas Sónicas.

More information: www.rodrigosigal.com

PARKING

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