Mérida Book Launch Revisits ‘Amores Perros’ Set 26 Years Later

Fernando Llanos spent two decades collecting the voices of people most audiences never think about: the crew behind “Amores Perros,” the 2000 film that turned Alejandro González Iñárritu into one of Mexico’s most celebrated directors.

Now those voices fill a book. Llanos will present Desatar Amores Perros — “Unleashing Amores Perros” — today at the Universidad de las Artes de Yucatán, or UNAY. The presentation starts at 7 p.m. in the Salón de Usos Múltiples, in Edificio C.

Built from anecdotes

Llanos worked as storyboard artist and made-of documentarian on “Amores Perros,” Iñárritu’s Oscar-nominated debut. The book idea surfaced during a conversation marking the film’s 20th anniversary, when Llanos noticed everyone in the room had a story to tell.

“Cuando escuché a todo el mundo diciendo: ‘no, es que yo tengo una anécdota’… dije: ‘el libro tiene que ser de eso,'” he told La Jornada Maya. Roughly translated, he realized those scattered anecdotes were the real heart of the project.

The 160-page book gathers 78 testimonials from people who rarely appear in a film’s spotlight: actors and directors, but also editors, production designers, sound engineers and assistants. Llanos said recognizing that crew isn’t a courtesy — it’s a matter of fairness, since filmmaking is inherently collective work.

An archive decades in the making

Material in the book includes original screenplay pages from writer Guillermo Arriaga, production photographs, location documents, call sheets and continuity Polaroids. Much of it comes from Llanos’ own archive, built from 47 videotapes he recorded on set more than 20 years ago.

Timing mattered, Llanos said. One of the film’s two dog trainers has died, and another death connected to the production occurred just days before a related book event at Mexico’s Cineteca Nacional. As a historian by training, he said, preserving testimony and archival material now felt urgent.

Llanos doesn’t consider the book a final word. He said his own archive holds far more than the 160 pages could contain, and he hopes someone revisits it in 20 or 30 years to ask why the film worked the way it did.

A different side of a five-time Oscar winner

Iñárritu contributed a text to the book, writing that he gave Llanos “the key to the house” and invited him in “not as a spectator, but as a witness.” During Monday’s presentation, Llanos also plans to screen a clip from the documentary “Un afortunado testigo,” showing Iñárritu at home discussing his intentions for the film — footage of a director years before his five Academy Awards, still unsure how the project would turn out.

For Llanos, the book is a chance to look at a familiar film from an unfamiliar angle: not through its director, its writer or its best-known scenes, but through the dozens of people who worked behind each shot.

With reporting from La Jornada Maya

Fast Facts

• Book: Desatar Amores Perros (“Unleashing Amores Perros”), by Fernando Llanos
• Presentation: Monday, Aug. 24, 7 p.m.
• Location: Salón de Usos Múltiples, Edificio C, Universidad de las Artes de Yucatán (UNAY)
• Length: 160 pages, 78 testimonials from cast and crew
• Related screening: A clip from the documentary “Un afortunado testigo,” featuring Alejandro G. Iñárritu