A New Generation of Filmmaker From Mexico Dances Into the Scene : Movies: With ‘Danzon,’ director Maria Novaro emerges as a bold, visionary independent.

Maria Novaro’s “Danzon,” as refreshing as a tropical breeze, is one of the few films from Mexico to play outside Spanish-language theaters--and rarer still, one of the few Mexican movies to be directed by a woman. It takes its title from a form of Caribbean ballroom dancing that evolved from Haitian slaves emulating the cotillions of their French masters, and in Mexico is as much a part of traditional popular culture as the tango is in Argentina.

The film stars Maria Rojo as a Mexico City switchboard operator who escapes her routine job by frequenting a large dance hall, where for some time she has had a regular danzon partner. One day he seems to have disappeared, so she takes some vacation time and goes to his hometown of Veracruz to try to find him. Instead, she “finds” herself through a series of liberating experiences with a lot of free-spirited individuals; although poignant, “Danzon” is as sunny as its locale.

“My sister and I used to go to the dance hall every Wednesday and Sunday,” the filmmaker recalled in an interview while on a visit to Los Angeles. “We began to get an idea with danzon , which is the most beautiful dance of all. Such elegance, sobriety but also such sensuality! I really love our culture in how danzon expresses what happens between men and women. It expresses an intense sensuality but in a contained way, and I love that. It is a very Mexican way of behavior that is different from other countries in Latin America.”

Novaro was in Southern California in connection with her next film, tentatively titled “Fronteras,” which deals with the complex culture of Tijuana.

A tall, regal woman fluent in English, Novaro, 42, was born in Mexico City, and lives there with her second husband, Jorge Sanchez, who is also her producer, and her three children. Like her sister Beatriz, who collaborates with her on scripts, she started out to be a sociologist but got bored.

‘Then I was hired by some documentary filmmakers and saw that they were real people and decided that I could do that too. I had always loved films more than anything else. I was separated from my first husband, had two children, but I started film school anyway. It was tough, but my father was wonderful, so supportive. He was a writer, a poet and a playwright--so is Beatriz--and he wrote two or three films for the comedian Tin-Tan in the ‘50s. He died while I was editing ‘Danzon.’ ”

Novaro points to herself as a Mexican director who happens to be a woman.

“There was a woman directing in the ‘40s, and another began in the ‘70s,” she said. “Another woman was making a picture at the same time I was making my first feature, ‘Lola,’ and since then, four women, all from film school, have directed films.”

“Lola,” a story of a desperately poor single mother, has yet to be released in the United States, although it has won numerous prizes. In a sense, it is a product of Cuba’s renowned film school and the Sundance Institute, where Novaro found mentors first in writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez and then in Robert Redford. Clearly, these two experiences have shaped Novaro’s career and its direction.

“I arrived at Sundance with the wrong impression,” she said. “I had thought that things were easy here for new filmmakers and tough in Mexico. I realize now that that’s not true, and that in some areas things are more difficult here. It’s harder to be free and to express yourself here, where people with brilliant minds have to submit to all these formulas. I don’t have this kind of pressure. In Mexico there’s more respect for you doing your own thing. I stopped having this feeling of being a martyr to art--and of trying to say too many things in one film. I learned that it’s very useful to have a practical mind; Sundance puts your feet on the Earth.

“In Sundance they regard Redford as a god, but I was very cynical. But I was wrong. He read my script for ‘Lola’ and spent three afternoons with me. He gave me some brilliant ideas on how to direct the child in my film. I was very impressed: He really wants to help people.” “People say that in Mexico we have weak scripts, but I think the real problem is that we have a lot of trouble with actors. Of course, there are many exceptions--Maria Rojo, for example--but our actors tend to be stiff and theatrical. I learned at Sundance a lot about working with actors and acting for the cinema.

Novaro belongs to a new generation of independent Mexican filmmakers emerging from the wreckage of the commercial Mexican film industry, which in Novaro’s view has been making such increasingly cheap and terrible movies for the past quarter century that it has lost its audience. Yet mainstream audiences, as well as sophisticated filmgoers, flocked to theaters to see “Danzon,” which has also been shown to acclaim in Europe, South America and Canada.

“My greatest pleasure has been to see so many people in so many countries coming out of the theater with such pleasant smiles,” said Novaro. Wary of Hollywood, she said, “My dream is to make more and more films from my passions. If I can continue to do that I will be happy.”