By Veronica Zavala
Cine Popular de Antonio Aguilar
A celebrated recording artist with an extensive discography of rancheras and corridos, Antonio Aguilar was born in Villanueva, Zacatecas, in 1919 and died in 2006. He emerged as one of the most influential figures in Mexican popular culture, distinguished for bringing Mexico’s equine traditions to the screen and stage.
Although he has only recently begun to receive scholarly recognition as a filmmaker, Aguilar was a dominant presence in Mexican cinema throughout the 1970s and 1980s, most notably as a leading actor in over 100 films, as well as a producer and contributor to the development of the story.
His body of work, deeply rooted in narratives of rural life, national history and popular tradition, played a critical role in shaping cinematic representations of rural Mexican identities. His performances connected with Mexican communities in Los Angeles, transforming music and film into a powerful means of remembering and feeling connected across borders.
For the first time, academic institutions and scholars are beginning to formally recognize the enduring cultural impact of his work, creating new spaces for critical engagement with his cinematic legacy and its broader significance.
The colloquium Cine Popular Antonio Aguilar was a collaborative effort organized by the Autonomous University of Zacatecas (UAZ), the Université d’Évry Val-d’Essonne - Paris Saclay (UEVE-Paris Saclay) and the University of Guadalajara. Its purpose was to bring together scholars from Mexico, Europe and the United States who specialize in Mexican cinema to discuss and critically engage with the filmic legacy of Antonio Aguilar.
The event opened with a photography exhibit in the lobby of the Zacatecas State Congress. The photos highlighted key moments from Aguilar’s film career, underscoring his cultural significance, his roots in Zacatecas and his influence on Mexican popular culture.
The conference featured a special screening of Los Marcados (Alberto Mariscal, 1970), a film primarily shot on location at the archaeological site of La Quemada, offering a distinct entry in Aguilar’s filmography. This film contrasts with Aguilar’s usual narratives, which are centered on music, the Mexican Revolution and/or comedia ranchera, standing out for its darker tone and departure from the more traditional storylines of comedia ranchera that define his popular cinema.
The academic conference continued with panels and roundtable discussions that examined various aspects of Antonio Aguilar’s cinematic legacy. One of the key takeaways from the colloquium was the recognition of the diversity within Aguilar’s body of work. His cinema cannot be confined to a single genre or category, but instead spans multiple subgenres with intersecting themes and stylistic elements — including comedia ranchera, melodrama, Mexican Revolution narratives, horse-centered films and Westerns — that reflect the breadth of his artistic contributions and cultural impact. My contribution centered on the horse as a form of narrative stardom that recurs across Aguilar’s films, revealing constructions and relationships to land, identity and mobility.
Horses in Cinema
As a Ph.D. candidate in cinema and media studies at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film, and Television, I focus my research on Mexican cinema. In my presentation at the colloquium, “Los Caballos en el Cine de Antonio Aguilar,” I examined the role of horses specifically in Aguilar’s films. Known for his real-life experience as a horse breeder, Aguilar projected an authentic connection with horses on screen, portraying them in a wide range of contexts, from revolutionary battles and horse races to serenades and melodramatic adventures. This equestrian authenticity carried into his cinematic work, where Aguilar consistently positioned the horse both as a central narrative figure and as a featured co-star.
Aguilar toured the Americas with equestrian shows and built a prolific film career showcasing horses in the legendary storytelling of corridos. Films such as El Caballo Cantador (1979), Caballo Prieto Azabache (1967), El Alazán y el Rosillo (1966), El Caballo Blanco (1962) and Gabino Barrera (1964) exemplify this relationship. In my dissertation, I argue that the horse functioned not merely as a cultural symbol, but as an affective, ideological and visual protagonist. Viewed through the lens of star studies and animal performance, this approach reveals how Aguilar’s stardom was constructed in close alignment with the figure of the horse, rendering his identity as a performer inseparable from the equestrian imagery that defined his public persona.
El Soyate and Tayahua
One of the highlights of the conference was a guided visit to El Soyate and the Hacienda Tayahua, two sites intimately tied to Aguilar’s life and legacy. Both locations served as primary filming locations for many of his films.
El Soyate is approximately 35 miles outside the city of Zacatecas, situated in a rural landscape. It’s where Aguilar built his home and lived with Flor Silvestre. As we walked through the property, I recognized several filming references, including the courtyard, the entrance to the house and the dining room. One striking detail is his original tour bus, still parked on the grounds: a reminder of his decades spent performing across the Americas. Aguilar’s office remains intact, preserving the atmosphere of his daily life and creative process.
Antonio Aguilar and Flor Silvestre are buried on the hillside behind the house, where their final resting place overlooks the land that shaped much of their legacy.
Tayahua, a small town located approximately four miles from Soyate, remains deeply connected to Aguilar and serves as a living archive of cultural memory. His hacienda in Tayahua served as a key filming location for many of his movies and continues to reflect his influence. Although the house remains private, the chapel on the property now serves as the town’s main church and continues to be an essential gathering place for the community. The hacienda has maintained original elements, including the clay pots and plants that appeared onscreen more than fifty years ago. The property fosters a strong connection between past and present, with features such as the lienzo charro (rodeo arena), which once served as a set for Aguilar’s films and equestrian shows.
At the entrance to Tayahua, visitors can stop by Tristes Recuerdos, a local souvenir shop named after one of Aguilar’s most popular songs and one of his movies. The walls of the store feature vibrant murals of him and Flor Silvestre, honoring their enduring cultural presence in Mexican popular culture.
The colloquium made clear that engaging with Aguilar’s career, from his films to the places he lived and worked, opens up new ways of understanding how cultural memory takes shape, moves across borders and draws from both local and diasporic communities.