

User Score
34 votes
Mateo Melgarejo is a notary public and scribe for the illiterate people of Santo Domingo, a neighborhood north of Mexico City's Zócalo. A squatter friend asks for his help in negotiating with the land census bureau to regularize a land title. After a great deal of frustration with the government bureaucracy, he writes a letter to the cabinet minister, earning an audience with him. The minister hires Melgarejo to reform the bureau, and the appointee proceeds to lecture the officials on their duties in a democratic society. At the end, he gives up the post, returning to Santo Domingo to help its poor residents.
Status
Released
Original Language
ES

Estrellita
Inocencio Prieto y Calvo receives a letter telling him he is the heir to his uncle's fortune of two million pesos. Not being able to read he has no idea of who sent the letter or its content. So he goes to the drugstore because the pharmacist can read the letter to him. But while waiting to be helped he sees that a young girl can read. He figures he has to be able to discover the letter's content by himself and decides he will save the letter and go to school, and wait to read the letter on his own.