I Dream in Another Language · reception & legacy

2017 · Ernesto Contreras

How I Dream in Another Language has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

It premiered at Sundance 2017 and won the Audience Award for World Cinema Dramatic, then went on to take Best Picture at Mexico's Ariel Awards — yet outside Mexico it never got a big theatrical moment, so it's since settled into 'quietly beloved word-of-mouth discovery' status rather than needing a reappraisal.

What's debated

Fans split on the film's magical-realist streak — whether the mystical treatment of the dying language is its most beautiful idea or a too-tidy fable gloss on a real-world tragedy.

Its footprint

It became a touchstone in the conversation about language death — the film people reach for when the topic of vanishing languages comes up — and a fixture of LGBTQ+ and Latin American film festival programming.

Where it stands

A cherished deep cut of 2010s Mexican cinema — the kind of film Letterboxd users press on each other with 'why has nobody seen this?'

★ Did you know? Zikril, the endangered language in the film, doesn't exist — it was invented specifically for the movie (so no real indigenous language would be misrepresented), and the story was sparked by real news reports about Ayapaneco, a Mexican language whose last two elderly speakers were famously said to not be on speaking terms.