A woman walks by a day care centre in the neighbourhood where the Netflix film ‘Roma’, with 10 Oscar nominations, was filmed in Mexico City

 THE TIMES OF INDIA (January 28, 2019)

The success of ‘Roma’, which garnered 10 Oscar nominations this week, has made a star out of one of the movie’s key protagonists: the Mexico City neighbourhood that gave it its name.

Directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron, who sumptuously shot it in black and white, the movie is set in the 1970s in the Mexico City neighbourhood where he grew up, La Roma — today a magnet for filmbuff tourists seeking the modern-day, full-colour version.

The neighbourhood Cuaron depicts as an upper-middle-class bastion of spacious art-deco houses and fancy chrome-clad cars fell on hard times when it was devastated by a 1985 earthquake that killed more than 10,000 people in Mexico City. But its central location and leafy streets helped bring it back, and today it is a hipster paradise of trendy bars, cafes, restaurants and shops.

One of those streets in particular has drawn an unprecedented flow of tourists since ‘Roma’ came out, according to residents: Tepeji street, where Cuaron grew up and meticulously recreated his boyhood home for the film. Outside number 22 Tepeji, a newly installed metal plaque informs visitors: “This is where ‘Roma’ was filmed, 2016-2017.”

“We loved the movie. It captivated us from the first moment. We decided to come see the house in person,” said Esteban Alvarez, 27, a musician from Costa Rica who was making the pilgrimage with his girlfriend. They have joined a stream of tourists hunting for locations where the highly autobiographical film was shot.

There is even a guidebook for people trying to retrace the film’s steps, while Conde Nast published an article this week to help tourists find “Mexico City Airbnbs that Could Have Been in ‘Roma.’” ‘Roma’ is an intimate portrait of the two women who raised Cuaron: his nanny, played by breakout star Yalitza Aparicio, and his mother, played by Marina de Tavira — both up for Oscars.