The TIME Studios doc Frida is on the 2025 Oscars shortlist for best documentary film.
The innovative movie, available to stream on Amazon Prime, is hailed as the first documentary to be entirely told through the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo’s own words. Director Carla Gutierrez and her team feature Kahlo’s letters on men, politics, feminism, and Fernanda Echevarría Del Rivero voices her personal diary entries. Animation brings the artist’s iconic paintings to life.
One of Frida’s credited consultants is Kahlo’s great-niece, Cristina Kahlo, 64, who is an artist in her own right. A photographer for 35 years, she has documented many different subjects, such as Mexican cultural institutions, danzón dancer communities, and children with disabilities.
Kahlo is named after Frida Kahlo’s sister, who famously had an affair with Frida’s husband, the artist Diego Rivera and posed for his artwork. The affair has not clouded the work of Cristina the photographer. In fact, she once collaborated with Diego Rivera’s grandson.
Most of what she learned about Frida came from research later on in life, and when she is not behind the camera, she is doing interviews about Frida and helping curate exhibits about her great-aunt. In the below conversation, she talks about what it’s like to work under the Kahlo name, myths and misconceptions about her great-aunt Frida, and reflects on Frida’s legacy.
Growing up, what did you learn about your namesake Cristina Kahlo and her relationship with Diego Rivera?
My father Antonio passed away when I was 13 years old. I was really young, so we didn’t have much time to talk about the family. When my father passed away, I started reading about Frida Kahlo and learned that her sister Cristina had an affair with Diego Rivera.
How did you feel when you read about that?
Well, it’s complicated. Frida and Diego were very sexually open, and he was a smooth-talker. He was always telling women that they are so beautiful. I think it was…
