El Mariachi El Mariachi El Mariachi is a 1992 American contemporary western action film and the first installment in the saga that came to be known as Robert Rodriguez's "Mexico Trilogy". It marked the feature length debut of Rodriguez as writer and director. The Spanish language film was shot with a mainly amateur cast in the northern Mexican bordertown of Ciudad Acuña, Coahuila, Mexico across from Del Rio, Texas, the home town of leading actor Carlos Gallardo. The US$7,225 production was originally intended for the Mexican home video market, but executives at Columbia Pictures liked the film and bought the American distribution
Mariachi this enterprise, and of Los Camperos in general have inspired many mariachi groups in the United States. In the late 1980s, pop star Linda Ronstadt recorded "Canciones de Mi Padre" and "Más Canciones" with Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán and others, which helped promote its popularity among Mexican Americans and to non-Mexican Americans. Some U.S. public schools offer mariachi as part of classes. The first student Mariachi group was begun in 1961 at the University of California, Los Angeles. This prompted the creation of other student organizations in other parts of California and then in Texas, where the first mariachi festival