Rare 1938 Footage Shows Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera Visiting Leon Trotsky in Coyoacán

In 1938, rare film footage shows Mexican artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo visiting Leon Trotsky, the exiled Soviet revolutionary, and his wife, Natalia Sedova, in Coyoacán, Mexico. The Trotskys arrived in Mexico the prior year after Rivera urged President Lázaro Cárdenas’ government to provide refuge for the Marxist theorist. Trotsky reached the port of Tampico in January 1937 aboard a Norwegian oil tanker, where Kahlo greeted him and his wife. She then traveled with them on an armored train to Mexico City and invited them to stay at her family's residence, La Casa Azul. By the time American Ivan Heisler filmed the footage, Trotsky and Kahlo had engaged in a brief affair, leading to the eventual breakdown of their friendship. Trotsky moved to a different house in early 1939, where he was assassinated in August 1940. Open Culture published the clip, noting a previous version appeared in 2013.