Morelia Int'l Film Festival Prizes Emerging Mexican Voices

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Saturday, 09 October 2010 22:45

Written by Laura Blum

Arriving two weeks before Mexico’s Day of the Dead, the Morelia International Film Festival (October 16 to 24, 2010) is well positioned to take the pulse of the Mexican film industry. Perhaps more than any time in its eight-year history, FICM 2010 offers proof that the domestic cinema is alive and well, even resurrecting its Golden Age of Cinema. This year the country produced 80 films.

Morelia, the state capital of Michoacán, isn't Mexico's only forum showcasing home grown product. The more senior Guadalajara Film Festival had its beginnings as a national film expo, and the two fests still compete for glory. (Guanajuato, Chihuahua and soon Mérida also occupy the country’s growing roster of festival towns.)

FICM began in 2003 with the aim of nurturing new Mexican cinema talent. It has since emerged as an important junction for the film community, lay audiences and up-and-coming filmmakers.

Much of the credit must go to its patronage by wealthy godfather Cinépolis. The Mexican movie theater chain, which is allegedly ranked as the world’s fourth largest, provides the Festival venues and ample backing.

Also to thank for conferring its edge are several well-oiled strategic partnerships. In 2008 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave FICM the official nod by inviting its prizewinning fiction and animation shorts to contend for an Oscar nomination. Morelia is one of three Latin American festivals to be recognized by the Academy, alongside Cartagena and Río de Janeiro.

FICM’s alliance with the Cannes Film Festival likewise brings glossy perks. Selected works from the International Critics´ Week are screened each year in Morelia with the participation of some of their creators. Similarly, Semaine de la Critique shows the winning films of FICM at the French Riviera fest. This year, the Critics´ Week Grand Prize (awarded by Cinépolis) went to Armadillo, so the film from Danish director Janus Metz is now headed for Morelia.

Another feather in FICM’s sombrero is its programming braintrust, led by Festival Director Daniella Michel. Plus it doesn’t hurt that the town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site bedecked with pink Colonial buildings and a rich cultural life, burnishing FICM’s patina as a destination festival.

This "unique spaces" factor allegedly helped sway Alejandro González Iñárritu to hold the Mexican premiere of his new drama, Biutiful, in Morelia. The film, which will open the Festival, is Mexico's foreign-language submission to the Oscars. It stars Javier Bardem, who took the Palme d'Or for Best Actor in the film for his turn as an underworld figure seeking redemption before death.  Iñárritu, Bardem and Argentine actress Maricel Alvarez will be on hand to discuss the film.

The Festival encompasses five official competitive sections: Mexican short films, documentary and feature films and short films and feature films from Michoacán. Of the more than 80 Mexican films contending for this year's prizes, seven are fiction features from freshman and sophomore directors. These include buzz gatherers such as Jorge Michel Grau's cannibal tale We Are What We Are/Somos lo que hay, which was also featured at New York Film Festival 2010, andVete más lejos Alicia, the feature debut of Elisa Miller, whose 2007 short Watching it Rain/Ver llover made her Mexico's first woman director to win a Golden Palm at Cannes.   

One of this year's most anticipated shorts, The Second Bakery Attack/El segundo ataque a la panadería, is directed by Carlos Cuarón, and stars Kirsten Dunst and Brian Geraghty. 

Global titles screening at Morelia include Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall his Past Lives, this year's Palme d'Or winner by Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Woody Allen's latest comedy You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger and Sofia Coppola's Somewhere, which snatched the Golden Lion at Venice Film Festival 2010. 

This year, Terry Gilliam will be a special guest, continuing the FICM tradition of saluting an established filmmaker who convenes with aspiring cinema professionals and the public to pass along craft wisdoms. Festival-goers will have a chance to see Gilliam's 12 feature films in a special retrospective tribute.

One of Mexico’s top film schools, Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica (CCC), will mark its 35th anniversary at this year’s fest. As part of the revelries, it will screen contending entries in the official short film competition and “Cinéfondation” (student section in competition) at Cannes.

Another anniversary – the fifth – will be observed by Ambulante, Gira de Documentales. Underwritten by the Mexico City Commission for the Celebration of 200 Years of Independence and 100 years of the Revolution, the forum will present contemporary nonfiction works of relevance to the independence and revolutionary movement, under the rubric of “Focus Bi100.”

The Festival’s Bicentennial salute extends to a special screening of Gertrudis Bocanegra, a 1992 film about a heroine of the War of Independence. Written by and starring screen grand dame Ofelia Medina, it will be shown in the Emperador Caltzonzin Theater in Pátzcuaro, Michoacán, less than an hour away from Morelia. Medina will attend the screening.

Another special event to unfold in this colonial landmark venue is a screening of Maclovia. Directed by Emilio Fernández and starring María Félix and Pedro Armendáriz, the 1948 romantic drama has been selected to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Filmoteca of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).  

Below are the Mexican films in competition. Head over to http://www.moreliafilmfest.com for the full Festival lowdown.

MICHOACAN SECTION

Amaren Ideia, by Maider Oleaga
Aukanime, la que tiene hambre, by Pavel Rodríguez
La bella soñante, by Omar Hernández
Dulce 2010, by Juan Paulin
Hablando de jirafas, by Francisco Fuentes Lara, Patricia Fuentes Lara
Hombre idea, by César Adolfo Arceo Arévalo
Hysteresis, by Carlos Fabián Vallejo Huerta
Light Me Up!, by Omar Hernández Peña
Luna, by Manuel Cisneros
La odisea de Mateo, by Elpidia Carrillo
Ni una gota más, by Jonathan Israel, Antonio Garcés
Sïruki Tsakapu, by Raúl Máximo Cortés
El talador arrepentido, by Dominique Jonard

MEXICAN SHORT FILM SECTION

29, by Carlos Armella
Atmósfera, by Julián Hernández
Autorretrato, by Alejandro Argüelles
La banda de San Cosmo, by Uri Espinosa
Busco empleo, by Francisco Valle
El cerebro, by Alejandro Argüelles
Como mirar bajo la lluvia, by Lilia Deschamps
Chiflando en la loma, by Andrés Monterrubio
Danzón No. 2, by Guillermo Ortiz
De este mundo, by Fernanda Valadez
De Fut, by José Ramón Chávez
Desierto, by Christian Rivera
Dorsal, by Pablo Delgado
Emma, by Masha Kostiurina
En la ciudad (Xoco), by Raúl Antonio Sanabria
La espera, by Miguel Salgado
Firmes, by Yordi Capó
Gaza, by Irving Uriba
Globo azul, by Izabel Acevedo
Guerra de papel, by Carlos Rodrigo Calderón, Alejandro Ayala
Una habitación vacía, by Diana Peñaloza
Hacia la vida, by Fidel Arizmendi
Hilos y cables, by Juan Carlos Martín
La fruición, by Jimena Colunga
Luna, by Raúl Cárdenas, Rafael Cárdenas
Lupano Leyva, by Felipe Gómez
Marea alta, by Bárbara Ochoa
Martyris, by Luis Felipe Hernández Alanís
La mina de oro, by Jacques Bonnavent
Mi niña, by Horacio Ramírez
Miel, by Lucero Sánchez Novaro
Una noche, by Acán Coen
Nubes distantes, by Pierre Saint- Martin
Ponkina, by Beatriz Herrera Carrillo
Recto recto gancho. by Santiago Maza
Si maneja de noche procure ir acompañado, by Isabel Muñoz
Stella Maris, by Marie Benito
Tempo Rubato, by Miguel Anaya Borja
El tío Facundo, by Alejandro Cachoua
The Light Pressure of a Thought, by Paula Assadourian
The Second Bakery Attack, by Carlos Cuarón
Tugging Hearts, by Paula Assadourian
El último canto del pájaro Cú, by Alonso Ruizpalacios
El vacío, by Abraham López
El venado y la niebla, by Miguel Ángel Ventura
Y Dios quiso, by Flavio Florencio

MEXICAN DOCUMENTARY SECTION

12 onzas, by Patricio Serna Salazar
 24 en Sisbichen, by Dora Juárez, Luis Damián Sánchez
 Las águilas humanas, by Arturo Pérez Torres
 Barrios, Beats and Blood, by Ioan Grillo
 Blattangelus, by Araceli Santana
 Carne que recuerda, by Dalia Huerta Cano
 Daniel Reyes para presidente, by Daniel Reyes
 En los pasos de Abraham, by Daniel Goldberg
 Una frontera, todas las fronteras, by David Pablos
 Luces, by Luis Javier Rodríguez López
 Nadie es inocente 20 años después, by Sarah Minter.
 Nayeri Su'umuavika, by Omar Osiris Ponce Nava, Beatriz Betsabé Bautista Fletes
 Pasos a la eternidad, by Daniel Goldberg
 Perdida, by Viviana García Besné
 La región invisible, by Bruno Varela
 Sólo pase la persona que se va a retratar, by Roque Azcuaga
 Vagonero, by Javier Sánchez Velasco
 El Varal, by Marta Ferrer, Javier Campos
 Vuelve a la vida, by Carlos Hagerman
 Y el río sigue corriendo, by Carlos Pérez Rojas

MEXICAN FEATURE FILMS

Acorazado, by Álvaro Curiel de Icaza
A tiro de piedra, by Sebastián Hiriart
De día y de noche, by Alejandro Molina
Marimbas del infierno, by Julio Hernández Cordón
Somos lo que hay, by Jorge Michel Grau
Tierra madre, by Dylan Verrechia
Vete más lejos Alicia, by Elisa Miller       

Morelia International Film Festival

October 16 to 24, 2010

Cinepolis Morelia Centro

Cinépolis Plaza Morelia
Cinépolis La Huerta

Morelia, Michoacán

Mexico

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