Directors of Mexican festivals disagree on on-site and/or virtual editions

Published August 25, 2021 (sp)

The pandemic has caused some of the main Mexican festivals to coincide in the last four months of the year. Guanajuato and Morelia were traditionally held at this time, but Guadalajara -which used to take place in March- was delayed in 2020 to November by COVID and this year will take place in October. Its three directors maintain different lines regarding the online experience, offering in streaming all or part of the films of their events. While, from Morelia, Daniela Michel believes that the Internet and festivals have an alliance that will be perpetuated for years, Estrella Araiza defends the return to normality of cinema in theaters.

The general director of the Guadalajara Festival told NOTICINE.com that the use of the network can be positive for theoretical events, presentations, master classes or debates, but in her opinion the essence of cinema is in the screenings open to the public, “as a shared spectacle”. The head of the tapatío event, which will run from October 1 to 9, rejects the idea of maintaining an online film program when it gradually moves towards normality. “We talked about it after last year’s edition and we defend that films should be shown on the big screen,” he said.

A divergent, if not opposite, position is that of journalist Daniela Michel, founder and director of the Morelia Festival. “Last year it was a smaller festival, but we had almost one million spectators online, which tells me that there is a large audience that cannot travel to Morelia,” she told Reforma. In his opinion, “The hybrid format (in person and online, simultaneously) is here to stay, 10 years from now I still envision a hybrid festival”.

Michel believes that in 2021, even if “there were incredible circumstances to make a festival with many guests, it will have a virtual part”. Morelia will close the festival offer from October 27 to November 1.

Meanwhile, in Guanajuato, they were also satisfied with the experience of disseminating their films through the network, since they tripled their viewers thanks to it in 2020. “We learned how to manage those spaces and that anything is possible where there is desire and creativity. That’s why the festival again is hybrid (face-to-face and virtual), the streaming platforms of our films follow,” said its founder and director, Sarah Hoch.

This year the event, which is shared with the state capital, San Miguel de Allende, León and Irapuato, will take place from September 17 to 26, coinciding with San Sebastian on the other side of the ocean. Hoch told that on this occasion full details of the contest will not be released until a few days before, pending the travel possibilities of the guests and the development of the new wave of COVID for its Delta variant.

“Our intention is to do a face-to-face event, but just like last year we are with plan A, B and C. We wanted to go back to big theaters thinking we were going to be about 80 percent, but now with the Delta variant we don’t know. What would happen in theaters we are taking out to small squares, large terraces and open-air spaces, but if it gets too big, we will send it to drive-in theaters again,” commented Hoch to Reforma.