Guanajuato Film Festival celebrates its 25th anniversary with a special edition

Published January 19th, 2022

The Guanajuato International Film Festival celebrates its 25th anniversary this year with a special edition that will include “surprises and many activities,” announced Tuesday by its director, Sarah Hoch.

Known as GIFF for its acronym in English, the festival will be held from July 22 to 31 in cities in the center of the state such as Irapuato, San Miguel de Allende, and Leon.

As of this Tuesday, the worldwide call for entries for the feature film, documentary, short film, and virtual reality competitions was inaugurated and will continue until April 1 of this year.

“We remind Mexican filmmakers that we do not charge registration fees for national projects,” said Hoch.

This year, GIFF will send Mexican producers María Fernanda Galindo and Abril López Carrillo on scholarships to the Rotterdam Lab at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, which kicks off in January 26.

“This will give me the opportunity to be in contact with many professionals from different areas and places in the world with my project,” said Galindo in a video released during the virtual press conference.

The presence in Rotterdam will be under the name “Somos pequeñas” (We are small), which mixes documentary with fiction and portrays a group of girls from a native town in Sonora who are preparing for a singing contest.

In addition, documentary filmmaker and journalist Diego Enrique Osorno were chosen as the Mexican representative for a stay in Berlin, Germany, as part of the exchange that the festival carries out with the Goethe Institut Mexiko and Mediumboard.

“There is a residency for a Mexican filmmaker in Berlin and one for a German in Mexico to write their scripts, edit their films, review the project, look for financing, etc.,” said Hoch.

Also present at the press conference were the deputy director of distribution and national promotion of the Mexican Institute of Cinematography (IMCINE), Lola Díaz González; the general director of the Institute of Culture of the State of Guanajuato, Adriana Camarena, and the secretary of Tourism of the State of Guanajuato, Juan José Álvarez Brunel. EFE