The Guadalajara Film Festival is over one-quarter of a century old but isn’t able to do a face-lift

Amador

The Guadalajara Film Festival is over one-quarter of a century old, and the long-established platform for the annual launch of Mexico’s new films, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t able to do a face-lift.
From leadership to venues to even the website, there’s a new look to the festival. With the departure of fest topper Jorge Sanchez and program director Lucy Virgen, Guadalajara has turned to a pair of cinephiles with roots in the film archive world: Ivan Trujillo has taken the reins as exec director, while Gerardo Salcedo has assumed programming responsibilities. Trujillo, who completed a stint as Mexico’s cultural attaché in Cuba just before his appointment,

Guadalajara Film festival carries on

After what observers of the Mexican film scene describe as a challenging year, a sober-minded attitude appears to be guiding the 25th anniversary of the Guadalajara Intl. Film Festival. The granddaddy of Mexican film fests, offering the calendar’s largest market for Latin American cinema north of Rio and long a showcase for debuting Mexican fiction and nonfiction cinema, can’t be said to be in a party mood, “but we’re feeling extremely pleased with the overall selection,” says director Jorge Sanchez.

Given the recent demise of FICCO, the well-respected Mexico City fest of international films, and the impact of the global economic downturn on local film production, festival organizers express some relief that the multipronged event is showing no signs of slowing down or significantly contracting.