• There will be an outstanding series of documentary films in a showcase titled “Narrating from a whirlwind: a brief sample of contemporary Baja Californian cinema”

Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico.- Works by filmmakers from Baja California will be exhibited as part of the XXI October Festival that will take place from the 21st to the 23rd of this month at the Los Pinos Cultural Complex in Mexico City, as reported by Javier Espinoza Medina, Baja Film Commissioner. 

He explained that there will be an outstanding series of documentary films in a showcase titled "Narrating from a whirlwind: a brief sample of contemporary Baja California cinema." The curatorship was in charge of Itzel Martínez del Cañizo, researcher, documentalist and film programmer, who currently works as programming director of the Ambulante Festival.

The sample is made up of seven short films and two feature films made during the last decade in the State. The short films make up two programs called “Family Complicities” and “Centrifuge Frontiers”, respectively. "These films reflect the work of new generations of audiovisual artists who have managed to decipher the impossibility of making us experience the mysteries of northern Mexico through their own stories and meanings," says Martínez del Cañizo.

The short film programs are made up of “Letter to my father” (2020) by Paulina Sánchez, “JR” (2018) and “Obachan” (2020) by Nicolasa Ruiz, “Conversations of a marriage” (2013) by Gilberto González Penilla, “The Last Frontier” (2018) by Axel Núñez, “Dial Home” (2019) by César Martínez, and “No-news Agency” (2022) by Adriana Trujillo. Regarding the title of the exhibition, Martínez del Cañizo asserted: “It alludes to the border area as a vortex in which multiple currents of energy as turbulent as they are fertile converge and swirl.”

For their part, the two selected feature films are distinguished by having been recognized at multiple film festivals and received various awards. “Los Fundadores” (2021) directed by Diego Hernández and produced by Melissa Castañeda, received the “Ahora Mexico” award from the International Film Festival of the Autonomous University of Mexico (FICUNAM). Likewise, the documentary “Niña Sola” (2019) by Javier Ávila received the audience award at FICUNAM and FotoFilm Tijuana, in addition to participating in the Morelia International Film Festival (FICM).

This exhibition will take place in person at the Casa Miguel Alemán Bunker of the Los Pinos Cultural Complex.

THE SELECTION

A Girl Alone l 2019 l 93 min l Tijuana l Dir. Javier Ávila

After the murder of Cintia, 19 years old, her mother and her older sister begin to explore their own lives, marked by abusive relationships. Both try to find an explanation for the crime and a new meaning to their lives.

The Founders l 2021 l 62 min l Tijuana l Dir. Diego Hernández

The professional development of Renee, Andrés and Diego, university students, is affected due to a diversion of resources by the authorities.

Shorts Films - Program 1

Familiar complicities

Letter to my father l 2020 l 4 min l Mexicali/EU l Dir. Paulina Sánchez

Together, my father and I raised my oldest daughter, Maya. His abrupt and unexpected death has led us to live a long mourning process. Three years after his departure, I decided to write and film a letter to him.

JR 2018 l 21 min I Mexicali/EU l Dir. Nicolasa Ruiz

The artist Julio Ruiz responds to the questions of his daughter Nicolasa, who question him about the meaning and congruence of both his works and artistic endeavors, as well as the decision-making of his life.

Conversations of a married couple l 2013 l 25 min l Gilberto González Penilla, CCC

Through accompanying the daily life of Beatriz and Gilberto, a couple who have been together for more than 40 years, the documentary builds a reflection on the love and married life of two people who struggle daily to live in harmony.

Shorts Films - Program 2

Centrifugal Frontiers

Obāchan l 2020 l 15 min. l Mexicali. l Dir. Nicolasa Ruiz

Fuyu Kiyota, Obāchan, left her archipelago in 1941 to blindly marry another Japanese man 17 years older than her who had settled in Mexico. A poetic and memorable film that builds a reflection on life. 

The Last Frontier l 2018 l 10 min l Dir. Axel Núñez

A choral documentary about the dreams of three young Haitians who left their country of origin in one of the largest exoduses of the 21st century and who got stuck on the last Mexican border. 

Dial home l 2019 l 20 min. l Tijuana/USA. l Directed by Cesar Martinez

The walls of Tijuana's call centers envelop a limbo in which deportees from the United States wander, now converted into telephone agents. Together they face their homesickness amid calls to the country where they grew up.

No-news agency l 2022 l 16.5 min l Mexico / United States / Republika Srpska / Bosnia-Herzegovina l Dir. Adriana Trujillo

The film subverts the idea of a global and objective news agency, from a personal and emotional perspective, while compiling the communication of a three-year love relationship from two border territories: Tijuana and Republika Srpska.