Morbido 2017: Ceremonies, Awards, Stories And Festival Wrap-up

Morbido's Master of Everything - Pablo Guisa Koestinger

This year I was very pleased to have Screen Anarchy’s Izzy and Shelagh in town with me as well. Our sisters of sinema were in town with their own short films. Shelagh and I arrived in Mexico the day before the festival kicked off so we took the opportunity to check out Centro Histórico, including stops in the Palacio de Bellas Artes and the National Palace. Mostly we beefed up on our ‘steps’ and took photos of everything that looked old and/or interesting, like the Catedral Metropolitana de la Ciudad de México.

Barbara Crampton receives the Morbido Lifetime Achievement Award from Pablo Guisa Koestinger, Sequence Break's Graham Skipper as Dr. Herbert West from Re-Animator the Musical and Morbido presenter Paloma Ruiz De Alda.

Left to Right: Morbido's Tim Luna, [Rec] director Paco Plaza, Veronica producer Enrique Lavigne, cult cinema icon Roger Corman, Morbido's gentleman of distinction Pablo Guisa Koestinger, Housewife's Can Evrenol and Mohawk's Ted Geoghegan.

Teotihuacan: Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon - The day following the opening ceremony a field trip was organized for all guests from the festival to head over to Teotihuacan to visit the pyramids of the Sun and the Moon. Built some 2000 years ago our guides lead us through some outlying buildings first, explains how to identity restoration points and original constructions.

Then we were lead first to the Pyramid of the Moon. Daunting at first, it was not until they lead us to the Pyramid of the Sun that we realized those first buildings were just small potatoes. I had enough trouble ascending the Pyramid of the Moon so the Pyramid of the Sun will have to wait another year.

Mohawk's Ted Geoghegan was sprinted up and down The pyramid of the Sun like a gazelle. Twice.

After the visit to the pyramids the guests were then taken to La Gruta, a restaurant in a massive cave. Certainly a pleasant reprieve from standing out in the Mexican sun all day. We still stocked up on cervezas, muchas gracias.

No visit to Morbido is complete until you attend their open-air luchador wrestling event. Open to the public, teams owned (or operated by, I'm never sure, I have to ask) by Morbido entertain the locals and inspire the international guests with their high flying acrobatics.

Here, we are all looking into Graham Skipper's phone for a groupie when some guy in a mask snuck into the picture. Sneaky wrestlers.

Issa López amazing film Tigers Are Not Afraid won two awards on the official closing night of Morbido. Her film won OUTSTANDING LATINAMERICAN FEATURE FILM: Silver Skull and the PRESS AWARD: Wooden Skull Best Latinamerican Feature film.

Those of us in attendance were simply awestruck by it, touting it the new Devil's Backbone and naming López Del Torro's heir apparent.

OUTSTANDING GLOBAL FEATURE FILM: Silver Skull Hidden Reserves, Valentin Hitz (Austria)

Valentin recognized my Tessier-Ashpool Neuromancer tshirt one day. This man deserves everyone's respect.

MÓRBIDO-CINÉPOLIS DISTRIBUTION AWARD Aterrados - Demian Rugna (Argentina)*

Aterrados played on the first night and was an early and lasting buzz title for most of the festival. It stands as one of my personal favorites from the festival this year.

Markets - Morbido strives to enhance the experience for their guests so they always have day trips planned. For those of us looking for the usual tourist trappings and trinkets there is no better place to do it than La Ciudadela. Some came out with more clay skulls than they needed (raises hand). Some came out with more luchador wrestling masks than thought possible (DEDfest's Derek Clayton).

And if you were looking for something a little more off the beaten track then make a request to go to the Witches Market. It was not a planned event but I began making inquiries about it weeks leading up to the festival. There is this bazaar somewhere out there in the CDMX. The place is teeming, TEEMING, with humanity as everyone swarms the place looking for Halloween costumes and masks.

When you find you way to the very, very back you come out into the Witches Market where you will find everything occult and oh-dear. Tarot Cards. Potions. Lotions. Powders. Things that will vanquish your enemies. Things that will help you conquer your lovers. Jesus in one corner. Skeleton bride in the other. And if you can bear it, the animal section. Not for pets. For other things. We did not stop in that section, rather, uttering a chorus of "ohfuckno, ohfuckno, ohfuckno", we nearly ran through it.

Over the years I have been going to Morbido I had somehow missed the night when the festival was handing out tattoos. In Puebla, Housewife's Can Evrenol was sporting the festival logo the next morning while Some Kind of Hate's Adam Egypt Mortimer made the mistake of calling his wife right before he could go under the needle. So upon my return this year I was determined to let them know that I wanted my Morbido tattoo.

The story goes that Pablo was discussing it with his staff during the week, contemplating if they should even do it this year, and the festival's guest coordinator said they knew someone who wanted one. "Who?" asked Pablo. "Andrew Mack" they said. "Then we're doing it" he said.

Pablo casually gathered me during the closing night party, "Are you ready for your tattoo?" And as we were heading to the table he added, "Just so you know. When you die? I get it back".

Yep. For now, I am only a temporary vessel for this work of art on my arm. When I die I will have to give it back to Pablo. Well, I won't. But any surviving family members are going to have to figure that one out.

Sequence Break's Graham Skipper was also the other lucky duck to get a Morbido tattoo, of a different design, that night. And if all goes well we each have unique one of kind Morbido tattoos on our selves that only belong to us on a temporary basis.