The Mexican film industry is celebrating the new year with a new film festival. Kicking off in mid January 2015, the San Cristóbal de Las Casas International Film Festival (FICSC) is set to be the first important event of the year and a great incentive to visit Chiapas.
For their first edition (January 16 to 24), San Cristóbal de Las Casas is putting together an interesting lineup, which so far has in the retrospective dedicated to French-Greek filmmaker Costa-Gavras its major attraction.
Gavras, 81, is confirmed to personally present a fine selection of his work, composed of Z, The Confession, State of Siege, Missing, Music Box, and his latest picture Capital. A second retrospective is dedicated to Mexican director Jorge Fons, with screenings of such films as Red Dawn, Midaq Alley, and The Bricklayers.
While the full program will be announced in the coming weeks, at a press conference in Mexico City, the festival has revealed already other details. Check them out below:
Time and Memory Section
The theme is the state of Chiapas, with the following films: Chac: el Dios de la Lluvia, Cascabel, La Danza del Hipocampo, and Un Lugar Llamado Chiapas. It also features three short film programs.
Special Screenings
Sergei Eisenstein's ¡Que Viva México! to be presented with live music by the José María Serralde directed group Ensamble Cine Mudo; the documentary Bering, Equilibrio y Resistencia - with director Lourdes Grobet in person - also confirmed.
Open Air Screenings
San Cristóbal de Las Casas' Plaza Cívica will host every night an open air screening, with international films translated to the indigenous language tzotzil. The films revealed so far are: Guten Tag, Ramón, El Niño y el Mundo, White Moss, and Gone Wild.
Sarajevo Film Festival selection
The Sarajevo festival is the guest of this edition, and it brings several of its 2014 films: Macondo, The Chicken, Invisible Spaces, Brides, Silvered Water, Syria Self-Portrait, Das Spektrum Europa, An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker.