Our new face

Changing our window graphics is definitely the sign that lets us and everyone else know that a new festival year is beginning. So we´re on our way to number five. Australia is our guest country, a new music video production rally and the second film industry day will all be a part of 2009. So stay tuned and follow us along the way...

For starters our call for entries will be up on December first... so be sure to check our web site: www.monterreyfilmfestival.com

15th Austin Film Festival

We packed our bags and headed for another visit to our partner fest, the Austin Film Festival.

As always, the festival staff and the screenwriter´s conference were amazing. And we had a chance to see some interesting films, like Oliver Stone´s "W", which was introduced by James Cromwell, and Danny Boyle´s "Slumdog Millionaire" which he introduced himself.

And of course we had the chance to catch up with great friends like writers Dan Petrie, Alex Smith, and Herschell Weingrod, as well as Carol Pirie from the Texas Film Commission and Drew Mayer-Oakes from the San Antonio Film Commission

Many thanks to Barbara, Linnea, Kelly, John, and all the folks at the AFF for another great festival.



Danny Boyle



Drew, Luis and I




Herschell Weingrod and I



Luis, myself, Dan Petrie and Rick



Luis and Alex Smith

A look back at 2008

2008 was a big year for the festival... we grew in many ways and had a great response from participants and audience. Here´s the official info:


The Fourth Monterrey International Film Festival took place from August 15th to the 23rd in venues of the Nuevo León Council for the Arts and MMCinemas. With an attendance of over 26,750, the festival succeeded in surpassing all past editions.

In response to it´s call for entries, the festival received 1852 entries from 111 countries from 5 contintents. Out of these the official selection was conformed, with 14 feature films, 40 international shorts, 16 Mexican shorts and 6 Nuevo León feature films.

118 short and feature films were part of many different showcases, such as the “Social vision”, “Guest Country”, “Galleria”, “Student Film Showcase”, and tribute retrospectives.

Argentina was the guest country for 2008 and bonds were tightened with the Argentinian Embassy and its cultural aggregate Mr. Gustavo Souto as well as the INCAA, the argentinian film institute.


The festival honored the following distinguished filmmakers in 2008:



Tommy Lee Jones
International Tribute

Héctor Bonilla
Mexican Tribute

Cecilia Roth
Argentina Guest Country
Special Tribute

Marcelo Céspedes / Cine Ojo
Argentina Guest Country
Special Tribute

Rogelio González
Posthumous Tribute

Mexican Institute of Cinematography
25th Anniversary Tribute

César Jaime
International Screenwrtiter´s Conference
Special Tribute




The following awards were given at the festival´s closing ceremony:

Catalogues...

Hot out of the printer´s we´ve received the first 2008 catalogues. You can easily see how fat it´s gotten since we started in 2005... And it´s not that we show many more pictures, but that more detailed information and different festival sections are available. Where maybe 10 films were listed on a page as a single program in 2005, almost every film has a full page and some even two, like the feature films in competition which this year have commentaries from our programming staff.

Catalogues can be found in all our venues. Get yours and begin your festival journey this year!

Out of the Workshop

Francisco Quiroz, of ART21 STUDIO, our supplier for the "Cabrito de Plata" official award of the Monterrey International Film Festival, just sent us this photo of the main awards all finished and ready.

It´s very exciting for us to see them all lined up and to think that these awards will travel with so many filmmakers to so many different countries... And that some will stay in Mexico, and some even in Monterrey.

So the official countdown begins... 9 days left until FICMTY 2008.

Getting ready...

Less than a month away from opening night, we´re living a snowstorm of activity. The invitations have to be sent, the adverts will start to appear in the media, the press conferences... And we´re very excited about it all.

Luis Garza our programming director has done a great job getting some of the best films available this year, watching all of the 1850 entries and now confines his attention to the computer screen as he follows up on the way the 194 films from 31 countries are traveling to Monterrey.

We should have our program online next week so you can begin to plan which films are completely UNMISSABLE!!!

This weekend a promotional program with some of the films that will be showing at the festival will be distributed at all MMCinemas in Monterrey and at the Nuevo León Cinematheque.

While you were sending your Indiana Jones outfit to dry cleaning...

-Our call for entries for the Audience Jury was announced. The community of the State of Nuevo Leon can apply for a place in this important new festival section by sending an email to info@monterreyfilmfestival.com

-We have recieved some rather peculiar stuff wrapping the screener copies of your competition features and short films. But that's another whole different post coming soon.

-We've been watching many many films and the material for this year sections is promising and edgy.

-We have a brand new front entrance look. We like it but it's a "see trough" layer and we can not watch porn without some passers by noticing it.

-India, South Afrifa, Turkmenistán and New Zenald are the most distant places of those than we have received material.

SHORT SHORTS MEXICO IN MONTERREY

We´re very happy to have the Short Shorts Film Festival as a special presentation on the weekend of April 18-20 2008.

We´re hoping to establish a partnership with Short Shorts and yearly show the best of their fest in Monterrey.

Don´t miss out on great programming from Japan, Asia, Latin America, Mexico and the rest of the world!

PROGRAM


APRIL 18

5:00 p.m. Latin American and Spanish shorts in competition I

7:00 p.m. Japanese Showcase I

9:00 p.m. International Showcase I


April 19


5:00 p.m. Asian Showcase I

7:00 p.m. International Showcase II

9:00 p.m. Latin American and Spanish shorts in competition II


April 20


5:00 p.m. Asian Showcase II

7:00 p.m. Japanese Showcase II

9:00 p.m. Mexican shors on video competition


For further reference:


LATIN AMERICAN AND SPANISH SHORTS IN COMPETITION 1 76 minutes

1 El canto del grillo - Dany Campos - Spain - 17' 00"
2 La librería - Hernán Jabes - Venezuela 15' 00"
3 XX - Cristian Jiménez - Chile 9' 00"
4 Niebla - Emilio Ramos - Spain-México 7' 30"
5 Máquina - Gabe Ibañez - Spain 16' 00"
6 Bichos raros - Estíbaliz Burgaleta y Alegría Collantes - Spain 12' 00"


JAPANESE SHOWCASE 1 71 minutes

1 Escape - Yoshiki Uematsu - Japón - 9´53"
2 An electric fan of Grandma - Satoshi Yamaguchi - Japón 7' 56"
3 Chaos Theory - Koji Mizuguchi - Japón 12' 18"
4 The fear despair - Ko Kuriki - Japón 3' 25"
5 Without strings - Kunio Nosawa - Japón 13' 00"
6 Chiyo no Omuake - Mesanori Baba - Japón/USA 24' 15"



INTERNATIONAL SHOWCASE PROGRAM I 88 minutes

1 Checkpoint - Ben Phelps - Australia 11' 30"
2 In the mood - Hannah Robinson - UK 7' 00"
3 Sooner or later - István Madarász - Hungary 11' 00"
4 Lonley together - Trond Fausa Aurvag - Norway 14' 23"
5 The T-Shirt - Hossein Martin Fazeli - Czech Republic 10' 44"
6 One hundred of a second - Susan Jacobson - UK 5' 20"
7 Drake - Christoph Rainer - Austria 5' 16"
8 Blind man - Hossein Martin Fazeli - Slovakia 1' 20"
9 The rip-off - Kun Chang Canada - 10' 10"
10 Offside - Erez Tadmor y Guy Nattiv - Israel 5' 50"
11 50 Cents - Mathijs Geijskes - Netherlands 5' 10"


INTERNATIONAL SHOWCASE 2 90 minutes

1 Sometimes it hurts - Geir Henning Hopland - Norway 6' 15"
2 Bauke - Hisham Zaman - Norway 15' 15"
3 Chesse - Pernilla Hindsefelt - Sweden 5' 00"
4 Kibera Kid - Nathan Collett - Kenya 11' 30"
5 Le diner - Cecile Vernant - France 13' 25"
6 The fairies of Blackheath woods - Ciaran Foy - Ireland 3' 30"
7 Witness - Erik De Bruyn - Netherlands 10' 00"
8 The cutting edge - Gregory Morin - France 6' 00"
9 When Elvis came to visit- Andreas Tibblin - Sweden 10' 45"
10 The red balloon - Michael Olesen - USA 3' 22"
11 Last stop - Greg Williams - Australia 5' 30"



LATIN AMERICAN AND SPANISH SHORTS IN COMPETITION 2 90 minutes


1 Boletos por favor - Lucas Figueroa - España 14' 00"
2 Guacho - Juan Minujin - Argentina 14' 00"
3 Rapace - Joao Nicolau - Portugal 25' 00"
4 Eramos pocos - Borja Cobeaga - España 16' 00"
5 La belleza del espejo - Jorge Valencia - Colombia 14' 10"
6 Handmade - Denis Kamioka - Brasil 7' 00"


ASIAN SHOWCASE I 87 minutess


1 2 minutes Tae-Kyung Jung Korea 10' 37"
2 Mei Arvin Chen Taiwan / USA 12' 00"
3 Hallucii Goo-Shun Wang Taiwan / USA 3' 45"
4 To be or not to be Jungjin Kim Korea 20' 00"
5 DIY Royston Tan Singapore 5' 45"
6 Shanu taxi Vasant Nath India 15' 12"
7 Fast money Jerry Chan China / USA 14' 10"
8 Dandelion Jackie Liao Taiwan 5' 20"


ASIAN SHOWCASE PROGRAM 2 85 minutes


1 Mandarin Ghost - Jeong-Gook Lee - Korea 17' 47"
2 Painter - Young-Kyun Park - Korea 5' 57"
3 The drawer of memory - Po- Chou Chi - Taiwan 7' 00"
4 All my life - Salem Salvati - Irán 21' 00"
5 There was the moon and a fox - Babak Nazari - Irán 12' 30"
6 3 minutes - Noppadol Suneta - Thailand 6' 30"
7 The match maker - Cinzia Puspita - Indonesia 9' 59"
8 White - Wei Keong Tan - Singapore 2' 02"
9 Bleach - Tejal Patni - India 2' 16"


JAPANESE SHOWCASE 2 82 minutes


1 Hajime - Kenshin Nawa - Japón 12' 00"
2 Who killed the Stanley Black? - Nobuto Ochiai - Japón 10' 00"
3 A long day of Mr. Calpaccio - Tsutomu Kobayashi - Japón 7' 32"
4 Tengu gaiden - Hidetoshi Oneda - Japón 24' 03"
5 Line - Hiroyuki Nakao - Japón 18' 30"
6 Ai know - Satishi Oze - Japón 10' 10"

MEXICAN SHORTS IN COMPETITION 91 minutes


1 De causas y azares - Ileana Leyva - 13' 00"
2 El gusano - Sergio Tovar Velarde - 7' 45"
3 Historia de un letrero - Alonso Alvarez Barreda - 4' 45"
4 El gorrito de Morfeo - Raúl García Flores 1' 00"
5 Lugares secretos - Alejandro Díaz SanVicente 19' 00"
6 Vigilioxil 48 ml. - Fernando Castañeda Herrera 1' 00"
7 La casa de las doncellas - Herbert Beltrán 16' 00"
8 Encadenados - Jorge Ortiz Aranda 16' 00"
9 George Lucas' dream - Humberto Sánchez 12' 16"


www.shortshorts.com

5 DAYS LEFT

With five days left to our deadline, we are very happy to have in our office hundreds of films from all over the world, and many more on their way to Monterrey.

If you haven´t sent your film in yet, what are you waiting for? If you already have, you should soon receive a confirmation.

Last year we received 1354 submissions from 81 countries, will we beat last year´s record? Stay tuned... in a few weeks we´ll let you know..

Meanwhile, maybe you can spot your package in the picture above among the many that are undergoing classiffication right now...

2008 Call for entries open!

The Monterrey International Film Festival is pleased to invite filmmakers from Mexico and around the world to submit their short and feature films for the 2008 Festival. From the publication date up to April 18th, the Festival will be receiving films participating in the Festival’s official selection, for competition and out of competition.

The official competition includes the categories that have become traditional to the Festival such as short films in animation, documentary or fiction, feature documentary films, and feature fiction films. However, as a novelty this year, the Festival opens a new section in competition: the Nuevo Leon Films section.

Also all short films included in the Nuevo Leon Films section, along with the our of competition films in the “From Border to Border” section and Mexican short films in the Official Selection are eligible to receive the Best Mexican Short Film special award.

The Social Vision section: Film for a Better World, once more opens its call for entries for projects in any genre and length that present social problems of relevance to the filmmakers’ community. The objective of this section, which is characteristic to the Festival, is to remind us that films are agents of change and improvement of our world.

Another innovation for 2008 is the non-competitive Galeria Indie showcase with the purpose of promoting the best independently produced feature films from Mexico and the southern border states of the United States of America. Monterrey is located close to the border, so it seems natural to establish links and promote a positive dialog with our northern neighbors through our film productions.
In 2007, the Festival received 1354 registrations from 81 countries, which formed the greater part of the Festival’s program. This year the Festival expects to grow even more and receive even more films from more countries.

Sultans of the South Premiere

The Monterrey International Film Festival, MMCinemas and the Nuevo León Council for the Arts, in collaboration with Warner Bros. Pictures Mexico, presented the national premiere of SULTANES DEL SUR (Sultans of the South) as part of the activities of the festival’s 4 edition due in October 2008.

The premiere took place on December 10th 2007 at MMCinemas Humberto Lobo, where at 9:00 p.m. sharp, actors Tony Dalton and Silverio Palacios, who star in the film arrived with producers Marco Polo Constandse and Fernando Rovzar and director Alejandro Lozano. For the first time in Mexico they presented the film to hundreds of special guests.

The audience enjoyed the film, which is full of action scenes and later participated in a lively q&a session with the films creators, who were very satisfied with the audience’s reaction.

Actors Barbara Mori and José María Torre were also present at the premiere as special guests of The Monterrey International Film Festival.