On Saturday, June 22, 2024, La Baja Inspira Itinerante began. It is a showcase of films that, in one way or another, maintain a link with this peninsula, thus paying homage to the host land of the Los Cabos International Film Festival.
The festival will run through November on screens in Cabo San Lucas, Ciudad Insurgentes, El Triunfo, Guerrero Negro, La Paz, Loreto, San José del Cabo, Todos Santos, and, for the first time, the city of Tijuana. LBII will feature a selection of six titles that have made this territory their source of inspiration. These titles portray landscapes and people in stories that will touch the hearts of the audience.
“I was in charge of programming the entire selection of films, and the part of La Baja Inspira Itinerante consists of films that have, in one way or another, a relationship with the peninsula. There is talent, whether from filmmakers, actors or actresses, which is evident in these films. In 2021, this section was created as a competition, and since last year, we have been able to take it to this new itinerant format, to take it out of a movie theatre and out of a single place, and to take it to various places in the area. Precisely this year, we were able to reach Tijuana, so that was also very important, to know what audience we are reaching,” says Anaís Vargas, Programming Manager of the festival.
The circuit includes the documentaries Yūrei (Ghosts) (Mexico, 2023) by Sumie García, which explores the hidden history of Japanese migrants in our country; Chèche Lavi: searching for a life (USA, Mexico, Haiti, 2019) by Sam Ellison, which also examines the phenomenon of migration; and Los Hámsters (Mexico, 2014), a comedic reflection on family relationships that marked the debut of Baja California-born filmmaker Gilberto González Penilla.
In addition to these films, the short film program includes El peregrino (Mexico, 2022) by Rodrigo Ruiz Patterson; Lo que dejamos en el mar (Mexico, 2023) by Guido Javier Turtula, and Tiburones del Mar de Cortés: ¿un tesoro perdido? (Mexico, 2021) by James Ketchum.
“One of the themes that seemed very important to me to rescue, because of the vision of tourism that the place has, is how the fauna plays a vital role that leads us to think about how to generate a tourism that, instead of exploiting negatively the resources we have, proposes and rethinks this whole system so that, instead of being ‘let’s hunt the sharks’, it is ‘let’s conserve the sharks’. It’s about tourism that says: ‘Come and meet the sharks in their environment,'” says the programmer.
The functions began on Saturday. June 22, 2024, with the screening of Yūrei (Ghosts) in the Museo Ruta de Plata (El Triunfo), and will continue their tour in different venues, among which are: Cowboy Museum of the Californias – MUVACA (El Triunfo), Cineclub El Nido (Todos Santos), Cinema Vagabundo(Cabo San Lucas)University of Tijuana – UDT (Cabo San Lucas campus), Forum of the Casa de la Cultura ”Prof. Alfredo Green Gonzalez” (San Jose del Cabo)Costa Azul beach (San José del Cabo)Museum of Art of Baja California Sur – MUABCS (La Paz)Universidad Autónoma de Baja California Sur – UABCS (La Paz, Loreto, Ciudad Insurgentes and Guerrero Negro campuses), the Centro Cultural Tijuana – CECUT and the Centro Estatal Artes Tijuana (CEART), both in Tijuana.
With La Baja Inspira Itinerante, the Los Cabos International Film Festival once again fulfills one of its primary missions: to create and strengthen new audiences, both through the exhibition of films and the promotion of critical thinking and reflection on filmmaking, nourished by the question and answer sessions with attendees and the recreational activities that the filmmakers will give this year.
“I have been working for the festival for many years, and I have seen how the level of production in the region has grown, but it is still constrained, so yes, we would like to make this section grow and have 20 films in each program,” concluded Anaís Vargas.
