On Thursday, November 14, 2024, Casa Ballena hosted the press conference for the Los Cabos International Film Festival, which will take place from December 4 to 8, 2024, at different venues. Alejandra Paulin Albor, Executive Director, and Maru Garzón, Artistic Director, were present to discuss the dynamics of this new edition and the films to be screened.
Accompanying them with words of support for cultural development were David Ocete, a board member of the Los Cabos Hotel Association; Juana Ortiz Basso, Deputy Commercial Director of Fiturca; Santiago Sánchez-Navarro, Executive President of Puerto Los Cabos and board member of the Asociación Los Cabos Arte y Cultura, A.C.; and Lic. Julio Castillo, President of the Consejo Coordinador de Los Cabos.
Among the novelties, it was announced that from 4 to 8 December 2024, the festival’s horizons would be expanded to San José del Cabo, integrating venues in unique spaces such as Crania, the Puerto Los Cabos Sculpture Garden, Hotel El Ganzo, Veleros Beach Club, and the emblematic Plaza Mijares, as well as Cinemex Puerto Paraíso, in Cabo San Lucas.
Opening Event
On 4 December 2024, at the innovative multi-sensory space Crania, the Festival will kick off with the Latin American Premiere of Better Man (2024), a gripping biographical docudrama about British pop idol Robbie Williams, directed by Michael Gracey (The Greatest Showman).
The festival will also feature a memorable night of cinema under the stars at the Hotel El Ganzo. Here, the Latin American premiere of Limonov: The Ballad of Eddie, a film acclaimed at the Cannes Film Festival and directed by Kirill Serebrennikov, will be presented. Maru Garzón described it as a must-see. There will be a live music session to close an unforgettable evening.
On 7 December 2024, the closing event will be held at the Puerto Los Cabos Sculpture Garden with the Mexican Premiere of Maria (2024), directed by Pablo Larrain and starring Angelina Jolie as Maria Callas, the most famous soprano of the 20th century. Maria, set in the last week of the singer’s life in Paris in the 1970s, relives and re-imagines her success, loneliness, and frustration. The film completes a trilogy in which the director explores three iconic women of the 20th century in depth.
This year’s programme, Encuadres Mexicanos, presents eleven recent documentary and fiction feature films, showcasing Mexican cinema’s richness and co-productions with Latin America, Europe and the United States. Each screening will feature Q&A sessions with the filmmakers, allowing the audience to delve deeper into their stories’ creative processes and different perspectives.
Here are the films:
- Animal / Human (Alessandro Pugno, Spain, Italy, Mexico, 2023).
- Corina (Urzula Barba Hopfner, México, 2024).
- El Jockey (Luis Ortega, Argentina, Mexico, Spain, Denmark, United States, 2024).
- The Dog Thief (Vinko Tomičić, Bolivia, Chile, Mexico, Ecuador, France, Italy, 2024).
- They will not move us (Pierre Saint-Martin, Mexico, 2024).
- Nomads of the 57th (Alberto Arnaut Estrada, José María Castro Ibarra, Mexico, 2023).
- La Raya (Yolanda Cruz, Mexico, 2024).
- Dirty (Astrid Rondero, Fernanda Valadez, United States, Mexico, France, 2024)
- Tesis sobre una domesticación (Javier Van De Couter, Argentina, México).
- A Fishermen’s Tale (Edgar Nito, Mexico, 2024).
- It is a story of love and war (Santiago Mohar Volkow, Mexico, 2024).
The Plaza Mijares in San José del Cabo will also become a meeting point with the screening of Nomads of the 57th, a documentary supported in 2021 by the Gabriel Figueroa Film Fund. This space will offer a unique cinematic experience, reaffirming its role as the perfect setting for cultural exchange.
This free film programme has taken screenings to various communities on the Baja California peninsula,
from Cabo San Lucas, Ciudad Insurgentes, El Triunfo, Guerrero Negro, La Paz, Loreto, San José del Cabo, Todos Santos,
to Tijuana and Mexicali. This edition will conclude with two screenings at Playa Costa Azul on November 29 and 30, presenting the films Chèche Lavi: Looking for a Life by Sam Ellison and Yūrei (Ghosts) by Sumie García, respectively.
See you from 4 to 8 December 2024 to experience the cinema like never before!
