Universal Cinema Film & TV Journal’s Amir Ganjavie recently interviewed Maru Garzón the Artistic Director for the Los Cabos International Film Festival. What follows is part of that interview.
Amir Ganjavie, UniversalCinema Magazine (UM): Can you tell us a little about the festival? Can you start by telling us about your festival? What is the selection process like?
Maru Garzón (MG): One of the main goals of the festival is to develop a strong link between the three cinema industries, so that’s the starting point of our mindset and our programming. Our competition program is the main arena for new voices. We use it to program new directors, not only new directors, but we try to program them, and [this section] where we program the riskier films. Not only in terms of narrative but also in terms of cinematography.
Also, one of the characteristics of the festival is that is very women-oriented, not only with the films that we pick, [but also] the guests that we use in the jury, and in our conversations for panels. Each year in the festival, we actually have a specific award that is called “Fantastic Woman” for a woman that has done something relevant, not only linked with her cinema work but also some other stuff like any kind of activism for women’s equality. Also, we have a film program that is called Her Story. And there we program films with strong women voices, the films can be directed by a man, but with very strong and well-conceived women characters. And well, I am the Artistic Director. I’m leading the programming team. There’s a programming team and a programming manager. However, I’m definitely involved in the decision for the selection of the films.
(UM): And do you invite films, or is there a submission process?
(MG): We do it both ways. We have open submissions and a code for entry, and usually, the submissions appeal more to the films that are interested in participating in our Competition. Because for the other film sections, we’re usually looking for them from the whole cinema world. We, as programmers attend some of the main film festivals around the year. And are in touch with film producers and some filmmakers in order to follow up on their projects.
(UM): You mentioned you attend a few festivals, are there ones that are important to follow for you?
(MG): For example, Sundance Film Festival is very important for us in terms of the independent film industry from the USA. That is one of our main issues because our competition is made of films from Canada, US Independent, and Mexico (or any other country that has co-produced their films with these countries). There can be a Chinese film that is co-produced with Canada, and it applies to this competition. So that’s why Sundance becomes very important to us. Afterward, for example, this year, I went to the Berlinale. I used to go since like 29 years ago, but I have stopped for some years. Cannes Film festival, obviously TIFF, and more or less sometimes we go also to Telluride and that’s it.
(UM): You mentioned that you are looking more for experimental or new approaches. You want to see something new. And so, I’m just curious, how important are ticket sales for you? Are you relying on tickets? Because when we are bringing new voices, or something not very conventional, it might impact ticket sales. So, I’m just curious about your funding resources and the difficulty that you might have.
(MG): Well, one of our main supporters is Cinemax, which is a theater chain, one of the main theater chains here in Mexico. Their support is not only to provide us with the multiplex where the festival happens in Cabo San Lucas, but also to get a very good deal in terms of the ticket cost. So, it’s not for free, but it’s a very low cost. So, we try to make it available for the whole town, for anyone that wants to come because obviously, to build up an audience, specifically in a very touristic destination like Los Cabos, it’s such a challenge. So, we need to provide tools for everyone to make the festival attractive.
I think it’s one of the main issues of the film festival to put some challenge in front of our audience, to challenge their expectations. But we don’t go so far, like for experimental films, no, but we bet on new kinds of storytelling, and also on the aesthetics of the film. We like very much to be very in the vanguard in terms of bringing up to the audience films that they can be shaped in their conventions and rethink what they think about topics, about film, about characters, about life, actually.
(UM): You mentioned that festival happens in a tourist-heavy environment. I’m curious, does this impact in any way the way that you are programming or showing the movies? For example, do you try to bring some aspects of the city into the film screening, or make more connections between the city and the festival?
(MG): Yes. Actually, two years ago, we opened a new film program that is called “La Baja Inspira”. As you probably know, La Baja is the southern part of California, the peninsula that is the Mexican side, and it’s a very beautiful part of the world. It’s famous around the world because of its landscape, because of the sea, because of the desert, because of the union of the sea with the desert. So, in this film program, what we look for is films from the region, made in the region by local filmmakers, or films from any filmmaker but inspired by that place, probably shot there, or someone that has lived there and inspired his film or her film in La Baja or something, and this worked great with the audience. Obviously, the link with their places, their people, and their environment was immediate and the people, and the critics, and everyone was very, very cheerful with this.
(UM): Can you speak a bit about diversity? It is one of the major concerns for many festivals right now, with some saying they will choose to promote diversity over quality and others saying the opposite. Where do you land?
(MG): I need to tell you that diversity has been a very important issue in the festival since the very beginning. I think we didn’t go into it because of the trends, but because it was very organic for us, specifically with women, but in [also in] general. So, at the very beginning, it was very natural. However, obviously, there were more men filmmakers than women. But I think this happened in general in the world, and more and more we become more conscious. Because at the very beginning, it was, as I told you, very organic, and we tried to insist on diversity. However, one of the main successes of the festival is that we used to have a very compact and well-selected program. We have the chance to have a program made of 40 or 45 films. That lets us handpick what we want to pick. So, we definitely and organically program films from any gender or race and everything. But we always try to keep the quality because, well, there are thousands of films in the world. And I think we are able to maintain the quality and not sacrifice the inclusion.
(UM): Okay. And suppose that a filmmaker submits a film on a very controversial topic. For example, he or she submits a movie that is anti-abortion, but it’s a very beautifully made film. Will you program such films, that go against humanitarian values or some kind of norms?
(MG): It depends. What I would say is no. I think that we try to have a very coherent program. So, if we are trying to be conscious of inclusion, it’s very difficult to program something that goes against human rights, or is homophobic, or is against women, or is a racist film. I think we won’t.
(UM): And in terms of funding and supporting filmmakers, if a movie is submitted by a filmmaker who is backed by, for example, an authoritarian regime, for example, is backed by the Soviet regime or is backed by the Iranian government, will you consider it? How important is funding in selecting the movie?
(MG): It is important. Once again, it is important to stick to our goals. Fortunately, we haven’t had that problem. But as I told you, we try to work, in general, not only in movie picking in general very stick to our values.
(UM): Anything else to add?
(MG): I don’t know, probably to tell you that, at this moment, technology and everything is a mess. I think we need to be very flexible and adaptable to this. This is one of the reasons we opened [to] episodic some years ago.
I think that like five years or four years from now episodic [will] have developed a very interesting field for creativity, for good works. And cinema people are working on both sides all the time now. So, the quality and the narratives, and the proposals are very different from what we are used to seeing.
Obviously, we curate the kind of episodic we support. And we were the first Mexican film festival that decided to open this part. And it has worked very, very well because the same filmmakers that present their films in our competition sometimes have a project in the series area. So, it kind of lets them propose work that lasts [longer].
[Also,] we are focused on Canadian, North American, and Mexican films. So that’s important. And we have many links with Telefilm Canada. Telefilm Canada supports filmmakers that want to come to Los Cabos to present their films here. And we have a very strong link with Canadian institutions and for the production communities.
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