Film Festival
Expresión en Corto
San Miguel
Fri–Tue, Jul 24–28, 10am–4am

Guanajuato
Wed–Sun, Jul 29–Aug 2, 10am–4am
Free

Tulse Luper VJ Performance
Sat, Aug 1
Alhóndiga de Granaditas
300 pesos advance, 350 pesos at the door


All-star jury for Film Festival
By Emily Hendricks

Demián Bichir

The Expresión en Corto International Film Festival begins in two weeks, and their Final Jury, which decides the winning films in the Official Selection, features an all-star cast of film and visual and performing arts professionals.

Japanese actress Kaori Momoi has acted in more than 50 films and worked with such directors as Akira Kurosawa, Shohei Imamura and Yoji Yamada. She also has acted in The Sun by Alexander Sokurow and Memoirs of a Geisha by Rob Marshall. In 2008, she received the Purple Medal from the Emperor of Japan for her contribution to the Japanese film and entertainment industry.

Danish film producer Vibeke Windelov has produced several films by Lars Von Trier, among them, Dancer in the Dark, Dogville, Breaking the Waves and Idiots. She began her career in 1975, producing numerous shorts by various filmmakers. Her films have participated in every major film festival in the world and have twice been awarded “Best Film” at the European Film Awards.

Renowned Mexican actor Demián Bichir starred this past season along with Mary-Louis Parker and Elizabeth Perkins in the hit television series Weeds. Thanks to his excellent performance as Fidel Castro in El Che, he has been compared to Robert DeNiro. His long list of outstanding and awarded performances includes Nadie hablará de nosotros cuando hayamos muerto, Sexo, Pudor and Bendito Infierno among others.

Born in Tokyo, Kaz Utsunomiya served as Senior Vice President at Epic Records Group, overseeing the production of records for artists like Korn, Rage Against The Machine, INXS and Incubus. Previously, Kaz spent 15 years working at Virgin Records, signing such luminous acts as Tears for Fears, Pet Shop Boys, Ozzy Osbourne, Nirvana and Stone Temple Pilots. In 1994, Kaz became Executive Vice President of Virgin Records America, where he oversaw artists such as Janet Jackson, Rolling Stones, Spice Girls, Blur, David Bowie and the Sex Pistols.

Mexican director Fernando Sariñana’s debut, Hasta Morir, received several awards. His filmography includes several of the major box-office successes in the history of Mexican cinema, such as Profundo Carmesí, Ciudades oscuras, Amar te duele, Cero y van cuatro. Currently he is premiering his most recent feature, Enemigos Íntimos.

Born in Seoul, Jungwan Oh owns the company Bom Film Productions and has focused on producing accomplished feature films with a unique style that challenge the conventional ideas of cinema. She was honored by the Korean Women’s Film Festival as the Most Notable Woman of the Year, and lately has produced films by famous Korean director Hong Sangsoo.

Jean-Christophe Berjon worked as a director in theater and as a professor at Le Cours Florent before becoming a cinema critic in 1994, when he also started presenting cinema related programs for radio and television. Currently he is the director of the Semaine de la Critique, the Cannes film Festival’s area dedicated to young film makers.

Oskar Eustis has served as a resident director, artistic director and dramaturge for theaters across the United States. In 2005 he took the helm as Artistic Director of The Public Theater in New York. He received an honorary doctorate from Brown in 2001 and currently serves as Professor of Dramatic Writing and Arts and Public Policy at NYU.

From Guanajuato, director Gerardo Naranjo co-wrote and starred in The GoodTimesKid in 2005. In 2006, his feature film Drama/mex premiered in the Semaine de la Critique at Cannes and was subsequently distributed in 15 countries. His most recent film I’m Gonna Explode won the FIPRESCI award at Thessalonki.

Swiss director Reto Caffi studied English literature and journalism at the University of Fribourg before working as a film journalist for print and radio as well as for Swiss National Television SF TV. Later working as a screenwriter and director, his short film On the Line won the Student Oscar and was nominated for the Oscar in the category of Best Live Action Short.

Mexican producer Daniel Birman Ripstein has been involved in multi-awarded films such as Principo y Fin, Callejón De Los Milagros, El Crimen del Padre Amaro and most recently Daniel y Ana, which premiered at the Quinzaine de Realisateurs in Cannes 2009. In 2003 he founded the Filmhouse distribution company.

Our other notable jury members include Javier Bryan Sánchez, William Fowler, Ginny Martin, Diane Henderson and Shaz Bennett.

Expresión en Corto is highly unique in that, unlike most film festivals around the world, it does not charge admission to any of its screenings, conferences, workshops and tributes. The only event where admission will be charged this year is to the Peter Greenaway Tulse Luper VJ Performance. For information on where to purchase tickets for this event and for complete listings of the official programming in both cities, please consult: www.expresionencorto.com.

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Film Screening & Discussion
Breaking the Maya Code
David Lebrun & Amy Halpern
Sat, Jul 18, 5pm
Bellas Artes
Hernández Macías 75
100 pesos

Breaking the Maya Code at Bellas Artes
By Tony Cohan

David Lebrun’s magnificent film Breaking the Maya Code is based upon the book of the same name by Harvard professor and author Michael Coe.

This dramatic story recounts the unlocking of the complex and beautiful Maya hieroglyphic script used for almost two thousand years in Mexico and Central America, until recently the world’s last major writing system left to be deciphered. The New York Times called its decoding “one of the great stories of twentieth-century scientific discovery.”

Director and producer David Lebrun was born in Los Angeles in 1944. He attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon, and the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. He came to film from a background in philosophy and anthropology, and most of his films have been attempts to get inside the way of seeing and thinking of specific cultures. He has served as producer, director, writer or editor for 60 films—among them films on the Mazatec Indians of Oaxaca, the Hopi and Navajo of the American Southwest, Mexican folk artists, a sixties traveling commune, Tibetan mythology and a year in the life of a Maya village in Yucatán. He served as editor on the Academy Award-winning feature documentary Broken Rainbow.

Filmed in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Europe, the US and Russia, Breaking the Maya Code tells the epic story of the Maya translation from the sixteenth century to the present, including interviews with key contemporary figures involved in the breakthroughs.

This riveting film, 11 years in the making, was released last year and shown on the PBS program NOVA. For PEN’s anniversary celebration, filmmakers David Lebrun and Amy Halpern are on hand to screen and discuss the two-hour director’s cut of Breaking the Maya Code. Copies of the film will be available for purchase.

This event is part of the festivities in honor of San Miguel PEN’s 30th anniversary. A party follows in the patio of Bellas Artes and people will share reminiscences of San Miguel PEN from 1979 to the present. If you have memories to share, write lucina.kathmann@gmail.com or call Elizabeth at 152-0064 to be put on the list of speakers. Contribution for the film showing is 100 pesos; the party is included.


Author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction, including two books on Mexico, Tony Cohan has been chair of the San Miguel PEN Freedom to Write Committee for many years.