Diegos, Del Toro and daring debuts: Notes from Morelia’s film fest
In this edition, we are fortunate to bring you an on-the-ground report from the 24th Festival Internacional de Cine de Morelia (FICM), one of Mexico’s premier showcases for cinema. Below, Bettine Mackenzie of production company The Lift shares highlights from this year’s programme and her impressions of the festival scene in the colonial city.
Every October, Morelia’s historic centre fills with glimpses of famous faces, as filmmakers and film fanatics rush between screenings in the very pretty city where Cinépolis began.
The festival’s starry 24th edition opened with Jonás Cuarón’s Campeón gabacho, attended by his father, Alfonso. James Gray presented Paper Tiger and received the festival’s Artistic Excellence Award.
Diego Luna premiered Ceniza en la boca, Diego Calva arrived with Club Kid and Diego Boneta with Killing Castro. When screams erupted outside the Teatro Matamoros, you could usually be fairly certain that someone called Diego was nearby.
Gael García Bernal, walking the red carpet with his mother, Patricia, to present his film Hombre al agua, drew similarly ear-splitting, almost unfathomable levels of volume.
Beyond the red carpet, a great range of emerging Mexican filmmakers were pursuing their own, often boundary-pushing visions.
Fernanda Tovar’s debut Chicas tristes, about two teenage swimmers whose friendship is tested by sexual violence, arrived with two Berlinale prizes and an enormous amount of hype. Last-minute ticket queues stretched around the block and down the cobbled streets, and they often dispersed into clouds of disappointed faces trundling off to find another film (mine included).
Joaquín del Paso’s El jardín que soñamos came back to Michoacán, where it was set and filmed, in the middle of an impressive international festival run. Nathalia Acevedo brought Salón de belleza, her atmospheric adaptation of Mario Bellatin’s novel. Axel Bertha’s Contra la naturaleza, shot on 35mm, is a strange and compelling meditation on time.
But experimentation was not confined to emerging directors. Carlos Reygadas returned after eight years with Heil Jupiter!, a film that moves between reality and mythology and is partly spoken in an invented language. It is sometimes mind-boggling and often fascinating. Above all, it is deeply reassuring proof that some filmmakers are still prepared to challenge their audiences: we are not rushing down the river of algorithmic slop quite yet.
Marine Atlan’s La Gradiva, winner of the Cannes Critics’ Week Grand Prize, was unsettling and luminous. NAZA, from No Other Land directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, investigates Israeli military operations and civilian deaths in Gaza, and it was one of the most important screenings of the festival. Cristian Mungiu’s Fjord, winner of this year’s Palme d’Or at Cannes, was another impossible ticket to secure.
The great and ever greater Guillermo del Toro returned for the 20th anniversary of Pan’s Labyrinth. He organised an additional screening for disappointed fans who had missed out on tickets despite sleeping outside the theatre overnight. The next day, he gave a masterclass. Reiterating a point he made at Cannes earlier this year, he emphasised the threat that AI poses to artistic expression. “We must cherish the process”, he urged young filmmakers.
The Mexican industry also gained a new player: Caos Cine, a distribution company that launched with La cazadora. Meanwhile, Morelia and Ambulante renewed their partnership with a new Eugenio Polgovsky Award, which supports Mexican documentaries in post-production. Polgovsky was an exceptionally talented Mexican documentary maker who died too young.
FICM offers plenty of evidence that Mexican cinema remains ambitious, inventive and sometimes contrary, and that Morelia is a place where filmmakers at every stage of their careers converge.
And, of course, it also offered the simple pleasure of spending hours each day watching stories told in enormous, god-like images: something we should all be able to do more often.
Mexico’s oldest solar observatory
A ceremonial complex at Teteles de Ávila Castillo, in the Sierra Norte de Puebla, functioned as a solar observatory more than 2,500 years ago, the first such site recorded outside the Maya region, according to the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH). The finding, announced in an INAH bulletin on 13 October, draws on comparative studies of Mesoamerican urban planning.
The complex, known as Group E or Tetelihtic, sits east of the settlement’s Great Plaza and consists of a square courtyard flanked by two platforms: an elongated eastern one (90 by 40 metres) and a smaller western observation platform (46 by 27 metres). Project director Alberto Diez Barroso Repizo said the layout is identical to Maya examples such as Group E at Uaxactún, in Guatemala, although Tetelihtic is twice its size. Both date from the Middle Preclassic period (1000 to 600 BCE).
According to Diez Barroso, Tetelihtic’s elongated platform does not mark the equinoxes at its centre. Instead, it marks the start of the Mesoamerican calendar in February and the harvest in October. Viewed from its front at dawn, it also tracks the sun at the equinoxes and solstices, making it a solar calendar.
He described the settlement as an outstanding example of pre-Hispanic urbanism shaped by the surrounding mountains and the astronomical horizon. He said the findings support the Maya ethnolinguistic roots of Huastec groups and suggest a Maya presence at Teteles as early as 1000 BCE. He also proposed a link to the Nahua goddess Nantehuitz, “our mother of the south”, based on the main structure’s alignment with Canopus, the night sky’s second-brightest star.
The project also hypothesises that Totonac culture originated at the site. Tetelihtic was active from around 900 BCE to 100 CE and was partly abandoned as Cantona, Cholula and Teotihuacan rose to prominence, although offerings show it remained a place of worship. Diez Barroso cited a Totonac offering dated 600 to 900 CE as evidence that the site’s original inhabitants were ancestors of the Totonac peoples of Yohualichan and El Tajín.
Culture Secretary Claudia Curiel de Icaza said the research reveals the depth of Mesoamerican astronomical knowledge. A conference and photographic exhibition, organised with the local council and the civil association Tzoncoyotl, presented the finding publicly earlier this month.
Day of the Dead: altars, parades and vigils
As Day of the Dead approaches, the calendar fills up with parades, altar displays and other cultural events to honour the holiday across Mexico. Here is a sampling of offerings in Mexico City, in Guadalajara and in one of the country’s most popular and iconic destinations for Día de Muertos: Michoacán.
Mexico City
Mexico City’s celebrations are already well under way. Cempasúchil growers from Tláhuac, Milpa Alta and Xochimilco are selling their flowers on Paseo de la Reforma until 1 November, while a light installation, El Camino, illuminates Reforma from the Ángel de la Independencia to the Puerta de los Leones until 8 November. Tonight (24 October), a 19-kilometre bike ride with costumes and DJs runs from the Fuente de Petróleos to the historic centre, and on Sunday 25 October the citizen-organised Mega Procesión de las Catrinas fills Reforma.
From 29 October to 2 November, the Zócalo hosts the Ofrenda Monumental, this year dedicated to José Guadalupe Posada’s Catrina, with a 32-metre papier-mâché figure, sawdust carpets and free concerts. Community altars appear at 12 sites across the city over the same period. In the Second Section of Chapultepec, La Puerta entre dos mundos (29 October to 4 November) brings altars, music, food and a night-time drone show.
The centrepiece is the Gran Desfile de Día de Muertos on Saturday 31 October at 14:00, which travels along Reforma to the Zócalo. Now in its tenth edition, it features floats paying tribute to Juan Gabriel, Emilio “El Indio” Fernández and the Red Queen of Palenque, and also remembers Juan Rulfo, 40 years after his death.
From 23 October to 17 January 2027, the Museo Dolores Olmedo, which reopened in May after closing in 2021, is staging its traditional ofrenda back at La Noria, Xochimilco. Olmedo championed the altar tradition from 1958 to preserve the work of Mexican artisans. On 28 October, the Museo Nacional de Culturas del Mundo opens Muertos de Egipto y México, an exhibition of painting, photography and textiles comparing the two cultures’ rituals of death, with free entry during Noche de Museos.
At Ciudad Universitaria, UNAM’s Megaofrenda marks the university’s 475th anniversary. San Andrés Mixquic, in Tláhuac, is regarded as the city’s most traditional observance. It culminates on the night of 2 November with La Alumbrada, when the colonial cemetery is lit only by thousands of candles on the graves.
Guadalajara
Jalisco’s Festival de las Almas returns for a second edition, with more than 350 free activities in 11 municipalities from 24 October to 15 November. In the metropolitan area, Tlaquepaque alone hosts around 80 events. From 30 October to 2 November, Plaza Guadalajara becomes the Plaza de las Almas, with monumental altars and a catrina parade. The Fiestas de Octubre add a Day of the Dead programme from 27 October to 2 November, closing with a concert by Carlos Rivera. Calaverandia, the ticketed Day of the Dead theme park, is now open for its seventh season at Parque Ávila Camacho, where its 15-metre Catrina once again rises above the lake.
Michoacán
Michoacán is well known and celebrated for its Day of the Dead traditions and there are hundreds of events planned statewide. In Uruapan, the Festival de las Velas (24 October to 1 November) covers the main squares with sawdust carpets and more than 50,000 candles, and this year includes a tribute to Carlos Manzo, the mayor assassinated during last year’s celebrations. Around Lake Pátzcuaro, families keep candlelit vigils at the graves on 1 November, while Morelia stages a catrina parade on Avenida Madero.
Kings of the Corrido finally reach Tiny Desk
The legendary Mexican Norteño band Los Tigres del Norte finally made it to NPR’s Tiny Desk, closing El Tiny, the series’ Hispanic Heritage Month programme. Frontman Jorge Hernández told the Los Angeles Times that the appearance was “beautiful and historic” and should have happened 10 to 15 years earlier. The set was recorded on 27 August at NPR’s Washington headquarters, where the crowd can be heard singing along, and released on 15 October. It opened with Somos más americanos, the band’s 2001 song declaring Mexicans more American than the “gringos” and recalling the territory Mexico lost to the US. The band also played La puerta negra, Ni parientes somos, Golpes en el corazón and Quiero volar contigo. Hernández hoped English-speaking viewers would look up the lyrics and connect with them.
Los Tigres, a family band of humble Sinaloan roots, built their career on a sound much imitated but rarely matched. Two distinctive voices join accordion melodies, a melancholy saxophone and a tightly drilled rhythm section. Much of their repertoire chronicles the emotional toll of migration. Alongside it are the heartbreak songs that have become fixtures at Mexican fiestas. Their music has also drawn official disapproval. The band has accused PRI governments of censoring La granja, an allegory about the party’s links to drug trafficking, and El circo, about the Salinas de Gortari brothers. Under Vicente Fox, the Interior Ministry sought to keep their music off the radio, arguing that it glorified crime. Their 1989 album Corridos prohibidos is, according to Gatopardo, the second best-selling record in the history of regional Mexican music, behind their own Jefe de jefes.
The devotion they inspire is the stuff of legend. Their bailes have run for up to 12 hours, and maquiladoras in states such as Chihuahua reportedly plan the working month around the band’s dance calendar. They played Folsom State Prison in California to mark 50 years since Johnny Cash’s concert there, for an inmate population that is now largely Latino. They also crossed over early, playing the rock festival Vive Latino when regional Mexican music was still considered out of place there. Today’s stars of corridos tumbados, from Peso Pluma to Natanael Cano, owe much to that groundwork, although Los Tigres have always avoided the profanity and celebration of excess common in the newer genre.
The controversy concerned what came before the music. Most Tiny Desk videos cut straight to the performance, but this one opened with the two Alt.Latino hosts addressing the crowd. Anamaria Sayre spoke first, in Spanish. She noted that many fans had come with their families and said she was thinking of her own family with pride. Felix Contreras, co-founder of Alt.Latino and curator of El Tiny, followed in English, his voice breaking. He traced the persecution Mexicans have faced in the US, from the 1848 border change to the mass deportations of Operation Wetback. “Our community is under attack and it’s not the first time,” he said, adding that Los Tigres had long given that community back its humanity. Both hosts were in tears by the time he called the band to the stage.
Within a day, viewers noticed that most of his remarks had vanished from the YouTube version, leaving only his closing thanks. Sayre’s introduction remained intact. Accusations of censorship spread quickly, and more than 15,000 comments accumulated beneath the video. In a pinned comment, NPR said that Tiny Desk videos do not usually include introductions and that it had removed the segment temporarily for editorial review, calling the subject emotional and complex. Critics pointed to the inconsistency: if introductions were the problem, why cut only one of them? NPR restored the full introduction on its website and promised to do the same on YouTube.
A column by NPR’s public editor, Kelly McBride of the Poynter Institute, has since explained what happened internally. The remarks had never been cleared by the team that reviews content before publication. Newsroom leadership therefore had to decide after the fact whether they breached NPR’s impartiality standards, which bar its journalists from taking political or activist positions, although the broadcaster has allowed more room for personal expressions of identity since 2020. While that review was under way, leadership ordered the cut. Chief music editor Jacob Ganz admitted that the team “didn’t engage in that process actively enough” before publication. McBride called the temporary edit misguided, arguing that it penalised the audience for NPR’s own missed steps. She concluded that Contreras had not been wrong to say his community was under attack.
Contreras then told fans in an Instagram video that his words had not been meant for publication but had resonated in ways no one anticipated. He added that he had never felt so much support for his work at NPR. By 18 October the complete version was back on YouTube, where it has passed four million views.
Chatter Box
San Miguel de Allende honours Friedeberg. San Miguel de Allende is hosting the most ambitious tribute to date to the late artist Pedro Friedeberg (1936–2026), including more than 500 pieces from seven decades of his work. The work is on display in three venues and free to visit until 28 February 2027. The project is organised by INBAL, Fomento Cultural Banamex and the Fundación Pedro Friedeberg. It draws on the foundation’s holdings, Mexico City galleries and private collections, and a significant share of the work comes from his final years. Casa Diana, his former family home, presents Privacidad y elegancia, an intimate portrait; the Casa del Mayorazgo de la Canal hosts Líneas de fuga, focused on geometry and perspective; and the Centro Cultural El Nigromante offers Hilaridad y melancolía, exploring humour and nostalgia, with a recreation of his studio and unfinished pieces. An immersive light installation completes the circuit. A further section covers his more than 20 years in the city through letters, photographs and furniture he designed.
Cervantino closes 54th edition with record attendance. The 54th Festival Internacional Cervantino closed on 18 October with more than 386,000 attendees, up roughly 17 per cent on the 330,000-plus recorded in 2025. Over 16 days, 3,325 artists from 29 countries gave 215 performances, alongside 49 exhibitions across eight municipalities in Guanajuato. State tourism officials estimate an economic impact of 519.9 million pesos, a 14 per cent rise, with hotel occupancy in the city at 60 per cent. Culture Secretary Claudia Curiel de Icaza highlighted the festival’s national reach: 20 states contributed programming, while the Circuito Cervantino took events to 31 cities and drew 71,165 people. France, guest country in the bicentennial year of Franco-Mexican diplomatic relations, brought 175 artists, including Ensemble Pygmalion and (LA)HORDE with the Ballet national de Marseille. French producer Dabeull and his analogue funk band closed proceedings at the Alhóndiga de Granaditas.
Monterrey Book Fair breaks attendance record. The Feria Internacional del Libro de Monterrey, hosted by the Tecnológico de Monterrey, closed its 34th edition on 18 October with close to half a million visitors, up from 360,000 last year. Organisers counted 450,000 before Sunday’s figures were added. Guest of honour El Colegio Nacional drew 15,000 people to its stand and sold 3,000 books, with Cristina Rivera Garza’s titles almost selling out. Fair president Carmen Junco described an increasingly academic programme, with a philosophy strand added this year and more than 50,000 students visiting. Emmanuel Carrère opened the fair. Spain will be guest country in 2027, with a critical look at the Generation of ‘27, including its women writers and the Republican exile in Mexico. Poet Pedro Garfias, one of those exiles, is buried in Nuevo León.
Original returns to Los Pinos. Original, the federal Culture Ministry’s showcase of traditional textile, decorative and utilitarian art, returns to the Complejo Cultural Los Pinos in Mexico City from 12 to 15 November for its tenth edition. Some 580 master artisans from 31 states, representing 36 Indigenous languages and communities, will sell directly to the public. Their work spans textiles, ceramics, jewellery, woodwork, lacquer and plant fibres. An international pavilion brings 14 artisans from nine countries, including Ghana, Norway and Peru.
Beyond the stalls, the programme includes 84 activities for all ages, among them workshops and storytelling. There will be runway shows every evening at 19:00, broadcast on Canal 22, and 16 concerts on the Escenario Velaria, ranging from Zapotec rap by Juchirap to Tsotsil rock by Sak Tzevul. A new strand, Profesionales ORIGINAL, offers 15 sessions on exhibiting and selling traditional art. Culture Secretary Claudia Curiel de Icaza framed the event as part of wider support for the sector. She said the ministry had worked with more than 127,000 artisans in 2026, up 48 per cent, and that Fonart sales had risen 56 per cent. Entry is free, from 10:30 to 20:30 daily.
Culture Outing
Museo Kaluz is hosting what it bills as the first exhibition in Mexico of Art Nouveau master Alphonse Mucha. Alphonse Mucha. La magia de la línea brings together around 130 posters, lithographs, drawings and objects, plus an immersive section by the Grand Palais Immersif in Paris. Until 8 February 2027 at Avenida Hidalgo 85, Centro Histórico, with timed entry between 10:00 and 18:00. Tickets cost 150 pesos (75 pesos concessions) and are available online.
Culture Conversation
FICM 2026: Clase magistral de Guillermo del Toro
Clocking in at close to two hours, this masterclass by beloved director Guillermo del Toro is an expansive exploration of his own filmography, personal history and his approach to his art. He also touches on the importance of the creative process in an age of AI and automation, his deep concerns about what is coming for younger generations and his solidarity with residents of Guadalajara protesting the city’s contaminated water supply.