This Fall, we are eager to present Los Cabos International Film Festival: Cinema Encounters. We are back with a full transformation and fresh ideas, places, networking and more to be experienced from December 4th to 8th 2024.
This year, we are expanding our horizons with the inclusion of San Jose del Cabo as a new location for hosting events and screenings in unmatched hot spots such as Crania, the botanical garden Wirikuta, Hotel El Ganzo, Casa Ballena and Plaza Mijares. Nonetheless, we are not to depart entirely from our very own Cinemex Puerto Paraíso in Cabo San Lucas.
After having toured the most relevant international film festivals around the world, establishing themselves as promising contenders for the upcoming awards season, two top feature films will be screened at our opening and closing events, respectively. These premieres in Mexico will complement our shared excitement of being back to celebrating cinema in the paradise enclosed by two seas: The Los Cabos we all know and love.
Mexican Cinema will play the main role in this year’s film programme. A careful selection of outstanding Mexican films will be featured in our different venues. The participation of members of the film’s crew in post-screening Q&As will incite a deeper and organic connection among the filmmakers, the films, and the audience.
This edition, the support aimed at the Mexican film industry, granted by the Gabriel Figueroa Film Fund, will be targeted towards national rising talents. Its will be focused in first films in development. The selected projects will also participate in a special workshop aimed at accompanying new filmmakers to navigate the intricacies of creating a debut film.
Moreover, our intention to strengthen the ties and professionalization of the Baja California Peninsula’s film community will be portrayed through a workshop for regional filmmakers taught by prominent figures in Mexican cinema. The conversation around relevant topics for the film industry is still a crucial part of the Festival’s agenda and will be present in discussion panels that will be taking place in some of our beautiful new venues.
If all this was not enough to get you to immediately book a flight for visiting us at Los Cabos, we are pleased to share with you the Los Cabos International Film Festival: Cinema Encounters brand new poster, a work of the filmmaker David Liles, and a production of Hugo Payen, both from Baja California Sur. The inspiration for this new image comes from a unique ecosystem at our beloved Los Cabos: the estuary of San José del Cabo. This dreamlike landscape has been considered a State Ecological Reserve and Natural Protected Area since 1994 and is recognized as one of Baja California Sur’s most important wetlands.
Liles worked around his own memories and digital footage retrieved from Baja California Sur’s Historical Archive – Pablo L. Martínez to create a hyper realistic depiction of the estuary, placing special emphasis in replicating the style of the photographs that inspired his work. In the image, two children are fishing facing a filmscreen, which rises like the sun among the palm trees, reed beds and birds that inhabit the region. Liles’ vivid and nostalgic image of the Los Cabos of yesteryear is a tribute to the local fishing practices, a tradition that to this day, permeates La Playa, a settlement neighboring the wetland and which holds dear memories of the artist’s childhood as well as being part of this year’s main locations of the festival.
Liles addresses the intentions of his work by commenting: “As someone from Los Cabos, I created an image that represents us. This is my little homage to the estuary I remember; A magical place, inspiration for many stories”.