Past Editions

The members of the Jury for the VII Mexican Short Film Forum

Geoff Andrew

Geoff Andrew has been passionate about movies ever since he was a student and saw Bergman’s Cries and Whispers during its first run in Cambridge, England. For over 20 years now he has been writing about cinema for Time Out Magazine, where he still currently serves as Senior Film Editor, and for the last four years he has also been head of programming at the National Film Theatre. Earlier this year he enjoyed being a member of the Un Certain Regard jury at the Cannes Film Festival, and has also written a number of books on cinema, including studies of Nicholas Ray (wich will soon reappear in a new, slightly larger edition), Kieslowski’s ‘Three Colours Trilogy’, and American independent film-makers of the ‘80s and ‘90s. Other filmmakers he especially admires include Keaton, Vigo, Dreyer, Ozu, Hawks, Welles and, of those still working, Rohmer and Kiarostami – though of course there are countless others he could mention, since his enthusiasm for good movies remains undiminished after all these years.

Carlos Carrera

Carlos Carrera was born in Mexico City in 1962. He studied Communication at the Universidad Iberoamericana and film direction at the Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica (CCC). Since the eighties, he has directed animation shorts whose quality has attracted much attention. The CCC´s Opera Prima (First Feature) Contest allowed him to debut in fiction with La mujer de Benjamín, winner of Mexico´s Ariel prize for Best First Feature and nominated for Best Film, Story-line, and Screenplay in 1992. His animation short El héroe (1993) was awarded the Palme d’Or at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival and the Ariel for Best Animated Short Film in 1994. In 1996, he received the Ariel for Best Film and Best Director for Sin remitente, and in 1999 won the Ariel for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay for Un embrujo. His works are characterized for delving into the dark side of the human condition.

Laurent Crouseix

Laurent Crouzeix was born in 1970 in Clermont-Ferrand, France, where he studied English Literature and Civilization (BA) at the Université Blaise Pascal. He then took off to London for a year as an exchange student at Goldsmiths College, University of London, specializing in translation. He was first contracted by the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival in 1995, joined the International Selection Committee in 1997, and has viewed over a thousand short films per year ever since. For a few years he divided his time between Clermont-Ferrand and the North of England, doing various jobs for the UK National Health Service and working with the Leeds International Film Festival to launch the Louis le Prince Short Film Competition in 1999. He settled back permanently in Clermont-Ferrand in 2000, and has since worked year-round with the association Sauve Qui Peut le Court-Métrage as the organizer of the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival. He plays electric bass with the post-roots band Bolik.

Carlos Cuarón

Carlos Cuarón was born in Mexico City in 1966 and studied English Literature at the UNAM. He participated in Hernán Lara Zavala´s narrative workshop, Syd Field´s screenwriting workshop, and the Sundance Institute´s Screenwriters Lab on two occasions. He wrote the plays Llantas contra el pavimento, Zapatos y alpargatas, Puro y natural, and Coco Tuétano y la rebelión de las armas. He wrote the screenplays for Y tu mamá también (Alfonso Cuarón, 2001), winner of the Venice Film Festival´s Silver Lion for Best Original Screenplay and nominated in the same category at both the U.K.´s BAFTA Film Awards and the Oscars; Sólo con tu pareja (Alfonso Cuarón, 1991), winner of Mexico’s Ariel prize for Best Story-line in 1992; Al rescate de la Santísima Trinidad (José Luis García Agraz, 2002), and ¿Quién diablos es Juliette? (Carlos Marcovich, 1997). He is editor, screenwriter, and director of the short films No me digan Hugo, Amor perdido, Amor al tri, Juego de niños, Me la debes, Noche de bodas (selected for the Cannes Film Festival’s International Critics’ Week in 2001), Mamacita, and Sístole/Diástole

Gregory Valens

Grégory Valens was born in Paris, France in 1972. He occupied the position of Audiovisual Attaché at the French embassy in Ethiopia from 1996 to 1998, and was the Artistic Director of the European Film Festival in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 1998. He has been writing for the leading film magazine POSITIF since 1999. He teaches film criticism at the University of Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle. Member of the board of FIPRESCI (the International Federation of Film Critics), he is the Editor In Chief of the federation’s website and has chaired International Critics’ Prize juries in major festivals worldwide (Chicago, Moscow, Karlovy Vary, Hong Kong, Havana). He is also a member of the Cannes International Critics’ Week selection commitee. In 2003, he directed his first short film, Pauv’vieux (Poor Chap).

 

The members of the Jury for the I Mexican Documentary Forum

Arthur Dong

Arthur Dong is a producer, director, writer and self-distributor of independent social issue documentaries for over 20 years. His first, Sewing Woman, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short. His other credits, including Family Fundamentals, Forbidden City, U.S.A., Coming Out Under Fire, and Licensed to Kill have earned him the Peabody Award, the Berlin Film Festival’s Teddy Award, three Sundance Film Festival awards, five Emmy nominations, two GLAAD Media Awards, and over 100 other film excellence honors worldwide. Arthur has been awarded both the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Film Fellowships to support his artistic vision. In addition to serving on the IFP/Los Angeles Board of Directors’ Executive Committee, he is on the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, representing the Documentary Branch. Arthur is currently developing a documentary for HBO and a series on Asians in Hollywood for PBS.

Ilse Hughan

Born in Amsterdam, Ilse Hughan entered cinema through subtitling after studying French and Italian in college. She collaborated in many Dutch fiction films as assistant producer, director and editor. From 1988 to 1992 she distributed independently produced fiction and documentary films at the Amsterdam Cinematheque. For the past 10 years she has been working for the Rotterdam International Film Festival and is a member of the Hubert Bals Fund selection, which supports films from developing countries. Lately she is feeling more and more drawn towards film production, which she considers an intimate form of commitment. She will be the associate producer of Sangre, the new film from Lisandro Alonso (Argentina), whose disarming and original feature debut, La Libertad (2000), received much recognition from various international film festivals and elsewhere. In 1992, Ilse Hughan decided to revive Amsterdam-based Fortuna Films, a company establishes by her grandfather in 1911. Fortuna Films specialized in selling and distributing documentaries from filmmakers such as Heddy Honigmann, Jos de Putter, Andreas Hoessli and Peter Liechti.

Juan Carlos Rulfo

Juan Carlos Rulfo studied a B.A. in Communication Sciences at the UAM specializing in cinema, with a thesis on the work of Andrei Tarkovsky. He studied film at the Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica (CCC). His thesis project, El Abuelo Cheno y otras historias (1995), participated in many national and international festivals and received numerous awards, among them the Danzante de Plata for Best Documentary Short Film in the 23rd Huesca Film Festival in Spain and the Best Documentary Prize at the International Film School Festivals, both in Buenos Aires, Argentina and in Mexico City at the CCC. He directed his first feature, Del olvido al no me acuerdo, with the support of the FONCA, IMCINE, and the Rockefeller and MacArthur Foundations. This film also participated in various festivals around the world: in 1999 it was awarded the Best First Feature Prize at the Festival des Films du Monde in Montreal, Canada and at the Biarritz International Film Festival in France. He has also received four Ariel prizes from the Mexican Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for Best First Feature, Editing, Photography, and Sound. He is a member of the FONCA’s Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte and was.