Morelia International Film Festival

Armando Casas

(México City, 1964) Studied at the CUEC film school and has taught there since 1993. He also studied theater and communications at the National University of Mexico (UNAM). Casas has worked as a scriptwriter, assistant director, sound technician, actor, and director in several short films. Los retos de la democracia was nominated for an Ariel for Best Short Film by the Mexican Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences in 1990. His work in television includes Televisa?s Hora marcada and several series for Channel 11, Channel 22, and TV UNAM, as well as commercials and music videos.

He directed the feature film Un mundo raro, which was produced by the Mexican Film Institute (IMCINE), the National Co-Production Fund (FOPROCINE), and the UNAM, as part of a program that supports first works by recent graduates of the CUEC film school. Un mundo raro received an honorary mention at the XVI Mexican Film Showcase in Guadalajara, and it was the closing film at the most recent edition of the Franco- Mexican Film Festival in Acapulco. It has shown in several international film festivals as well as the Egyptian Theater in Los Angeles, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, and a retrospective on Mexican cinema, Mex-Artes, in Berlin. Nominated for an Ariel for Best First Work and Best Original Screenplay, it received a Diosa de Plata award for Best First Work, among others honors.

Casas has been granted a scholarship by the National Fund for the Arts and Culture (FONCA) on two occasions, and in 2003 he received the UNAM Award for Young Scholars and Artists, the university?s highest merit award.

His short film Para vestir santos, winner of IMCINE?s Third National Short Film Contest in 2003, was selected to form part of ?Tous les Cinémas du Monde? at the 58° Cannes International Film Festival and has been part of more than thirty festivals worldwide. More recently, his documentary TV series on contemporary Mexican cartoons, De oficio monero, aired on Channel 11. He is currently working on a feature film on intolerance, which is influenced by the debates on the liberalization of the abortion law and the new law of domestic partnerships in Mexico City.

Since 2004, he is the director of the National University?s CUEC film school.

Filmography:

Para vestir santos (2004)
Un mundo raro (2001)
Las miradas no mienten (1993)
Cómo escribir una historieta (1992)
Mis dos materias favoritas (1992)
Binarius (1991)
Los retos de la democracia (1988)
El gallo de Esculapio (1987)
Solipsismo (1986)
Al volante (1985)
Corre conejo, corre (1985)

Ángeles Castro Gurría

María de los Ángeles Guadalupe Castro Gurría teaches acting at the CCC film school. She studied film direction and acting at the National University?s CUT (Center for Theater). She has acted extensively on stage and television and has directed several plays, including True West by Sam Shepard, which won the Best Newcomer award for directors given by the Mexican Association of Theater Critics.

She taught an acting workshop during the shooting of Like Water for Chocolate, directed by Alfonso Arau, and has been teaching at the CCC since 1984. In May of 1997, she began to work at the CCC?s Office of Academic Services and by August of 2000 she was appointed general director of the film school.

In October of 2003, she staged Margarite Duras? Ágata, produced by the CUT. As director of the CCC, Castro Gurría has produced the following feature films: De ida y vuelta (Salvador Aguirre); Seres humanos (Jorge Aguilera); Recuerdos (Marcela Arteaga); Pachito Rex (Fabian Hoffman); Noticias lejanas (Ricardo Benet), and 1973 (Antonino Isordia).

Jorge Sánchez Sosa

Born in Córdoba, Veracruz in 1950, Sánchez Sosa studied sociology at the National University (UNAM) and film at the CCC in Mexico City. He founded the UNAM?s Department of Political and Social Sciences first film club. He was co-founder and partner of Zafra-Cine Difusión, Zafra-Video, Cinematográfica Macondo, Producciones Amaranta, and Filmanía.

Six of the seventeen films he?s produced have screened at the Cannes Film Festival, Danzón and El Coronel no tiene quien le escriba were shown as part of the Official Selection. He?s had the privilege to work with the most important Latin American film directors of his time. Sánchez Sosa is founder and director of the Mexican Association for Independent Producers (AMPI), and the Hispanic-American Federation of Film and Media Production (FIPCA).

He?s been a judge at San Sebastian, Sundance, Toronto, and La Habana film festivals, among others. He?s been part of the Advisory Board at IMCINE and Channel 22, and is a member of the New Latin American Cinema Foundation, whose honorary president is Gabriel García Márquez. From June of 2001 to September of 2005, he served as the General Consul for Mexico in Rio de Janeiro. He has been director of the Guadalajara International Film Festival?s since October of 2005.