Past Editions

Mexican Feature Film Jury

Luis Mandoki

One of the most versatile directors in Hollywood, Luis Mandoki was born in Mexico City in 1954. He studied at the San Francisco Art Institute and at the London International Film School. In 1976 he gained international recognition with his prize-winning short film Silent Music. Mandoki received an Ariel in Mexico for his short El secreto in 1980. His cinematographic debut, Gaby: una historia verdadera (1987), was acclaimed for its script, direction and production. It was based on a true story that Mandoki read in the newspaper. Norma Aleandro was nominated for the Golden Globe and the Oscar for her performance in the film and Rachel Levin received a Golden Globe nomination as best supporting actress. Afterwards, Mandoki directed his first film for a U.S. audience, the adaptation of the novel White Palace (1990) by Glen Savan, with Susan Sarandon and James Spader. Then he directed When a Man Loves a Woman (1990), with Meg Ryan and Andy Garcia, and Message In a Bottle (1999), with Kevin Costner, Robin Wright Penn and Paul Newman. Mandoki continued demonstrating his versatility with Angel Eyes (2001), starring Jennifer Lopez and Jim Caviezel, as well as in his films Trapped (2002), Voces inocentes (2004) and the controversial documentaries ¿Quién es el señor López? (2006), Fraude: México 2006 (2007).

Gabriel Orozco

Born in Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico, in 1962. Studied at the National School of Fine Arts-UNAM, Mexico (1981-1984) and completed his academic studies at Círculo de Bellas Artes, Madrid (1986-87). He is currently preparing a retrospective exhibition to be inaugurated next December at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. This show will then tour through the Centre Pompidou (Paris), the Kunstmuseum Basel (Switzerland) and Tate Modern (London). His most important exhibitions have been presented at the Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City (2007); Palacio de Cristal, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2005); Serpentine Gallery, London (2004); Centro de Artes Visuais, Coimbra, Portugal (2003); Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City (2000); Philadelphia Museum of Art, USA (1999); Artangel, London (1997); Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, USA (1994); Museum of Modern Art, MOMA - Projects 41, New York (1993). From 1987 to 1992 he conducted the Taller de los Viernes (Friday Workshop), a group of debate and artistic production in which some of the most important artists of the contemporary Mexican art scene participated. In 2007 he was guest curator of Il Quoitidiano Alterato presented at the 50 Venice Biennale. In 2005 he was a lecturer at the Cátedra Latinoamericana Julio Cortázar, and in 2007 was awarded the Orange Prize. He lives and works in New York, Paris and Mexico City.

José María Riba

José María Riba (Barcelona, 1951). Since the 1970s, José María Riba has worked in journalism, namely radio and print media, focusing on cinema and music. It was around this time that he completed his studies at the Escuela Normal, in Donostia San Sebastián. He also studied at the Complutense in Madrid and graduated from the Centre de Formation des Journalistes (CFJ) in Paris, where he worked professionally at Radio France Internationale (RFI). Later he worked for the French daily Libération, and was a correspondent for Spanish magazines and newspapers. In 1981, he became a writer for the publications department of the first Basque Parliament; since 1982, he has been a journalist for the France Presse news agency (AFP); and from 1988 to 2002, he was a host on the television station CineClassics.

In 1980, he joined the team that organizes the International Film Festival of San Sebastián, and was part of their Executive Committee until 2006. In 2007, he coordinated professional activities within the San Sebastián Festival, including Films in Progress and Cinema in Motion, both of which he initiated. In the 1990s, he worked half a dozen years for the Cannes Festival on the Critics’ Week selection committee, for which he was the general director in 2000 and 2001.

Currently, he assists the general director of the Festival, informing him of the films being produced in Spain and Latin America. Riba was a consultant for the European Film Academy, which offers awards within the European film industry and today he is a member of the Euromed Cinemas and Europa Cinémas expert committees. In 2005, he co-founded Espagnolas en París, a group of film professionals that promotes Spanish cinema in France and organizes the Différent! festival.

Paul Julian Smith

Paul Julian Smith is a specialist in cinema, television and visual culture of Spain and Latin America and has been a professor of Spanish Philology at the University of Cambridge since 1991. He is the author of 14 books and some 50 academic articles. He has been a visiting professor at numerous international universities, including Stanford and Berkeley in the United States and Universidad Carlos III in Madrid. He is currently a visiting professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center. He is a regular contributor to Sight and Sound, the magazine of the British Film Institute, and Film Quarterly, and a co-founder of the Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies. Among his works translated into Spanish are: Laws of Desire: Questions of Homosexuality in Spanish Writing and Film (Las leyes del deseo: la homosexualidad en la literatura y el cine español, Barcelona, Tempestad, 1997) and Amores perros (Barcelona. Gedisa, 2005). In 2008, he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy, the national academy for the humanities and social sciences.