Less than two months after Hurricane Odile caused more than $1 billion in damage to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, and its surrounding areas, the Los Cabos International Film Festival stood by its Twitter-friendly “#Unstoppable” reputation and valiantly opened its third annual event last week. Opening the festival was Oscar-nominated Dallas Buyers Club director Jean-Marc Vallée’s Wild, which is already earning great buzz for star Reese Witherspoon (who was in attendance to introduce the movie) as a top Oscar contender.
While the five-day event’s program was packed with plenty of Hollywood star power, its dedication to homegrown talent —both within its competitive section, its Mexico First program, which highlights the work of local first-time and sophomore filmmakers, and beyond —was particularly admirable.
“What is most exciting about Mexico's new breed of filmmakers is that they don't share a specific thematic or look, but a vibrant and powerful voice that is starting to explore more genres and levels of productions,” says festival director Alonso Aguilar-Castillo. “In a single year we can have a film like Guëros, young and pop that won Berlinale, and Navajazo, an amazingly raw experiment about Tijuana that won Locarno.”
But those two films are just scratching the surface of some of the amazing new talent emerging from Mexico. Here are 10 Mexican Filmmakers to Watch, as seen at this year’s Los Cabos International Film Festival.