08 · 30 · 13 Alejandro Ramírez receives award at Telluride Film Festival Share with twitter Share with facebook Share with mail Copy to clipboard We are happy to announce that the Telluride Film Festival presented Alejandro Ramírez Magaña, president of FICM and general director of Cinépolis, with a Special Medallion on Thursday, August 29. This award is given annually to a figure who has had a major impact on international film culture. Congratulations! Alejandro Ramírez was honored because of his accomplishments as head of the fourth largest cinema chain in the world, as well as for his concern for promoting film as an agent for social change. Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu presented the trophy to Ramírez during the awards ceremony. In past years, the Special Medallion has been given to figures like C. Chapin Cutler Jr. from Boston Light & Sound, Criterion Collection, HBO, Ninon Sevilla, Ted Turner, Stanley Kauffman, Manny Farber, Pierre Rissient, Leonard Maltin, Serge Bromberg and the UCLA Film & Television Archive. This year, the Telluride Film Festival, one of the most prestigious festivals in the industry, celebrates its 40th anniversary – 40 years of artistic excellence, of the past, present and future, from around the world. In honor of its anniversary, the Telluride Film Festival extended its usual four-day event to five days and inaugurated the Werner Herzog Theater, the festival’s most technologically advanced theater accommodating 650 people. The theater was inaugurated with the screening of Aguirre, the wrath of God / Aguirre der Zorn Gottes (1972), by Werner Herzog, which was presented in the first edition of FICM with the presence of the director. The publication Screen International cites Julie Huntsinger, executive director of Telluride: “This year’s anniversary is a celebration of what Telluride Film Festival has accomplished over the past four decades, as well as what we are doing now and 40 years from now…We look forward to continuing to explore the future in cinema through current masters of the art form and breakthrough talents.” All of us who work with Alejandro Ramírez join in celebrating this important award.
