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Alfonso Cuarón Presents a Film that Shaped Him at the 22nd FICM: JONÁS WHO WILL BE 25 IN THE YEAR 2000

Omar Sosa

As part of the Alain Tanner Program at the 22nd edition of the Morelia International Film Festival (FICM), founder and general director of the festival, Daniela Michel, joined Alfonso Cuarón, a guest of honor at the festival and multi-award-winning director, to present Jonás Who Will Bbe 25 in the Year 2000 (1974, dir. Alain Tanner).

“This film was very important in my training, in my formation as a filmmaker,” the director said before the screening. “It had such an impact on me that in fact my oldest son is named Jonás, after this film,” he added.

Cuarón thanked the Morelia festival for allowing its audience to see such important works, as he has long sought to preserve the work of the Swiss director who he believes had been forgotten in the world of cinema. Recently, thanks to Isabelle Huppert, he met Ronald Chammah, who was restoring Tanner's filmography with the Swiss Cinematheque.

“The good Chammah and I are on a mission to evangelize the whole world back to Tanner's work,” Cuarón commented humorously, making the entire room laugh.

This film marks the end of Tanner's first period, where his films have a lot of his post-1968 concerns. Furthermore, at this time, his cinema emerged as a response to the French New Wave, a movement that he considered "right-wing anarchist."

“It was with the arrival in the late 60s of a group of filmmakers, including Tanner, [Claude] Goretta, and [Michael] Soutter, that they created the Group of Five and began what became the Swiss New Wave. From this, a cinema with a Swiss identity emerged,” Cuarón said regarding the importance of Tanner in cinematography.

Tanner’s exploration is in the community versus the larger society, the tension between the individual and the community. According to Cuarón, the Swiss director is very idealistic about the idea of community, but at the same time, he is very realistic in a melancholic way.

For Tanner, the hope of humanity always lies in the future, “in that Jonas who will turn 25 in the year 2000,” Cuarón added before beginning the screening.