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Opening ceremony of the 11th FICM

Cruz Alberto González

Following the red carpet, the opening ceremony of FICM’s 11th edition took place at the Cinépolis Plaza Morelia, prior to the inaugural screening of Gravity by Alfonso Cuarón and the short film Aningaaq by Jonás Cuarón. The organizational work of the festival and the enthusiasm of the people of Morelia and its visitors for the past 11 years received praise at the event, conducted by actors Johanna Murillo and Julio Bracho, and attended by personalities of the national and international film world,

State and city authorities welcomed the audience and thanked Alejandro Ramírez Magaña, president of FICM, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Batel, FICM vice president, and Daniela Michel, FICM general director, for all they had done. Morelia Mayor Wilfrido Lázaro Medina emphasized the youth and energy of the festival and pointed out its importance in the world of cinema. José de Jesús Reyna García, governor of Michoacán, congratulated the founders and organizers of the festival for their contribution to the culture of the city and the state.  He singled out the traditional tributes to figures of Mexican cinema born in Michoacán and applauded the festival for having selected José Rubén Romero (1890-1952), writer, diplomat and academic from Michoacán, this year.

Alejandro Ramírez Magaña welcomed all those present at the ceremony and thanked the city and state authorities for the support and the facilities they have provided. He also expressed his appreciation to CONACULTA, IMCINE, the Cultural and Cinematographic Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, Secretariat of Tourism,  Cinépolis, the embassies of France, Spain and the United Kingdom, Critics’ Week of the Cannes Festival, Cineteca Nacional and the UNAM Film Archive. He also mentioned the Mexican cultural TV channels – 11 and 22 –, the Goethe Institute, Fundación Televisa, Warner Brothers, among other distributing companies, in addition to each of the sponsors.

The president of FICM gave a summary of the festival’s different activities. He emphasized the presence of important directors and actors who will be here, including special invited guest, Alejandro Jodorowsky. He also confirmed the extension of the Mexican feature film competition to all films completed in the period 2012-2013, awards for the best performances – male and female –, and a retrospective of the work of Mexican actor Arturo de Córdova (1908-1973).

Referring to the opening night film, Ramírez Magaña pointed out the two features of the director’s filmography, its double virtue: commercial success and critically acclaimed.  Alfonso Cuarón, who also came to the podium, said it was an honor to premiere Gravity at FICM – now an important destiny of international cinema. He expressed his appreciation that the venue of the opening event had been changed, thus increasing the technical possibilities of the screening, as well as the convenience of the audience.

About Gravity

Gravity captures the audience’s interest from beginning to end. From the start we know something isn’t going well with the maintenance and optimization of the Hubble telescope that Doctor Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock), veteran commander Matt Kowalsky (George Clooney), engineer astronaut Shariff (Paul Sharma) and captain of the spaceship Explorer played by Amy Warren, are working on. Stone’s nervousness, Kowalsky’s calm and Shariff’s childish and irreverent attitude turn into a strange premonition of what is to come: something is wrong, and from one moment to the next, the public finds itself immersed in a situation that is anything but pleasant.

Ed Harris, who played the director of the NASA flight in Apollo 13 (1995), is the mission control voice of the Explorer. The photography by Emmanuel Lubezki is superb. Visually, Gravity reminds us of films of the stature of 2001: Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968), Solaris (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972) and more recently Prometheus (Ridley Scott, 2012). Gravity can definitely be considered at the level of these films.

Cuarón’s latest film puts us before the inability that we humans still have – in spite of our wonderful progress – to live in space far from mother Earth. Despite the progress of science and its technical applications, life outside of Earth’s gravity is virtually impossible for us. In Gravity, Cuarón deals with the big questions that have arisen in the course of humanity’s history: who are we, where are we going, and what is the meaning of our existence. The answer seems to point toward the need for humanity to establish relations of solidarity and reciprocity with others and to avoid, wherever possible, its encounter with loneliness, helplessness and suffering.