06 · 24 · 24

Daniela Michel received the Vittorio Boarini Award at the 38th Il Cinema Ritrovato Festival

Daniela Michel, the founder and general director of the Morelia International Film Festival (FICM), received the Vittorio Boarini Award at the 38th Il Cinema Ritrovato Festival. This award honors exceptional global figures who have excelled in safeguarding and promoting cinema heritage.

During the award ceremony, Gian Luca Farinelli, director of the Cineteca di Bologna, praised Daniela Michel for her outstanding work promoting Mexican cinema. These words deeply touched the director of the FICM, who expressed her gratitude with emotion.

The following is Gian Luca Farinelli's complete speech:

Daniela María Michel Concha is the founder and General Director of the Morelia International Film Festival since its creation in 2003.

Daniela Michel has brought a wonderful breath of fresh air into the small and standardized world of international festivals. She is an elegant, competent, caring woman, she has a deep knowledge of Mexican cinema of the present, and of the past. As Guillermo del Toro mentioned a few years back, Daniela is considered the global honorary ambassador of Mexican cinema, and, whether we are Mexican or not, we owe her so much to her efforts in promoting our works internationally. 

Daniela possesses all the qualities: she is a humble woman who consistently steps back to avoid the spotlight and prioritizes others over herself. Gifted with great curiosity, she works 24 hours a day to achieve her goals, which are always demanding, cultured, and complex projects.

Thanks to her efforts, the Morelia Festival has emerged as a cell of Il Cinema Ritrovato, a valuable research festival, followed by an international community of specialists who do not conform. For instance, through the Morelia Festival's work, renowned Mexican melodrama authors from the fifties and sixties like Emilio Fernández, Julio Bracho, Roberto Gavaldón, and Alejandro Galindo are now recognized and featured in many film archives. Daniela is also capable of facing the impossible. Her work has led to the restoration of numerous Mexican classics by the Cineteca and Martin Scorsese's Film Foundation, as well as securing significant sponsorships.

It's impossible not to notice her, even in a crowd. The way Daniela dresses gives the impression that she was crafted by a designer aiming to conceal, beneath Mexico City's bourgeois elegance, the soul of a fierce warrior. She is prepared to challenge, willing to reject the unattractive, and ready to champion the beautiful.

Daniela is Mexican, but first and foremost a citizen of cinema. Vittorio Boarini did not have the chance to meet Daniela at the Morelia Festival, but, without a doubt, if he had gone just once he would not have missed a single edition.