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9th FICM Pre-inauguration in Pátzcuaro

Administrador

By Clara Sánchez

Antonio García Veláquez, municipal president of Pátzcuaro, welcomed the public to the pre-inauguration ceremony of the 9th Morelia International Film Festival.

"We are happy to have you in our illustrious city, which has become an extension of the festival, " he said. "We appreciate the support of the different institutions that helped in the remodeling of this theater ... converting this into a wonderful opportunity to project our cultural and architectural richness to the rest of the country and the world... to strengthen both national and international tourism."

FICM President Alejandro Ramírez said the theater was built in 1936 from a XVII century convent by orders of President Lázaro Cárdenas, and was inaugurated in 1938.

Ramírez underscored that since 2005 FICM has held screenings in Pátzcuaro and has continued to applaud the “tireless” promoter of the theater’s renovation, James Ramey. He noted that thanks to Ramey’s labors, “Today the theater looks as good as it did in 1938.”

Ramey, an academic and one of the minds behind the festival, took the stage and thanked everyone who participated in the remodeling of the theater, among them Consuelo Sáizar, director de CONACULTA; Guadalupe Ferrer, director of the UNAM Film Archive; Alejandro Ramírez, FICM president; Jaime Ramírez and Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Batel, FICM vice presidents; as well as Pablo Baksht, general administrative coordinator of FICM. Then Ramey proceeded to show a short documental on the theater’s remodeling.

After the screening, a Pátzcuaro school band played folkloric music and dancers performed in the traditional costumes of the Purépecha indigenous people.

After the dance, Ferrer took the stage to present the night’s film, The Woman of the Port by Arcady Boytler. He said:

“This year, film with sound celebrates its 80th anniversary in Mexico, having begun with the film Santa by Antonio Moreno in 1931. The Woman of the Port is one of the first ‘talkies’ made in the country… This is the festival’s tribute to sound film.”