Del Toro, Cuarón Headline Morelia Film Festival's 24th Edition

The 24th Morelia International Film Festival (FICM) opens Oct. 16 with two of Mexico's "Tres Amigos" in attendance and a hybrid program that artistic director Daniela Michel credits with broadening the festival's reach.

Guillermo del Toro arrives to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Pan's Labyrinth. Alfonso Cuarón attends the opening night screening of his son Jonas Cuarón's Campeón Gabacho, which he produced. The third amigo, Alejandro González Iñárritu, is absent, though his Digger has earned close to a million dollars since its Oct. 1 release in Mexico, according to the National Film Chamber, Canacine.

Oscar-nominated director J.A. Bayona leads the Mexican features jury alongside Basque filmmaker Jaione Camborda, Grammy-winning Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz and U.S. director-producer Amy Redford. Swiss documentarian Alexandre O. Philippe, critic Jonathan Romney and Mexico's Juan Carlos Rulfo sit on the documentary jury.

What does the 2025 program reveal about Mexican cinema?

Diego Luna's fifth directorial feature Ashes headlines the official selection. The film adapts an eponymous novel about Lucila leaving Mexico for Madrid with her brother. Netflix will stream it in Latin America, Spain and Portugal in 2027 after its theatrical run; Luxbox handles international sales.

Suzanne Andrews Correa's The Huntress stars Adriana Paz, winner of the Cannes 2024 best actress prize for Emilia Pérez. The film premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, selected for the U.S. Dramatic Competition. Fernanda Tovar's Sad Girlz won the Crystal Bear at the Berlinale's Generation 14plus and competed at Tribeca. Bruno Santamaría Razo's autobiographical Six Months in a Pink and Blue Building became the first Mexican feature in Cannes Critics' Week in 20 years.

Eleven documentaries round out the Mexican selection, including Querida Fátima, which swept the Premio Mezcal section of the 41st Guadalajara Film Festival. Director Lorena Gutiérrez has spent a decade demanding an audience with President Claudia Sheinbaum over the 2012 feminicide of her 12-year-old daughter Fátima—a figure the source places against a U.N. count of ten women and girls murdered daily in Mexico.

International guests include Martin McDonagh's Wild Horse Nine, which earned John Malkovich the Venice Volpi Cup for Best Actor, and Spain's Oscar submission La Bola Negra by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi.

How has the festival's programming shifted?

Michel credits the 2020 pivot to a hybrid format as a turning point. "Initially, this arose as a necessity in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic," she said. "We wanted moviegoers to be able to discover and enjoy the films competing in our 2020 edition, despite the lockdown. It was imperative that these Mexican films reach their audience even if people weren't going to movie theaters."

The change persisted beyond the pandemic. "We realized that making part of the Official Selection available online—particularly the Mexican short films in competition—would give greater visibility to the work of up-and-coming talents in Mexican cinema and would also provide a great opportunity for audiences who cannot travel to Morelia to experience the FICM," Michel said.

She sees a parallel thematic shift in Mexican cinema: "What has changed mostly is the representation of certain issues in Mexican culture. We have seen in recent years more films oriented towards more intimate subjects like family issues, childhood, and motherhood. We have also seen a broader representation of the Mexican middle class at home. Those films have had a very profound impact on Mexican audiences because, through the films, they have seen a very accurate and tender representation of their own lives."

What room is there for women directors?

Michel points to steady gains. "Every year, the number of female directors participating in FICM has been growing, and I think this reflects the Mexican film industry, where more and more films are being made by women," she said. "Women have been gaining more and more ground, and I'm really happy about that because a few years ago there were almost no female directors in Mexican cinema, and now there are so many—many of whom have won awards in Morelia."

Can Morelia survive its funding squeeze?

FICM operates as a nonprofit and has absorbed cuts from corporate and institutional sponsors in recent years. "As a nonprofit, every year we face the monumental challenge of securing the conditions and resources needed to put on a festival of the quality and scale of FICM. Fortunately, we are a team of perfectionists and people who are deeply passionate about their work, which has allowed us to successfully overcome these challenges," Michel said.

The 24th edition runs through Oct. 25. Looking ahead, Michel treats the festival's expanding audience—rather than the closing funding gaps—as its measure of success: "there is now an audience for everything we present in Morelia—for Mexican cinema."