Cine Mexicano Filmmakers on Rebellion and Innovation

Ángeles Cruz is an actor turned filmmaker, whose first short, The Doldrums or How to Cure Sadness (2012), won an Ariel Award for Best Short Fiction Film, a feat she repeated with her third short film, Arcángel (2018). Her second short, La carta (2016) was nominated for that same award. Nudo Mixteco is her debut feature.

Alexis Gambis is a French-Venezuelan filmmaker, molecular biologist, and an assistant professor in the departments of Sciences and Arts & Humanities at New York University Abu Dhabi. His feature films include The Color of Time (2012), The Fly Room (2014), and Mosaic (2017). He is a 2019 TED fellow and he is the founder and artistic director of the Imagine Film Festival, dedicated to exploring the intersection of art and science.

Luciana Kaplan is a veteran documentary filmmaker who made her debut in 1991 with a short, Café oriente. 2008’s 1982: La decision was her first feature, followed by La revolución de los alcatraces (2013) and Rush Hour (2018), winner of the Best Long Documentary Award at the Morelia International Film Festival. As an executive producer of the P.O.V. documentary Presumed Guilty (2008), she won an Outstanding Investigative Journalism – Long Form New & Documentary Emmy Award.

Nicolás Pereda is a filmmaker whose work explores the everyday through fractured and elliptical narratives using fiction and documentary tools. He often collaborates with the theater collective Lagartijas tiradas al sol and actress Teresita Sánchez. In 2010, he was awarded the Premio Orizzonti at the Venice Film Festival for his film Summer of Goliath. For Fauna, Pereda won the prize for Best Direction of a Mexican Fiction Film at the Morelia International Film Festival. In addition to his work as a filmmaker, he is an Assistant Professor of Film & Media at UC Berkeley.

Born and raised in Mexico, Teresa Camou Guerrero received a degree in Visual Arts and Social Sciences from Vermont’s Bennington College. She is the producer and director of animated shorts La nina que cari las chivas and El entierro. She made her feature documentary debut with Sunú (2015), and co-directed Nahui Ollin. Sol de movimiento (2017). She is also a puppeteer who has worked with the Bread and Puppet Theater in Glover, Vermont.

Award-winning Mexican director Rodrigo Reyes has received the support of The Mexican Film Institute (IMCINE), Sundance and Tribeca Institutes, and more, while his films have screened on PBS, Netflix, and HBO Latino. In 2020, his film, 499, won Best Cinematography at Tribeca and the Special Jury Award at Hot Docs. Rodrigo is a recipient of the prestigious Guggenheim and Creative Capital Awards, and in 2021, the SF IndieFest Vanguard Award. He was selected as one of four visionary Bay Area artists to receive the inaugural Rainin Fellowship.