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Sundance Film Festival to make its Mexico City debut

MND Staff
By MND Staff
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The Egyptian cinema theater with the words Sundance Film Festival written on marquee
The world-renowned film festival founded by Robert Redford in 1978 will host its inaugural event in Mexico's capital in April. (Shutterstock)

Get ready, cinephiles: the Sundance Film Festival is coming to Mexico City.

Officials with the Sundance Institute and Mexico’s Cinépolis movie theater chain announced recently that a program of films that played at Sundance earlier this year will be shown in a Latin American country for the first time. Actors and directors have also been invited to appear in person at red carpet events and discussion panels.

Robert Redford appearing at the Morelia International Film Festival in 2019
Morelia Film Festival President Alejandro Ramírez, left, was likely instrumental in Sundance’s imminent arrival in Mexico. For years, Ramírez has cultivated ties with the Utah festival’s founder, Robert Redford, second from left. (Morelia Film Festival)

The events will take place April 25–28 in two theaters located in the heart of the capital: Cinépolis Diana on Paseo de la Reforma and Cinépolis VIP Miyana in the Polanco neighborhood. The yet-to-be-announced films were screened at the 40th Sundance festival, which took place in January in Park City, Utah and nearby Salt Lake City. Sundance programming directors Kim Yutani and Eugene Hernández will lead the film curation team for the Mexico City event.

“Mexico City is such an important city in terms of cinephiles and film lovers,” said Alejandro Ramírez, Cinepolis’ general director and one of Mexico’s leading entrepreneurs. “However, there are only a handful of festivals throughout the year. We hope it becomes the film festival that the population of Mexico City is looking for.”

Sundance Film Festival CDMX 2024, as the event will be known, will also feature panels with film insiders, post-film Q&A’s, discussion sessions and other industry-related events.

Sundance is a world-renowned film showcase founded in 1978 by actor and director Robert Redford, who in 2019 was an honored guest and the recipient of the Award for Artistic Excellence at the Morelia International Film Festival (FICM).

Image of the logo for Sundance Film Festival CDMX 2024
The name of the festival’s Mexico edition will be Sundance Film Festival CDMX. (Cinepolis)

As president of the FICM — one of the most important film festivals in Latin America — Ramírez has built a strong association with Sundance over the years — as well as with Redford, who stayed at Ramírez’s house in 2019. 

Ramírez’s grandfather, Enrique Ramírez Miguel, founded in 1971 what would become the Cinépolis chain with a single movie theater in Morelia. It is now the world’s fourth largest cinema circuit, with upward of 800 complexes, 6,800 screens and 1 million seats in 17 countries.

“This association marks a milestone in the country’s cinematographic history,” Mexico City officials proclaimed on the website of Procine, the city’s trust for the promotion of Mexican cinema.

Sundance Institute CEO Joana Vicente agreed.

“Being able to engage with the local community through innovative films and compelling conversations, while maintaining the power to connect artists and their works with audiences, shows a clear synergy between Sundance and Cinépolis,” Vicente said.

Schedules, ticket prices and other details will be revealed in the coming weeks. Stay tuned at Sundance.org or Cinepolis.com.

With reports from Infobae

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