The Mexican actor Diego Luna celebrated this Thursday the 16 years of life of the Ambulante festival, “a dream come true” of which he is co-founder, and reiterated his commitment to the people and the social work carried out by the documentary genre in the country.
“ The documentary has come to occupy a space that fiction has left empty and it is exciting to see that it not only happens on one side (creators), Ambulante lives all year round because there is a brutal need to maintain that come and go “, said Luna in a conference with the media during the Morelia International Film Festival (FICM).
Survive an earthquake and promote causes social activities for those affected, combat violence with cinema in cities affected by drug trafficking, and now face the historic moment of global crisis that brought on the pandemic, are some of the events that the Ambulante project, also founded by the actor and director Mexican tor Gael García Bernal .
Luna expressed that Ambulante has exceeded the expectations of all the organizers, since what began as a simple desire to share with more people films that had touched them as spectators, has evolved into training projects and dialogues between communities that even become social actions.
“A lot has happened in 16 years and Ambulante has been there to transform itself and serve a public that has also been growing and changing ”, assured Luna.
The event was also attended by the director of the Mexican Institute of Cinematography (IMCINE), María Novaro, who highlighted that the documentary tour is an example “from which to learn” due to the weight it has had in the reconstruction of national cinema.
“ It has been thanks to initiatives such as Ambulante and the Morelia Festival that has been rebuilt to the cinema Mexican. These projects have opened paths and made visible what is done and have allowed us to see films from other latitudes “, said Novaro.
CLIMATE DEFENSE
The panel, also headed by Meghan Monsour, Ambulante’s programming coordinator, highlighted that the new documentary meeting -which is being held From November 3, it will be dedicated to addressing the climatic emergency that the world is going through with the theme of “Ecologies of cinema”.
Under this axis, themes will be woven into its programming such as the defense of the territory and climate justice, giving a voice to activists and communities that, with the exposure of their problems and forms of organization, provide viable axes to face the environmental crisis.
“We are convinced that documentaries, due to the depth they offer and the empathy they provoke, inspire us to get involved in this work ”Said Monsour.
A EQUITY SPACE
For its part, the IMCINE director assured that the documentary is the most equitable cinematographic genre of all in terms of cultural diversity and participation of men and women.
“(The documentary) is a territory where gender equality is already taking place, there is an almost equal number between female directors and male directors, it is also a territory of inclusion because there are voices from all regions of the country and from different types of communities that produce audiovisuals ”, exclaimed Novaro.
The sixteenth edition of Ambulante’s documentary tour will take place from November 3 to December 5 with a tour of the Mexican states of Oaxaca, Veracruz, Aguascalientes, Michoacán and Mexico City and will maintain a digital edition from December 6 to 15 for free.