I first noticed that Ajijic had an (link http://ajijicfest.org goes to some web warehousing page, 2004) International Film Festival about 1999, but 2002 was the first chance to be there at the same time. And also the last year that the festival took place. RIP.

The 19-24 November 2002 event was held at the moden Cinemas Bugambilias and had about 150 films. Erika and I attended 5 presentations, which had between 3 and about 60 attendees, usually closer to the lower number.

The beautifully-produced 64-page program, unfortunately, had lots of errors. Even the printed addendum and the noticeboard had errors, and we ended up going to one film that neither we nor anybody else had wanted to see.

Here are the films we saw

• Nine Good Teeth - This documentary about a 96-year-old woman (who turned 100 during the shooting) and her family, with its characters and revelations, was the best film of the festival for us. There was a fair bit of cinema verité jumpy camera about it, but with at least four years of filming, the old lady's grandson was able to twist quite the tale out of her.
• Bravo Giorgio - A short. Very good.
• Beyond All Limits - The Mexican film star Maria Felix died in 2002. This was a 1959 romance with Jack Palance. The film had a magenta tint (everything looked pinkish). I'm not sure if that was the original film, or inexpensive digitizing from a degraded print. I have personal experience with magenta digitizing. In the Felix film, they at least had the excuse that the white balance was correct: the white shirts were indeed white. This is a good film and I did not guess the ending until late. The dialog is in English. I preferred the Spanish title Flor de Mayo because Beyond All Limits is not only unmemorable, but is also a play on words concerning an ultimately insignificant facet of the plot--although perhaps in 1959 the romantic details of the film were considered too risqué.
• The Secret - We both rated this as good. Frequent dissolves and glitches (assumed to be equipment problems at the cinema) were an annoyance, as were the preponderance of dark scenes. Dark scenes don't go well in a digital movie because the contrast on the screen is vastly reduced. In the night scenes the Ukrainian girls from Chicago looked decidedly mulatto.
• Divas: Love Me Forever - This was very strange. It was a movie that nobody wanted to see. There were only three of us in the screening room. The third person had wanted to see the (cancelled) other half of the double bill. We had wanted to see Una de Dos, which was also cancelled. It was an OK or even good movie, but it was more than I wanted to know about the lives of black female impersonators in Toronto.
• Una de Dos - The only reason I wanted to see this movie was that the director is Marcel Sisniega (see photo at right, taken by me in Merida in December 2003 at the Carlos Torre Memorial Chess Tournament, where Sisniega was briefly a spectator), famous to me as Mexico's best chessplayer since Carlos Torre (in the 1920s). Here is a brief filmography for Sisniega, starting with the most recent:
  1. Fandango (2003)
  2. En las arenas negras (2003)
  3. Una de dos (2002)
  4. Embrujo, Un (1998) (novel Don Eliseo) aka Under a Spell (1998) (Canada: English title)
  5. Libre de culpas (1996) aka Guilt Free (1996) (USA)

  Unfortunately for me, the festival cancelled the showing, reportedly because the film Minimal Knowledge required two screening rooms, an overflow crowd. Even when we left the Cinema after two hours (having watched the film that nobody wanted to see), Una de Dos was listed on the board. Oh well. I have had bad luck with chess-related productions. In 1984, I happened to be in the Barbican. It seemed to be a theatre--as perhaps everyone in London except me would know. I casually looked at the posters, and there it was, a single performance--perhaps the first one anywhere--of the musical Chess. I went to buy a ticket, but it was sold out. I did manage to take in Luzhin's Defence at the NFT in London before it came to North America, after missing it several times "Sorry, sir, it closed yesterday" in commercial cinemas there. We never saw Una de Dos. A DVD version has been released in Mexico, but I where to buy it?

• student films - Another annoying experience, as all but one of the films was shown too dark and out of focus. Student films tend to be dark, and this perpetual twilight did not add anything to the experience. Reportedly they had been experiencing equipment problems for the whole festival. In the old days of carbon arcs, things would either work or fail, but with digital we seem to have new modes of near-failure.
  This was the order of the films based upon notes that I scribbled in the darkness. Unfortunately, afterwards I could not read the notes!
  • La Leyenda de la Sal - an animated short from Nayarit about how people in the mountains needed to walk to the coast for salt. This looked interesting, but in the darkness it was difficult to follow. The same goes for the next short films.
  • Moebius en Casa - I'm just guessing. About all we saw was an animated sock, which reminded us of the award-winning script at the 2002 InFEST.
  • Vicente - a little bird.
  • La Nina de la Mirada Fixa - The little girl who stared. Again, the obscurity was challenging.
  • Afrocolombianizando - about the 150th anniversary of the abolition of Slavery in Colombia and the continued second-class status of Blacks there. When was Slavery abolished in the USA?
  • SinAzul - after the previous film was almost bright enough, we were plunged back into the twilight for this one.
  • Mi Lugar al viento - I think this was the one with "Que fuiste antes de nacer?" and the beautiful naked young woman taking various poses against the desert sands. How could a man fail to like this? Not sure of the story line, though.
  • Cuidando el Perro
  • Entre Gaitas y Tambores - A music and interview video where it might be more interesting if you are already involved in the scene.
  • Industria Argentina - The amusing "industry" is that people are stealing from each other, but what goes around comes around. Interesting use of red and blue colour patches. I think I liked this one.
  • Episodio - A beautiful young student decides to become a prostitute, but she is still bored. I'm not sure what the point of this is, except possibly as a teaser for a full-length movie.
  • La Redencion de Mathilde - Over a dozen people came into the hall at the end of the session to watch this one and !Eureka! the light levels were up to normal for the first time. A self-possessed young woman thinks that she is going into town to call for help for her husband's vehicle broken down on the highway, but the story has a savage twist. I liked the film, and the poster is fabulous.

We enjoyed ourselves, but the technical glitches were annoying. If there is one suggestion I'd make, it is to have a "movie selector" so that local people who don't have hours to go through picking films can make an intelligent selection. The website didn't have an online schedule when we tried to access it a couple of days before the festival. The link was broken. A movie selector based upon keywords and categories might make the selection process easier for the avid local person who is nonetheless strapped for time due to visitors over the U.S. Thanksgiving period.

URL: This web page is:
http://members.shaw.ca/berry5868/ajf.htm
Last modified November 8, 2004