Mexico, August 2nd, 2018 (Luis García Orso, S.J.). The Guanajuato Film Festival in Mexico has just closed. Once again, it was of high quality and offered a wide variety of activities related to cinema and its new formats. One of the great values ​​of the Festival is the effective support for young filmmakers who present their work.

Each year, six teams of universities from across the country are selected to shoot a short film in 48 hours, at the University Rally, after five months of training offered to them free of charge by the festival's directors. This year, the first prize was awarded to Mystic Mask, from the San Luis Potosí Advanced Technologies University, with a story against violence at school. For the universities of the State of Guanajuato, a special competition is organized: Identity and belonging, for documentary films on the traditions and the peoples of this land. This year, the first prize was awarded to the Iberoamericana University of León for Bastardos Desterrados, which gives voice to marginalized young people through their rap songs.

SIGNIS Mexico, member of the World Catholic Association for Communication, has been present at the Festival for 15 years, with its own jury, evaluating the short films of the international selection of Fiction. This year, the SIGNIS Mexico Award was presented to FAUVE by Jeremy Comte (Canada), a moving story in which two children play and compete. The relentless reality will have to change the game and teach them the fragility of life and the values ​​of friendship, responsibility and repentance. The special mention of SIGNIS Mexico was given to GAZE (NEGAH) by Farnoosh Samadi (Iran), which tells the story of a woman witnessing a theft on a bus. Her complaint leaves her with more vulnerability and insecurity in her status as a woman, a single mother and a worker.

The jury of SIGNIS Mexico in this XXI edition was formed by Luis García Orso, S.J, Ecclesiastical Assistant of SIGNIS and professor of Theology and Spirituality; Hugo Jesús Castro Mesta, journalist and Aldo Valdés López, professor at the university.

Among the many activities of this rich Festival, one can also speak of the homage to the actor Damián Alcázar, cinematographic projections of the invited country, Lebanon; the screening of some of Ingmar Bergman's films on the centenary of his birth, and some films reminiscent of the events of 1968; the exhibition of works on "virtual reality"; as well as screenings of short films for children, or many concerts. The Guanajuato Film Festival is always inexhaustible.