Mexico’s traveling documentary festival, Ambulante, kicks off today in Mexico City. The event, founded in 2005 by Gael Garcia Bernal, Diego Luna, and Pablo Cruz, will run through February 13, then move on to nearly a dozen other Mexican cities for consecutive week runs between February 13 and May 4. Recently, the organization announced the establishment of Ambulante California, an inclusive, pop-up exhibition intended to reach underserved communities in the greater Los Angeles area. Before that event kicks off in the Fall, the Mexico-based tour will present approximately 100 films, bringing nonfiction and film culture to audiences that otherwise have limited exposure to theatrical exhibition. Feature-length and short documentaries – most already well-traveled on the fest circuit – screen in a number of thematic sections, with some highlights noted below:
Pulsos showcases recent Mexican documentaries, titles that are not as well-known as the bulk of Ambulante’s line up: Nuria Ibáñez’s microcosmic focus on a children’s psychiatric examination room, THE NAKED ROOM; Hatuey Viveros’ look at a family coping with their father’s absence, CAFÉ; Pablo Tamez Sierra’s meditation on generational tragedy, APART; Eduardo Villanueva’s portrait of a rural hunter, PENUMBRA (pictured); Lourdes Grobet’s ethnography of the people of the Bering Strait, BERING. EQUILIBRIO Y RESISTENCIA; José Cohen and Lorenzo Hagerman’s exploration of the water crisis in Mexico City, H2OMX; and Tin Dirdamal’s dystopian love story, DEATH IN ARIZONA.
The festival favorites section, Reflector, includes previously critically-acclaimed works, such as Zachary Heinzerling’s CUTIE AND THE BOXER, Errol Morris’ THE UNKNOWN KNOWN, Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s BLACKFISH, and Shaul Schwarz’s NARCO CULTURA (pictured).
The cheekily named Dictator’s Cut shines the spotlight on human rights, such as Jehane Noujaim’s THE SQUARE, Jason Osder’s LET THE FIRE BURN (pictured), Rithy Panh’s THE MISSING PICTURE, and Mike Lerner and Maxim Pozdorovkin’s PUSSY RIOT: A PUNK PRAYER.
Music docs are the focus of Sonidero, which, in addition to featuring such recent familiar works as Greg “Freddy” Camalier’s MUSCLE SHOALS and Sini Anderson’s THE PUNK SINGER, also includes Gregory Allen’s THE OBJECT FORMERLY KNOWN AS A RECORD, THE MOVIE (pictured), about the Mexican rock band Café Tacvba.
The films in Enfoque connect the body and the passage of time, and include festival favorites like Alan Berliner’s FIRST COUSIN ONCE REMOVED, Lucy Walker’s THE CRASH REEL, Joaquim Pinto’s E AGORA? LEMBRA-ME (pictured), and Carlo Zoratti’s THE SPECIAL NEED.
Observatorio highlights avant-garde nonfiction, works that offer a distinctive way of capturing reality, from Tinatin Gurchiani’s THE MACHINE WHICH MAKES EVERYTHING DISAPPEAR and Ben Rivers and Ben Russell’s A SPELL TO WARD OFF THE DARKNESS to Narimane Mari’s BLOODY BEANS and Neus Ballús’ THE PLAGUE (pictured).
Retrospectives and shorts programs, including a couple specifically geared for children, and a section produced as part of Ambulante’s documentary filmmaking training program, round out the rest of the programming.
what (not) to doc 