Newcomers Triumph at Prestigious Morelia Film Festival

The 23rd Morelia Film Festival, which took place from October 10 to 19, 2025, has been hailed as a triumph for newcomers and emerging filmmakers. The festival's top prizes were dominated by first-time directors, with the environmental thriller "The Reserve" by Pablo Pérez Lombardini taking home the awards for Best Feature, Best Director, and Best Actress for Carolina Guzmán.

Pérez Lombardini's debut feature, which first caught attention at last year's Ventana Sur, is based on real-life testimonies from environmental defenders and follows a forest ranger's fight to protect her remote village's forest. The film, shot with non-professional actors in a rural community in Chiapas, captures the urgent struggle faced by conservationists across Latin America.

Alongside "The Reserve," the festival also recognized other promising newcomers. The Best Screenplay Ojo award went to Karen Plata for her work on the childhood survival story "The Devil Smokes (and Saves the Burnt Matches in the Same Box)" by first-time director Ernesto Martínez Bucio, who also won the Best First Feature Award at the Berlinale's Perspectives strand.

The Morelia Film Festival, founded and led by Daniela Michel, has cemented its status as a cultural landmark, not only for Mexico but for global cinema. This year's edition featured a constellation of international guests, including Stellan Skarsgård, Juliette Binoche, Jodie Foster, and Gael García Bernal, further solidifying the festival's reputation as an essential platform for showcasing the best in Mexican and international filmmaking.