Mexican filmmaker Arturo Castelán has passed away, the Mexican Academy of Film Arts and Sciences announced this morning. The details of his death have not yet been disclosed. Born in 1973, Castelán was the visionary behind Festival Mix: Cine y Diversidad Sexual en México, a pioneering Latin American queer film festival that became the longest-running film festival in Mexico City.
Inspired by the New Queer Cinema movement of the 1990s and driven by a desire to bring those films to Mexico, Castelán approached MIX NYC in 1996. Shari Frilot, then director of the New York festival, embraced Castelán’s idea—MIX NYC had already launched the satellite program Mix Brasil in 1993. Together with Edna Campos, they organized a pilot version of the festival as part of the cine club at the Biblioteca México.
In March 1997, they officially launched the first edition of the festival at the Elektra Cinema (now Cinemex Casa de Arte Reforma). Since then, Mix Mexico has become a landmark event for the promotion and exhibition of LGBTQ+ cinema, as well as a creative hub for the burgeoning Mexican queer cinema movement. The festival recently celebrated its 28th edition from June 20-30.
In addition to his work with Mix Mexico, Castelán co-founded the Macabro Film Festival, dedicated to horror cinema, and served as a programmer for numerous national and international festivals, including the Guadalajara Film Festival, MIX NYC, Viva Latino, Outfest, and the San Francisco Latino Film Festival, among others.
Castelán directed the 2021 feature film La piel ajena and several short films, including Venus Boy (2000), La vida de los sueños de los ángeles (2001), La piel blanca cabello oscuro (2002), Aunque no hablemos, a tu lado (2003), El corazón rebosante (2004), El corazón invadido (2006), La misma adoración y gloria (2009), and Diciembre/Di Siempre (2011). He also produced the short films Philia (2008) and Cerro de la Cruz (2009) by Constantino Escandón, the 2005 documentary film Zona Rosa by Dan Castle, and served as associate producer of Julián Hernández's 2004 film Broken Sky / El cielo dividido.
