GALA Film Festival
This year’s festival will feature six contemporary films by emerging directors and a classic from the Mexican Golden Age. Join us for exclusive talkbacks with producers, artists, directors, and experts, and receptions after the screenings.
QUITE LIKE PARADISE
(Casi el paraíso, Edgar San Juan, Mexico/Italy, 2024, 113 min. In Spanish, Italian, and English with English subtitles)
Q&A with director Edgar San Juan. Reception courtesy of the Mexican Cultural Institute
Quite Like Paradise is a dark satirical comedy about the art of deception. The story follows Ugo Conti, a charming young man who pretends to be a striking European aristocrat to lead a life of luxury. Arriving in Mexico City, Ugo quickly captivates the country’s high society. Reuniting with his former love, Frida Becker, he becomes entangled in a dangerous political power struggle. But when he falls from grace, the same society that once adored him turns against him with equal fervor. Shot in breathtaking locations across Italy and Mexico, and based on Luis Spota’s novel of the same name, this poignant debut feature by writer-producer Edgar San Juan offers a sharp critique of politics, class aspirations, and the influence of social media, bolstered by strong performances.
VALENTINA OR THE SERENITY
(Valentina o la serenidad, Ángeles Cruz, Mexico, 2023, 96 min. In Spanish and Mixtec with English subtitles)
Mexican filmmaker Ángeles Cruz returns to her Indigenous community in Oaxaca for her second feature, a tender tale of loss inspired by her own childhood. Valentina’s world shatters when her beloved father drowns in a nearby river. Refusing to accept the body at the funeral, she becomes convinced he’s still alive and will return. Her conviction deepens after she falls into the same river and hears his voice speaking Mixtec—a language she’s never learned. As she waits for another message, Valentina enlists her friend Pedro to teach her Mixtec, even as her belief begins to affect her family and school life. Valentina or the Serenity is an exploration of love and mortality through a child’s eyes, and ultimately an uplifting ode to life.
RAINS OVER BABEL
(Llueve sobre Babel, Gala del Sol, Colombia/USA/Spain, 2025, 111 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
Q&A with director Gala del Sol
Set in a retro-futuristic, queer tropical-punk riff on Dante’s Inferno, Rains Over Babel follows a band of misfits converging at Babel, a dive bar that doubles as purgatory. Presided over by La Flaca—the city’s Grim Reaper—souls gamble years of their lives in hopes of outwitting Death Herself. Among them are Dante, racing to uncover his past; Monet, a ghost desperate to reclaim his body; Timbí and Uma, descending through hell to save their loved ones; and Jacob, preparing for his first drag performance. Acclaimed at the Sundance Film Festival, this love letter to Cali, reimagined as the mythical City of Maya, fuses magical and gritty realism into a vibrant, psychedelic universe of love, identity, gender fluidity, resilience, and second chances.
Saturday, December 6, 5pm
ÉL
(Luis Buñuel, Mexico, 1953, 93 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
Among the strangest and most perturbing films of his overlooked Mexican period, Él is Luis Buñuel’s incisive portrait of paranoia, jealousy, and sexual obsession—a nightmarish tale of love gone wrong that prefigures the major themes of his 1960s and ’70s work. Incorporating his personal demons into an adaptation of Mercedes Pinto’s autobiographical novel, Buñuel tells the story of Francisco Galván de Montemayor (Arturo de Córdova), a devout middle-aged bachelor who falls into amour fou with Gloria (Delia Garcés). After breaking her engagement with another man, Gloria realizes something is terribly off about Francisco, whose sophisticated facade masks deep insecurities and an explosive, violent temper. Descending into madness, Francisco drives Gloria to fear for her life—with no refuge offered by either her family or the church. One of Buñuel’s rawest, angriest indictments of religious and social hypocrisy, Él stands as the surrealist master’s great excursion into dark melodrama, where civilization can find no answer to the raging urges of the irrational id.
Sunday, December 7, 2pm
THE IN BETWEEN
(Robie & Alejandro Flores, USA/Mexico, 2024, 96 min. In Spanish and English with English and Spanish subtitles)
Q&A with producer Alejandro Flores
Following the death of her brother, director Robie Flores returns to her hometown of Eagle Pass, on the Texas-Mexico border, yearning to turn back time. Immersed in the unruly experiences of adolescence—quinceañeras, Selena, Río Grande river excursions, teen makeovers, and more—she rediscovers the home her brother adored and she once overlooked. What emerges is a playful dance between personal and collective coming-of-age, as she reclaims joy in the aftermath of grief. Through her family’s journey, Flores unveils a nuanced and unexpected portrait of the borderlands—one that transcends headlines to offer a deeply human perspective. In celebrating the resilience and spirit of this bi-cultural, bi-national community, the film reveals a place not defined by crisis, but by the vibrancy of those who call it home.
Sunday, December 7, 5pm
