GUADALAJARA @BABYLON

30.01. - 08.02.

We are very HAPPY to host the Guadalajara International Film Festival @BABYLON

30.01. -08.02. The International Film Festival in Guadalajara presents 'FICG comes to Berlin', its first international screening, with a selection of outstanding titles from its recent editions. BABYLON will host this showcase that invites the public to discover new voices and looks of current Mexican cinema.

GRAND OPENING was JAN Fr 30th:

19:30 FILM: Corina + Q&A (Fr, 30.01. 19:30) Special Guests: Director Urzula Barba Hopfner! + Mariachi Band

Founded in 1986, the Guadalajara International Film Festival has established itself over 40 years as one of the most important film festivals in Ibero-America.

Renowned for its commitment to Mexican and Latin American cinema, FICG has served as a key platform for exhibition, training, and international projection of both emerging voices and established filmmakers, fostering cultural dialogue through cinema.

The aim of the showcase is to present a selection of films that have been emblematic of FICG in its most recent editions, within the framework of the festival’s 40th anniversary celebrations.

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Babylon presents a celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Guadalajara International Film Festival, showcasing the finest works of Mexican, Latin American, and Ibero-American cinema.

The festival was born at one of the most critical moments in the history of Mexican cinema. From the outset, its mission was to nurture and strengthen national filmmaking. Over time, that mission expanded and transformed, turning the festival into a vital epicenter of Latin American cinema and forging a deep, enduring bond with Ibero-American cinematography.

The selection we present is resolutely contemporary, shaped by emerging directors and new voices who offer powerful, diverse, and transgressive works. These films engage directly with the urgencies of our shared human condition, situating local stories within a global imaginary that invites deep identification from the spectator. Across a rich spectrum of narrative forms and cinematic styles, they carry us on a fascinating journey.

The films in this program have already enjoyed a strong international trajectory, earning recognition and awards at major festivals for their courage, talent, and exceptional cinematic execution.

Our opening film, Corina, is a tender and deeply moving work about a character confronting agoraphobia, offering a profound lesson in love and courage. Autos, Mota y Rocanrol revisits one of the most joyful and transgressive moments in Mexican cultural history—our own Mexican Woodstock, Avándaro.

No nos moverán (Sa, 31.01. 19:30; So, 01.02 18:00; Do, 05.02 19:30; Sa, 07.02 19:30) returns to the 1968 student movement and its devastating aftermath, seen from the distance of the present.

Vergüenza (So, 01.02. 20:00; Do, 05.02 21:30) confronts one of the most brutal and painful realities of contemporary Mexico.

In complete contrast, Vanilla (So, 01.02. 15:00; Di, 03.02 19:30; Mi, 04.02 20:00, Sa, 07.02 17:30) tells the story of Roberta and her family of women—a luminous, intimate film that leaves us with a renewed sense of hope.

I recently served as a juror at the Guadalajara International Film Festival.

For the first time in a long while, I felt I had encountered a cinema that truly felt like home: a cinema with a different rhythm of breath and time, one guided by emotion rather than plot mechanics, and deeply attentive to the lives, dignity, and fragility of the working class.

At its best, Latin American cinema sustains a rare and beautiful balance between the aesthetic and the ethical—between poetic form and social care. It restored to me a sense of authentic cinematic emotion.

At a moment when U.S. violence and intimidation toward Venezuela and Latin America are once again intensifying, and when a new colonial imagination is openly resurfacing, this program also stands as an act of solidarity. But above all, it is an invitation—to joy, to beauty, and to shared emotion.
I hope you will join us.

Curator Udi Aloni

TICKETS

Länge: 97 min.

Guadalajara @BABYLON: Vanilla (Vainilla) [OmeU] 2025, Mexico, R: Mayra Hermosillo mit Paloma Petra, Natalia Plascencia, 97 Min