One of the most recognized and respected festivals in Mexico City, FICUNAM, celebrates its twelfth edition. Known for curatorial rigor and for the diverse program offered in parallel, the event favors and broadens the discussion on cinema issues, on the topics it addresses and the training it demands as a discipline.

Aciertos program exhibits the best works produced by Ibero-American film schools, an essential part in the conception. It could not be otherwise since our university is home to one of the most important film schools in the region.


Seleccionados de Aciertos participantes del Encuentro de escuelas de cine iberoamericano en 2020.

The event has provided a fertile soil to young talents who begin their careers helping them to find a place on the film production map.

Though exhibiting the films is extremely important, the focus is on the Schools Gathering attended by the directors of the selected short films, the teachers from the participating schools as well as the filmmakers invited to chat with them.

Our interest lies in the development of links with the academic institutions and the short films selection is based on aesthetic and curatorial criteria. Therefore, this is a wonderful opportunity for young and talented filmmakers to become known by international programmers and curators.

Young participants may not only present their work to an audience, but they may also receive feedback from their colleagues and teachers from other schools.

Aciertos is a space for encounter, dialogue and exchange where students build up stories and short films and hear about different experiences in the cinema schools’ world. In addition, they can make synergies for future projects, a crucial goal of film festivals.

All schools involved collaborate with the festival. While the organizers offer the forum and cover the stay of selected students, the schools are in charge of covering travel expenses to Mexico City. There are schools that lack the resources to support their students to come over to the face-to-face event and they could not attend. However, we learnt a lot during the 2020 pandemic. FICUNAM was entirely organized online which for the first time gave the opportunity to every director to participate.



Aciertos: Encuentro de escuelas de cine 2021. Formato virtual en pandemia. 

By means of this format which we intend to maintain this year, those who cannot attend in person will have the chance to do so online. Thus, everyone gets to participate in the dialogue and express his or her views.

At FICUNAM we are devoted to promoting new talent and we are also highly interested in getting the public to become familiar with the stories created in our region. One of the main concerns we had when founding FICUNAM was that Latin American films are not usually exhibited neither in Mexico nor in Latin America. It is easier to watch them in Europe. In our view, there is a need to educate the audience and give shape to a Latin American narrative. That is why we addressed the schools. Firstly, students get to know each other; secondly, the schools set up themselves as reference for film creation so that students do not see the United States and Europe as the main teaching centers on moviemaking. This kind of encounters becomes a highly constructive experience and a fine tool to establish communication links.

Another event advantage is to give participants the chance to talk with special guests and attend the program of films and lectures as part of the educational purposes. In addition, there is plenty room for exchanging views and building a guests’ network.

Though the festival scope may be small, it does begin to make a difference. It is evident that new generations of Mexican filmmakers are increasingly searching for new references. They are interested in learning what their colleagues in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia or Chile are doing. It is encouraging to see the networks they are building up.

So far, we have promoted at Aciertos one hundred and twenty-four filmmakers from schools in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Spain, Guatemala, Mexico, Portugal and Venezuela; specially among them, the San Antonio de los Baños EICTV in Cuba, the National School of Cinematographic Art at UNAM and the Cinema Training Center that regularly sent participants.

Providing a space for the young in search of their voice with an experimentation will is a fundamental part of talents training. FICUNAM eleven editions gives proof of our efforts. Filmmakers who made their debut at the Mexican city festival have already presented long-feature films at other festivals. FICUNAM has become a platform for talents’ early introduction into this path.