#RecuentoMacabro: 2018 Activity Recap

From August 21 to September 2, 2018, Macabro emerged in the city with an inclusive celebration of horror cinema that brought together specialized and cinephile audiences, media outlets, the film community, Q&A sessions with guests, master classes, workshops, music, retrospectives, tributes, parties, music, and tourism promotion, establishing it as the largest event of its kind in Mexico.

In its 2018 edition, Macabro remained an independent cultural project supported and recognized by the government of Mexico City, the Cineteca Nacional, the Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografía, and the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, among other institutions. Having just wrapped its seventeenth edition, it has reaffirmed itself as one of the most respected festivals on the circuit in Mexico and Latin America.

VENUES

Macabro is a festival that was born in Mexico City and has remained there throughout its history.

Macabro's main venues in 2018 were the Teatro de la Ciudad “Esperanza Iris,” Cineteca Nacional, Cinematógrafo del Chopo, Casa del Cine, Museo Archivo de la Fotografía, Museo de la Ciudad de México, and Biblioteca de México.

Macabro moves through Mexico City like a tour, running parallel activities during the festival dates to continue building audiences, as well as managing and promoting film culture in marginalized areas for vulnerable audiences, in spaces such as the Faros circuit and film clubs like Cine Villa Olímpica, Cineclub Xavier Villaurrutia, Museo de la Luz, Casa Refugio Citlaltépetl, and Sala Quetzalcóatl.

PROGRAM

Macabro's program was made up of sections in which, over seventeen years of existence, we have showcased the very best of independent contemporary horror cinema; tributes to its most outstanding creators and authors; as well as retrospectives that help us understand the history of horror cinema and its influence on global cinema.

Among this year's guests, we were honored to be joined by horror master Mick Garris, as well as Fabián Forte, Gonzalo Calzada, Jorge Leyva, Lucio A. Rojas, Sandra Arriagada, Thomas Aske Berg, Linda Tveten, Mike McCutchance, JJ Webber, Viviana García Besné, Sandra Becerril, Lilia Velazco, Sinhué F. Benavides, David Masterson, Owen Egerton, Rémi Frechette and Marcel Giroux, Carlos Meléndez, Abraham Sánchez, Abigail Bonilla, Lex Ortega, Fernando Urdapilleta, Diego Cohen, Cristian Cueva, and Ricardo Farías, among other international and national guests.

The #MacabroXVII retrospectives were dedicated to American director, writer, and producer Mick Garris, who presented the premiere of the anthology Nightmare Cinema, gave two master classes, and discussed two of his most iconic films with the Macabro audience: Sleepwalkers (1992) and Critters 2 (1998).

They were also dedicated to Argentine filmmaker, producer, screenwriter, and assistant director Fabián Forte, who has established himself as one of the leading directors of contemporary genre cinema in Latin America.

To mark the 40th anniversary of the premiere of Alucarda, la hija de las tinieblas, directed by Juan López Moctezuma in 1975 and released in January 1978, Macabro organized a tribute with a screening of the film at a gala held in the Octavio Paz courtyard of the Biblioteca de México; a tribute to actress Tina Romero, who plays Alucarda in the film; and the publication of a commemorative book.

The book includes graphic material from Juan López Moctezuma's own archive, kept by Manuel Santillán Durán, as well as texts by specialists on the subject such as Mauricio Matamoros, Rebeca Jiménez Calero, and Iván Farías, among others. The edition, published by Samsara Editorial, was coordinated by Edna Campos.

Macabro presented two thematic retrospectives: on one hand, the Espíritus del 68 series featuring great horror films marking their 50th anniversary in 2018; and on the other, a tribute to the 200th anniversary of the publication of the novel Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, featuring some of the most outstanding films on the subject, ranging from the classic “The Curse of Frankenstein,” to the wonderfully wild “Frankenhooker,” to the historic “Gothic.”

The section dedicated to genre cinema made in Mexico featured the second installment of the legend anthology, México Bárbaro and the screening of Santo vs la hija de Frankenstein, as well as an early retrospective of Monterrey-born director Sinhué F. Benavides within the Horror Emergente section.

Macabro also presented, in collaboration with Procine, the premiere of the short film program “Día de muertos,” a compilation featuring the winners of the call for entries issued in 2017 for the program, celebrating one of the most deeply rooted traditions in our country.

AWARDS

Best International Horror Feature Film

Winner: Vidar Vampyr. Directed by: Thomas Aske Berg and Fredrik Waldeland, 2017 – Norway.

Best director: Seth A. Smith for The Crescent.

Best Mexican Horror Short Film

Winner: La Cruz de Agujas. Directed by: Harry Montiel, 2017 – Mexico.

Best Animated Horror Short Film

Winner: Nocturne. Directed by: Anne Breymann, 2017 – Germany.

Best Ibero-American Horror Feature Film

Winner: A mata negra. Directed by: Rodrigo Aragão. 2018 – Brazil.

Best director: Jorge Leyva, Mis demonios nunca juraron soledad.

Best International Horror Short Film

Winner. RIP. Directed by: Albert Pinto & Caye Casas. 2017 – Spain.

Press Award

Winner: Hostile. Directed by: Mathieu Turi, 2017 – France.

Audience Award

Winner: Snowflake. Directed by: Adolfo Kolmerer | William James 2017 – Germany

SUPPLEMENTARY ACTIVITIES: DÍA MACABRO

Among our parallel activities, we held Día Macabro, which emerged in our XV edition to connect industry professionals, creators, and audiences interested in the production, filmmaking, and landscape of horror cinema in Mexico and around the world.

This edition featured the following talks: How to make genre cinema and not die trying, given by director Fabián Forte, Ideas and creative resources versus budget by Miguel Lozano and The advantages and disadvantages of starting an independent production company by Daniel Arreola.

As part of the academic activities outside Día Macabro, writer Sandra Becerril gave the master class “Introduction to Horror Screenwriting.”

MACABRO ON THE HORIZON: UPCOMING PROJECTS

The projects presented were Expira, an upcoming Mexican film directed by Leopoldo Laborde and produced by Roberto Trujillo, and #Viral, an upcoming series created by Carlos Meléndez and Mateo García Elizondo.

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTARY ACTIVITIES

The guest musical act was the Guadalajara-based group Descartes a Kant, who performed a showcase as part of the festival's closing. The music video Burdel mental by Gran Sociedad de Monstruos, directed by Laurette Flores, a Mexican genre filmmaker, also premiered.

Finally, the show Muuk, el monstruo premiered, by performance artist Fernando Huerta Zamacona (the festival's host), which used music and humor to explore the origin of the Monster in Western culture, seeking to raise public awareness of the unfair hostility and general fear felt toward them.

AUDIENCE PROFILE

MACABRO FICH has become one of the film showcases with the largest audience, drawing more than 38,000 spectators to theaters and screening venues in its most recent edition.

The festival has managed to bring together diverse types of audiences—young people, adults, and children; sponsors from companies of various kinds; and members of the film community: actors, actresses, journalists, and institutional, national, and international figures from the film industry.

MACABRO ALL YEAR ROUND: MACABRO NOCTURNO

Macabro holds promotional and screening events throughout the year through programs such as Macabro Nocturno and Sesiones de Macabro.

Since February 2015, it has been presented at the Casa del Cine: Macabro Nocturno, an outreach project that screens a feature film from the Macabro archive, along with a Mexican short film, on the last Saturday of every month. The project draws full houses and meets goals such as staying in touch with our audience, revisiting work presented in previous years, and fostering dialogue between filmmakers and audiences.

MACABRO NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL TOUR

As it does every year, Macabro held screenings and presentations in collaboration with various venues in the city, other states, and other countries.

The Macabro tour travels through other states via Film Club Café (metropolitan area – State of Mexico), CINEFILIA Imacp / Saber Ver (Puebla), Aurora, Guanajuato International Horror Film Festival, Cinetekton, Festival de cine Oro Negro, Festival de cine de León and Carreta Cinema Movil de Morelos, among others.

This year, we continued our collaboration with organizations such as Puerto Rico Horror Film Festival (Puerto Rico); Zinema Zombie (Colombia); Buenos Aires Rojo Sangre (Argentina); Nox Film Festival (Uruguay); and Caostica (Spain).

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MACABRO XVII BY THE NUMBERS

We thank our sponsors, partner institutions, and collaborators for trusting us and joining us for another year, which yielded the following numbers:

“This 2018, Macabro is already celebrating seventeen years of giving us a summer Halloween, of giving us an excuse to get together, to chat with other creatures of the night, to break out our best gore-print t-shirts, to, in short, have a place to be.” Iván Farías, writer and film critic.

Movie maker magazine: “No words are grand enough to describe this festival. One must simply experience it.” (No words are grand enough to describe this festival. One must simply experience it.) Movie Maker Magazine – 30 bloody best genre film festivals of the world. October 2018.

HorrorHound magazine: "Unlike conventions, the take away from your journey is not usually tangible but is instead imprinted on your mind, heart and dark soul. Whether sitting back and watching genre film through the night or enjoy intimate conversations over a cerveza with genre filmmaking minds from around the world, each moment leaves an impression." (Unlike any convention, what you take away from the journey isn't tangible—it's instead imprinted on your mind, heart, and dark soul. Whether you're sitting in the back watching a genre film through the night or enjoying intimate conversations, beer in hand, with the minds behind genre filmmaking from around the world, every moment leaves an impression.) - Jay Kay, a critic specializing in horror cinema.