A year ago, we waved goodbye to the 5th Monterrey International Film Festival with the announcement that Mexico would be our guest of honor in 2010.  This decision, made with the commemoration of the Bicentennial Anniversary of the Mexican Independence and Centennial Anniversary of the Mexican Revolution in mind, mainly obeys to the urgent need to encounter our own cinema. Encounter its creative process, its distribution and exhibition, encounter the wedges that adjust it to one side and the other through laws, treaties, funds, and the audience’s response. To encounter our filmmakers and their need to speak about Mexico, and perhaps the audience’s need to see a country that’s different from the one that appears in the news.
 
The 6th Monterrey International Film Festival, solid in its vocation to bring to México the films of the new auteurs of international cinema, keeps its commitment with the presence of 34 countries in the International Competition and parallel showcases, especially welcoming the German Film Week which from now on will take place at the Festival each year. Yet, we open a large space to Mexican cinema to allow, as much as it is possible in ten days, an approach to our national film production.
 
First off, the screens of the Festival will be full of Mexican cinema.  The section “México, from North to South” will for the first time include 10 feature films in competition, but around it we have sections like “Film for a Better Mexico” and “The Lions Republic: Nuevo León Films” which are complemented by efforts like “From the Vault” which rescues films apparently forgotten and that belong to the collection of the Nuevo León Cinematheque.
 
It will also be a special time to honor the great figures of our cinema.  This year, the Festival inaugurates a new award: Icons of Mexican Cinema. This award, made tangible by the Cabrito de Cristal, a new trophy, is designed to honor the actors that throughout an important trajectory have created memorable characters that have become part of the mexican collective imagination and contributed to the molding of our mexicanity. During the Festival, the award will be given to Silvia Pinal, Pedro Armendáriz Jr., Arcelia Ramírez, Ofelia Medina, Héctor Suárez and María Eugenia Llamas, all of them creators of unforgettable characters that will pass on to mexican film history.
 
The Festival has also prepared a special tribute to two great figures of our film industry:  Pedro Armendáriz Jr., and Maryse Sistach.  Each of them in their own field has made important contributions to the development of our cinema, and that is why we make this special tribute to their careers.
 
I want to thank the Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, the Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografía, the Consejo para la Cultura y las Artes de Nuevo León, the Comité Bicentenario Nuevo León, Cinépolis, the Goethe-Institut México A.C., the Centro Cultural Alemán A.C., The Museo de Historia Mexicana, the Instituto Mexicano Norteamericano de Relaciones Culturales, Turismo Nuevo León and all our collaborators, sponsors and media partners for making this edition of the Festival possible.  I especially want to thank the more than 2000 filmmakers that registered their films in the Festival as well as all the members of the film industry that support us with their knowledge, experience, and good will.  Welcome to the 6th Monterrey International Film Festival!

Juan Manuel González, M.F.A.
Director

Monterrey International Film Festival