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Postales desde Guadalajara y Puerto Vallarta by Mullighan

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Earlier this month, the Cork Film Festival was honoured to be invited to attend the ‘Extension’ in the Pacific resort city Puerto Vallarta of the International Film Festival Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico.

Puerto Vallarta the City is many things, not least a kind of time capsule of rather campish 60s glamour Hollywood on Holiday.

In 1964 John Huston filmed his adaption there of Tennessee Williams’s Night of the Iguana, with Richard Burton, Ava Gardner and Sue Lyon on and around Mismaloya beach, south of the (then) sleepy fishing village. The controversy and titillation surrounding the clandestine activities of the then both married to others Burton and Elizabeth Taylor during filming made for international sensation, and Puerto Vallarta has been since a major tourist destination for art lovers, film buffs, ‘pink’ travellers, and shivering Canadians. There’s a nice piece on Huston and Puerto Vallarta here.

The city is also famous for being the set of some episodes of the Love Boat (see? … muchos campos), and Predator (a Predator set visit is compulsory).

The City brims with the likes of Elizabeth Taylor cines porno gay, and Schwarzenegger cafés internet. Quite rightly its a hotspot for surrealist Mexican art aficionados. The light is stunning day round, especially in the  gloaming, and there is an entire section of the city where every front is an art gallery or sales room.

One if its premiere tourist attractions is the two kilometre promenade le Malecon; every 100 feet there is yet another playful, strong, often surrealist bronze which, when framed by the glistening oceanic light and historial context makes for an intense and constantly rewarding outdoor museum.

Back then, I suppose to John Huston, and the Festival. Back after a five year absence at the behest of my generous host the Rector of the Central University on the Coast Dr. Marco Antonio Cortés Guardado with the skilled coordination of Lupita Basulto, the Festival proved a dream: excellent programming, strongly discursive, packed houses, interesting settings and – every Festival director’s dream – free to all. Alongside a nightly open air public screening series including Eliza Lynch, Queen of Paraguay, which I presented on behalf of Cork, the Fest by day presented la Cátedra Huston de Cine y Literatura, a conference of sorts which, if not really about the director as such, honours and lauds the City’s most famous adopted son. The Festival has a long connection with Fastnet Short Film Festival’s (until recently) top dog Maurice Roycroft, who presented a programme of the best shorts of that Fest; it invited me to further the connection with Cork and surrounds; and also invited Professor Daniel O’Connell from the newly established BA in Film University College Cork, who presented a well researched and entertaining 90 minutes on how the sensors in digital cameras have revolutionised filmmaking everywhere, with a special focus on Ireland.

Leer el documento completo aquí.

Hora: 

Dom, 13/04/2014 - 16:49

 

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