MEXICO CITY – California Institute of the Arts has launched an exciting new film festival, CINETECALARTS, running at the renowned Cineteca Nacional in Mexico City from now through April 20.

CINETECALARTS, which opened Thursday, is presenting works by CalArts faculty from the School of Film/Video and School of Art, including Pia Borg, Juan Pablo Gonzalez, Sharon Lockhart, Luciano Piazza and Billy Woodberry.

CINETECALARTS will not only occasion the Mexico premiere of several works but will also provide a platform for the filmmakers and CalArts faculty to publicly discuss their films.

The films presented have screened at several prestigious venues and festivals around the world, including MoMA, Venice Biennale, Toronto, Rotterdam, REDCAT, and Berlinale.

“Planning this festival has been a long, complex process and I am excited to finally share the fruits of that labor with the people of Mexico City and the broader international film community,” said Valentina Pelayo, BFA 2016 and one of the principal coordinators and curators of CINETECALARTS. “As a filmmaker and CalArts alumna, it is a dream come true to collaborate with my former teachers and present work on the international stage.”

Unique to the proceedings will be a retrospective of the work of Billy Woodberry, who is widely recognized as one of the leading directors of the “L.A. Rebellion” film movement, also called the “Los Angeles School of Black Filmmakers.”

Woodberry was on the vanguard of a generation of African and African-American filmmakers who came into prominence in the late-1960s to the late-1980s by forging a quality Black Cinema that provides an alternative to classical Hollywood cinema. Woodberry will give a live interview moderated by his fellow CalArts Film/Video Faculty member Luciano Piazza.

“Working on CINETECALARTS engaged everything I love about my job,” said Patricia Gonzalez, the Associate DEAN for International and Community Affairs and the other primary coordinator and curator for the festival. “I had the opportunity to engage faculty and alumni and to create a venue to share the remarkable work of CalArts artists at one of the most notable institutions in a world city.”

The festival would not have been possible without the generous support of the California Institute of the Arts, Office of the Provost, the School of Film/Video and Cineteca Nacional.

CINETECALARTS was coordinated and curated by CalArts Associate Dean for International and Community Affairs Patricia Gonzalez, and Film/Video alumna Valentina Pelayo, who graduated CalArts in 2016.

The Cineteca Nacional’s mission is to rescue, preserve, increase, and catalog the filmic, iconographic, videographic and documentary collections that make up the cinematographic memory of Mexico, as well as to promote and disseminate the most outstanding works of national and international cinematography with the purpose of stimulating the development of the cinema culture. It coordinates with Mexico’s Ministry of Culture and forms part of the International Federation of Film Archives. The Cineteca Nacional has been operating since 1974.