We present the Asian films that will be screened at the Guanajuato International Film Festival which will take place from July 20 – 31, 2023 in Guanajuato, Mexico.

– Feature Films –

Arnold is a clever student who has won many academic awards. One day, he meets Bee who runs an underground business helping students cheat on their exams. Bee asks Arnold to join his cheating ring and offers him a lot of money. While Arnold considers working with Bee, many of his schoolmates, unhappy with their school’s disrespect of their freedom, organize a big protest. (GIFF 2023)

Trailer:

– Short Films –

A husband and wife married for 5 years, own a kiddie ride at the carnival together, spending their days entertaining and taking care of other people’s children without any of their own. Between meddling relatives, self-doubt and an explosive confrontation, they uncover why they have not been blessed with a child. (GIFF 2023)

Trailer:

Two men, Scholar and Lok, arrive at a swimming pool to bask and cool off. At the pool, they are free to transform into what they really are: crocodilian folk. While the subservient Scholar looks like the other crocodilian folk in the pool, Lok is different and special – retaining his human face and having a right hand of crocodiles. As the day wears on, a self-pitying Lok moans about the burden of his special nature. Lok, in some terrible orgasmic ecstasy, is eventually confronted with the avarice of Scholar’s uncontrollable desire. Just another day amongst crocodile folk like these. (GIFF 2023)

Trailer:

The fear of water prevents Mr. Cat from winning the honor of being the guardian of the year in the race against the other zodiac deities. The unexpected coming into her life of an orphaned baby changes his perspective on life and turns the pain and regret he has lived with all his life into a necessary form of survival and healing. (GIFF 2023)

Trailer:

Loosely based on the erotic poem Caurapañcāśikā by Bilhana, which was written in prison upon discovery of the poet’s clandestine affair with Princess Yaminipurnatilaka. Lotus-Eyed Girl ruminates on the curious and fractured intersections of death, desire, and class. Fading family photographs, pomegranate arils, pulsating floral mandalas, and horror atmospherics culminate into an ecstatic collision of death and longing—echoing devastations of the past. Through principles of psychogeography, the systems of power that shape identity and desire, in the way that colonialism has altered human perception, are examined in an undulating and capricious form. (GIFF 2023)

Doing the household chores and taking care of her two young sons is an inescapable routine that Sandra, an immigrant from Mexico, follows daily. It makes her feel hopelessly tired but still, her attentive care for both the sons and her intimacy with them remain unaffected. The boys’ father —Sandra’s Portuguese husband— appears to be a distant man at home. His absence is felt in his mute presence. Nothing exciting happens in this Lisbon suburb, as Sandra’s monotonous marriage reaches its climax. Hitting a definitive point of exhaustion, she attempts to break out of her normative duties of being a mother or a wife. (GIFF 2023)

Trailer:

More information: https://giff.mx/