FIC Monterrey 2017 began its activities with the Opening Gala, in the Great Hall of the Teatro de la Ciudad. With a festive mood, Juan Manuel González, Director and Founder of FIC Monterrey; Ricardo Marcos, President of CONARTE; and Celso José Garza Acuña, Secretary of Extension and Culture of the UANL, welcomed all the attendees.
The director of FIC Monterrey explained that cinema is a powerful medium of communication, it has the ability of moving and transforming people, and therefore society. All the films that will be screened in this edition seek to generate a change in their viewers: «Cinema moves us all … you will be able to see hundreds of movies that seek, from their respective screens, to move us. Let’s move. Let’s soften the conscience and the heart. Let’s move for this film festival that needs you all to move the world. Because more than 120 years ago we discovered, not that the images can move, but the images can move us,” he said.
According to Garza Acuña, for UANL it is a commitment to provide all the facilities for the realization of FIC Monterrey, as it is a very important event for the entire artistic community in the city. In addition, the academic emphasized the great role of art in a society where violence exists: «Today more than ever we require the light of art and cinema to overcome the darkness that suddenly clouds the horizons of our own Monterrey», he commented. Finally, he stated that UANL will continue to collaborate with FIC Monterrey during its next editions.
The President of CONARTE, Ricardo Marcos stressed that FIC Monterrey has distinguished itself over 13 years as provider of a space for filmmakers who have something transcendent to say, and all those who fight for freedom. In this regard he stated: «In an age where humanism seems to stumble, FIC Monterrey makes a great declaration of rights … freedom to human rights: the right or absence of creed, sexual orientation. The FIC Monterrey allows us to enter into that discourse through its proposal, but most important, through the defense of the most precious thing that the individual has, and that is the right to freedom”, he concluded.
During the Opening Gala of FIC Monterrey 2017, The beguiled, the most recent film by Sofia Coppola, had its Mexican premiere.