Shot on a production grant of just \u20ac200,000 ($234,000) and developed under intense time pressure, \u201cTijuana, Todav\u00eda\u201d has earned a slot at the 83rd Venice Film Festival, where it is competing for the Queer Lion.<\/p>\n
Mexican filmmaker Gabriel Guti\u00e9rrez Morales was given only three weeks to write the screenplay and outline a production schedule. Over the course of 10 months, he and producer Humberto Busto\u2014known for \u201cAmores Perros\u201d\u2014managed to develop, shoot, and complete the feature through the Biennale College \u2013 Cinema training program. Despite the minimal resources, Busto described the process as \u201ca very joyful experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
The narrative is set in the northern Mexican border town of Tijuana and traces the complex relationship between Maksim, a young queer man who fled Russia to avoid conscription in the war with Ukraine, and Chava, a middle-aged gay man navigating Northern Mexican machismo culture. Busto also portrays Chava in the film.<\/p>\n
Busto emphasized the timeliness of the project, noting that \u201cTijuana, Todav\u00eda\u201d speaks directly to the current situation in Russia and the consequences of queer migration to countries like Mexico. \u201cThis experience of displacement and reinvention at the border is the core identity of the film,\u201d he said. He added that as queer filmmakers, they feel compelled to counter constant threats to their community by establishing dialogue through cinema.<\/p>\n
The film\u2019s emergence comes amid broader concerns for LGBTQ+ representation in international cinema, particularly after the Italian Ministry of Culture announced it would no longer support the Queer Lion award, ending a 20-year partnership.<\/p>\n
Guti\u00e9rrez Morales explained that his decision to set the story at the U.S.-Mexico border stemmed from his desire to show a side of Tijuana that is rarely depicted. \u201cEspecially since Trump\u2019s presidency, it\u2019s often portrayed almost like a war zone. What you rarely get to see is the border from the other side,\u201d the director said, noting that Tijuana is where he grew up.<\/p>\n
The script was partly inspired by the director\u2019s personal experiences. Shortly after coming out, Guti\u00e9rrez Morales found safety in online communities, forming a decade-long friendship with a gay man from St. Petersburg, Russia. This connection proved crucial during casting; the team needed a Russian actor in Mexico to play Maksim.<\/p>\n
Serendipity struck when they found Petr Filimonov, whose life mirrored the fictional character. Filimonov had been arrested for opposing the Ukraine war and, being gay, faced additional danger, forcing him to flee after his family secured his release. He now lives in Mexico.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn our second interview with him, Petr was visibly emotional, with tears in his eyes. He said: \u2018I\u2019m Maksim. I\u2019ve traveled all this way because this is a story you wrote, without even knowing me,\u2019\u201d Busto recalled. Filimonov also brought professional acting experience, having studied for four years in Russia.<\/p>\n
Real-life parallels extended to the film\u2019s depiction of the Casa de Luz refugee shelter. The founder\u2019s personal story closely matched the plot: she had fallen in love with a Russian man who arrived at the shelter in circumstances similar to the film\u2019s protagonist. After his deportation to Egypt by the Trump administration, she spent months tracking him across Egypt, Turkey, the Philippines, and Thailand. The couple married and reunited just days before filming began.<\/p>\n
\u201cTijuana, Todav\u00eda\u201d is produced by Fosfo Producciones and distributed in Mexico by Colmena. The cast also includes Miry Rodr\u00edguez, Dilan Rivera, Elliot Roy Rensky, and Jorge Dom\u00ednguez Cerd\u00e1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gabriel Guti\u00e9rrez Morales\u2019 low-budget film about a gay Russian refugee in Tijuana has been selected to compete for the Queer Lion at the 83rd Venice Film Festival.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[757,2162,756,2163,2164,2160,2161,395],"class_list":["post-1007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-film","tag-gabriel-gutierrez-morales","tag-hollywood","tag-humberto-busto","tag-lgbtq-cinema","tag-queer-lion","tag-tijuana-todavia","tag-venice-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1007\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}