“The Son-In Law,” a Netflix film by James Schamus and the Larraín brothers, leads the talented 2026 Guadalajara Fest Mexican Mezcal Competition and focuses squarely on pressing social issues plaguing Mexico and beyond.
“I think there’s a stronger, more unapologetically focused focus on social films than in previous years,” Estrela Araiza, director of the Guadalajara Film Festival (FICG), told Variety.
Helmed by “Miss Bala” director Gerardo Naranjo, “Son in Law” is joined by other potential mezcal standouts, including “Oca” from “Roma” producer Pimienta Films and the latest film from maverick J.M. Clavioto and director Kenya Marquez.
Co-written and produced by Sheamus and produced by Pablo and Juan de Dios Larraín’s Mexico office, “The Son in Law” will have its world premiere in Guadalajara on April 18th and will be available on Netflix on May 1st.
In the film, the characters’ “great Mexican dream,” the dream of realizing it at all costs, becomes “a pretty crazy, absurdist tragicomedy,” Seamus said.
From Pimienta Film, directed by Nicola Celis, who also directed Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma,” Tatiana Hueso’s “Prayer for the Stolen” and Amat Escalante’s “Lost in the Night,” “Oca” is “a poignant reflection on faith in an absurd and divided society,” producer María José Cordova told Variety. In March of this year, it won the Zonashin Audience Award at the Malaga Festival in Spain.
Mescal’s work “City of the Dead,” a fictional homage to legendary crime photographer Enrique Metinides, represents another potentially distinctive film by Clavioto (“Death Invitation,” “Wheels Weed & Rock’n Roll”), who also directed the “Berlin” episode.
Mezcal nominee “Missing” is the fourth feature from Kenya Marquez, who won Best Feature at the 2012 Miami Festival for “Fecha de Caducidad.” The film is co-written by renowned Argentine director Selina Murga, who recently directed Martin Scorsese’s adultery thriller, Fresh Cut Grass.
Guadalajara’s Mezcal Mexico Competition is expected to be a big hit, considering other titles like Celestino and nearly all of the documentaries are directorial debuts of some kind.
Notable among the document’s special features are two cases that illustrate the individual and collective reactions of citizens to two unforgettable cases of femicide in a country where, according to the United Nations, 10 women or girls are murdered every day, cited by the authors of Querida Fátima.
For example, the documentary feature “The Same Blood” aims to build strong protection mechanisms for human rights defenders in Mexico. The social impact strategy will begin with a May 28 event in Chilpancingo attended by all Guerrero state legislators.
If you take a closer look at the title,
Characteristics of fiction
“Celestino” (Hans Brysink, SPIN, Belgium, Mexico)
Ivan, a Belgian journalist, attempts to track down the elusive writer Celestino Perez, who is nowhere to be found in the town where he is said to live. But as Ivan’s experiences begin to blend into an imaginary portrait of Celestino, his family takes him in. “Rather than constructing a mystery to be solved, we aimed to allow for multiple interpretations and maintain uncertainty until the end of the film,” says Brysink (“Wilson and Los Mas Elegantes”).
“Celestino”
“City of the Dead” (“Ciudad de los Muertos”, JM Cravioto, Peninsula Films & Entertainment, Cinemex Distribución, Alebrije Productions, Mexico)
When a body is discovered in a suitcase, Enrique, a famous forensic photographer, becomes involved in a secret agent’s pursuit of a serial killer. Blending film noir with police and detective films, “My intention was to make a ‘parapsychological’ thriller featuring the specter of silver nitrate as a heartfelt tribute to photography, 20th century urban chroniclers, and Mexican cinema,” Cravioto told Variety. It was produced by Península, directed by Eduardo Díaz Casanova, who also directed Netflix titles No One Saw Us Leave and The Guardian of the Monarchs.
“City of the Dead”
Eduardo Cisneros
“Missing” (Kenya Marquez, Puerco Rosa Producciones, Rubicon Productions, Mexico)
Rene, a lonely, anxious, and rebellious teenager, tries to escape her stifling parents and suspicions by traveling 1,200 miles to Ciudad Juárez, where she feels something calling her. It will prove a revelatory inner journey. “It’s an exploration of sexual identity, a sense of family, a broken nation, and other explorations on many levels, made from the perspective of an adolescent,” Marquez told Variety.
“Oca” (Carla Badillo, Pimienta Film, Pina Film, Las Jaras)
This is the directorial debut of producer Badillo, who was the production partner of Lisandro Alonso’s Eureka. Described as a satirical and spiritual film, the film focuses on Rafaela, a young nun from a nearly extinct religious order who is sent to a local village to find a new archbishop. Along the way, she experiences unusual encounters that advance or set back her path. “Wealth and poverty, corruption and duty, and man and god collide precisely,” says producer Cordova.
“Oka”
“The rest is memory” (“Lo que nos van dejando”, Issa García Ascot, Cortes Finos, Mexico)
As 30-year-old Sarah travels through the jungle to a research center, she discovers a forgotten past and a part of herself she never knew existed, leading to a revelation. And you gain the freedom you longed for but never thought was possible. “It is an attempt to embody a series of events and feelings that changed my life and the way I lived it,” says García Ascot. From Cortes Finos, founded in 2016 by editor Ivran Assuad (“A Cop Movie,” “La Cocina”).
“The Son-In-Law” (Gerardo Naranjo, Netflix, Fabula)
José Sanchez boasts a fine touch, reckless ambition, and oratorical talent, until an unexpected turn of events transforms him into the ruthless political strategist El Serpiente. “Son in Law” “explores betrayal and depicts it as a widespread practice in this country” and “is also a provocation that invites us to examine an equally absurd and contradictory reality,” Naranjo said. “Only through the viewing experience will its full meaning be revealed,” promised Francisco Ramos, Netflix vice president of content.
Document features
“The Child in the Photograph. Carlos Saura” (Anna Saura, Atrese Creaciones, Gonita Filmación, Mostra Cinema)
Anna Saura’s daughter paints an intimate, knowing and humorous portrait of the great Spanish director Carlos Saura, his charms, his lifelong fears, and his interactions with family and friends, interwoven with playful informal interviews and occasional archival footage that simply capture Saura working from his mountain home. “This close-up and emotional work invites the audience to discover his most human side,” Anna Saura told Variety.
Carlos Saura / Child in the photo
“Mickey” (Dano Garcia, Venado Films, Phototaxia Pictures, Estudio Errante, Mexico)
Winner of the 2026 SXSW Visions Audience Award. Filmed over the course of 10 years, the film intertwines interviews, plays, performances, animation, and green screen scenes as Mickey Cundapi, a trans woman from the declining state of Sinaloa, recalls the last 10 years of her life. Trans films allow for “the possibility of telling non-punitive stories full of humor and resilience,” Garcia says. “Los reyes del pueblo que no exite,” which won the 2015 SXSW Global Audience Award, is also from Venado.
“Mickey”
“Querida Fátima” (Lorena Gutierrez Rangel, Sue Kim, Jesús Quintana Vega, Rodrigo Reyes, Dawn Valadez, Mexico, USA)
Ten years after her 12-year-old daughter Fatima was brutally murdered, her mother, Lorena Gutierrez, traveled to the National Palace for an audience with Mexico’s first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum. Directed by Gutierrez’s collective, it has been described as a “visceral portrait that combines personal pain and political resistance.”
“Our bodies are expanding stars” (Tania Hernández Velasco, Semirites Hernández Velasco, Autonauta, Una Holla Cae, Mexico)
In the film that takes a bow at the IDFA Envision Competition, Mexican queer siblings Semirite and Tania photograph their bodies in extreme close-up, animation, projection, or razor-sharp nature photography, with IDFA’s explanations playing as pores become desert landscapes and skin cells become salt flats. “The collaborative artistic and emotional journey is nourished by strong trans and queer pedagogies, transforms from sequence to sequence, and is sustained by tenderness between siblings and family,” producer Viana González told Variety.
“Our bodies are expanding stars.”
“The Same Blood” (“La missma Sangre”, Angel Linares, Mexico)
Rocio Messino, who appeared in Linares’ first short documentary, was assassinated the day before its premiere. Here, sister Norma leads a historic peasant organization fighting violence and impunity in southern Mexico. Filming was an “incredibly difficult process that put our lives at risk on several occasions. However, thanks to our strong ability to develop protocols, maintain clear communication with various stakeholders, and maintain the support of human rights organizations, we were able to move forward,” says Linares.
“Soy Mario” Sharon Kleinberg
Mario, a trans taxi driver, becomes pregnant. Although he is delighted to become a father, he is forced to confront his own sense of masculine identity before facing the prejudices of society at large. This is the first documentary by director Kleinberg, who won the Best Fiction Short Award at the New York International Film Festival for his directorial debut Your Way My Way (2022).
