"As 2025 unfolded, returning to the ritual of asking filmmakers about the films that moved them feels both fragile and necessary. This exercise appears days after yet another grotesque display of interventionism in Latin America, an event so swiftly normalized that its violence dissolves into the background noise of the present. In this context, cinema-even in its most superficial, market-driven or seemingly shallow dynamics-reasserts its essence: a place of resistance, a safer space, a memory capsule."
"Even though there are countless lists of this kind circulating everywhere, I believe this one carries a specific perspective: a space where renowned auteurs converge with the voices of the future, and where the exclusivity of encountering these films at the very moment of their premiere gives the exercise a particular urgency and context. Their choices reflect not consensus but friction, curiosity and risk; they remind us how vibrant and necessary cinema and art remain right now."
"For me, this exercise is also a way to hold onto memory at a time when it increasingly risks being outsourced to algorithms, annual Letterboxd wrap-ups and data summaries. Gathering these voices becomes an act of reflection on my own cinematographic experience, especially as a curator, re-centering lived encounters with images, sounds and rooms shared with others. My deepest thanks to all the filmmakers who made this possible,"
2025's political climate includes another grotesque display of interventionism in Latin America, quickly normalized until violence becomes background noise. Cinema functions as a collective, embodied refuge: a place of resistance, a safer space, and a memory capsule even when shaped by market dynamics. Filmmakers who premiered shorts and features in 2025 demonstrate the vitality of the medium, blending renowned auteurs with emerging voices. Their selections emphasize friction, curiosity, and risk rather than consensus. Gathering filmmakers' chosen films acts as an effort to preserve memory against outsourcing to algorithms and data summaries and to re-center lived encounters with images, sounds, and shared rooms.
Read at Filmmaker Magazine
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