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🇵🇾 Paraguay /Culture & Society

‘Tijuana, todavía’ opens a queer window on the Mexican border at Venice

From ABC Color · () Spanish

Translated from Spanish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

Interview Named sources Context piece
  • “Tijuana, todavía,” presented through Venice’s Biennale College, follows two men who meet on a dating app in the Mexican border city.
  • The film pairs Chava, a Mexican man caught in a macho environment, with Maksin, a Russian refugee who fled forced recruitment linked to the war in Ukraine.
  • Director Gabriel Gutiérrez Morales and actor-producer Humberto Busto say the film seeks to challenge prejudice and create space for queer stories rooted in lived reality.

At the Venice Film Festival, “Tijuana, todavía” offers a realistic queer romance set on Mexico’s northern border. Director Gabriel Gutiérrez Morales says he wants audiences to approach queer films without preconceived ideas.

I would like it to serve as an approach, and for people to feel encouraged to watch queer films without preconceived ideas.

· Gabriel Gutiérrez MoralesThe director explained his aim for the film in an interview with EFE.

The film follows Chava, a middle-aged Mexican man trapped in a macho environment, and Maksin, a young Russian refugee who fled forced recruitment connected to the war in Ukraine. The two meet through a dating app in Tijuana. Once they reveal their virtual identities, they must confront their different pasts and traumas, as well as fears linked to their wider community.

Gutiérrez Morales says he did not try to avoid conventions of queer cinema. He considers some of them necessary and important, but wants viewers to see beyond the image of two men chatting online. Both characters live under forms of oppression tied to their sexuality and gender identity, he says.

Both live in contexts of oppression that have a great deal to do with their sexuality and gender identity.

· Gabriel Gutiérrez MoralesHe described the social pressures facing the film’s two central characters.

Actor and producer Humberto Busto argues that cinema should address such subjects whenever it seeks to portray reality. He says queer filmmakers are increasingly able to tell stories about experiences that were previously shaped by people outside the community, creating room for dialogue and new imaginaries.

We are trying to open those spaces because dialogue interests us.

· Humberto BustoThe actor and producer discussed the film’s effort to expand queer representation.

The film draws on the director’s personal experience. Maksin, a real refugee in the story, was inspired by a Russian friend of Gutiérrez Morales whom others tried to send to Ukraine. The director describes the film as an exploration of his own life as a queer person in Tijuana, while noting that he now lives as an immigrant in the United States. “Tijuana, todavía” was one of four projects selected for this year’s Biennale College laboratory, which supports promising films with funding of up to 200,000 euros, or 232,000 dollars.

Cinema creates imaginaries, and just as it has created many negative ones for us as queer people, because those narratives were made by people who are not queer, in recent years there has suddenly been a possibility to tell things that really happen to us.

· Humberto BustoBusto argued that queer creators should have space to portray their own lived experiences.
About this summary

Originally published by ABC Color in Spanish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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