The 63rd Cannes Film Festival is underway and here in Mexico, specially the press, is following more closely then ever the outcome of this world renown annual film festival. It seems that this year the Mexican film industry will shine in the French Riviera and is not a big surprise that the local press has high hopes that the Mexican films and film-makers can succeed.

With headlines such as, "With Mexican brigthness!" and "Mexico Creates Expectation at Cannes", this clearly reflects how the newsrooms celebrates the large presence of a group of film directors and actors — in this glamorous and prestigious film festival—, such as Alejandro González Iñárritu,  Gael García Bernal, Diego Luna , Carlos Carrera, as well  as newcomers film directors such as Jorge Michel Grau, Véronique Decroux and Michael Rowe.

As a Mexican, this is great news and it clearly shows that the country film industry is reviving, slowly, but with great quality, althought Mexico is still far from producing the number of films like in the old days, "The Gold Era" (1936-1957), which were 75 films a year. One of the main reason of this, is the lack of finance and state support, but also, as I see it, Mexicans are unwilling to go see Mexican films, many still believes that most films are terrible, due to the stigma that the industry earned in the 70's and 80's with the so called "decadent era", low budget films with terrible plot and a lot of sex.

On one hand, is wonderful that the Mexican cinema has had in recent years great acceptance from abroad, but on the other hand, it most be frustrating for some film-makers, specially newcomers, to know that there is a great possibility that their films probably will not make it to Mexico's cinemas, and those that do get to the screens, don't have much promotion, even if they have been acclaimed at an internacional film festival or have received an international recognition. In the best of luck, their films could get to be screened abroad, even if stills remains the uncertainty whether their films will ever be relesed in Mexico. That's the case of the film "Año Bisiesto" (Leap-year), of film director Michael Rowe, former student of the "Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica" , a renown Mexican Film School, managed to find an international distributor prior to its premier on May 17th at the Directors' Fortnight at Cannes, and also it will hit French screens on June, but in the case of Mexico, it's still uncertain because they haven't found a local distributor yet. I guss it's true what the proverb say:"Nobody can be prophet in his own land".

From here I sent all my best wishes and good vibes to all the Mexican delegation at Cannes.