Humble Beginnings
Every festival begins with a story. Ours begins with a community.
In 2010, the leaders of the Kumeyaay community in San José de la Zorra–Fausto Díaz Carrillo, Aurelia Ojeda Meléndrez, and doña Eva Carrillo–commissioned New York-Tijuana director Dylan Verrechia (Best Mexican Feature Film Special Mention recipient for “Tierra madre” at the Morelia Film Festival), to document their struggle to protect their ancestral lands in Valle de Guadalupe, their culture, and their water.
The resulting documentary “Kumeyaay Land” (co-edited by Tijuana filmmaker Sebastián Díaz Aguirre) became more than a film. It became a voice for the community. Over the years, Ángel Díaz Ojeda (Fausto and Aurelia’s son) carried it across Mexico and the United States, using cinema not just to tell their story, but to preserve their memory, inspire dialogue, and strengthen his people's connection to their land.
As those journeys continued, Ángel invited Dylan to bring more films to Valle de Guadalupe. Screenings began on the property in El Porvenir where his sister, Yaquelin Díaz Ojeda, was renting at the time—the very place where the festival is held today. What began as evenings of shared cinema soon became regular community gatherings, where local audiences discovered independent films from around the world alongside stories deeply rooted to their own experience.
As the vision grew, Yaquelin encouraged the purchase of the property to create a permanent home for this emerging cultural project. In 2019, Dylan acquired Casa Kurrak and founded the Valle de Guadalupe Film Festival—not simply to screen films, but to create a lasting home for stories with genuine heart, for singular cinematic voices, and for the communities they serve. The following year, the domains valledeguadalupefilmfestival.com, festivaldecinevalledeguadalupe.com, and ficvg.com were registered, affirming a long-term commitment to building a lasting cultural home for the festival and its growing community.
In 2023, the festival opened its first international call for submissions through FilmFreeway. In 2024, it became an IMDb-qualifying festival, and an inaugural panel of distinguished Mexican and international jurors came together to help shape its artistic voice. Around the same time, Carlos Sarabia who appeared in “Tierra madre”, offered to screen the festival's award-winning films at La Cineteca Tijuana—an early gesture of support that reflected the growing recognition of its mission.
The films shown at Casa Kurrak share a common spirit: they are made with genuine heart and a profound respect for people, Land, and the living world. We embrace a Cinema of tradition and resistance—not resistance for its own sake, but resistance to indifference, exclusion, bullying, abuse, authoritarianism, and every force that seeks to diminish human dignity. We believe in the transmission of knowledge from one generation to the next, in equal access to filmmaking, and in creating a place where authentic voices can flourish.
