The Morelia Film Festival has ordered six directors, including Tatiana Huezo and Elisa Miller, to finish their films in a single 72-hour marathon screening, with editors cutting reels live as audiences watch from the balcony of the Teatro Matamoros.
Festival organizers announced that the 12th Impulso Morelia will no longer accept works-in-progress in any stage of post-production. Instead, each of the six selected filmmakers must arrive with raw footage and a laptop, and complete their entire film—picture lock, sound mix, color grade, and subtitles—while the projector runs continuously and a live orchestra improvises the score in the pit below.
«We have found that the only honest way to judge a film is to watch it being born,» said festival director Alejandro Ramírez in a statement read between screenings. «A director who cannot finish her feature in the time it takes the audience to eat three meals and sleep once does not deserve the Impulso prize.»
The marathon began at dawn with Huezo's untitled documentary, which she edited from 40 hours of footage into a 90-minute cut while a team of runners shuttled hard drives from the editing suite to the projection booth. Miller followed with her drama, reportedly re-shooting a key scene in the theater's lobby using festival volunteers as extras and a fire extinguisher for fog.
By hour 40, two directors had abandoned their films to nap in the orchestra pit, and one had resorted to narrating the remaining plot over a black screen. Organizers have already booked the theater for next year, planning to extend the marathon to 96 hours and require all six directors to premiere their films simultaneously on six screens in different cities.