Have you ever felt like sending “Wish You Were Here” cards because you were not only somewhere enviable, but engaging in the kinds of activities you knew your friends and family would really enjoy too? I tell you, if I hadn’t been so caught up in all the fabulous food, film, fishing, golfing and cultural events going on here this past November, I would have sent a slew of them.
It was a heady 15 days of cocktail and “after” parties, cheese, wine and tequila tastings, cooking classes, concerts, conferences, chef’s table dinners, gala dinners, brunches, lunches, art expos, screenings and more, in the company of the filmmaking and gastronomy elite.
While Vallarta's alluring anytime, the calendar's eleventh month is primo, tourists on reprieve from plummeting temperatures and snowbirds resuming lives in paradise infusing the town with an exhilaration everyone can feel. And along with the city’s Cultural Festival, which ran in November for the past several years, we had a feast of annual international events -– the 49th International Sailfish and Marlin Tournament, the 10th Festival Gourmet International, the 3rd Vallarta Cup Pro-Am Golf Tournament and the first Puerto Vallarta Film Festival of the Americas – all taking place in the same incredible month.
With such a whirlwind of activities to chose from, I opted for immersion in good food, films and, as it turned out, music – ever present in Vallarta, but spectacularly more so during the film and gourmet festivals. Unabashedly of the live-to-eat school, reviewing restaurants in a town of so many fabulous ones has my palate attuned to high expectations, and I can tell you, the gourmet festival continually raises the bar as to just how sublime a dining experience can be. When it comes to movies, I know about as much as the next guy. But realizing the important role they play in shaping popular perceptions, it was refreshing to hear independent voices from the far corners of the Americas, unbiased by Hollywood studios.
Both festivals had busy itineraries, and for three days they were going on simultaneously. So it was a heady 15 days of cocktail and “after” parties, cheese, wine and tequila tastings, cooking classes, concerts, conferences, chef’s table dinners, gala dinners, brunches, lunches, art expos, screenings and more, in the company of the filmmaking and gastronomy elite.
This year there were 33 Michelin-star-quality chefs here to collaborate with our equally great chefs on inspired menus served only during the festival at 25 acclaimed restaurants – sommeliers, screen writers, movie stars, musicians, directors, producers, international and local media and people like you and me reaping the benefits of this exciting influx of expertise.
Celebrating the vitality of Vallarta’s gourmet restaurants makes a lot of sense, our culinary scene so superior to anywhere else in Mexico, with the exception of the world’s largest city. And chefs consider invitations to a high-profile festival in one of the planet’s most enticing places professional plums. They get to share their finely honed approaches to the culinary arts and enjoy the comeraderie of respected peers from around the globe, returning home with a profound appreciation for the caliber and variety of cuisines offered here.
Before sharing festival highlights, a little insider info on how they came to be.
Two of Vallarta’s most progressive chefs, Thierry Blouet of Café des Artistes and Heinze Reize of Coco Tropical, were talking over dinner with Nestle’s Sivan Mueller about their favorite subjects, food and promoting Vallarta, when epiphany struck. Why not take the town to another level in terms of both its cuisine and hotel occupancy by holding an event that would spark increased culinary creativity, and therefore more customers and more tourism, during the lull before the high season? And today, thanks to their vision and steadfast commitment – retired chef Roland Menetrey joining in 2000 as an associate, more than twice as many restaurants are involved compared to its 1995 inaugural year and hotel occupancy is up about 70 per cent during its 10-day run.
Lights! Camera! Action!
The idea of holding a film festival here has been bandied about for a long time, but it was a chance meeting between Vallarta resident Robert Roessel, who had Hollywood contacts from his days with the Birkshire festival, and Huston’s son, actor/director Danny, here to get married where he had spent many happy years as a child, that convinced Roessel Huston’s legacy was the key to getting it off the ground. Hooking up with former head of Vallarta’s Culture Department and now of the Hotel Association, Maria José Zorrillo, they staged an homage to John Huston showcasing a retrospective of his work. This trial run was well received and gave the town enough of an inkling of what an international film festival could mean that sponsors pitched in to make it happen.
So, first up on the November menu, eight days of films and all things related, we locals like kids in a candy store with more than 50 viewing possibilities in the same week. What a pleasure it was to sit under the stars at the Cultural Center on the Isla Rio Cuale and watch free movies paying homage to the late Marlon Brando and two legends of Mexican cinema, director Emilio “El Indio” Fernandez and cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa, the offspring of all three in the audience. During Mexico’s golden age of cinema in the ‘40s, Fernandez, the model for the Oscar statuette, and Figueroa, with 213 movies to his credit, made some 20 powerful films together. Figueroa is renowned also for painting and photography, a photo retrospective on exhibit at the Sheraton Buganvilias during the festival.
At de facto headquarters Cine Versalles, rubbing shoulders with the cinematic who’s who was pretty much a given both before and after screenings, when modern-day storytellers brought light to bear on their stories and explained why they were important enough to make into movies.
And programming director Michael Donnelly, whose film selections fulfilled the festival’s stated purpose – to build a cultural bridge between the Americas – set the scene for every audience by explaining how. Along with new and classic, independent and commercial, features, documentaries and shorts, the event catered to diverse cultural interests, reinforcing the awareness that from Alaska to Argentina, people face many similar issues. There were photographic, art and design exhibits, violin, jazz and mariachi performances, as well as Talking Pictures, informal conferences featuring filmmakers of divergent styles learning from one another.
One presented by the Los Angeles Film Festival focused on the challenge of getting independent moves distributed when denied access to the channels commercial filmmakers take for granted. Veteran director/producer Roger Corman (“The Little Shop of Horrors”) knows all about it, bemoaning how difficult it is even after making nearly 400 B-movies and nurturing the careers of many who are now household names, including Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese and Jack Nicholson. FYI, rumor has it Corman was so taken with Vallarta, he’s considering returning to do what he does best right here.
And it was really interesting gaining insight into the process of making a particular film and then seeing the result later that same day, as I did with “Robbing Peter,” written, directed and produced by neophyte filmmaker Mario F. de la Vega. Exploring the human vulnerability to being led astray, every character, no matter how criminal their actions, was so touchingly quirky I could never forget them.
Other directors with screenings at the festival and a lot more experience under their belts included Bruce Weber (“A Letter to True”), Robert M. Young (“Alambrista”), Conrad Vernon (“Shrek 2”) and Alfonso Cuaron (“Solo con tu Pareja”), who received the John Huston Maverick Award for Best Director. Academy Award-winning actress and director Anjelica Huston (Prizzi’s Honor) was all smiles when presenting the festival’s top honor, designed by her husband, Mexican sculptor Robert Graham, Cuaron known for calling his own tune, just as her father did.
“This is the time to open the door between and American and Mexican filmmakers,” he said at the star-studded gala awards dinner. A trickle of talented Mexican moviemakers have boosted their careers by going north, and Cuaron, perhaps best known for “Y Tu Mama Tambien,” is among them, now based in L.A. directing a film starring Bill Murray and Dustin Hoffman.
Light-hearted kibitzing and congratulations all around permeated the awards presentations, an emphatic “Cool, dude!” being Mexican rock group MANA’s response to receiving the Elizabeth Taylor Humanitarian Award for its Selva Negra environmental awareness program.
And it was a nice touch that the awards were crafted by our Jalisco sculptors Ramiz Barquet, Francisco San Miguel and Octavio Gomez.
The Richard Burton Thespian Award for Best Actor and Actress went to popular Mexican movie stars Diego Luna and Ana Claudia Talancon (“The Motorcycle Diaries”). Luna, too, recently went north to co-star with John C. Reilly (“Chicago”) in Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney’s “Criminals,” premiering in Mexico at the festival. Jokingly, Reilly noted, “It was great to be the ambassador to California for Diego, and now it’s great that he’s returning the favor (here in Vallarta).”
Rodrigo Prieto (“Alexander”) went home with the Gabriel Figueroa Award for Best Cinematographer, and “Innocent Voices,” a drama from the viewpoint of an 11-year-old in war-torn El Salvador and based on the experiences of its co-screenwriter, Oscar Torres, earned the Emilio Fernandez Best New Mexican Film award. Directed by Luis Mandoki, it was this country’s Academy Awards entry for Best Foreign Language Film.
Being here for the festival was like old home week for the Huston family – Anjelica, sister Alegre and their nephews, Matthew and Jack. “The festival has given us a new love for this place that has been very special to us all our lives,” Alegre told journalists. Anjelica spoke fondly about the relaxing times her family had spent at her father’s Las Caletas hideaway, “his favorite place to be, providing him with such incredible pleasure.”
It was the homage to their father, she said, that had brought the family back to Vallarta for the first time after his death in 1987. “And we are grateful for the invitation to the festival because it makes us feel very much connected to him, to one another, and to the town he so loved and that loved him back.”
Feeding Body, Mind and Spirit
When the restaurant business sizzles – and it sure did during our gourmet festival – it’s show business too, top chefs celebrities in their own right with avid followings, one couple of devoted gastronomes flying into Vallarta just for the night of the Chef’s Table at Thierry Blouet Cocina de Autor because Charlie Trotter’s chef de cuisine was in charge. Trotter’s signature restaurants in Chicago, Los Cabos (and soon New York) make headlines around the world, consistently establishing new standards for fine dining, as does Cafes des Artistes. Guillermo Tellez and pastry chef Lesley Tellez’ seven courses had guests in awe, each more exquisite than the last and married to equally exceptional vintages.
Eight venues hosted these Chefs and Winemakers Dinners on different nights during the festival, while every night November 11 – 21 we chose from more than two-dozen never-before-experienced menus, all accompanied by live entertainment.
One of Mexico’s most important brass bands, the 90-member Banda de Zacatecas, kicked off the festival at the World Chefs reception at the Sheraton, where I noshed Mexico’s most popular hors d’oeuvres, imbibed the tequila and beer this country’s known for and checked out the 2nd Gourmet Expo in the next salon.
I cannot recommend enough the Gourmet Cooking Classes presented by Philipe Moulin and Felipe Rodu of Mexico City’s Le Cordon Bleu, festival organizer Roland Menetrey seamlessly translating for English speakers. Christine at the nH Krystal proved the ideal venue, circular and multi-leveled so everyone could see the demonstrations perfectly and with fabulous acoustics. And not only were we given detailed recipes to take home, I can now cut a potato 15 different ways! Following the class and a conference about trends in gastronomy was an outstanding three-course lunch accompanied by fine wines at Bogart’s, all for one very reasonable price.
The Cheeses of the World event, an uninhibited indulgence of more than two-dozen different quesos in the gorgeous presidential suite at the Quinta Real, taught me that Mexico produces some excellent ones, ditto for wines.
Then there was the Sheraton Sunday buffet brunch with its seemingly thousand options, mariachi musicians and ice sculptures carved in front of you; the Don Julio Gourmet event, Noche de Tapas, at De Santos featuring that excellent tequila; and the list goes on.
“Puerto Vallarta is the capital of Pacific gastronomy,” Vallarta Mayor Gustavo Gonzalez Villasenor modestly told the glittering oceanfront gala dinner and concert at Velas Vallarta, featuring the Tepic Symphony Orchestra. Expanding on the compliment, the president of the Culinary Academy of France, Café des Artistes’ guest chef Gerard Dupont, said, “The gourmet festival is on par with any culinary event staged in Europe. I would even go so far as to say this event has no equal in the world, because at other gourmet events the dishes are prepared only for a small panel of judges. Here, all of Puerto Vallarta is part of the festival.”
Looking to the Future
Roessel believes the Puerto Vallarta Film Festival has the potential to be number one in Mexico because “It’s the only one that Hollywood is grasping.” Anjelica and Danny Huston think so too, saying here in 2003 that Sundance has nothing on Puerto Vallarta.
Next year’s gourmet bash set for November 10 – 20 promises to be bigger and better than ever, and Blouet says the program should be ready in January. “The festival has matured,” he says, “the quality of the events, the chefs and the organization itself. It’s something great for Vallarta and we are very excited that next year will be really international, with big chefs from around the world trying to come.”
If you’d like to join them, consult www.vallartafilmfestival.com and www.festivalgourmet.com for more information.
