Global Short Film Competition

As part of the 2010 events, the Foreign Ministry of Mexico is hosting a Global Short Film Competition for youth.

Student films created at the event can be submitted for entry in the competition for youth. Contestants must be Mexican nationals living abroad or of Mexican heritage.

View all contest details here

Viva Mexico Student Videos

During the Viva Mexico Forum, students were given the challenge to create a short film--in only 40 minutes--on one Mexico-related theme. They included Mexican Cultural Diversity, Street Art, Mexican Youth Stereotypes, Employment Prospects in Mexico.

Here's a film from one of the student groups about Mexican youth stereotypes "Nacos y Fresas"

Get started with a blog and with making videos

Mindy McAdams is an accomplished multimedia journalist who now teaches at the University of Florida.

Many professional journalists who knew nothing about the Internet or blogging have become proficient in digital journalism by using her tutorials. Here are a few that could be useful if you´re trying to get started.

Read blogs

Start a blog

Learn how to shoot decent photos

Learn to shoot video

Edit your movie with iMovie or Windows Movie Maker

Jaycut and Motionbox are two other free programs for editing video that are available online.

This is a 3-minute video I shot using a video camera that is the size of a cellphone, called a Flip camera. I edited it in iMovie.

I shot about 30 minutes of video and used about 3 minutes, and even that is probably too much. Individual shots that last more than 3 or 4 seconds will lose a viewer if they don´t have some compelling movement or activity.

For me, it takes about one to two hours to edit each minute of video. Shooting and editing video isn´t what I do best. I´m really a writer, editor and teacher. But I can do the basics.

Young graffiti writers arrested in Monterrey

A group of young people who decided to block traffic and paint traffic barriers on a major road in Monterrey made a 7-minute video of their mural work.



This article is taken from Global Voices.

Thirteen teenagers and young adults from the metropolitan area of Monterrey, city in the North of México, were sent to prison after a “graffiti attack” on an overpass along one of the busiest avenues in the city.

They were part of a group of 300 graffiti “writers” that organized the event through Fotologs (a social network similar to Flickr to upload photos) and websites. During the afternoon of May 17, they covered three lanes on Constitution Avenue with graffiti, with the paintings measuring one kilometer in length on walls on both sides of the lanes, taking on the name “macropinta” [macropainting].

According to Mexican newspaper Milenio [es], of the thirteen young boys arrested, 7 have paid 20,000 pesos [approx. 1,520 USD] individually in bail and fines in order to be released.

However, the ones that have not covered the bail are still in prison and, as newspaper El Porvenir [es] warns, they could spend more than 10 years in jail for causing damage on third-party property, with the aggravating circumstance that it was made as part of a “gang.” In sum, fines and bails have reached 200,000 pesos [approx. 15,200 USD] for these young boys of medium and lower socioeconomic levels.

Read the complete article here.

Here is TV news coverage of the incident.



Mexican artists such as Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco developed mural painting to a high art, so the "macropainting" event of Monterrey could be seen as a tribute to them. Obviously the police don´t see it that way. Here´s an article on Mexican muralists, and another, this one in English.

Mexico has 63 native languages and a variety of cultures

Mexico's amazing ethnic diversity is visible wherever you travel. In one state, Oaxaca, there are 15 distinct groups each speaking its own language.

Of the 63 languages still spoken in Mexico, 16 of them have more than 100,000 speakers. The biggest of these groups is Nahuatl, the language spoken by the Aztecs at the time of the Spanish conquest. More than 1.3 million Mexicans speak Nahuatl.

Other major language groups are Maya, Mixtec, Purépecha and Zapoteco. A website run by a friend of mine includes articles about indigenous groups, their politics, their languages and their cultures http://corresponsalesindigenas.blogspot.com/

The pyramids at Palenque, in Chiapas, were built by Mayan speakers.

In other words, these languages and cultures have survived five centuries after the arrival of the Spanish. Native languages also survive in many parts of Latin America.

Race can be a touchy subject in Mexico. Some are proud of their indigenous blood, others not so much.

About 80% of the population of Mexico is mestizo, of mixed race. The mainly male Spanish conquistadores intermarried with indigenous women and enslaved the native population to work in mines and on vast estates known as haciendas.

By contrast, the immmigrants who colonized Canada and the U.S. brought their wives and families, and they killed or displaced the Indian population to reservations. There was far less intermarriage.

These children were in a procession at Christmas in Oaxaca.

Pyramids and tombs

We visited several archaeological sites in the Oaxaca area.

Monte Albán sits on a mountain high above the Oaxaca Valley and the city of Oaxaca. The top of the mountain was leveled off to allow for the creation of this Zapotec ceremonial site.

Here I´m in one of the tombs discovered at Monte Albán.


This funerary statue was found in one of the tombs in the area.


This shot of Yagul was taken from a fort on the hill. You can see the ball court in the lower left.

This mask of the Zapotec god of rain and thunder, Cocijo, decorated an altar at the nearby Lambyteco ruins and was still on site.


The buildings at Mitla are famous for the superb stone friezes that decorate their facades.


Here is a close up of some of the geometric designs. Imagine these brightly painted - awesome.


Streets, courtyards and crafts

We didn't spend the whole trip walking around ruins. In fact most of our ramblings were around the streets and parks of Oaxaca.


Bright sunshine, vivid colors, warm weather - who needs snow to celebrate Christmas?

We saw an unusual type of local handicraft at Noche de los Rábanos (Night of the Radishes), an annual fiesta held two nights before Christmas. Local people compete to carve radishes into people, animals, and occasionally, churches.


A third of the displays were flowers and people made from corn husks - like these. Maybe they should change the name of the fiesta.

And Spanish influence in the churches

After the Spanish arrived, they imposed their religion and language where they could on the native population. Thousands of churches were built in the colonial era.


This is the pulpit in the Templo de Santa María de la Asuncion in El Tule.


Templo de Santa María de la Asunción in El Tule


This is one of the bell towers of the Virgen de la Asunción in the village of Tlacolula.


The church of San Jerónimo in the village of Tlacochahuaya ...


... is decorated in vivid floral murals by local artists. Very unusual.


San Matías Jalatlaco in the city of Oaxaca is notable for its simple altar accented in bright red and gold. Notice all the fresh flowers - we saw lots of flowers in every church we visited.


The bigger churches often display bronze or richly gilded plaster. This gilt-covered altar ...


... and pulpit are in the Church of Santo Domingo de Guzmán.

Students in Monterrey create their own blogs

Here are some examples of blogs created by students at the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León in Monterrey for an Olympics of Digital Journalism.

You can get the idea of some of the possibilities for publishing not only words but photos, slideshows, video and graphics.

This entry has a light-hearted cartoon about the twin worries of contracting dengue or human influenza.

The blog rehiletee showcases student artwork.

The blog Jovenomía focuses on getting a debate going.

The blog Sugiere-me also is a space for debates.

Get over the fear, get started

It´s fairly simple to start a basic blog using Wordpress or Blogger. Get a friend to help you get started.

What I tell journalists is to start the blog and gradually add elements as you learn more. A blog can evolve over time and become more and more sophisticated.

My own blog has gone through several transformations. Some of the early work is a little embarrassing because it´s so simple, but it´s a learning process.

Students talk about expressing themselves through photography

Listen to My Pictures - Foto Class - Guadalajara, Mexico from Josh Meltzer on Vimeo.

In this video of 13 minutes, a half-dozen photography students describe how they are using cameras to capture the world as they see it.

Josh Meltzer, a newspaper photographer on sabbatical as a Fulbright Fellow in Guadalajara, taught the class and invited other professionals to work with the students.

As you can see, the students produced some exceptional work using very simple digital cameras. In the interviews you´ll get an idea of what they were trying to say with their work.