Maria the Monarch

HOMERO ARIDJIS, one of Latin America’s greatest living writers, he is also extraordinary for his pioneering work as an environmental activist and president of the legendary Group of 100, and for his two-term stint as president of PEN International. Many of his forty-eight books of poetry and prose have been translated into fifteen languages. He is the recipient of important literary and environmental prizes, including the Xavier Villaurrutia (Mexico), the Roger Caillois (France), the Grinzane-Cavour (Italy), The Smederevo Golden Key (Serbia), the Premio Letterario Camaiore Internazionale 2013, the Violani Landi University of Bologna Poetry Prize, the United Nations Environmental Program’s Global 500 Award, the Orion Society’s John Hay Award, the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Force for Nature Award, the International Environmental Leadership Award, given by Mikhail Gorbachev and Global GreenUSA, and two Guggenheim Fellowships. He has been at the helm of three international poetry festivals in Mexico, as well as the Morelia Symposium: Approaching the Year 2000. Aridjis served as Mexico’s Ambassador to Switzerland, The Netherlands and UNESCO, and most recently was president of the Swedenborg Society.

JUAN CARLOS PALOMINO (Mexico), has worked with publishers of Literature for children
of Mexico, and in 2013 was the winner of the first place of the IV Catalog Iberoamerican Illustration for his illustrations in the book, Samir and Yonatan, published Ediciones Castillo.

EVA ARIDJIS, born 1974 in the Netherlands while her father was serving there as Mexico's ambassador, is a Mexican filmmaker. She later attended the American School Foundation in Mexico City, Princeton University, and received an MFA in Film and Television at New York University. She has made many prize-winning short and feature-length films including Taxidermy: The Art of Imitating Life and Billy Twist, both of which played at the Sundance Film Festival. An activist for many of Mexico City's street children, in 2003 she made the film Niños de la Calle (Children of the Street), to bring attention to the epidemic. The documentary was nominated for two Mexican Academy Awards (Arieles), and won the Best Feature Documentary prize at the Morelia Film Festival in 2003. In 2004, she wrote and directed her first narrative feature film, The Favor (2006), starring Frank Wood and Ryan Donowho. The Favor was released theatrically in Mexico in 2007 and in the United States in 2008. Aridjis' second feature documentary, about a Mexican religious cult, entitled La Santa Muerte (Saint Death), is narrated by Gael García Bernal. La Santa Muerte premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival in 2007 and has screened at festivals all over the US, Latin America, and Europe, winning the best documentary award at the Trieste Film Festival in Italy. Aridjis' second narrative feature, Los Ojos Azules (The Blue Eyes), was shot entirely on location in Chiapas, Mexico and tells the story of a young American couple (played by Allison Case and Zachary Booth) who travel there and have an encounter with a shape-shifting witch (played by Ofelia Medina). The film premiered at the Morelia Film Festival. Her fifth feature-length film, the documentary Chuy, El hombre lobo (Chuy, The Wolf Man) is about a Mexican family with congenital hypertrichosis.