Today, at 12:00 pm, the tribute to Women in Film and Television will be celebrated, with Cervantes Theater as the venue.
This year we pay tribute to Mariestela Fernández, magnificent costume designer who glamorizes the profound character of those working in cinema and theater in Mexico. She is the only costume designer to have won five Ariels and is renowned internationally thanks to several important awards. She won her second Ariel in 1999 for Best Costume Design in Carlos Carrera’s Un Embrujo.
In the year 2000, she won another Ariel for La Ley de Herodes, directed by Luis Estrada and again in 2003 for Carlos Carrera’s El Crimen del Padre Amaro. Her fifth Ariel was for her design in the film Rigoberto Castañeda’s Km. 31 in 2008. She’s founding member and director of El Baúl Cinematográfico, the biggest period and contemporary costumes warehouse in Mexico.
Mariestela has dressed many great local and international stars such as Damián Alcázar, Daniel Giménez Cacho, Blanca Guerra, Johnny Depp, Demian Bichir, Peter O’Toole, Sean Penn, Andy García and many others. She’s currently doing the costumes for the Netflix’s international series Narcos. For Mariestela costume is an important tool that helps the actor’s process and telling the story.
For her part, we thank Anna Roth for her more than four decades working in cinema. If any Hollywood production in the last 30 years was filmed in Mexico, Anna was very likely involved. Either scouting locations, working as a production manager, assistant director, producer or even actress, she’s always on the lookout for her next adventure along with the most renowned directors in Mexico and Hollywood.
Anna began her career in cinema as if by accident and after spending a summer working on a set in the jungles of Veracruz, she fell in love with filmmaking and never turned back. Her first credit as a producer came in the year 2000 for Juan Carlos De Llaca’s Por la Libre. Other credits include Luis Mandoki’s Voces Inocentes, working as an Executive Producer, and Las Paredes Hablan of Antonio Zavala Kugler, among others. She even has four acting credits which include Luis Alcoriza’s Mecánica Nacional (1972).
Her Hollywood work as production manager includes films like John McTiernan’s Predator (1987), starring Arnold Schwarzenegger; Tony Scott’s Man on Fire (2004), starring Denzel Washington; Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto (2006), and the film that for 12 years was the highest grossing film of all time: James Cameron’s Titanic. This film that won a total of 11 Academy Awards earned Anna Roth a plaque from the Director’s Guild of America, and a mention from producer Jon Landau when the film won Best Picture at the Oscars. She was recently a line producer in Mexico for the controversial Netflix series Sense8, created by the Wachowski sisters.
Congratulations to Mariestela Fernández and Anna Roth for your extraordinary careers, for the creativity and talent of all women who open doors for future generations can be recognized and that are granted the MUSA every year during the Guanajuato International Film Festival.