The nation’s original and longest-running Latino film festival returns in the summer of 2025 with the 46th edition of CineFestival San Antonio. Presented by the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, San Antonio’s annual celebration of independent Latino cinema will take place July 10-13, 2025, continuing its programming focus on Chicano, Latinx and Native American cinema, with an emphasis on Texas and San Antonio related films. The festival will be accepting films which were finalized after January of 2024.

“To reach this 46th year of CineFestival at this time is an important landmark for me. I look forward to continuing to work with artists, audiences and supporters to create a space where our Latinx and Chicanx stories flourish and find ways to grow” said CineFestival Director Eugenio del Bosque.

CineFestival is honored to be able to continue serving a growing community of local, regional, and national film and media artists of all levels of experience. The spirit of the festival is to foster the work of San Antonio and Texas-based filmmakers as their voices mature, while keeping our finger on the pulse of what nationwide filmmakers are producing and offering international context.

In 2025, CineFestival will bestow its traditional Mesquite Award to the best short films made in Texas. To learn more about the call for entries, including program sections, fees, and to submit a film, visit: https://filmfreeway.com/CineFestivalSanAntonio

CineFestival San Antonio traditionally hosts screenings, Q&A sessions, panels, workshops, receptions, and after parties. Featured programs include the Mesquite Award nominees for Best Texas Short Film, Texas and San Antonio showcases, and a small selection of US Latinx and international feature and short films. Master classes and panels are designed for established filmmakers to share artistic insight and industry knowledge with attending filmmakers.

Almost 50% of the festival events are free and open to the public. Free community events include Family Day, a Youth Film showcase including work made by artists 18 years old or younger, a matinee Senior Cinema screening for the area’s elderly film lovers, and Cine en el Barrio.

In 2025, CineFestival and the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center are honored to receive a National Endowment for the Arts Grant for Arts Projects (GAP), which provides expansive funding opportunities to strengthen the nation’s arts and cultural ecosystem, including opportunities for public engagement with the arts and arts education, for the integration of the arts with strategies promoting the health and well-being of people and communities, and for the improvement of overall capacity and capabilities within the arts sector.
Important Dates: (CHANGE YEAR TO 2025)

1/22/2024 – Open Call for Entries

2/21/2024 – Early Bird Deadline

4/15/2024 – Regular Deadline

5/5/2024 – Late Deadline

7/10/2024 to 7/13/2024 – 46th CineFestival San Antonio

For over four decades, CineFestival San Antonio has hosted dozens of independent filmmakers and many of the industry’s pioneering U.S. Latino and Mexican films, actors, and directors. Highlights from past editions include appearances by Marcela Arteaga, Gina Rodriguez, Guillermo del Toro, Edward James Olmos, Benjamin Bratt, Jesse Borrego, Esai Morales, Aurora Guerrero, Raúl Castillo, Luis Valdez, Lalo Alcaraz, Cruz Angeles, Hector Galan, Adán Medrano, and some of the fresh voices in Latino film including Fernando Frias de la Parra, Cristina Ibarra, Alex Rivera, Chelsea Rendon, Steve Acevedo, Gian Cassini, Marcella Ochoa, and Iliana Sosa among many others.

Since 2017, CineFestival San Antonio has developed a strong focus on local and regional filmmaking, prioritizing films that are closely related to Texas and San Antonio, supporting regional filmmakers who are based in neighboring states, and including works made by Latinx and indigenous filmmakers working in the US and Puerto Rico. The festival includes a limited number of international works made by filmmakers from Latin America and Spain with an emphasis on Mexican films.

For more information about CineFestival San Antonio go to https://guadalupeculturalarts.org/cine-festival

The Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center was founded in 1980 as a nonprofit, multi-disciplinary organization. Located in the heart of San Antonio’s westside, the Guadalupe is one of the largest community-based organizations in the US with the mission to cultivate, promote and preserve traditional and contemporary Chicano, Latino and Native American arts and culture through multidisciplinary programming.