Centripetal Returns to the Screen at Shorts & Beats - Venezuela, Miami Short Film Festival
There is a particular joy in watching a film you made years ago find a new room, a new audience, a new night to live in. On Saturday, September 26th, 2026, my short film Centripetal (Centrípeta) will screen again — this time as part of Shorts & Beats - Venezuela, an evening organized by the Miami Short Film Festival at the historic Deering Estate Museum in Miami.
Centripetal premiered back in 2011, and it went on to have a festival life I am still grateful for. Shot on 35mm, it remains one of the best-funded shorts in Venezuelan history — a film I've always thought of as a bridge in my own path, spanning the celluloid and digital worlds. It traveled from Venezuela to China, from Chile to Germany, from Spain to the United States. Among the recognitions it collected, one still stands out to me, Winner. Audience's Choice Award. 14th Shanghai International Film Festival. China 2011 — an A-class festival accredited by FIAPF.
Returning to this film also means returning to the people who made it. Centrípeta carries the extraordinary performances of Sandy Siquier — the love of my life, and my creative partner in every project — alongside two remarkable actors, Jesús Sosa and Rafael Marrero. Jesús, a gifted Venezuelan actor who passed away in 2021, left something of himself on this film, and every time it plays, he is present again. Rafael, who continues his career in Madrid, brought a presence and intensity to his role that still holds the screen today. I also want to thank Juan Bernardo González, the film's executive producer, for believing in this project. Films like this one don't exist without someone willing to trust a vision before it has proven itself. Juan Bernardo did, and I've never forgotten it.
The evening itself is a celebration of Venezuelan culture in every sense: a cocktail reception, a program of six short films from Venezuela, and a live concert by Susana Behar & Friends, all inside the Deering Estate's theater. Centripetal screens in the company of remarkable work by fellow Venezuelan filmmakers, and I'm honored to share the program with them. To all of them — thank you for the films, and for keeping this cinema alive.
I want to give special thanks to William Vela, Director and Founder of the Miami Short Film Festival, for building and sustaining a platform like this one. Programming an entire night dedicated to Venezuelan cinema, music, and food is not a small act. For those of us who carry this country in our work, it matters more than I can easily put into words.
The truth is that making and showing Venezuelan films right now is not simple. Our circumstances — political, economic, human — have scattered our filmmakers across the world and made creating, preserving, and screening our stories harder than it should ever be. And yet the films keep getting made. The stories keep finding their way out. Every screening like this one is a small refusal to let that culture fall silent, and every room that receives these films says the same thing: Venezuela is still here, still telling its stories, still worth listening to. That, underneath everything, is what this night means to me — memory, identity, and resistance.
If you're in Miami on September 26th, come. Sit with these films. Let them speak to you.
You can read more about Centripetal here: https://www.alexmendezginer.com/projects/centripetal
More soon.
