CineFestival, the nation’s longest-running Latino film festival, will soon celebrate its 46th edition with nearly 100 films in San Antonio.

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Hosted by the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, the festival runs from July 9-13 spanning four venues and featuring 95 films, including 33 made in San Antonio and 38 produced in or about Texas. Of those, 16 shorts are nominated for the Mesquite Award for Best Texas Short Film.

The lineup also includes a broad range of national and international work — from documentaries and narratives to experimental shorts — offering a mix of student projects, youth-created films and nationally recognized features such as “Selena y Los Dinos,” “Take It Away” and “Uvalde Mom.”

The Selena documentary will be screened on both July 12 and 13 at the Jo Long Theatre at the Carver Cultural Community Center, 226 N. Hackberry St.

These headlining documentaries mark a standout year for the festival — not only for artistic merit but also for deep ties to Texas and Tejano culture.

“These three documentaries are very important in their own right and for their own reasons,” said Eugenio del Bosque, CineFestival’s program director. “They have big distribution opportunities but they still chose to be shown here in San Antonio. That’s meaningful.”

While the festival headliners have drawn national attention, del Bosque said the heart of CineFestival lies in its short film programming — a space where emerging filmmakers often take their first creative risks.

“We concentrate a lot on short films because that’s the basis of filmmaking. That’s also what people are able to do,” del Bosque said. “It’s independent filmmakers who are trying to find their voice or create the work that they need to develop a career.”

To support these filmmakers at various stages of their creative development, CineFestival takes an open-minded approach to curation.

“We try to cast a wide net and make a difference on their path,” del Bosque said. “Not everyone fits, and we do have to make difficult decisions, but we know that some of these filmmakers will come back later with bigger films — and CineFestival will have been part of that journey.”

That focus on early-career support is especially meaningful for Latino filmmakers, who continue to face pressure to tell their stories through a mainstream lens. Del Bosque said many artists remain committed to stories rooted in identity and place, even if that means working outside commercial expectations.

“There are a lot of very genuine voices that aren’t interested in diluting their stories,” he said. “They’re just trying to tell their stories in a much more raw fashion.”

One film del Bosque said he’s particularly excited to share with audiences is “Mad Bills to Pay(or Destiny, dile que no soy malo)” — a Dominican American feature that premiered at Sundance and has drawn acclaim on the festival circuit.

“It’s extremely well-crafted and speaks to younger audiences,” he said. “It’s set in the Bronx, but you could easily imagine it happening in Southtown or the West Side — it resonates here.”

Screenings at the Little Carver Civic Center and Say Sí are free with reservation, while tickets for other venues range from $10 to $15 per person. All-access festival passes are available for $50.

The full schedule and ticket information can be found at guadalupeculturalarts.org/cine-festival.

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