TomasFdzVertiz

TOMÁS FERNÁNDEZ VÉRTIZ

SELECTED WORKS — FILM

Tomás Fernández Vértiz is a filmmaker and photographer from Mexico City. Trained at Goldsmiths, University of London, his work moves between Mexico, Spain and the UK, drawn to places and the people who inhabit them. Working across documentary film and photography, his projects attend to landscape, memory and the quiet traces people leave behind.

Some pages carry sound — it starts on its own; the speaker in the left corner mutes it. This first page starts quiet: tap the speaker to try it.

“El Sentir de las Montañas” (The Feel of the Mountains) is a work made with members of the Latin American community in London. The film is divided in 3 chapters, through which we meet different people. Trying to understand more about some of the different situations that Latin American people have experienced or are experiencing in London, the film is an exploration of arrival, community and healing. Through the work we hear the story of an arrest, we meet a volleyball playing community and take a look at an alternative therapy. Winner of the Warden's Art Prize (Goldsmiths, University of London). Screened at Waking Life Festival: Moon Cinema 2023 (Portugal) and at the London Migration Film Festival 2022, Catford Mews, with a director Q&A.

The first chapter opens with a series of London landscapes before settling into Jorge's kitchen. While he prepares a meal, he tells us about his experience of arriving in the United Kingdom from Mexico.

Chapter 1: Jorge

The second chapter follows an Ecuadorian community that gathers to play Ecuavolley, their own national version of the sport — creating community through sport, but also asking what makes one part of a new community, and how time shapes a sense of belonging in the face of melancholia.

Chapter 2: Ecuavolley

The third chapter stays with Claudia, who arrived from Colombia. Through her practice of alternative therapies, the film observes care as a way of healing. The conversations with Claudia look at migration within the context of dealing with pain and dwelling.

Chapter 3: Claudia

El Sentir de las Montañas — poster design, Andrea Alexa Cavallo

DOS NOCHES Y TRES DÍAS

Two-channel documentary · 20 min · 2021 · Chinampas, Mexico

A two-channel documentary filmed in Chinampas, a community in central Mexico from which several of its members have had to migrate to the United States. The film observes the relationship between the community and the nature that surrounds it — always in the presence of a wind farm — and asks where the future of communities affected by poverty lies, in a context defined by environmental progress, violence and corruption. Presented at APT Gallery and Fitzrovia Gallery (London), the London Migration Film Festival (2021) and Waking Life Festival: Moon Cinema (Portugal, 2022).

With barely any dialogue, the film follows members of the Chinampas community in their daily tasks — a music class, women baking bread, cowboys fixing gear and herding bulls. The film aims to show that quiet observation can sometimes say more than words.

Always in the presence of Palo Alto — a wind farm of 43 turbines that towers over the village — the film contrasts the promise of environmental progress with what the industry actually brings to the community: few opportunities for the locals, and none of the electricity for the town itself.

The lack of opportunities and the increasing violence in the region have led many members of the community to migrate to the United States in search of a better life; some have left and returned several times. The film simply contemplates them, as they too wait.

BAJO EL MISMO SOL

Documentary · In post-production · Galicia, Spain · Director / Editor

An observational documentary filmed in rural Galicia, Spain. Shot across its fields, houses, traditions and festivals — the film weaves everything it gathers into a single imagined day, from first light to nightfall. Currently in post-production, edited as a proof-of-concept for a feature-length film.

Among the traditions the film gathers is the Entroido — Galicia's ancient carnival. To the beat of drums, handmade masks take over the village in a rite passed down for generations, one of the oldest celebrations still alive in rural Spain.

The entroido mask, Galicia, Spain

Bajo El Mismo Sol, Galicia, Spain

Inland Galicia still lives close to the land. Corn dries through the winter in stone hórreos, vegetable gardens feed each household, and the work of the day follows the rhythm of the seasons. Each winter brings the matanza: families raise their own pig through the year, and its meat feeds the house through the cold months — a farming culture passed down through generations, which the film observes in its smallest everyday gestures.

These hills were inhabited long before the villages of today. Scattered across inland Galicia lie the ruins of circular stone settlements raised by Celtic peoples more than two thousand years ago, before the Romans ever reached this corner of the peninsula. Their walls still trace the shape of that first life on the land the film moves through.

Bajo El Mismo Sol, Galicia, Spain

The entroido parade, Galicia, Spain

The film's narrative is woven from the stories the region tells itself. Ancient ones — the meigas, the Santa Compaña wandering the night — sit beside more recent memories of the dictatorship, and beside the present: a changing climate and a farming world quietly disappearing. Old and new, they are all told under the same sun.

TEASER

LONDON MIGRATION FILM FESTIVAL

Official festival trailers · 2021–2025 · London · Director / Editor

Official trailers for the London Migration Film Festival, directed and edited every year since 2021 — five editions of giving the festival its moving image.

London Migration Film Festival, 2021

London Migration Film Festival, 2022

London Migration Film Festival, 2024

London Migration Film Festival, 2025

CICLO DE CINE «HECHO A MANO»

Film cycle · 2024 · Tierra y Tiempo Gallery, Madrid · Programmer / Editor

A film cycle devoted to craft and the handmade: programming the sessions, editing the promotional pieces and presenting the screenings at Tierra y Tiempo gallery in Madrid.

NEW BALANCE — TOLUCA AWAY KIT

Commercial · 2026 · Toluca, Mexico · Director / Photographer

Director's cut. Directed the film and shot the campaign stills for the away-kit launch.

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