A curated monthly dose of lifestyle, culture, and rhythm from San Miguel de Allende.
In a jewel-box theater in San Miguel, Ojo Cine Club gathers strangers around the big screen. Two films, one theme, and a post-screening mezcal turn cinema into conversation and community.
It’s a Thursday night in San Miguel de Allende. The Parroquia glows outside, tourists shuffle along cobblestones, but inside the theatre, the lights fade. The velvet seats creak as a few dozen people settle in. The screen flickers to life, and for two hours this tiny jewel box of a theater becomes something else entirely: a portal, a gathering, a ritual.
When the credits roll, the crowd spills back into the streets. Instead of drifting home, they walk together toward a bar. Someone orders mezcal, someone else laughs nervously, and suddenly the film isn’t over, it’s alive in conversation. This is Ojo Cine Club, the city’s independent cinema collective, equal parts screening room, salon, and social experiment.
Founder Pancho Muñoz, a filmmaker born and raised downtown, started Ojo in September 2024 because he was lonely for other cinephiles. “I wanted to be part of a community that didn’t really have an excuse to meet regularly,” he says. “So I figured that running a film club would let me watch interesting movies on the big screen and meet new friends.”
Six people showed up to that first screening. A year later, it’s closer to 20 or 30. Small, yes, but steady, and in San Miguel, that’s the perfect scale.
Ojo is not a “greatest hits” club. Each month carries a theme like a hidden map, guiding two films into dialogue.
In April, the theme was Neo Folklore: A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Iranian vampire noir) and The Lure (Polish mermaid fever dream). On paper, monsters. In practice, mid-2010s dispatches about women reclaiming power through myth, just as #MeToo was cracking the culture open.
“Films can show us how culture doesn’t happen in a vacuum,” Pancho explains. “That’s what I look for, when two movies together reveal something bigger than themselves.”
Think of it less as programming and more as cultural archeology, with cinema as the spade.
Every film screens in its original language with Spanish subtitles, a deliberate choice in a city where expats often set the terms. “There are already plenty of spaces to watch films with English subtitles,” Pancho says. “I wanted to create an experience that considers the local community first.” If the film is in Spanish, English subtitles are added. Inclusion, but on San Miguel’s terms.
And then there’s Charla y Chela (talk and beer). After the second monthly screening, the group gathers at a bar to unpack what they’ve seen. No gatekeeping, no jargon, just people untangling plot twists, sharing trivia, and finding connections that veer from uncanny to cosmic.
Like the night two women, strangers until then, simultaneously linked the film Historia de lo Oculto to Mariana Enríquez’s novel Things We Lost in the Fire. They turned to each other, realized they shared the same name, the same hometown, even the same degree in architecture. A conspiracy movie giving way to a coincidence, then to friendship.
San Miguel doesn’t lack creative legacy. Mariachi bands animate the Jardín. Artists have been colonizing its studios since the 1940s. The Guanajuato International Film Festival (GIFF), which began in 1998, shaped generations of local cinephiles.
Ojo slots into this lineage like a new instrument added to a familiar song. GIFF is the grand annual festival; Ojo is the heartbeat in between.
“Activities like these are meaningful because they allow people to connect outside of the tourism-centric framework. Watching films in a theater with other people can be its own kind of powerful experience. This is my way of contributing to taking ownership of our town.”
In an era when streaming has made moviegoing optional, Ojo feels radical precisely because it insists on presence. Roger Ebert once called movies “the most powerful empathy machine in all the arts.” Ojo is what happens when that machine is plugged directly into San Miguel’s community.
Don’t expect Marvel marathons. “I’m not interested in films that do not have authorship,” Pancho says. That doesn’t mean he won’t screen mainstream work, Parasite or The Shining fit the bill, but every frame has to feel intentional, crafted, worth talking about over another round.
His own touchstones say a lot: The Shining, Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Perfect Blue, and the gloriously deranged The Devils by Ken Russell.
On the New York Times “Top 100 Movies of the Last 100 Years,” he’s blunt: Parasite deserves its #1 spot, but two Wes Anderson films and only one Miyazaki? “Not including Princess Mononoke is just silly.”
September marks Ojo’s first anniversary, and Pancho is celebrating with two personal obsessions: The Shining and Perfect Blue, twin spirals of characters losing their grip on reality. October will lean into vampires and desire. November will be curated by a member. December will be kid-friendly.
Longer term? More films per month, maybe pop-up screenings in unconventional spaces, maybe even a festival.
For now, the recipe holds: a room, a screen, a crowd, and the sense that cinema here isn’t just consumed, but lived.
Ojo Cine Club screens twice a month. No membership required, just follow @ojocineclub for upcoming screenings, watch, and join the charla after. Bring a friend or better yet, leave with one.
We're Savant, San Miguel de Allende’s new online lifestyle and culture magazine. Created for curious travelers, locals, and design and food lovers alike, Savant offers curated stories and an authentic look into the people, places, and passions that shape this iconic town. More than a publication, it’s a cultural community, and your invitation to experience San Miguel like never before.
A curated monthly dose of lifestyle, culture, and rhythm from San Miguel.
