Manuel Bayo Gisbert
Directing
Biography
Born in Mexico City in 1997, Manuel Bayo Gisbert is a photographer and filmmaker working between journalism and art, focusing on systemic violence and its relationship with the history of Mexico. After surviving kidnapping and torture in 2020, he began documenting grave human rights violations in Mexico through collaborative and intimate processes. His ongoing project A Solid Home explores enforced disappearance and state terrorism in Mexico through still and moving images. In 2025, he was a finalist for the National Magazine Award for Best Overall Photography for his New York Times op-ed “Looking for the Missing People of Mexico.” His projects have also been adapted into several New York Times op-eds. His work has been exhibited internationally, including a solo exhibition at the Rayburn House Office Building of the United States Congress in Washington, D.C. (2024), organized by Amnesty International, Global Exchange, and the National Security Archive. ECOS, his first major exhibition in Mexico, showcased his work alongside pieces by Graciela Iturbide and Musuk Nolte. He recently completed post-production of his first documentary film, "I Remember."
Known For
This documentary weaves together two stories of disappearance: that of Atzin Molina, my high school friend who vanished in 2019, and that of Atzin, the Totonac rain deity, believed lost or dead amid the oil-driven devastation of Veracruz, Mexico. Through these two figures who share a name—one human, the other divine—the film traces a landscape of absence, where grief, ecological violence, and spiritual erosion become inseparable.
I Remember
An experimental short film exploring the sexuality of a young woman
Kintsukuroi or where the trees are born
"This short film was made by printing video stills with a photocopier. I started making it in the last months of 2019, but after my interests and the way I produce work changed drastically in 2020, I no longer had the motivation to finish it. It remains as a snapshot of what could have been."
Untitled, Unfinished
Feature-length documentary about the processes of violence, state terrorism, and enforced disappearance that have taken place in Mexico from 1965 to the present day.
A Solid Home
A love song.