PAIFF, the Puerto Aventuras International Film Festival, is an international film festival celebrating independent cinema from around the world in the Riviera Maya.

PAIFF takes place in Puerto Aventuras, Quintana Roo, Mexico, with screenings and events held at select festival venues throughout the community. The venues may vary each year (season) as the festival continues to grow.

PAIFF is held annually at the beginning of Spring, usually in March. Festival dates, screening times, and venue details are announced on the official website each season.

PAIFF’s judging committee includes nearly 20 industry voices, including core staff, festival professionals, past PAIFF winners, local film enthusiasts, and select members of the international film community. For the sake of transparency, we've published a blog about our process: Inside Our Selection Criteria: How PAIFF Evaluates Films and Builds Its ProgramYou may also apply to be on our jury of programming screeners here.

The toucan is native to the Maya lowlands and holds a fascinating place in surviving Maya oral tradition. Among the Lacandon Maya, it appears in creation stories shaped by language, wordplay, and interpretation. Birds more broadly are often understood as communicative beings whose calls can carry messages, warnings, memory, and meaning, moving between the earthly world, the sky, and the supernatural realm.For PAIFF, that symbolism feels especially fitting. Film also exists between worlds, transforming memory, imagination, language, and experience into something vibrant that can be shared. The toucan becomes a voice of the landscape we call home, carrying stories across cultures and borders, from the Riviera Maya outward to audiences around the world.In that sense, the toucan has become our storyteller and, if you will, our guide. It represents the voice that invites us to listen, to follow a story into unfamiliar territory, and to see the world through someone else’s eyes. It encourages us to share our stories, inspires us to discover those of others, and embodies the spirit of connection at the heart of PAIFF.