Chilean film “Gloria” cheered at Berlin festival

There were cheers for Chilean drama “Gloria” at the Berlin film festival on Sunday, partly out of relief as the annual cinema showcase finally got its first hit after a series of critical misses.
The touching story of a middle aged woman’s quest for love and adventure in modern-day Santiago drew comparisons to Woody Allen for the intimacy of the relationships and to Meryl Streep for the arresting performance of actress Paulina Garcia.
Garcia plays Gloria, a bespectacled 58-year-old divorcee whose children have left home and who goes out to singles night discos, where she dances and flirts and refuses to retreat quietly into the old age.
There she meets Rodolfo, a charming but complex former naval officer in his 60s, who sweeps her off her feet in a whirlwind romance that Gloria believes may turn into something permanent.
As they try to forge a lasting bond, their past lives constantly intrude, in what critics saw as a metaphor for Chile as it emerges from the dictatorship under Augusto Pinochet.

2013 Sundance Film Festival Announces Films 2013 (list of Latin American Films)

Sundance Institute announced today the films selected for the U.S. and World Cinema Dramatic and Documentary Competitions and the out-of-competition NEXT <=> section of the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, January 17-27 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah.
Robert Redford, President & Founder of Sundance Institute said, “Every great film starts with an idea, and it is a testament to artists that they continually find new ideas, new stories, new points of view and new ways of sharing them, year after year. We look forward to hearing from these artists not just through their words and images onscreen but also through the larger dialogue they create with audiences at our Festival and beyond.”

Baja International Film Festival Announces Awards

FILM AWARDS

Best Mexican Feature
Los Mejores Temas, directed by Nicolás Pereda. Drifting from fiction to documentary, Los Mejores Temas tells the story of Emilio, a man in his fifties, who shows up at his family home after fifteen years of absence.

Best International Feature
No, directed by Pablo Larrain. Revolving around Chile’s 1988 referendum on the Pinochet regime, this brilliant behind-the-scenes drama tracks with

Latin American Films playing at the ‪@BFI‬ London Film Festival (Chile full list)

No
Director Pablo Larraín
Producer Juan de Dios Larraín, Daniel Dreifuss
Screenwriter Pedro Peirano
With Gael García Bernal, Alfredo Castro, Luis Gnecco
Chile-USA-Mexico 2012
118 mins

A brash, smooth-talking advertising executive is appointed by the opposing coalition to spearhead the ‘no’ campaign in the Chilean 1988 referendum.
For trailer, times and tickets click here.

3 Latino Films selected: International Film Rotterdam announces final line-up for the Tiger Awards Competitions (full list)

Fifteen films have been selected for IFFR’s Tiger Awards Competition 2012. The complete lineup, comprising first or second feature films concurring for three equal Hivos Tiger Awards of each 15,000 euro, includes eight world premieres. Five competing films have received support from Rotterdam’s Hubert Bals Fund. The Rotterdam Tiger Awards Competition for Short Films 2012 comprises twenty-one films, ranging in length from five to fifty-six minutes. Nine short films in competition will see their world premieres in Rotterdam.

Jury Tiger Awards Competition 2012

IndieWire’s The Playlist selects “No” (Pablo Larrain) and “Post Tenebras Lux” (Carlos Reygadas) as one of the Most Anticipated Foreign-Language Films Of 2012

Forget the multiplex, what’s going to be heating up the arthouse this year? 2011 saw some fantastic foreign flicks not only crowding top ten lists (“Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall Past Lives,” “A Separation,” “Le Havre,” etc) but even some like the ode-to-silent-cinema “The Artist” entering serious Oscar chit chat. Nearly every weekend, smaller arthouses showcased exciting alternatives to the general empty-headed nonsense that fills the bigger arenas when it’s not October, November, and December. If you had the eyesight for subtitles and were willing to take a chance, there was a remedy for every

Stop Motion – Chilean movie brings the real Robinson Crusoe to life

One of the most dramatic tales to come out of Chile is the story of Alexander Selkirk, a swashbuckling Scottish sailor who was abandoned on an uninhabited island in the Juan Fernández Archipelago in the early 18th century.
Left stranded for four years, Selkirk’s story provided the inspiration for Daniel Defoe‘s literary classic, Robinson Crusoe.
And now it has been transformed into a South American children’s movie: Selkirk, El Verdadero Robinson Crusoe (Selkirk: The Real Robinson Crusoe).

Film of the week: ”Joven y alocada” (Young & Wild) by Marialy Rivas (Making off video)

For this “Film of the Week” section Latin America Film presents  ”Joven y alocada’‘. A chilean film by director Marialy Rivas who after “Cinema under construction” at the last San Sebastian Film Festival has been recently selected for the Sundance Film Festival (World Cinema Dramatic Competition) and the International Film Festival Berlin.
The film tells the story of Daniela, a petite, pretty teenager raised in the bosom of a strict and well-to-do

Chilean Film on Violeta Parra to Compete for the Oscar

The film “Violeta went to Heaven,” by Andres Wood, will be the Chilean applicant for a quota of nominees for the Oscars in the category of Best Foreign Language Film .
Starring by Francisca Gavilan and inspired by the life of the Chilean singer Violeta Parra, the film will have among its rival bids from several Latin American cinema, like the Mexican film Miss Bala, by Gerardo Naranjo and produced by famous actors Diego Luna and Gael García.
“Violet went to heaven” was chosen by a committee of some 40 local experts, including producers, writers, directors, actors, audiovisual technicians, cultural sector officials and musicians.

According to Chilean actress Catalina Saavedra, award-winning star of The Nanny, “Violeta went to heaven” presents a significant technical level and plot and has the figure of Violeta Parra, who is universally beloved.

Source: Inside Costa Rica

Film of the week: “The Year Of The Tiger” by Sebastian Lelio (Trailer)

An existential metaphor whose philosophical implications may reach way beyond the realm or the capacity of cinema to deal with, this is yet another grim and forbidding look at human condition, Latin-American style.
The film screened in competition at Locarno.
This is first and foremost an allegory, not to be taken literally but inviting the viewer to seek the messages