Garcia Bernal honoured at Locarno film festival

Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal has become one of the youngest stars to receive Locarno Film Festival’s Excellence Award, at just 33.
He was in Switzerland to accept the career prize ahead of a screening of his new film No.
Garcia Bernal found international fame after playing a young Che Guevara in Walter Salles’ 2004 road-movie The Motorcycle Diaries.

Rotterdam’s CineMart Selects 33 projects for 2011, 4 from Latin America

CineMart, the International Film Festival Rotterdam’s (IFFR) co-production market has made their picks for the crop of projects that will be presented to over 800 possible co-financiers from January 30 – February 2, 2011 in Rotterdam. The 33 selected projects were waded from 434 submitted entries, and include projects from renowned filmmakers such as Jan Švankmajer, Carlos Reygadas, Alex van Warmerdam, Andrei Zvyagintsev and Sergei Loznitza, as well as feature film debuts, films by competition filmmakers from preceding IFFR editions, and films that received Hubert Bals Fund contributions.

Today at the Atlanta 25th Annual Latin American Film Festival

 

Those who remainThose Who Remain

October 27, 2010, 8 p.m.
An intimate film about the impact of migration on families and villages left behind by loved ones who have traveled north for work, ”Those Who Remain“ is punctuated by wonderful music and was made with a lively, fresh approach to its subject. The film won Best Documentary for directors Juan Carlos Rulfo and Carlos Hagerman at the Guadalajara and Los Angeles Film Festivals. (Mexico, 2008, 96 minutes.)

The best of The trinidad & Tobago Film Festival (TTFF)

Moloch Tropical

Whether you are new toThe trinidad & Tobago Film Festival (TTFF) or have become a regular, here is what you need to know to get the most from your festival experience. Panels will comprise local and international experienced and accomplished industry specialists and filmmakers.
The People’s Choice award
The public will get the opportunity to choose the winners of three awards—Best Short Film, Best Dramatic Feature and Best Documentary Film. This year all the awards carry cash prizes. Members of the public are asked to also fill in answers to the simple questions at the back of the People’s Choice award forms so that the organisers of the festival could become more familiar with their audience.
FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS
African Cinema
Last year the TTFF started a heritage focus initiative with the screening of a selection of films from India. This year the initiative will continue with a number of films from Africa. Indigenous African cinema has mushroomed in recent years.
The festival will be showing a number of films from the Zanzibar International Film Festival,

Film of the week: Paraiso/Paradise

Paraiso/Paradise (Peru, 2009)
Starring Yiliana Chong, Gabriela Tello and Joaquín Ventura
Directed by Hector Galvez
In the dry, dusty slums just outside of Lima, Peru, five friends attempt to make a future for themselves after the murder of one of their own by a rival gang. Their options, the military, university or a job with a traveling circus, all come with an obstacle that’s difficult to overcome.
Although the story could be anybody’s story in any town’s slum, Galvez introduces the audience to the harsh reality of the Peruvian condition, and how its poorer residents have dealt with the aftermath of terrorist invasions that plague the region. Galvez has the viewers focus on a twisted tree that grows in the midst of the arid terrain where these kids live; an obvious metaphor for the kids themselves. “How can it still grow?” asks one of the friends. How, indeed.
I can’t say that I was moved by the film or the performances, but the saving grace was that

Finest Latino Films

Optical Illusions will be one of the movies showing at the Sydney Latin American Film Festival

The Sydney Latin American Film Festival will be bringing its exciting program of award-winning films to the Casula Powerhouse this week.
From tomorrow through to Sunday, audiences can catch some of the best movies Latin America and the Caribbean have to offer.
Kicking off proceedings will be the Havana Club opening night fiesta, where special guest, Chilean producer Andres Waissbluth, will present his comedy Optical Illusions (ilusiones opticas), and be on hand to take questions afterwards.
Liverpool Mayor Wendy Waller said audiences can expect

Premiere Brazil! 2010 – Brazil Film Festival – Moma NY – Today: Lula, Son of Brazil -

Lula, o filho do Brasil (Lula, Son of Brazil)
2009. Brazil.
Directed by Fabio Barreto. With Gloria Pires, Rui Ricardo Diaz, Cleo Pires.
This emotionally involving, fictionalized biopic about Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, widely known as “Lula,” focuses on his poor childhood in the interior of Pernambuco, and especially on the integrity and commitment of his mother, played by the incomparable Pires. Archival newsreel footage cleverly enhances the recounting of Lula’s formative years as a union organizer.
In Portuguese; English subtitles. 130 min.

Thursday, July 29, 2010, 8:00 p.m. , Theater 1, T1

“Te extraño” Fabián Hofman in cinemas from 9 August – Trailer

In the 1970s, under a brutal military dictatorship, thousands of Argentineans were “disappeared” by the violent hand of the political regime. A disproportionate number of Jews were among the victims,

Premiere Brazil! 2010 – Brazil Film Festival – Moma NY – Today: The Tenants -

A ilha (The Island)
2009. Brazil.
Directed by Alê Camargo.
In Portuguese; English subtitles. 9 min.

Os inquilinos (The Tenants)
2009. Brazil.
Directed by Sergio Bianchi. With Fernando Alves Pinto, Zezeh Barbosa, Caio Blat.
Bianchi’s richly detailed excavation of society’s fear of and fascination with violence—from television’s constant stream of near pornographic mayhem to venomous suspicion between neighbors, petty feuds within married couples, and quarreling among children—is an indictment of the lowest human impulses.

In Portuguese; English subtitles. 103 min.

Saturday, July 24, 2010, 8:00 p.m. , Theater 1, T1

Rushes Soho Shorts: Join the Industry Events (22 to 29 July)

Rushes Soho Shorts (21 – 31 July), one of the key short film festivals in the UK, returns for a 12th year with a programme of screenings and special events, most of them free.
Last year the festival saw 4,000 attendees and incorporated the Long Form and International categories to its already mighty list of awards. This year, a total of 170 films from 23 countries are in competition, a line-up that once more combines newcomers and rising talent, alongside