The Guadalajara Film Festival is over one-quarter of a century old but isn’t able to do a face-lift

Amador

The Guadalajara Film Festival is over one-quarter of a century old, and the long-established platform for the annual launch of Mexico’s new films, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t able to do a face-lift.
From leadership to venues to even the website, there’s a new look to the festival. With the departure of fest topper Jorge Sanchez and program director Lucy Virgen, Guadalajara has turned to a pair of cinephiles with roots in the film archive world: Ivan Trujillo has taken the reins as exec director, while Gerardo Salcedo has assumed programming responsibilities. Trujillo, who completed a stint as Mexico’s cultural attaché in Cuba just before his appointment,

Pablo Larrain’s ‘Post Mortem’ Takes Top Prize at Cartagena Film Fest

 

Actor Alfredo Castro, actress Antonia Zegers and director Pablo Larrain attend the "Post Mortem" premiere during the 67th Venice Film Festival at the Sala Grande Palazzo Del Cinema on September 5, 2010 in Venice, Italy.

The Chile-set dark love story won the award for best film, and “La sociedad del semaforo” was voted best Colombian picture.
Chilean director Pablo Larrain‘s second feature Post Mortem won the best film award in the Cartagena Film Festival‘s fiction category. The film tells a dark love story between a lonely morgue clerk and a burlesque dancer set against the backdrop of 1973 Chile, during the days of the military coup that overthrew President Allende.
In that same slate, Peruvian filmmakers Daniel and Diego Vega won the best director award for Octubre while Natalia Smirnoff”s Berlinale entry Puzzle, from Argentina, won for best script. The best actress choice went to Claudia Celedon for American-Chilean production Gatos Viejos; the best actor was Gabino Rodriguez for Iria Gomez Concheiro‘s Asalto al cine (Mexico).
The jury for the Official Fiction Competition was formed by producer and Sundance programmer Caroline Libresco, Screen International editor Mike Goodridge, and Mexican filmmaker Arturo Ripstein. Other non official awards for fiction films in competition included the Cinecolor Audience Award to Carlos Cesar Arbelaez‘s Los colores de la montana, the fest’s opening night film.
In the 100% Colombia section the winner was Ruben Mendoza‘s La sociedad del semaforo. The jury — comprised of Geraldine Chaplin, Cuban author and screenwriter Senel Paz, and Fabio Zapata, a visual effects director at ILM Industrial Light & Magic and Sony Pictures Imageworks in California — also awarded special prizes to Antonio Dorado‘s Apaporis, en busca del rio and Carlos Moreno‘s Todos tus muertos.
A small Latin American festival hit, Federico Veiroj’s A Useful Life picked both the

Film of the week: “Post Mortem”

Chilean director Pablo Larrain’s last film, Tony Manero, followed an obsessive Saturday Night Fever fan/John Travolta impersonator, whose absurd passion for disco dancing turned to extreme violence and even murder – all against a backdrop of Pinochet’s repressive and equally murderous regime. It was disturbing, dark and satirical masterpiece of modern Latin American cinema. Its star, Alfredo Castro, was intense and quietly dangerous – seemingly born to play the sociopathic lead role.
Now, two years later, both the director and star have reunited for Post Mortem.
If Sofia Coppola is going to be accused of re-making the same film,

Ventana Sur sees good times ahead

Is there still a Latin American word for crisis? If so, it was hard to find it uttered at the panels, meetings or tango evenings at Buenos Aires’ second Ventana Sur market. While November’s American Film Market augured a contraction in the international indie film biz at large, a month later at Ventana Sur, a dedicated Latin American film mart organized by Cannes’ Marche and

Latest News: Havana Film Festival Awards

During 11 days of retracing their steps through the streets of Havana in search of the best selections — in the drizzle, cold or sun — Cuban movie buffs enjoyed a worldwide panorama on celluloid.
We found ourselves in solidarity with an unemployed Brazilian father of a desperate family (perhaps that solidarity was stronger than ever given the concreteness of the issue these days),