Visiones Latinas: Filmfest München 2011 (selection + wonderful piece of writing)

A transvestite who works as a prostitute and a professor for gender studies devotes her free time to writing historical romances. A Hare-Krishna disciple, who, after his day job at a call center, turns into a screaming soccer fan. Two protagonists in the debut film of Brazilian Sérgio Borges. Given such bizarre characters one might be tempted to accuse this young filmmaker of having a wild imagination. But nothing could be further from reality. All of the characters really exist. They play themselves and take this theatrical film to the outer limits of documentary films. And to the perimeters of the metaphysical. The title is O CÉU SOBRE OS OMBROS (THE SKY ABOVE – literally, The Sky On Their Shoulders). What remains unclear is just who the title refers to: the protagonists and their burdensome search for identity and transcendence – or the cinema itself, as an allegory of Atlas attempting to

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.

Cinema Tropical Awards Tonight at the IFC Center

 

Three of Argentinian Director Lucrecia Martel's films will be honored as part of Cinema Tropical AWARDS presentation today in New York. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

“Latin American cinema has reinvented itself once again” said Carlos Gutierrez, co-founding director of Cinema Tropical. Throughout the last ten years, Latin American filmmakers have established themselves as ambitious and clearly discernable voices in the cinematographic landscape.
This was the reason, according to Gutierrez, for bringing to life the first ever Cinema Tropical AWARDS that will be presented today at the TimesCenter in New York City. The presentation will honor ten distinguished film productions from the region.
Gutiérrez believes this is truly an exciting moment for Latin American cinema. An extensive list of young filmmakers has emerged from and gained international acclaim for their diverse, artistic, and innovative work. New York based Cinema Tropical—an established purveyor of Latin American cinema—hopes this cutting edge event will have international impact and will help draw even more attention to the creative output from Latin America.
This October, Cinema Tropical has organized a series of events celebrating Latin American cinema that kicked off last week with an insightful panel discussion with Chilean director Sebastián Silva (The Maid). It also includes the publication of a book of essays about the nominated films, a product of a special partnership between Cinema Tropical and Jorge Pinto Books.
The highlight of the ten-day program will be tonight’s AWARDS ceremony, with Triple nominated Lucrecia Martel from Argentina and Mexican director Carlos Reygadas to attend.

BFI London Film Festival: A World Away From the Mundane Mainstream

With so few features from outside of the United States and Europe securing a theatrical release in this country, it is vital that festivals continue to showcase pictures from Latin America, Asia and Africa. No British event is as committed to world cinema as the BFI London Film Festival and the 54th selection is typically diverse and distinguished.
From Quebec to Patagonia, the contribution from the Americas is particularly strong this year, with Xavier Dolan’s Heartbeats confirming the good impression that he made at the tender age of 21 with How I Killed My Mother (2009). Indeed, he also takes the lead in this Montreal variation on François Truffaut’s Jules et Jim (1961), as he competes with gal pal Monia Chokri for the affections of new-in-town Niels Schneider. Seething with catty lines and camply hip visuals that owe as much to Wong Kar-wai, François Ozon and Christophe Honoré as the nouvelle vague, this achingly stylish paean to unrequited lust peppers the action with vox pops to emphasise its dramatic points. However, it’s the fond rivalry between Dolan and Chokri (that eventually brings them to blows during a stay in the

Dallas’ Vistas Latino Film Festival Announces 2010 Line-Up: Watch Trailer!!!

 

Dallas Latino Film Festival

Dallas’ Vistas Latino Film Festival is celebrating its eleventh annual appearance with a great line up of Latin American films and visits from several of the minds and faces behind them.  Vistas runs from October 28th through the 31st and showcases some of the best recent Latino film of recent years.  The Mexican omnibus film, Revolucion opens the festival on October 28th at the Angelika Film Center at Mockingbird Station.  This is Revolucion’s US debut and stars Jaime Camil, Blanca Soto, Alejandra Barros, Liz Gallardo, Adal Ramones, Alejandra Ambrosi, Pedro Armendariz, Jr., Jeannine Derbez, Gustavo Sanchez-Parra, Humberto Busto, Erik del Castillo, and Maria Soleno will be in attendance, it should be a fun night!  Twitch readers will probably recognize Seres: Genesis among the films being screened this year.  The film opened a couple of weeks ago in Mexico and is getting good notices, this could be a new landmark in Latin American Sci-fi, which has not been a big seller south of the border historically.  Passes for the festival are available and very affordable.  Follow the link at the bottom for more information.  I’ll try to keep you guys updated with more info about the features and hopefully some advance reviews to whet your appetites!  Watch this space!

NY Nonprofit Celebrates Golden Age of Latin American Film

 

City of God

The words “blockbuster,” “Oscar,” and “sold out” don’t always enter into the genre of foreign film. But they did in Latin American movie-making in the last decade. Two films starring Mexican heart throb Gael García Bernal—the 2000 thriller Amores Perros and the 2001 romp about a romantic road trip, Y Tu Mamá También—raked in millions in their first weeks on the screen. City of God, the 2002 Brazilian film from directorial duo Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund, received four Academy Award nominations and had a later life as a TV show. Guillermo del Toro’s El laberinto del fauno (Pan’s Labyrinth), which looks at Spanish fascism through a magic realism lense, got three Oscars for his film in 2007.

Latin America Presente at Chicago International Film Fest

One of North America’s oldest film events will once again take over the AMC River East theaters for its annual celebration of the best and brightest in World Cinema: a staggering 122 feature films, seven short film showcases, seven panels and three tributes to actor Forest Whitaker, filmmaker and novelist Guillermo Del Toro and producer Paula Wagner.
Some of the festival’s highlights have already made the rounds of the most important film festivals and will soon land at a multiplex or indie house near you: Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan,” John Wells’ “The Company Men,” Julie Taymor’s “The Tempest,” and Stephen Frears’ “Tamara Drewe,” for example. Other films, like the ones showcased in the “Cinema of the Americas” program, may never reach our theaters.
Latin America is represented by 14 films from Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Cuba and a co-production between Costa Rica and

AFI Latin American Film Fest Opens with “Revolution;” Closes in and with “October”

An image from Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas's "Linha de Passe."

AFI has announced their complete lineup for the 2010 AFI Latin American Film Festival in Silver Spring, MD.
The fest will open on September 21 with “Revolution,” a shorts compilation commissioned by Gael García Bernal, Diego Luna and Pablo Cruz, featuring some of Mexico’s leading contemporary directors (among them, Fernando Eimbcke, Carlos Reygadas, Rodrigo Garcia, Bernal, and Luna) exploring themes and stories inspired by the Mexican Revolution, in honor of its 100th anniversary.
The festival will close on October 13 with “October,” Daniel and Diego Vega Vidal’s film that won the Jury Prize in the 2010 Canne Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard section.  “October” follows Clemente, a moneylender, who enters his office to find a baby girl in a basket.  He must search among the prostitutes he frequents to find the baby’s mother, as his neighbor looks after the baby and his office. 

Cine Mexicano in Vancouver

Cine Mexicano in Vancouver – February 2010

A major retrospective of classic and contemporary cinema to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Mexican independence and the 100th anniversary of the Mexican Revolution

Presented in conjunction with the Consulate General of Mexico and the Vancouver Latin American Film Festival.