Follow us now at www.cinematropical.com
April 24, 2012
April 4, 2012
Global Film Initiative Awards Peruvian and Venezuelan Projects
Chicama is the story of César, who dreams of living in cosmopolitan Trujillo, but a lack of available teaching posts there takes him to a bucolic Andean village, where he unwittingly falls for his charming students and a captivating colleague. El Regreso tell the story of a young Wayuu girl narrowly escapes the massacre of her beach-dwelling community at Bahia Portete and then attempts to rebuild her life in urban Maracaibo, where she befriends a Castilian girl and learns to overcome differences in language and culture.
The Global Film Initiative is a U.S.-based international arts organization specializing in cultural diplomacy, education and literacy through film. Established in 2002, it has awarded numerous grants to filmmakers in emerging nations around the world, and promoted community arts and education through distribution and exhibition of its signature world cinema series, Global Lens.
March 31, 2012
LOS ÚLTIMOS CRISTEROS Tops Toulouse Latin American Film Fest
The Turkish-Nicaraguan co-production film Una vida sin palabras / A Life Without Words by Adam Isenberg took the top prize as Best Documentary, whilst Andrés Wood's Violeta se fue a los cielos / Violeta Went To Heaven from Chile took home the Audience Award. Additionally, on the Cinema en Construction section for films in development, the main prize went to the Colombian project La Sirga by William Andrés Vega.
For a list of all the awards click here.
March 29, 2012
Chilean Film POST MORTEM by Pablo Larraín Opens April 11 at NYC's Film Forum
A companion film to Larraín's critically acclaimed Tony Manero (2008), Post Mortem is a macabre, comic drama that begins during the onset of the bloody 1973 Chilean military coup that overthrew democratically elected President Salvador Allende.
Alfredo Castro (who starred as the disco-obsessed, white-suited title character in Tony Manero) is a dour coroner's assistant who, while obsessively wooing an erotic dancer at the Bim Bam Bum cabaret, is caught up in a historic, cataclysmic event. His ordinarily dull job is now under military command. As anonymous bodies chaotically pile up in the hallway of the morgue, he is given the task of performing an autopsy on a key government figure.
Once again, Lorraín invests his characters with metaphoric undertones, suffusing Santiago with rich period detail and a surreal visual texture that evokes the nightmarish landscape it was rapidly becoming. Post Mortem premiered at the 2010 Venice Film Festival and was featured at the New York Film Festival.
March 27, 2012
POV Celebrates 25 Years with Strong Mexican and Latino Component
POV (Point of View), the celebrated PBS award-winning documentary series has announced its lineup celebrating its 25th annual season which will air from June 21-October 18. The celebration will have a strong Latino component with five feature films and a short film, three of them featuring Mexican stories.
The Latin American documentary contingent that will be featured include the Mexican feature films Reportero by Bernardo Ruiz; El Velador / The Night Watchman by Natalia Almada (pictured); and Presunto culpable / Presumed Guilty by Roberto Hernández, Layda Negrete, and Geoffrey Smith. The lineup also includes the acclaimed Chilean film Nostalgia de la luz / Nostalgia for the Light by Patricio Guzmán; and two American productions focused on Guatemala: the feature film Granito: How to Nail a Dictactor by Peter Kinoy, Pamela Yates and Paco de Onís; and the short film Sin país / Without Country by Theo Rigby.
Launched in 1988 to showcase new and challenging point-of-view documentaries on PBS, POV has grown to become American television's longest-running series dedicated to contemporary nonfiction programming. POV films have won virtually every major film and broadcasting honor, including Academy Awards®, Emmys® and Peabodys.
March 26, 2012
LOS ÚLTIMOS CRISTEROS and CUATES DE AUSTRALIA Winners of the Riviera Maya Film Fest Launching
In parallel to the official selection in the Mexican competitions, awards were given in the RivieraLAB for projects in development. Three projects were selected to receive a cash prize of $200,000 Mexican pesos (about $16,000 USD) for development: Tormentero / Stormmaker by Rubén Imaz (Mexico); Réimon by Rodrigo Moreno (Argentina); and Nueva España de new project by Raya Martin (Philippines). Additionally in the Work in Progress section, the Uruguayan project Tanta agua by filmmakers Ana Guevara and Leticia Jorge Romero won the main prize for postproduction, whilst the Brazilian project Material de composición by Pedro Aspahan received a Special Mention.
After its first edition, the Riviera Maya Film Festival promises to become an important showcase for Mexican cinema as well as a solid platform for international films.
March 22, 2012
Paraguayan Director Renate Costa: "I Cannot Longer Talk to Part of my Family Because of my Film"
By Lorena Ramírez-López
Last night, the Paraguayan documentary 108 / Cuchillo de Palo by Renate Costa was screened once again in New York City at the Exit Art gallery in midtown Manhattan, featuring a Skype conversation with the filmmaker afterwards. Costa pays homage to her late uncle, Héctor Rodolfo Costa Torres, as she investigates and reconstructs his life.
Matthew Freundlich, programmer of the ‘Digimovies’ series at Exit Art moderated the conversation with the filmmaker, which had a surprise guest as the director's father Pedro Costa (no relation to the famed Portuguese director), who is featured in the documentary, stopped by the conversation to answer few questions. In the Q&A Costa mentioned that it was very difficult making the film: “There’s a section of my family I can no longer talk to because of it. It is not easy, but there’s an acceptance because it’s a human film”, she said.
Her father commented how this documentary has allowed his relationship with his daughter to grow, and how it helped relate them to each other and their friends. It allowed many people from not only the family, but also the neighborhood to remember and relate to the event. Renate Costa gave a sneak peek to her new short film project, Resistance about a mystic premiering in July. Her focus on the human portrayal is humble and inspiring as it gives a new platform for Paraguayan cinema to stand on.
Picture: the Skype conversation with Paraguayan director Renate Costa last night at Exit Art. Picture by Lorena Ramírez-López.
March 20, 2012
Latino Films at Hot Docs 2012
Hot Docs, Canadian International Documentary Festival has announced its lineup for its 2012 edition running April 26-May 6 in Toronto, Canada, and the festival includes nine film from Latin America and/or with Latin American themes.
The official lineup includes Colombianos, a Swedish film by director Tora Mårtens that tells the story of two vastly different Colombian brothers who were raised in Stockholm. One has returned to Colombia to study medicine, the other is still in Sweden, partying with his friends. Eventually, one brother convinces the other to come and live with him in Colombia to hopefully get him on the right track; Cuates de Australia / Drought by Mexican director Everardo González, a cinema verite portrait of families living communally owned land in Northeast Mexico; El Huaso (pictured) by director Carlo Guillermo Proto whose father moves back to Chile from Toronto to fulfill his childhood dream of becoming a Chilean cowboy.
The other Latino films in the selection are Abuelas / Grandmothers by director Afarin Eghbal, the testimonies of four of the grandmothers of Argentina's Plaza de Mayo; Inocente by directors Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine that recounts the story of a 15-year old girl who has grown up homeless on the streets of San Diego and uses her art and amazing creative ability as an outlet for empowerment; Laura (pictured) by Brazilian director Fellipe Gamarano Barbosa that tells the story of a South American socialite not quite making it in New York, yet desperate to keep up her persona.
And rounding up the lineup are Thomas Riedelsheimer's Garden of Sea, a visually stunning documentary that follows Spanish artist Cristina Iglesias as she creates an underwater installation in Mexico’s beautiful Sea of Cortez; Wildness by Wu Tsang about the historic Silver Platter Bar in Los Angeles, a staple in the Latino-LGBT community since 1963; the short film The Relationship Doctrine of Don Blanquito by Roger Nyard about a Rio-based rapper and his rants on sex and love; and Con mi corazón en Yambo / With My Heart in Yambo by Ecuadorian director Maria Fernanda Restrepo who goes back in time to follow the painful personal story of the disappearance of her brothers at the hands of the Ecuadorian police.
March 19, 2012
Mexican Films EL INFIERNO and THE TINIEST PLACE Win San Diego Latino
Estrada's feature won the prize for Best Narrative Feature whilst Huezo's film won as Best Documentary Feature. Alysa Nahmias and Ben Murray's Unfinished Spaces about Cuba's National Art Schools received a Special Jury Prize in the Documentary category, whilst Colombian film Pequeñas voces / Little Voices by Jairo Carrillo won the prize for Best Animated Feature. The Audience Award went to the Argentinean film Un cuento chino / Chinese Take-Away by Sebastián Borensztein.
Judge Orders Shelving of PRESUMED GUILTY DVDs in Mexico
Judge Blanca Lobo ordered the recall of all of the DVDs that were for sale in Mexico (an estimated 20,000 according to the film's distributor Videomax) while waiting for the pronouncement of the Office of Radio, Television and Film of the Ministry of the Interior (Dirección General de Radio, Televisión y Cinematográfia de la Secretaría de Gobernación), in regards to whether the the documentary violent or not the right to privacy of Víctor Daniel Reyes. He was the witness that accused the film's protagonist Antonio Zúñiga for killing his cousin, a crime that Zuñiga never committed. Last year, when the film was released in theaters in Mexico, he filed a lawsuit claiming he never authorized the use of his image for the documentary.
Filmmakers Layda Negrete and Roberto Hernández announced today that they will contest the order as they claim they are not violating Reyes' privacy rights because the recording was done as part of a public hearing. The film was released on DVD in Mexico last July.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)