THE BATTLE OF CHILE DVD release

Great news for cinephiles! Our friends at Icarus Films have announced that Patricio Guzmán's classic and epic documentary The Battle of Chile will be available for the first time on DVD in North America on December 8th. The three-part film (Part I: The Insurrection of the Burgeoisie; part II: The Coup d'Etat and part III: The Power of the People) will be release on a special-edition four-disc DVD which will also include Guzmán's Chile Obstinate Memory. The DVD will be available through Icarus Films or through any of the traditional outlets (Netflix, Amazon, etc.) Check out this interview with Patricio Guzmán.

NORA'S WILL Wins Best Film Prize at Mar del Plata

Mexican film Nora's Will (Cinco días sin nora) won the Astor de Oro for Best Film at the 24th edition of the Mar del Plata Film Festival in Argentina. The film which has garnered some other prized in the film festival circuit was recently shown in New York at the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Latinbeat film series. The first film by director Mariana Chenillo still does not have U.S. distribution. Watch the trailer (in Spanish).

Natalia Almada Receives an IDA Award

The International Documentary Association announced its nominees for the 2009 IDA Documentary Awards and announced that Mexican documentary filmmaker Natalia Almada is the recipient of the 2009 Jacqueline Donnet Emerging Documentary Filmmaker Award. Natalia is the director of the documentary feature films Al Otro Lado (To the Other Side) and El General, winner of Sundance Film Festival US Directing Award: Documentary. Cinema Tropical is very happy that Natalia's work has been deservedly recognized, and hope this opens the door for the work of other documentary filmmakers doing great work in Latin America.

Sebastián Silva vs. Miguel Littin

A controversy has recently arisen in Chile regarding the country's official submission to the Academy Awards. To many came a surprise that the South American country selected Miguel Littín's Dawson Isla 10 over Sebastián Silva's The Maid (La Nana), which won two prizes at this year's Sundance Film Festival and has been recently nominated to two Gotham Independent Film Awards. Littin is a veteran of Chilean cinema perhaps better known for his classic film El Chacal de Nahueltoro and has been nominated twice to an Academy Award, in 1975 for Letters from Marusia and in 1982 for Alsino and the Condor. Leaving artistic merits on the side, it seems one has to be totally pragmatic when considering selections for the Oscars. Read Silva's accountof the controversy and Littin's (both links in Spanish).