Monika Wagenberg Is Named New Director of Cartagena Film Festival

The Board of Directors of the Cartagena Film Festival, the longest-running film festival in Latin America (FICCI), recently announced that Monika Wagenberg has been names as the new director the festival. Besides being a Co-Founding Director of Cinema Tropical, Monika has worked as senior IberoAmerican programmer at the Miami International Film Festival, as festival director of the Latin Wave Festival in Houston and the Latin American delegate for the Zurich Film Festival.

Created in 1960, the next edition of the Colombian festival will take place February 24 to March 3, 2011. My hope is that the festival becomes the international launching platform that our flourishing industry needs right now", said Wagenberg.

Latino Public Broadcasting Announces 2010 Public Media Content Fund Recipients

Latino Public Broadcasting, a non-profit organization funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting dedicated to support the development, production, post-production, acquisition and distribution of non-commercial educational and cultural television that is representative of Latino people, or addresses issues of particular interest to Latino Americans, announced this week the recipients of the 2010 Public Media Content Fund.

In total 20 programs were selected for funding among them the project El Jardín (pictured) by Natalia Almada (Al Otro Lado and El General); The Arizona Project by Carlos Sandoval and Catherine Tambini; and Precious Knowledge by Eren Isabel McGinnis and Ari Luis Palos. "We are proud to support such a wide range of important topics, from gay teens in Los Angeles, to the struggles over the curriculum and immigrant rights in Arizona, the historial significance of Cesar Chavez and the cultural legacy of Puerto Ricans and Cubans", said Patricia Boero, Executive Director of Latino Public Broadcasting. For the conplete list of funding recipients visit LPB's website.

Successful Screening of BEYOND IPANEMA at the Walter Reade Theater

After a successful international tour in more than 50 films around the world, that garnered prizes such as Best Film at the Brazilian Film Festival of Vancouver and Best Documentary at the Brazilian Film Festival of Miami, the acclaimed music documentary Beyond Ipanema: Brazilian Waves in Global Music by filmmakers Guto Barra and Béco Dranoff had a special screening to a full house at the Walter Reade Theater at the Lincoln Center campus last Tuesday.

Hailed by the Huffington Post as "a brilliant overview of the incursion of Brazilian music worldwide" Beyond Ipanema had its world premiere at the "Premiere Brazil" Film Festival at the Museum of Modern Art in the summer of 2009 and since then it has been screened in prominent venues such as the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in Boston, Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. Beyond Ipanema surveys the Brazilian music experience outside of Brazil, through interviews with David Byrne, Devendra Banhart, M.I.A., Os Mutantes, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Tom Zé, Seu Jorge, Thievery Corporation, Bebel Gilberto, CSS, Creed Taylor and many others.

The New York screening, sponsored by the local Consulate General of Brazil and co-presented by Cinema Tropical, was followed by a Q&A session with the filmmakers and special guests Dana Monteiro head of the Frederick Douglass Academy's Harlem Samba program, and Joel Oliveira from the Tropicália in Furs store, both of whom are featured in the film.

Pictured (from left to right): Dana Monteiro, Béco Dranoff, Joel Oliveira, Guto Barra, and Cinema Tropical's Carlos A. Gutiérrez. Photo by Evangeline Kim.