Mexican Director Ernesto Contreras Receives New Sundance Award

Mexican filmmaker Ernesto Contreras (pictured) was one of the four winners in the inaugural year of the Sundance Institute | Mahindra Global Filmmaking Award, created in recognition and support of emerging independent filmmakers from around the world. Contreras who has directed the films Párpados azules / Blue Lids and the Café Tacuba documentary Seguir Siendo was awarded for his new fiction project Sueño en otro idioma / I Dream in Another Language. The other  Bogdan Mustafa (Romania), Seng Tat Liew (Malaysia) and Talya Lavie (Israel). Each of the four winning filmmakers will receive a cash award of $1,000, attendance at the Sundance Film Festival for industry and creative meetings, mentoring from the Sundance Institute, participation i n the Feature Film Program Lab and ongoing project support. 

...and the British-Brazilian Film WASTE LAND Gets an Oscar Nod for Best Documentary

This morning it was also announced that the British-Brazilian film Waste Land / Lixo extraordinário directed by Lucy Walker and co-directed by Karen Harley and João Jardim, was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Documentary. The film, a co-production between Almega Projects (UK) and O2 Filmes (Brazil) that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last year, follows Brazilian artist Vik Muniz on a personal and artistic journey to a landfill in the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro.

BIUTIFUL Nominated for the Oscar

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences announced this morning the nominations for the Oscars and, as it was largely expected, the film Biutiful by Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu (pictured) was nominated as Best Foreign Language Film. The star of the film Javier Bardem also got nominated as Best Actor in a Leading Role. The film representing Mexico will be competing against Greece's Dogtooth, Denmark's In a Better World, Canada's Incendies, and Algeria's Hors la Loi. The 83rd edition of the Academy Awards will take place on Sunday, February 27th and Biutiful will open this Friday, January 28 in select theaters around the country.

Nicolás Pereda's EL VERANO DE GOLIATH Will Have its US Premiere at New Directors / New Films

El verano de Goliath / The Summer of Goliath (pictured), the most recent film by Mexican filmmaker Nicolás Pereda, will have its U.S. Premiere as part of this year's edition of the New Directors / New Films Festival organized by The Museum of Modern Art and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, it was announced today. Other five titles were confirmed as part of this year's selection of the festival that will be celebrating its 40th edition and that will take place March 23 - April 3 in New York City.  El verano de Goliath, blending fiction and documentary, tells the story of Teresa a woman that embarks on a mission to find out what happened after her husband's sudden departure.

Two Latin American Films Selected for the Berlinale's Official Competition

The Berlin International Film Festival announced today the official lineup for its 61st edition which includes the World premiere of two Latin American films: Paula Marcovitch's El premio / The Prize, a Mexican film in co-production with France, Poland and Germany and Rodrigo Moreno's Un mundo misterioso / A Mysterious World, a Argentine film in co-production with Germany and Uruguay. The Berlinale, which will take place February 10-20, has had a strong connection with Latin America, both Claudia Llosa's La teta asustada / The Milk of Sorrow from Peru and José Padilha's Tropa de elite / Elite Squad have won the Golden Bear for Best Film in the past few years.

Hefty Latin American Presence in this Year's Nominations to Spain's Goya Awards

The Spanish Academy of Film Arts and Sciences (Academia de las Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas de España) announced today the nominees for its annual Goya Awards which have an important Latin American component. The Mexican/Spanish co-production Biutiful by Alejandro González Iñárritu earned eight nominations to the Awards, none for Best Film or Director though; whilst the film Lope directed by Brazilian filmmaker Andrucha Waddington was nominated for seven awards mostly in the technical categories, including the nomination for Best Song for Que el soneto nos tome por sorpresa composed by Uruguayan musician Jorge Drexler.   

Additionally Iciar Bollaín's film También la lluvia / Even the Rain, shot in Bolivia and starring Gael García Bernal, was nominated for awards -none for the Mexican actor though. For Best Latin American Film, four films have been nominated: Contracorriente / Undertow by Javier Fuentes-León (Peru); El hombre de al lado / The Man Next Door by Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat (Argentina); El infierno / Hell by Luis Estrada; and La vida de los peces / The Life of Fish by Matías Bize. The awards ceremony for the Goya Awards will take place on Sunday, February 13 in Madrid, Spain.

BIUTIFUL and THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES Nominated for the BAFTA Awards

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts announced today that the Mexican-Spanish co-production Biutiful directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu and the Argentine film El secreto de sus ojos / The Secret in Their Eyes by Juan José Campanella have been nominated as Best Film Not in the English Language for the Orange British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA). The Latin American films will be competing in the same category against I am Love (Italy), The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo (Sweden) and Of Gods and Men (France). Campanella's film won the Oscar as Best Foreign Language Film last year, and Biutiful is up as a nominee for Best Foreign Film for the upcoming Golden Globe Awards. Alejandro González Iñárritu had been previously nominated for the BAFTA Award as Best Director in 2006 for Babel which was also nominated as Best Film. The BAFTA Awards ceremony will be held in London on Sunday, February 13th.

MoMA to Hold U.S. Theatrical Premiere of Uruguayan Film A USEFUL LIFE

The award-winning film La vida útil / A Useful Life, the second feature film by Federico Veiroj and Uruguay's official submission to the Academy Awards, will have it's U.S. Theatrical premiere at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, starting Thursday, January 13. The film, which had a successful World Premiere at the Toronto Film Festival last September and recently won the Best Film prize at the Havana Film Festival, will have an exclusive one-week theatrical release as part of the 'Global Lens 2011' series, the annual collaboration between MoMA and the Global Film Initiative (GFI).

The film stylishly framed in black & white, employs the story of Jorge (real-life Uruguayan critic Jorge Jellinek), an overworked employee at the Cinemateca Uruguaya, as a loving homage to the fading physical world —and enduring memory—of art house cinema. “The premiere represents years of work by Federico Veiroj, but also a true and living representation of all that our mission stands for and hopes to accomplish—we have supported a filmmaker from his origins to exhibition at one of the premier artistic institutions in the world” says Santhosh Daniel, GFI’s Director of Programs.

In addition to Veiroj's film, this year's 'Global Lens' lineup also includes two other Latin American films: the U.S. premiere of the Argentine film La mirada invisible / The Invisible Eye (2010) by Diego Lerman; and the Brazilian film Os inquilinos / The Tenants (2009) by Sérgio Bianchi.