Puerto Rico Is Left Out of the Oscars

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences decided to deny registration for the Puerto Rican film América directed by Sonia Fritz in the Foreign Language Category on the basis that Puerto Rico is part of the United States of America. According to an Academy official last year was the final year for a Puerto Rican submission in this category, "it is true that we have accepted entries from Puerto Rico in the past, but this is no longer the case" was that the official wrote to the producers of the film. Since 1985 Puerto Rico had submitted 11 films for consideration in the Foreign Language Category nabbing an Academy Award nomination in 1989 for Santiago Morales' film Lo que le pasó a Santiago / Santiago, the Story of his New Life. In response to the film's denial for registration, the producer Frances Lausell has launched an online campaign to collect signatures.

Global Film Initiative Awards Four Latin American Projects

The US based non-profit The Global Film Initiative announced the ten winners of their Summer 2011 granting cycle which included four Latin American projects in total, two as production grant winners and two other as Honorable Mention grant recipients. The Latin American production grant winners are the Guatemalan/Chilean co-production Faith / Fe (pictured) by Alejo Crisóstomo and the Mexican omnibus film The Room / La habitación comprised by eight stories directed by Jorge Pérez Solano, Iyari Wertta, Carlos Bolado, Patricia Arriaga, Alfonso Pineda Ulloa, Alejandro Valle and Iván Ávila Dueñas and Celso García, these two productions were awarded grants of $10,000 each. Additionally the Honorable Mention grant recipients were the Mexican production I Dream in Another Language / Sueño en otro idioma by Ernesto Contreras and the Chilean film Mother's Milk / Leche materna by Sebastián Silva, both films received a cash-grant of $1,000 each. The awarded projects were selected from a group of 98 applications from 44 different countries.