UN CUENTO CHINO Wins Premios Sur in Argentina

The film Un cuento chino / A Chinese Tale by Sebastián Borensztein won the top prize as Best Film in the 6th annual edition of the Premios Sur given by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences of Argentina (Academia de las Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas de la Argentina) at a ceremony tonight in Buenos Aires. The film won a total of three awards including also the one for Best Actor for Ricardo Darín. The Western Aballay by Fernando Spiner which is Argentina's submission to the Oscars, won eight awards total including the prize for Best Director, whilst Sebastián Mitre's El estudiante / The Student took home four awards for Best First Film, for Best Screenplay, Breakthrough Actor and Breakthrough Actress.

LAS MALAS INTENCIONES Named Best Peruvian Film of 2011

The Peruvian Motion Picture Press Association (Asociación Peruana de Prensa Cinematográfica, Apreci) selected Rosario García-Montero's film Las malas intenciones / Bad Intentions (pictured) as the Best Peruvian Film of the Year. The association made its selection from a list of eight films that had their local theatrical release plus an additional 20 films made in digital format that also premiered in 2011.

García-Montero's debut feature had its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival last February and went on to win the prize as Best Latin American Film at the Mar del Plata Film Festival, as well as to win the Special Jury Prize at the Viña del Mar and the Gramado Film Festivals. The film is currently playing in New York as part of the "Iberoamérican Images" film series running through December 15 at The Museum of Modern Art.

Mexican Film EL INFIERNO Wins Havana Film Festival

Mexican film El infierno / Hell (pictured) by Luis Estrada won the Primer Premio Coral as Best Feature Film at the 33rd annual edition of the Havana Film Festival in Cuba that comes to an end today. The jury gave the second prize (Segundo Premio Coral) to Karim Aïnouz's O abismo prateado / The Silver Cliff from Brazil, whilst the award for Best Director went to José Padilha for Tropa de elite 2, O inimigo agora é outro / Elite Squad 2 / The Enemy Within. In the documentary category, the prize for Best Film was awarded to Alejandra Sánchez Orozco's Agnus Dei, cordero de dios / Agnus Dei, Lamb of God; and in the Best First Film category, the top prize went to the Guatemalan film Distancia by Sergio Ramírez.

Films from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico Selected for Global Lens 2012

San Francisco-based Global Film Initiative announced the lineup for its annual Global Lens series that will premiere at The Museum of Modern Art in New York City January 12-28, 2012. Four out of the ten films that comprise the ninth edition of Global Lens are from Latin America: Paula Markovitch's El premio / The Prize (Mexico/Argentina, 2011, pictured); Sergio Teubal's El dedo / The Finger (Argentina, 2011); Gustavo Pizzi's Riscado / Craft (Brazil, 2011); and Carlos Osuna's Gordo, calvo y bajito / Fat, Bald, Short Man (Colombia, 2011). After its run at MoMA, the series will embark on a yearlong tour around fifty cities around the U.S. and Canada, and it will simultaneously be released throughout the year on Virgin America airlines and available for online preview by industry professionals at Festival Scope.

Mexican Court Stops DVD Distribution of PRESUMED GUILTY

A Mexican federal court ordered few days ago the halt of the DVD distribution of blockbuster documentary Presunto culpable / Presumed Guilty (pictured) as part of an ongoing trial of appeal. As it was reported by some Mexican newspapers, the filmmakers' lawyer confirmed last Friday the fact that the court ordered Distrimax to refrain from distributing the DVD, which was released last July. It was not clear thought the impact that the order would have on the DVDs that were already for sale at stores throughout the country.

The film directed by Roberto Hernández and Geoffrey Smith went to become the highest-grossing Mexican documentary film when it was released in theaters last spring. The release got an additional boost at the box-office after a federal court ordered the temporary suspension of the film from the theaters based on a legal claim.

Buñuel's Unknown American Short Film

The Spanish newspaper El País made public last Sunday an unknown 8-minute film by noted Spanish-Mexican auteur Luis Buñuel which was made in the U.S. in the early 1940s, when he lived in New York City. The short film, which the newspaper credits its source to Filmoteca Española, features some domestic scenes with his family and friends, and was shot on Buñuel's apartment on East 83rd Street in Manhattan, on Central Park, and in a country house in Maine (which according to the newspaper might have belonged to Alexander Calder, a friend of the filmmaker).

The film features Buñuel's small children and his wife Jeanne, as well as his Spanish friends Juan Negrín and Rosita Díaz Gimeno. Whilst in New York, Buñuel worked at The Department of Film of The Museum of Modern Art, where he mostly supervised and edited documentaries for Latin America, commissioned by the Committee on Inter-American Affairs, headed by Nelson Rockefeller.

This same week, the house where Buñuel lived with his family in Mexico City from 1952 until his death in 1983, was opened as Casa Buñuel, a cultural space dedicated to the filmmaker. The new cultural venue was inaugurated with a special exhibit titled "Viridiana.50", celebrating the 50th anniversary of the premiere of the controversial film and displays among other objects the Palm d'Or that the film won at the Cannes Film Festival in 1961. Mexican actress Silvia Pinal, who played the main role in the film and worked with the director in other films was in attendance to the opening of Casa Buñuel.

NOSTALGIA FOR THE LIGHT Tops IDA Awards as Best Feature

Patricio Guzmán's Nostalgia de la luz / Nostalgia for the Light was awarded the prize for Best Feature at the 27th edition of the IDA Documentary Awards that were handed out this evening at a ceremony at the DGA Theatre in West Hollywood in Los Angeles. The Chilean documentary was competing against the Mexican documentary The Tiniest Place by Tatiana Huezo, as well as documentary films Better this World; How to Die in Oregon; and The Redemption of General Butt Naked. As it was announced last night, Guzmán's film was awarded the prize for Best Documentary Film of the Year at the 2011 Cinema Tropical Awards.