San Sebastian — Pablo Fendrik’s “Hermano Peligro,” Jayro Bustamante’s “La Llorona,” Matthias Huser’s “The Jungle” and Clara Roquet’s “Libertad” took one prize a piece at San Sebastian’s 7th Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum, which wrapped Wednesday night.
Meanwhile, “The Sharks,” the first feature of Uruguay’s Lucia Garibaldi, swept San Sebastian’s Films in Progress.
While awards in the past have sometimes gone to little-known projects, this year saw plaudits shared by four of the strongest projects at the market in terms of director reknown, prestige producer backing or even, in the case of “La Llorona,” a sales market deal.
Winner of the Co-production Forum Best Project Award, “Hermano Peligro,” for instance, comes from a director. Pablo Fendrik, whose first three films, “The Mugger,” “Blood Appears” and “Ardor” have all been selected for the Cannes Festival, before he went on to co-direct two of the most distinguished...
Meanwhile, “The Sharks,” the first feature of Uruguay’s Lucia Garibaldi, swept San Sebastian’s Films in Progress.
While awards in the past have sometimes gone to little-known projects, this year saw plaudits shared by four of the strongest projects at the market in terms of director reknown, prestige producer backing or even, in the case of “La Llorona,” a sales market deal.
Winner of the Co-production Forum Best Project Award, “Hermano Peligro,” for instance, comes from a director. Pablo Fendrik, whose first three films, “The Mugger,” “Blood Appears” and “Ardor” have all been selected for the Cannes Festival, before he went on to co-direct two of the most distinguished...
- 9/26/2018
- by John Hopewell and Jamie Lang
- Variety Film + TV
Production on the next X-Men movie, The New Mutants, is scheduled to begin in Boston next month, which means that the cast is still being finalized. We know that Anya Taylor-Joy, Maisie Williams, Charlie Heaton, Henry Zaga and Blu Hunt will star in the movie, which follows a group of young mutants as they learn how to control their superpowers while seeking to escape a secret facility. Last month we heard that Rosario Dawson was in talks to play Dr. Cecilia Reyes, a mentor for the teenage mutants. Now comes word that Dawson will not be joining the project. Instead, another quality actress is stepping in for her and will portray the good doctor. Alice Braga, star on both the big screen (I Am Legend; Predators; Ardor, above) and the small screen (TV's Queen of the...
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- 6/30/2017
- by Peter Martin
- Movies.com
With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit the interwebs. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.
A Pigeon Say On A Branch Reflecting on Existence (Roy Andersson)
The third installment in Roy Andersson’s trilogy looks and operates quite a bit like the two that precede it, thus making A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence an easy sell to the already-converted. But rather than preach to his choir, the Swedish helmer makes enough approaches to constitute an evolution, most notably in its remarkably grim,...
A Pigeon Say On A Branch Reflecting on Existence (Roy Andersson)
The third installment in Roy Andersson’s trilogy looks and operates quite a bit like the two that precede it, thus making A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence an easy sell to the already-converted. But rather than preach to his choir, the Swedish helmer makes enough approaches to constitute an evolution, most notably in its remarkably grim,...
- 10/9/2015
- by TFS Staff
- The Film Stage
Exclusive: Argentinean TV drama Cromo, playing in Toronto’s first TV strand, is being developed into a feature film after Pyramide International acquired the sales rights.
The eco-thriller, produced by Xxy filmmaker Lucía Puenzo, was originally produced as a 12-part series – three of which are showing at the Toronto International Film Festival (Sept 10-20) in its new Primetime strand.
But Puenzo and her brother Nicolás Puenzo are now in talks to adapt it into a feature film after securing a deal with the Paris-based production and distribution house, which will also sell the TV series to international broadcasters.
The drama, directed by Pablo Fendrik (El Ardor), is based on the real stories of a team of scientists that set out to expose environmental crimes in northern Argentina.
It stars Emilia Attia as idealistic scientist Valentina, who travels to the swamp town of Corrientes in northern Argentina to test the local water supply in a bid to expose...
The eco-thriller, produced by Xxy filmmaker Lucía Puenzo, was originally produced as a 12-part series – three of which are showing at the Toronto International Film Festival (Sept 10-20) in its new Primetime strand.
But Puenzo and her brother Nicolás Puenzo are now in talks to adapt it into a feature film after securing a deal with the Paris-based production and distribution house, which will also sell the TV series to international broadcasters.
The drama, directed by Pablo Fendrik (El Ardor), is based on the real stories of a team of scientists that set out to expose environmental crimes in northern Argentina.
It stars Emilia Attia as idealistic scientist Valentina, who travels to the swamp town of Corrientes in northern Argentina to test the local water supply in a bid to expose...
- 9/15/2015
- ScreenDaily
Argentine miniseries from the director of Wakolda screening at Toronto.
Pyramide International has picked up sales on Argentine Lucia Puenzo’s eco-thriller miniseries Cromo ahead of its world premiere in Toronto International Film Festival’s new TV strand Primetime tomorrow (Sept 11).
“We signed it last week after seeing the episodes which will be shown at Toronto. We thought it looked fabulous,” Pyramide chief Eric Lagesse told ScreenDaily.
Episodes one, two and eight will premiere in Tiff’s new Primetime section aimed at cutting-edge projects blurring the boundaries between film and TV.
It is the first time the Paris-based auteur film specialist Pyramide has handled sales on a TV series.
“The wall between cinema and TV is no longer as impermeable as it was in the past,” said Lagesse. “There is still a strong cinematic quality to the look and feel of the series.
“You can tell that it’s made by people with a cinema background who are...
Pyramide International has picked up sales on Argentine Lucia Puenzo’s eco-thriller miniseries Cromo ahead of its world premiere in Toronto International Film Festival’s new TV strand Primetime tomorrow (Sept 11).
“We signed it last week after seeing the episodes which will be shown at Toronto. We thought it looked fabulous,” Pyramide chief Eric Lagesse told ScreenDaily.
Episodes one, two and eight will premiere in Tiff’s new Primetime section aimed at cutting-edge projects blurring the boundaries between film and TV.
It is the first time the Paris-based auteur film specialist Pyramide has handled sales on a TV series.
“The wall between cinema and TV is no longer as impermeable as it was in the past,” said Lagesse. “There is still a strong cinematic quality to the look and feel of the series.
“You can tell that it’s made by people with a cinema background who are...
- 9/10/2015
- ScreenDaily
The rise in critical acclaim for television shows over the years has been well-documented, with a corresponding rise in interest among viewers to discuss and analyse television the way films are at festivals. While festivals dedicated to television shows, such as Atx and PaleyFest, are on the rise, film festivals still outweigh them.
For its 2015 incarnation, however, the Toronto International Film Festival will be doing something unique, beginning a programme dedicated to television. Titled the Primetime Programme, the section of the festival will conduct screenings and Q&A sessions just like the films that play at Tiff, focusing on specific episodes of shows instead. The lineup for the inagural Primetime programme has now been announced, and can be seen below.
Casual Season 1, Episodes 1 and 2, created by Zander Lehmann and directed by Jason Reitman, making its World Premiere
Festival favourite Jason Reitman (Juno, Up in the Air) directs this wonderfully endearing...
For its 2015 incarnation, however, the Toronto International Film Festival will be doing something unique, beginning a programme dedicated to television. Titled the Primetime Programme, the section of the festival will conduct screenings and Q&A sessions just like the films that play at Tiff, focusing on specific episodes of shows instead. The lineup for the inagural Primetime programme has now been announced, and can be seen below.
Casual Season 1, Episodes 1 and 2, created by Zander Lehmann and directed by Jason Reitman, making its World Premiere
Festival favourite Jason Reitman (Juno, Up in the Air) directs this wonderfully endearing...
- 8/14/2015
- by Deepayan Sengupta
- SoundOnSight
Toronto brass on Thursday paid homage to arguably the most dynamic and provocative content format in entertainment, announcing the festival’s inaugural slate of six TV projects from the likes of Baltasar Kormákur, Jason Reitman and Lucía Puenzo.
The selections highlight what Tiff director and CEO Piers Handling called a “cross-pollination” of the film and TV worlds from international storytellers, broadcasters and streaming services.
The six selections appear below. All are world premieres except The Returned, which is an international premiere.
Casual (Us), created by Zander Lehmann and directed by Jason Reitman.
Episodes 1 and 2 of the comedy from Hulu and Lionsgate that follows a dating site entrepreneur and his therapist sister who move in together after the latter’s recent divorce.
Starring Tommy Dewey, Michaela Watkins and Tara Lynne Barr.
Cromo (Argentina), created by Lucía Puenzo and Nicolás Puenzo.
Episodes 1, 2 and 8 of the eco-thriller from directors Lucía Puenzo (Xxy, Wakolda), Pablo Fendrik (Blood Appears, El Ardor) and Nicolás Puenzo...
The selections highlight what Tiff director and CEO Piers Handling called a “cross-pollination” of the film and TV worlds from international storytellers, broadcasters and streaming services.
The six selections appear below. All are world premieres except The Returned, which is an international premiere.
Casual (Us), created by Zander Lehmann and directed by Jason Reitman.
Episodes 1 and 2 of the comedy from Hulu and Lionsgate that follows a dating site entrepreneur and his therapist sister who move in together after the latter’s recent divorce.
Starring Tommy Dewey, Michaela Watkins and Tara Lynne Barr.
Cromo (Argentina), created by Lucía Puenzo and Nicolás Puenzo.
Episodes 1, 2 and 8 of the eco-thriller from directors Lucía Puenzo (Xxy, Wakolda), Pablo Fendrik (Blood Appears, El Ardor) and Nicolás Puenzo...
- 8/13/2015
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
Toronto brass on Thursday paid homage to arguably the most dynamic and provocative content format in entertainment, announcing the festival’s inaugural slate of six TV projects from the likes of Baltasar Kormákur, Jason Reitman and Lucía Puenzo.
The selections highlight what Tiff director and CEO Piers Handling called a “cross-pollination” of the film and TV worlds from international storytellers, broadcasters and streaming services.
The six selections appear below. All are world premieres except The Returned, which is an international premiere.
Casual (Us), created by Zander Lehmann and directed by Jason Reitman.
Episodes 1 and 2 of the comedy from Hulu and Lionsgate that follows a dating site entrepreneur and his therapist sister who move in together after the latter’s recent divorce.
Starring Tommy Dewey, Michaela Watkins and Tara Lynne Barr.
Cromo (Argentina), created by Lucía Puenzo and Nicolás Puenzo.
Episodes 1, 2 and 8 of the eco-thriller from directors Lucía Puenzo (Xxy, Wakolda), Pablo Fendrik (Blood Appears, El Ardor) and Nicolás Puenzo...
The selections highlight what Tiff director and CEO Piers Handling called a “cross-pollination” of the film and TV worlds from international storytellers, broadcasters and streaming services.
The six selections appear below. All are world premieres except The Returned, which is an international premiere.
Casual (Us), created by Zander Lehmann and directed by Jason Reitman.
Episodes 1 and 2 of the comedy from Hulu and Lionsgate that follows a dating site entrepreneur and his therapist sister who move in together after the latter’s recent divorce.
Starring Tommy Dewey, Michaela Watkins and Tara Lynne Barr.
Cromo (Argentina), created by Lucía Puenzo and Nicolás Puenzo.
Episodes 1, 2 and 8 of the eco-thriller from directors Lucía Puenzo (Xxy, Wakolda), Pablo Fendrik (Blood Appears, El Ardor) and Nicolás Puenzo...
- 8/13/2015
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
Arrow Films
To celebrate the release of The Burning, available now on Blu Ray and DVD, we are giving 3 lucky readers the chance to win a copy.
Honing the spirit of Sergio Leone and echoing shades of Rambo First Blood, Argentinean director Pablo Fendrik’s slow-building thriller is essential viewing for all fans of world cinema. Gael Garcia Bernal (Babel, The Motorcycle Diaries) joins forces with Alice Braga (I Am Legend, Elysium) in this tale of unfolding revenge.
Kai (Garcia Bernal), a mysterious and mystical figure, emerges from the Argentinean rainforest to rescue Vania (Braga), who has been kidnapped by mercenaries. Together they face off against the men who have ruthlessly murdered Vania’s father, a poor farmer, and taken over his land.
Part love story, part western, Fendrik turns this latter genre on its head as so-called civilisation becomes a destructive force over both the rich jungle setting and the communities living within it.
To celebrate the release of The Burning, available now on Blu Ray and DVD, we are giving 3 lucky readers the chance to win a copy.
Honing the spirit of Sergio Leone and echoing shades of Rambo First Blood, Argentinean director Pablo Fendrik’s slow-building thriller is essential viewing for all fans of world cinema. Gael Garcia Bernal (Babel, The Motorcycle Diaries) joins forces with Alice Braga (I Am Legend, Elysium) in this tale of unfolding revenge.
Kai (Garcia Bernal), a mysterious and mystical figure, emerges from the Argentinean rainforest to rescue Vania (Braga), who has been kidnapped by mercenaries. Together they face off against the men who have ruthlessly murdered Vania’s father, a poor farmer, and taken over his land.
Part love story, part western, Fendrik turns this latter genre on its head as so-called civilisation becomes a destructive force over both the rich jungle setting and the communities living within it.
- 8/11/2015
- by Laura Holmes
- Obsessed with Film
★★★★☆ A small farmstead is beset by a gang of ruthless mercenaries attempting to coerce the inhabitants from their land until a mysterious loner arrives to put an end to the injustice. Clearly modelled on a familiar western narrative, Pablo Fendrik's The Burning (2014) both embraces and playfully inverts the tropes that define its genre classification. The spirit of Leone or Ford may hang potently in the air, but it is the spirits of the Argentinian rainforest locale that preside over any narrative and thematic concerns. The characters aptly teeter on the edge of both physical and moral wilderness, but the landscape in question here is not the arid desert at all, but a dense, sweltering jungle.
- 8/11/2015
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
To mark the release of The Burning on 10th August, we’ve been given 3 copies to give away on Blu-ray. Honing the spirit of Sergio Leone and echoing shades of Rambo First Blood, Argentinean director Pablo Fendrik’s slow-building thriller is essential viewing for all fans of world cinema. Gael Garcia Bernal (Babel, The Motorcycle Diaries)
The post Win The Burning on Blu-ray appeared first on HeyUGuys.
The post Win The Burning on Blu-ray appeared first on HeyUGuys.
- 8/3/2015
- by Competitions
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Participant Media has officially confirmed that Pablo Larrain’s follow-up to No, currently shooting in Chile and starring Gael García Bernal, is the second title under its Participant PanAmerica initiative.
The film reunites Participant, Larrain and Bernal following their collaboration on No, which marked Participant’s first foray into foreign-language film and earned an Oscar nomination in 2013.
No inspired Participant to launch Participant PanAmerica in 2013 with three Latin American production powerhouses: Chile’s Fabula, Colombia’s Dynamo and Mexico’s Canana. The first film to emerge from the venture was Ardor, Pablo Fendrik’s Argentina-set Western that screened in Cannes 2014.
The 1940s-set Neruda (see first-look pictures) stars Chile’s Luis Gnecco in the title role as Chile’s dissident Nobel prize-winning poet and Bernal as the police inspector tasked with hunting him down. Mercedes Moran plays Neruda’s wife, Delia del Carril.
Chilean playwright Guillermo Calderon wrote Neruda, which is set up as an international co-production between...
The film reunites Participant, Larrain and Bernal following their collaboration on No, which marked Participant’s first foray into foreign-language film and earned an Oscar nomination in 2013.
No inspired Participant to launch Participant PanAmerica in 2013 with three Latin American production powerhouses: Chile’s Fabula, Colombia’s Dynamo and Mexico’s Canana. The first film to emerge from the venture was Ardor, Pablo Fendrik’s Argentina-set Western that screened in Cannes 2014.
The 1940s-set Neruda (see first-look pictures) stars Chile’s Luis Gnecco in the title role as Chile’s dissident Nobel prize-winning poet and Bernal as the police inspector tasked with hunting him down. Mercedes Moran plays Neruda’s wife, Delia del Carril.
Chilean playwright Guillermo Calderon wrote Neruda, which is set up as an international co-production between...
- 7/23/2015
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
Ardor may be an Argentinian thriller about wretched land-grabbers, but it’s hard to ignore the heavy “gunslinging West” influences scattered throughout filmmaker Pablo Fendrik’s eco-political PSA. Its structure is built on one single event, as Fendrik stretches out a family’s homeland defense story into an entire feature film (running at a questionable hour and forty minutes). Men are slain, shootouts are had, and blood is spilled in the name of property, but the film’s anti-stealing message is lost somewhere in a rogue warrior’s attempt to ward off menacing jungle criminals (in a less-efficient-Rambo kind of way). I’m sure that land-poaching is a huge problem in lawless thickets of foliage, but this is more about a slow-burn spectacle than it is environmental causes.
Gael García Bernal plays Kaí, a stranger who shows up at Vania’s (Alice Braga) residence shortly before a group of thugs...
Gael García Bernal plays Kaí, a stranger who shows up at Vania’s (Alice Braga) residence shortly before a group of thugs...
- 7/20/2015
- by Matt Donato
- We Got This Covered
On Demand DVD New Releases July 13-19 Ardor Gael Garcia Bernal portrays a mysterious hero who emerges from the Argentinian rainforest to rescue a young woman and her family farm from brutal land grabbers. Also stars Alice Braga (R, 1:40) 7/17 Available same day as theatrical release. Spanish, subtitled in English. Clouds of Sils Maria (pictured) A veteran actress comes face-to-face with an uncomfortable reflection of herself when she agrees to take part in a revival of the play that launched her career 20 years earlier. Juliette Binoche, Kristen Stewart, Chloe Grace Moretz (R, 2:04) 7/14 Dior and I A … Continue reading →
The post On Demand DVD New Releases July 13-19 appeared first on Channel Guide Magazine.
The post On Demand DVD New Releases July 13-19 appeared first on Channel Guide Magazine.
- 7/13/2015
- by Meredith Ennis
- ChannelGuideMag
Working together for the first time since their collaboration in Fernando Meirelles’ Blindness, Award-winning actors Gael García Bernal (Babel, Motorcycle Diaries) and Alice Braga (I Am Legend, City of God) star in Ardor, a visually sumptuous adventure about a mysterious man who emerges from the Argentinian rainforest to rescue the kidnapped daughter of a poor farmer.
Written and directed by Pablo Fendrik (Blood Appears, The Mugger), the film’s magical realism, jungle setting and social context put a fresh, contemporary twist on the western genre.
When fires sweep through the rainforest near their property along the Parana River, a poor tobacco-farming family goes on high alert. The head of the family, João, (Chico Díaz) correctly suspects the fire is a result of slash-and-burn tactics by ruthless land-grabbers intent on acquiring the farm he shares with his lovely daughter, Vânia (Braga), and her partner, Jara (Lautaro Vilo)
Help arrives in the...
Written and directed by Pablo Fendrik (Blood Appears, The Mugger), the film’s magical realism, jungle setting and social context put a fresh, contemporary twist on the western genre.
When fires sweep through the rainforest near their property along the Parana River, a poor tobacco-farming family goes on high alert. The head of the family, João, (Chico Díaz) correctly suspects the fire is a result of slash-and-burn tactics by ruthless land-grabbers intent on acquiring the farm he shares with his lovely daughter, Vânia (Braga), and her partner, Jara (Lautaro Vilo)
Help arrives in the...
- 6/30/2015
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Gael García Bernal gets dangerous in the newest trailer for his upcoming Argentinian revenge thriller “The Burning,” which you might already know as "El Ardor." Written and directed by Pablo Fendrik (“Blood Appears,” “The Mugger”), “The Burning” stars Bernal as a mysterious stranger who emerges from the rainforest to help save Vania (Alice Braga) after her father is murdered and her family farm stolen. “The Burning” debuted at Cannes last year and finds Bernal hurling bamboo spears, firing guns and hacking his enemies with machetes. Clearly this is one of the most viscerally aggressive roles the actor has taken on in his career. The trailer itself hints at Fendrik’s aesthetic sensibility. He uses the natural landscape, as well as smoke, costumes and camera angles to obscure a lot of the visuals. It’s an interesting choice, especially given the subject matter (crazed, animalistic, discombobulating fighting), and could very well promise a visually inspired film.
- 5/21/2015
- by Zach Hollwedel
- The Playlist
The Burning is a thriller that subverts the old maxim about revenge being a dish best served cold. Judging by this new poster and trailer, it'll be flame-grilled and served using a big old machete in the new Gael García Bernal vengeance movie.brightcove.createExperiences();Bernal plays Kai, a near-mythical figure who emerges from the Argentinean rainforest looking to snatch back the grieving Vania (Elysium's Alice Braga) from the mercenaries who have kidnapped her. They’ve already killed her dad, a poor farmer, and now they’ve come for her. But while Kai still has breath and a bloody great cleaver, they’ll be given some good reasons to think again.This one looks like combining the political edge of South America’s Cinema Novo with a classic Western yarn, lit up with the trippy visuals of an Apocalypse Now. We may never see Bernal’s Zorro, so this could...
- 5/19/2015
- EmpireOnline
"We must defend ourselves." Another foreign film that definitely seems worth checking out, especially if you're a fan of actor Gael García Bernal. Participant Media has debuted a Us trailer for the upcoming summer release of Ardor, originally El Ardor, a film starring Bernal as a mysterious man who emerges from the Argentinean rainforest to rescue the kidnapped daughter of a poor farmer after mercenaries murder her father and take over his land. The film earned mostly positive reviews at festivals last year, like this one from THR, and looks like a solid action thriller described by another critic as a "machete Western". This actually looks pretty damn good, with solid action and cinematography, I'm interested in seeing it soon. Here's the official Us trailer for Pablo Fendrik's El Ardor, in high def on Apple (via The Film Stage): When fires sweep through the rainforest near their property along the Parana River,...
- 4/14/2015
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Gael García Bernal takes an uncharacteristically violent turn in Pablo Fendrik’s new film. Set in the Argentinian rainforest, “Ardor” (aka “El Ardor”) follows Bernal as Kaí, a mysterious man who emerges from the jungle to exact revenge for a farmer murdered by land-grabbing mercenaries and rescue his kidnapped daughter. The film is being touted as a Latin American Western and purportedly employs some pretty gruesome violence. “Ardor” debuted at Cannes last May, and though it has screened at a handful of international festivals since, news of the film has been relatively sparse over the past 10 months. At long last, however, an official trailer for the picture has made its way online. The film was shot on location in Argentina, and from the looks of the trailer, it promises some pretty scenery, at the very least. (Early response to the film at Cannes was unfortunately short on praise.) “Ardor” marks...
- 4/14/2015
- by Zach Hollwedel
- The Playlist
Read More: Cannes: Helmer Pablo Fendrik Talks About Turning the Western on Its Head The western genre is getting a foreign spin in Pablo Fendrik's "Ardor," starring Gael García Bernal, Alice Braga and Chico Díaz. The film premiered at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival and vied to be Argentina's Best Foreign Language Oscar submission after earning 10 nominations at the Argentine Academy of Cinematography Arts and Sciences Awards. Despite losing the Oscar bid to "Wild Tales," "Ardor" became a hit in its home country and will finally hit the states this summer. Bernal stars as Kaí, a mysterious Amazon shaman who goes on a violent offensive to protect a poor tobacco family against ruthless land-grabbers. In the process, he forms a special bond with the family's daughter, Vânia (Braga), and learns just how far he's willing to go in order to save his fellow indigenous people. Written and directed by Pablo.
- 4/13/2015
- by Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
Cannes Film Festival chief Thierry Fremaux spoke of his “special love” for Argentina, proposed a ban on selfies on the red carpet and called for a relaxing of distribution windows in a masterclass at Ventana Sur on December 2.
In a wide-ranging session that looked back over his first 13 years in the job and addressed the impact of digital cinema on selection policy, Fremaux said the rise in number of Latin American entries coincided with his start on the job.
“When I first arrived [in 2001, after he was hired by Cannes president Gilles Jacob] I was afraid of being biased but it was by coincidence that I arrived at the same time of the new generation of filmmakers in Argentina,” he said.
“We have received so many Argentinian and Mexican films over recent years. This is a community with a lot of vitality.”
In 2014 alone, Damián Szifrón’s acclaimed Wild Tales screened in competition, Lisandro Alonso’s Jauja screened in Un Certain Regard, Pablo Fendrik’s [link...
In a wide-ranging session that looked back over his first 13 years in the job and addressed the impact of digital cinema on selection policy, Fremaux said the rise in number of Latin American entries coincided with his start on the job.
“When I first arrived [in 2001, after he was hired by Cannes president Gilles Jacob] I was afraid of being biased but it was by coincidence that I arrived at the same time of the new generation of filmmakers in Argentina,” he said.
“We have received so many Argentinian and Mexican films over recent years. This is a community with a lot of vitality.”
In 2014 alone, Damián Szifrón’s acclaimed Wild Tales screened in competition, Lisandro Alonso’s Jauja screened in Un Certain Regard, Pablo Fendrik’s [link...
- 12/2/2014
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
Cannes Film Festival chief Thierry Fremaux spoke of his “special love” for Argentina, proposed a ban on selfies on the red carpet and called for a relaxing of distribution windows in a masterclass at Ventana Sur on December 2.
In a wide-ranging session that looked back over his first 13 years in the job and addressed the impact of digital cinema on selection policy, Fremaux said the rise in number of Latin American entries coincided with his start on the job.
“When I first arrived [in 2001, after he was hired by Cannes president Gilles Jacob] I was afraid of being biased but it was by coincidence that I arrived at the same time of the new generation of filmmakers in Argentina,” he said.
“We have received so many Argentinian and Mexican films over recent years. This is a community with a lot of vitality.”
In 2014 alone, Damián Szifrón’s acclaimed Wild Tales screened in competition, Lisandro Alonso’s Jauja screened in Un Certain Regard, Pablo Fendrik’s [link...
In a wide-ranging session that looked back over his first 13 years in the job and addressed the impact of digital cinema on selection policy, Fremaux said the rise in number of Latin American entries coincided with his start on the job.
“When I first arrived [in 2001, after he was hired by Cannes president Gilles Jacob] I was afraid of being biased but it was by coincidence that I arrived at the same time of the new generation of filmmakers in Argentina,” he said.
“We have received so many Argentinian and Mexican films over recent years. This is a community with a lot of vitality.”
In 2014 alone, Damián Szifrón’s acclaimed Wild Tales screened in competition, Lisandro Alonso’s Jauja screened in Un Certain Regard, Pablo Fendrik’s [link...
- 12/2/2014
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
Los Cabos International Film Festival took place this month of November. It was a brave move to keep it going after Cabo had been so hard hit by Hurricane Odile with winds of 125mph less than a month earlier. The vast destruction in our part of town was quickly being repaired though traces remained visible and repairs still to be done necessitated cutting the normal invitation list by half and doubling up hotel rooms for a few unlucky journalists. That being said, there were 15,000 attending the festival. Volunteers wore the worthy words on their t-shirts: #Unstoppable, and they were that.
For all the infrastructure problems of the city in the midst of rebuilding itself, the festival seemed to thrive with all sorts of invitees showing up from all over the world. It seemed like gala events, panels, master classes, coproduction meetings, works in progress, screenings and interviews were constantly taking place. It was a great team and we all felt part of it.
The festival is overseen by the executive board members Eduardo Sánchez Navarro, Alfonso Pascal Barcenas, Scott Cross and Sean Cross (who also founded Vail Film Festival) and is organized by the festival team of Alonso Aguilar (General Director), Alejandra Paulin (General Coordinator) - who was a great market director in Guadajalara before coming here, Maru Garzon (Head of Programming), Ana Molinar Trujillo (Communication Manager), and Monica Herrera (Film Programmer). My friend from Guadalajara, normally an English teacher, Fabian Cruz was also there working for the festival.
When Eduardo Sánchez Navarro Redo remembers how he first came to Los Cabos, there is no doubt in his mind that destiny and luck played an important part. When he married his wife 30 years ago, he decided to travel along the entire Pacific Coast, from Acapulco to Mazatlan, where he crossed over to La Paz eventually driving to Los Cabos. The beauty of the area impressed him and it was during this trip that he and his wife decided to buy a vacation home in Los Cabos, thus beginning a distinguished career as a principal player and developer of what is Los Cabos today. Over the course of more than 20 years, his company, Grupo Questro, has emerged as one of the most highly respected developers in all of Mexico. He, together with Juan Gallardo Thurlow, Scott Cross, and Sean Cross, founded the festival in 2012.
My job as a journalist was to explore and write, hard to do when you are having such fun 24/7. We journalists were all in one hotel where we were given space and time to bond. Travel writers mixed with trade writers: from Film Journal David Noh, whose article is worth sharing here, my colleagues Peter Rainer from NPR and Christian Science Monitor, Anne Thompson from Thompson on Hollywood on Indiewire, Godfrey Cheshire of RogerEbert.com and many others met and mixed. Also Ira Deutchman of Colombia University Film School and Emerging Pictures and Robin Brock of Creative Coalition were there with time to share dinners.
The filmmakers, in another hotel, mixed by day and at the communal lunches and parties. I will write more on them in an upcoming blog! After all, filmmakers are the backbone of our industry. Without them, we have nothing!
The agents, mostly from CAA, were placed in another hotel, luxurious and far away. As someone said, Cabos is like Cannes, only in November. If so, perhaps they were at the Eden Roc in Cap d’Antibes. (Actually they were at Hacienda Beach Club & Residences) CAA has always been an honored part of this festival. I have heard that that is because someone with lots of money from Mexico invests it in cinema through CAA and even started the festival. That is, however, pure conjecture. Under the guidance of CAA agent, Micah Green, people can be assured that the directions he sees and the decisions he makes about investing private individuals' capital into filmed entertainment is priceless. I could think of no one I would trust more --in this untrustworthy business we are in-- than Micah.
At least two other agents – Bec Smith and Rena Ronson from UTA -- were also there. Rena and Micah were on the Film Financing Panel moderated by Variety’s expert in all things Iberoamerican and my idol, John Hopewell. Other participants on the Film Finance Panel were Jonathan King, Evp of Production at Jeff Skoll’s Participant Media whose partnership with Canana formed Participant PanAmerican production fund. “No” by Pablo Lorrain was their first investment. Pp also financed "El Ardor" which played in Cannes and “Cesar Chavez”, directed by Diego Luna. Also on the panel were Mark Musselman of Canada’s 10X2yinc, the exec producer of “Eastern Promises” and most recently of “Remember” by Atom Egoyan which was also produced by Robert Lantos and son, also in Los Cabos. It went into production in 2014 and is tipped for Cannes. Other panelists included Raul Del Alto of Mexico’s Ag Studios (Itaca Films Mexico, Itaca Films USA, Itaca Films Colombia and Itaca Filkms Brazil, and Rena Ronson of UTA who, like Micah Green of CAA focuses on global film finance, distribution and marketing strategies for Independents and co-financed features and is fluent in Spanish because of her long time experience with Latin America.
At one point I looked up and found the European fund chiefs there as well, Laufey Gudjonsdottir from Iceland (where Interstellar was filmed), Katriel Schory from Israel Film Fund and Edith Sepp-Dallas from the Estonian Film Institute. They were there for Bpx. Best Practice Exchange is an initiative that brings together the leaders of film funding agencies from across the world to take part in high-level-workshops – one or two each year – designed to promote new standards of excellence in the provision of public funding for the support of film production, development and distribution. The aim of Bpx is to ensure that policies and procedures adopted by film funding agencies will act together, positively and proactively, to stimulate and sustain practices of international coproduction and cofinancing worldwide.
Triggered by the situation in which filmmaking outside the main production centers of Hollywood and Bollywood now finds itself, Bpx was created by Simon Perry, president of Ace (Ateliers du Cinéma Européen), in collaboration with Katriel Schory, executive director of the Israel Film Fund. It held its first workshop in February 2013 in Israel, and two further workshops in Toronto (September 2013) and Berlin (February 2014) and this was the third! Bravo!
Among the Mexican, Canadian and U.S. films that showed, the winners were as follow:
Mexico First
Mexico First winning film was ¨Llevate mis amores” ("All of Me") by Arturo Gonzalez. The film narrates the story of the generosity of the women of Las Patronas who feed the immigrants who ride La Bestia. The director was awarded a cash Prize of Usd $15,000. This film made me cry. I thought of it again when reading the L.A. Times article about the murder of Adrian Rodriguez and his assistant, Mexican good Samaritans who dedicated their scarce resources to feeding Central American migrants passing by on La Bestia, which is what the women in this movie do. And one of the women was at the festival too.
Los Cabos Competition
The Los Cabos Competition winner was “Güeros” by Alonso Ruizpalacios, also a winner at the Berlinale, Jerusalem Film Festival, Tribeca, Toronto and San Sebastian. Being sold internationally by Mundial, the joint venture of Canana (again!) and Im Global, the film has sold to Kino Lorber for U.S., Cannibal for Mexico, Dreams Hill for Italy, Noori for So. Korea and Maison Motion for Taiwan … "Güeros" is the undeniable triumph of a nouveau director who dares to pay homage the French New Wave on a wild detective hunt through Mexico City. In light of the 43 murdered students, this film, about students on strike, strikes a chord within the watcher. The film´s producer won a Usd $15,000 cash prize.
Work In Progress Mexico
The second Work in Progress Mexico prize was awarded to "Los Herederos," by Jorge Hernandez, a film that describes adolescent effervescence and idleness through a group of friends who spend their vacations adrenaline-seeking through parties, sex and alcohol. The winner received a Usd $10,000 cash prize.
Mexico-usa-canada Co-production Forum
The winner of the first Mexico- USA- Canada Co-production Forum was also announced: "Afronauts" by Frances Bodomo, based on the real life story of the Academia Nacional de Ciencias, Investigación Espacial e Investigación Astronómica of Zambia. Writer- Director Frances Bodomo received a Usd $8,000 cash prize. It also received funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Mexico First: Fox +
In its second year running the México Primero: Fox+ chose one of the films that participated to have its distribution rights pre-bought for the Latin American and Caribbean (Except Brazil) markets. The México Primero: Fox+ prize consists of Usd $40,000 and was awarded to Isaac Ezban´s "El Incidente" ("The Incident"), two M.C. Escher-maze-like parallel stories about characters trapped in illogical endless spaces: two brothers and a detective locked on an infinite staircase, and a family locked on an infinite road… for a very long time. The international sales agent, Shoreline, will be showing the film at Ventana Sur December 3rd at 17:00 at Cinemark 3.
Work In Progress Mexico Fox +
In its second year running as well, Work in Progress México Fox+ selected a participating film to have its distribution rights pre-bought for the Latin American and Caribbean (Except Brazil) markets. The Usd $30,000 prize was awarded to Katina Medina Mora’s "Sabras que hacer conmigo" aka "En Contraluz", produced by Gerardo Gatica and Alberto Muffelmann.
Work In Progress Mexico Chemistry
This Third edition of the Festival also witnessed the first Work In Progress México –Chemistry award. Chemistry post-production studios granted the winner, Jorge Hernandez’s "Los Herederos", $45,000 Usd in color correction services.
Mexico – USA – Canada Splendor Omnia Mantarraya Co-production Forum
On its first year running, the Coproduction Forum Mexico- USA- Canada Splendor Omnia – MANTArraya will be granting a $30,000 Usd equivalent prize worth 40 hours of color correction, 40 hours of sound mixing, as well as a paid stay in Tepoztlan Morelos, site of their studios, to the winner "Afronauts" by Francez Bodomo (U.S.).
The key phrase to understanding Cabo is "Seeing what the neighbors do" as the festival and market connects Canada, U,S, and Mexico in showing of films and exploring coproduction. And the mixing of filmmakers and journalists from all three Americas was exciting in the possibilities it offered to everyone.
As for the hard-core business done there:
Mark Kassen will be directing "Criminal Empire for Dummies" written by Cliff Dorman. Kassen will also be producing the film along with James Gibb of Cutting Edge Group and Greg Hajdarowicz of Gremi Films. The deal took place at the exclusive resort Hacienda Beach Club & Residences and was reported by Variety.
Actor and producer Luis Gerardo Mendez ("Nosotros Los Nobles") signed a representation agreement with Paradigm. Reported by Variety. So I guess Paradigm also sent agents to Los Cabos.
Pat Saperstein of Variety also attended Los Cabos and scooped a story, that “Wolverine Hotel” from director Patricia Chica who was participating in the Coproduction Forum, is closing in on production with a "recent financing commitment from Jean-Guy Després, who will serve as exec producer. The edgy crime thriller is produced by Canada-based Byron Martin. Looking to cast a Latino actor as co-star, Chica met with rising Mexican thesp Luis Gerardo Mendez ('We Are the Nobles') during Afm though he has not yet been attached. 'A Latino star opens up a market', said Martin."
Celebrated producer Monica Lozano announced the launch of Alebrije Distribución. She has had her hand in 23 productions since her first film, "Amores Perros". "Instructions Not Included" the Us$ 5.5 million film that grossed Us$ 100 million worldwide was also her production. With this Pan-American initiative, the company will acquire distribution rights for the Latin and North American markets. Reported by Variety again!! You would think John was the only real reporter there. Pinske should be proud of him! Most of us got no scoops, but then, I guess we have to prove ourselves worthy - which I am not because at heart, I am not a reporter hunting for news, but rather a gatherer of information and a writer.
Speaking of Monica Lozano, the Germany-based international sales agent, Media Luna, acquired world rights to Internet Junkie, directed by Alexander Katzowicz and produced by Monica Lozano. Variety reports on this again!
"Yamaha 300", a participating project of the 1st Mexico – USA- Canada Coproduction Forum, produced by Valerium Arts (Mayra Espinosa y Jorge Michel Grau, producer and writer-director of the horror hit "Somos lo que hay" respectively, and Grau, the writer of the remake "We Are What We Are") and Uncorked Productions (Andrew Corkin, the producer of the horror film "What We Were"), will be one of the first projects to receive the development stage and postproduction support offered by The Good Film Fund, an initiative of Media Darling (Amy Darling) and The Chatanooga Film Festival. See Variety.
New York producer Dodgeville Films ("To Be Takei") will be joining Varios Lobos in Mexico to produce "Ya no estoy aquí", Fernando Frias’s second film, which was also a winner during Gabriel Figueroa Film Fund second edition. This film in the Coproduction Forum was reported on in Variety.
"Siete Horas" ("Seven Hours"), one of the winning projects of the second Gabriel Figueroa Film Fund edition, which will be directed by Chema Rodriguez and produced by Francisco Vargas, the renowned director of the film "El violin", made an alliance with the Spanish production companies Sin un Duro and Noodles Prods to co-produce the project. (Variety)
CineTren closed deals to handle Latin American distribution for Spring, a Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead film, whose Latin American Premiere was held at Los Cabos International Film Festival. Negotiations between Nate Bolotin and Marie Katz fromLos Angeles-based Xyz and Manuel Garcia from CineTren, took place at the Hotel Grand Solmar. Next time, I'll have to visit all the hotels!! See Variety article.
BH5 Group, which participates in the executive production of "Remember" by Atom Egoyan, will be working with Alonso Ruizpalacios, director of Güeros, in his second movie: Museo, a project that participated in the Ist Mexico- USA- Canada Co-production Forum. Even though Variety wrote about this, my blog on the three year old conglomerate of companies, BH5, was more complete:
BH5 Group Makes a Splash with Three Impressive Films at Los Cabos Int'l Film Fest
BH5, a conglomerate of five formerly independent production companies all run by various friends from the same film school, will be working the international markets much more. Besides the Toronto hit, Jodorowsky's "Dance of Reality", they are working with larger companies like Pathe now. Their work in progress, "You Will Know What To Do With Me" ("Sabras que hacer conmigo" aka "En Contraluz") which just won the The Usd $30,000 prize of Fox+, is seeking an international sales agent.
"Entrevero" by Max Zunino, also winner of the Gabriel Figueroa Film Fund second edition, was selected in the development project category by Ibermedia. See Variety.
And though Colombian Ciro Guerra, whose "The Wind Journeys" was produced by our German friends Roman Paul and Gerhard Meixner at Razor Film Production and by Burning Blue's prolific Diana Bustamente -- who is now also heading the Carthagena Film Festival -- showed in 2009 Cannes Un Certain Regard and was sold by Paris’ Elle Driver to 19 countries including Film Movement for U.S., announced to Variety's John Hopewell that his next film, "Embrace of the Serpent" will star U.S. actor Brionne Davis (“Savaged”) and Belgium’s Jan Bijvoet, the lead in Cannes Competition entry “Borgman” a really creepy dark comedy, he did not discuss his next project "Taganga" in the Coproduction Forum. "Taganga" is about a fisherman from a small village by the Colombian coast where many foreign-owned scuba diving centers have been established. A new law requiring local fisherman to change the motors of their boats forces him to earn quick money, so he chooses to dynamite to fish. The owner of the largest scuba diving center opposes this use of explosives. When the fisherman receives a death threat if he continues the dynamiting of fish, he assumes the center's owner is behind the threat. In order to prove it, he begins a series of fateful actions.
Finally, while it seems like Variety wrote all the news, I have one item which no one has reported on. Reese Witherspoon stated at her press conference in Los Cabos, where her film "Wild" premiered in a red carpet gala, that she is talking to Eugenio Derbez ("Instructions Not Included") to make a movie with him. I heard her say it and later spoke of this to Ben Odell (my next blog on Los Cabos features him). Ben (now partners with Eugenio at 3Pas Studios) said, Actually that would be a great idea but they had not spoken about it. However, they are both represented by CAA, so it would seem like a natural and really exciting pairing. After all, aren't "Legally Blond" and "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" the same film? She is certainly on a role as a producer with "Wild" and David Fincher's "Gone Girl" as he is with his U.S. career. The studios are all courting her now, she said. More to come on this...
For all the infrastructure problems of the city in the midst of rebuilding itself, the festival seemed to thrive with all sorts of invitees showing up from all over the world. It seemed like gala events, panels, master classes, coproduction meetings, works in progress, screenings and interviews were constantly taking place. It was a great team and we all felt part of it.
The festival is overseen by the executive board members Eduardo Sánchez Navarro, Alfonso Pascal Barcenas, Scott Cross and Sean Cross (who also founded Vail Film Festival) and is organized by the festival team of Alonso Aguilar (General Director), Alejandra Paulin (General Coordinator) - who was a great market director in Guadajalara before coming here, Maru Garzon (Head of Programming), Ana Molinar Trujillo (Communication Manager), and Monica Herrera (Film Programmer). My friend from Guadalajara, normally an English teacher, Fabian Cruz was also there working for the festival.
When Eduardo Sánchez Navarro Redo remembers how he first came to Los Cabos, there is no doubt in his mind that destiny and luck played an important part. When he married his wife 30 years ago, he decided to travel along the entire Pacific Coast, from Acapulco to Mazatlan, where he crossed over to La Paz eventually driving to Los Cabos. The beauty of the area impressed him and it was during this trip that he and his wife decided to buy a vacation home in Los Cabos, thus beginning a distinguished career as a principal player and developer of what is Los Cabos today. Over the course of more than 20 years, his company, Grupo Questro, has emerged as one of the most highly respected developers in all of Mexico. He, together with Juan Gallardo Thurlow, Scott Cross, and Sean Cross, founded the festival in 2012.
My job as a journalist was to explore and write, hard to do when you are having such fun 24/7. We journalists were all in one hotel where we were given space and time to bond. Travel writers mixed with trade writers: from Film Journal David Noh, whose article is worth sharing here, my colleagues Peter Rainer from NPR and Christian Science Monitor, Anne Thompson from Thompson on Hollywood on Indiewire, Godfrey Cheshire of RogerEbert.com and many others met and mixed. Also Ira Deutchman of Colombia University Film School and Emerging Pictures and Robin Brock of Creative Coalition were there with time to share dinners.
The filmmakers, in another hotel, mixed by day and at the communal lunches and parties. I will write more on them in an upcoming blog! After all, filmmakers are the backbone of our industry. Without them, we have nothing!
The agents, mostly from CAA, were placed in another hotel, luxurious and far away. As someone said, Cabos is like Cannes, only in November. If so, perhaps they were at the Eden Roc in Cap d’Antibes. (Actually they were at Hacienda Beach Club & Residences) CAA has always been an honored part of this festival. I have heard that that is because someone with lots of money from Mexico invests it in cinema through CAA and even started the festival. That is, however, pure conjecture. Under the guidance of CAA agent, Micah Green, people can be assured that the directions he sees and the decisions he makes about investing private individuals' capital into filmed entertainment is priceless. I could think of no one I would trust more --in this untrustworthy business we are in-- than Micah.
At least two other agents – Bec Smith and Rena Ronson from UTA -- were also there. Rena and Micah were on the Film Financing Panel moderated by Variety’s expert in all things Iberoamerican and my idol, John Hopewell. Other participants on the Film Finance Panel were Jonathan King, Evp of Production at Jeff Skoll’s Participant Media whose partnership with Canana formed Participant PanAmerican production fund. “No” by Pablo Lorrain was their first investment. Pp also financed "El Ardor" which played in Cannes and “Cesar Chavez”, directed by Diego Luna. Also on the panel were Mark Musselman of Canada’s 10X2yinc, the exec producer of “Eastern Promises” and most recently of “Remember” by Atom Egoyan which was also produced by Robert Lantos and son, also in Los Cabos. It went into production in 2014 and is tipped for Cannes. Other panelists included Raul Del Alto of Mexico’s Ag Studios (Itaca Films Mexico, Itaca Films USA, Itaca Films Colombia and Itaca Filkms Brazil, and Rena Ronson of UTA who, like Micah Green of CAA focuses on global film finance, distribution and marketing strategies for Independents and co-financed features and is fluent in Spanish because of her long time experience with Latin America.
At one point I looked up and found the European fund chiefs there as well, Laufey Gudjonsdottir from Iceland (where Interstellar was filmed), Katriel Schory from Israel Film Fund and Edith Sepp-Dallas from the Estonian Film Institute. They were there for Bpx. Best Practice Exchange is an initiative that brings together the leaders of film funding agencies from across the world to take part in high-level-workshops – one or two each year – designed to promote new standards of excellence in the provision of public funding for the support of film production, development and distribution. The aim of Bpx is to ensure that policies and procedures adopted by film funding agencies will act together, positively and proactively, to stimulate and sustain practices of international coproduction and cofinancing worldwide.
Triggered by the situation in which filmmaking outside the main production centers of Hollywood and Bollywood now finds itself, Bpx was created by Simon Perry, president of Ace (Ateliers du Cinéma Européen), in collaboration with Katriel Schory, executive director of the Israel Film Fund. It held its first workshop in February 2013 in Israel, and two further workshops in Toronto (September 2013) and Berlin (February 2014) and this was the third! Bravo!
Among the Mexican, Canadian and U.S. films that showed, the winners were as follow:
Mexico First
Mexico First winning film was ¨Llevate mis amores” ("All of Me") by Arturo Gonzalez. The film narrates the story of the generosity of the women of Las Patronas who feed the immigrants who ride La Bestia. The director was awarded a cash Prize of Usd $15,000. This film made me cry. I thought of it again when reading the L.A. Times article about the murder of Adrian Rodriguez and his assistant, Mexican good Samaritans who dedicated their scarce resources to feeding Central American migrants passing by on La Bestia, which is what the women in this movie do. And one of the women was at the festival too.
Los Cabos Competition
The Los Cabos Competition winner was “Güeros” by Alonso Ruizpalacios, also a winner at the Berlinale, Jerusalem Film Festival, Tribeca, Toronto and San Sebastian. Being sold internationally by Mundial, the joint venture of Canana (again!) and Im Global, the film has sold to Kino Lorber for U.S., Cannibal for Mexico, Dreams Hill for Italy, Noori for So. Korea and Maison Motion for Taiwan … "Güeros" is the undeniable triumph of a nouveau director who dares to pay homage the French New Wave on a wild detective hunt through Mexico City. In light of the 43 murdered students, this film, about students on strike, strikes a chord within the watcher. The film´s producer won a Usd $15,000 cash prize.
Work In Progress Mexico
The second Work in Progress Mexico prize was awarded to "Los Herederos," by Jorge Hernandez, a film that describes adolescent effervescence and idleness through a group of friends who spend their vacations adrenaline-seeking through parties, sex and alcohol. The winner received a Usd $10,000 cash prize.
Mexico-usa-canada Co-production Forum
The winner of the first Mexico- USA- Canada Co-production Forum was also announced: "Afronauts" by Frances Bodomo, based on the real life story of the Academia Nacional de Ciencias, Investigación Espacial e Investigación Astronómica of Zambia. Writer- Director Frances Bodomo received a Usd $8,000 cash prize. It also received funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Mexico First: Fox +
In its second year running the México Primero: Fox+ chose one of the films that participated to have its distribution rights pre-bought for the Latin American and Caribbean (Except Brazil) markets. The México Primero: Fox+ prize consists of Usd $40,000 and was awarded to Isaac Ezban´s "El Incidente" ("The Incident"), two M.C. Escher-maze-like parallel stories about characters trapped in illogical endless spaces: two brothers and a detective locked on an infinite staircase, and a family locked on an infinite road… for a very long time. The international sales agent, Shoreline, will be showing the film at Ventana Sur December 3rd at 17:00 at Cinemark 3.
Work In Progress Mexico Fox +
In its second year running as well, Work in Progress México Fox+ selected a participating film to have its distribution rights pre-bought for the Latin American and Caribbean (Except Brazil) markets. The Usd $30,000 prize was awarded to Katina Medina Mora’s "Sabras que hacer conmigo" aka "En Contraluz", produced by Gerardo Gatica and Alberto Muffelmann.
Work In Progress Mexico Chemistry
This Third edition of the Festival also witnessed the first Work In Progress México –Chemistry award. Chemistry post-production studios granted the winner, Jorge Hernandez’s "Los Herederos", $45,000 Usd in color correction services.
Mexico – USA – Canada Splendor Omnia Mantarraya Co-production Forum
On its first year running, the Coproduction Forum Mexico- USA- Canada Splendor Omnia – MANTArraya will be granting a $30,000 Usd equivalent prize worth 40 hours of color correction, 40 hours of sound mixing, as well as a paid stay in Tepoztlan Morelos, site of their studios, to the winner "Afronauts" by Francez Bodomo (U.S.).
The key phrase to understanding Cabo is "Seeing what the neighbors do" as the festival and market connects Canada, U,S, and Mexico in showing of films and exploring coproduction. And the mixing of filmmakers and journalists from all three Americas was exciting in the possibilities it offered to everyone.
As for the hard-core business done there:
Mark Kassen will be directing "Criminal Empire for Dummies" written by Cliff Dorman. Kassen will also be producing the film along with James Gibb of Cutting Edge Group and Greg Hajdarowicz of Gremi Films. The deal took place at the exclusive resort Hacienda Beach Club & Residences and was reported by Variety.
Actor and producer Luis Gerardo Mendez ("Nosotros Los Nobles") signed a representation agreement with Paradigm. Reported by Variety. So I guess Paradigm also sent agents to Los Cabos.
Pat Saperstein of Variety also attended Los Cabos and scooped a story, that “Wolverine Hotel” from director Patricia Chica who was participating in the Coproduction Forum, is closing in on production with a "recent financing commitment from Jean-Guy Després, who will serve as exec producer. The edgy crime thriller is produced by Canada-based Byron Martin. Looking to cast a Latino actor as co-star, Chica met with rising Mexican thesp Luis Gerardo Mendez ('We Are the Nobles') during Afm though he has not yet been attached. 'A Latino star opens up a market', said Martin."
Celebrated producer Monica Lozano announced the launch of Alebrije Distribución. She has had her hand in 23 productions since her first film, "Amores Perros". "Instructions Not Included" the Us$ 5.5 million film that grossed Us$ 100 million worldwide was also her production. With this Pan-American initiative, the company will acquire distribution rights for the Latin and North American markets. Reported by Variety again!! You would think John was the only real reporter there. Pinske should be proud of him! Most of us got no scoops, but then, I guess we have to prove ourselves worthy - which I am not because at heart, I am not a reporter hunting for news, but rather a gatherer of information and a writer.
Speaking of Monica Lozano, the Germany-based international sales agent, Media Luna, acquired world rights to Internet Junkie, directed by Alexander Katzowicz and produced by Monica Lozano. Variety reports on this again!
"Yamaha 300", a participating project of the 1st Mexico – USA- Canada Coproduction Forum, produced by Valerium Arts (Mayra Espinosa y Jorge Michel Grau, producer and writer-director of the horror hit "Somos lo que hay" respectively, and Grau, the writer of the remake "We Are What We Are") and Uncorked Productions (Andrew Corkin, the producer of the horror film "What We Were"), will be one of the first projects to receive the development stage and postproduction support offered by The Good Film Fund, an initiative of Media Darling (Amy Darling) and The Chatanooga Film Festival. See Variety.
New York producer Dodgeville Films ("To Be Takei") will be joining Varios Lobos in Mexico to produce "Ya no estoy aquí", Fernando Frias’s second film, which was also a winner during Gabriel Figueroa Film Fund second edition. This film in the Coproduction Forum was reported on in Variety.
"Siete Horas" ("Seven Hours"), one of the winning projects of the second Gabriel Figueroa Film Fund edition, which will be directed by Chema Rodriguez and produced by Francisco Vargas, the renowned director of the film "El violin", made an alliance with the Spanish production companies Sin un Duro and Noodles Prods to co-produce the project. (Variety)
CineTren closed deals to handle Latin American distribution for Spring, a Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead film, whose Latin American Premiere was held at Los Cabos International Film Festival. Negotiations between Nate Bolotin and Marie Katz fromLos Angeles-based Xyz and Manuel Garcia from CineTren, took place at the Hotel Grand Solmar. Next time, I'll have to visit all the hotels!! See Variety article.
BH5 Group, which participates in the executive production of "Remember" by Atom Egoyan, will be working with Alonso Ruizpalacios, director of Güeros, in his second movie: Museo, a project that participated in the Ist Mexico- USA- Canada Co-production Forum. Even though Variety wrote about this, my blog on the three year old conglomerate of companies, BH5, was more complete:
BH5 Group Makes a Splash with Three Impressive Films at Los Cabos Int'l Film Fest
BH5, a conglomerate of five formerly independent production companies all run by various friends from the same film school, will be working the international markets much more. Besides the Toronto hit, Jodorowsky's "Dance of Reality", they are working with larger companies like Pathe now. Their work in progress, "You Will Know What To Do With Me" ("Sabras que hacer conmigo" aka "En Contraluz") which just won the The Usd $30,000 prize of Fox+, is seeking an international sales agent.
"Entrevero" by Max Zunino, also winner of the Gabriel Figueroa Film Fund second edition, was selected in the development project category by Ibermedia. See Variety.
And though Colombian Ciro Guerra, whose "The Wind Journeys" was produced by our German friends Roman Paul and Gerhard Meixner at Razor Film Production and by Burning Blue's prolific Diana Bustamente -- who is now also heading the Carthagena Film Festival -- showed in 2009 Cannes Un Certain Regard and was sold by Paris’ Elle Driver to 19 countries including Film Movement for U.S., announced to Variety's John Hopewell that his next film, "Embrace of the Serpent" will star U.S. actor Brionne Davis (“Savaged”) and Belgium’s Jan Bijvoet, the lead in Cannes Competition entry “Borgman” a really creepy dark comedy, he did not discuss his next project "Taganga" in the Coproduction Forum. "Taganga" is about a fisherman from a small village by the Colombian coast where many foreign-owned scuba diving centers have been established. A new law requiring local fisherman to change the motors of their boats forces him to earn quick money, so he chooses to dynamite to fish. The owner of the largest scuba diving center opposes this use of explosives. When the fisherman receives a death threat if he continues the dynamiting of fish, he assumes the center's owner is behind the threat. In order to prove it, he begins a series of fateful actions.
Finally, while it seems like Variety wrote all the news, I have one item which no one has reported on. Reese Witherspoon stated at her press conference in Los Cabos, where her film "Wild" premiered in a red carpet gala, that she is talking to Eugenio Derbez ("Instructions Not Included") to make a movie with him. I heard her say it and later spoke of this to Ben Odell (my next blog on Los Cabos features him). Ben (now partners with Eugenio at 3Pas Studios) said, Actually that would be a great idea but they had not spoken about it. However, they are both represented by CAA, so it would seem like a natural and really exciting pairing. After all, aren't "Legally Blond" and "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" the same film? She is certainly on a role as a producer with "Wild" and David Fincher's "Gone Girl" as he is with his U.S. career. The studios are all courting her now, she said. More to come on this...
- 12/1/2014
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Early predictions have emerged for most Academy Award categories. As the studios reveal their hopeful offers to be released in the final months of the year, the speculation increases. But despite all the information available on the centerpiece awards, other more obscure races remain a complete mystery at this point. Among these, the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar is almost certainly the most complex to prognosticate. The lengthy process that precedes the announcement of the final nominees makes for a competition that begins months in advance in nations around the globe.
Having the opportunity to submit only one film, each country must carry out its own selection process. Once these decisions have been made, their chosen works will compete to make it to the nine-film shortlist, and eventually into the final five slots. Although this procedure allows for a certain degree of democracy, it also excludes all those other films that were left behind in their homelands. This, in turn, gives us a narrow view of what is being produced abroad.
Therefore, after lots of research and arduous educated guessing to put it together, the list below offers a more insightful look at this race before the actual individual selections are announced. For the sake of time, the amount of films is limited to five per country, but in some cases the choices are scarcer and less films are listed. While trying to speculate is always an uncertain endeavor, the factors taken into account to determine which are some of this year’s most important films in each country and their prospects of being chosen as their representative at the Academy Awards, were varied. Festival exposure, release date, the country’s previous submissions, and even the thematic elements of a few of them were considered to create this piece.
Clearly nothing is definitive at this point, but at the very least, this compilation will provide a sense of what the film industries in these territories are putting out and sharing with the world.
It is important to note that several of the films mentioned below are being handled by Mundial, a joint venture between Im Gobal and Canana, including "Gueros," "A Wolf at the Door," and "The Liberator."
Here is the first list dedicated to the Americas
Argentina
With four films presented at Cannes and several others receiving praise in festivals around the world, Argentina has several interesting options this year. Unfortunately, Lisandro Alonso’s period piece “Jauja” will almost certainly be ineligible due to its November release date, unless a qualifying one-week run is scheduled. That scenario seems unlikely. Screening in the Directors’ Forthnight, Diego Lerman’s “Refugee” (Refugiado) will open on October 3rd, also a few days after the deadline. That leaves the Almodovar-produced “Wild Tales” as the undisputed favorite. Acclaimed films such as “Natural Sciences," “The Third Side of the River”, “El Ardor“ (staring Gael Garcia Bernal), and “La Paz” are longer shots but still viable choices.
1. "Wild Tales" (Relatos Salvajes)
2. "Natural Sciences" (Ciencias Naturales)
3."The Ardor" (El Ardor)
4."The Third Side of the River" (La Tercera Orilla)
5."La Paz"
Bolivia
The last time the landlocked country submitted a film was back in 2009. However, this year offers several possibilities for the Bolivian film industry. Given its production value and historical theme, it is likely that - if they choose to send a film - it will be Mexican director Carlos Bolado’s “Forgotten” (Olvidados), which deals with the 70s Operation Condor. Another likely choice is “Yvy Maraey,” which highlights the mysticism of the country’s indigenous people and is the latest work by Juan Carlos Valdivia, whose films have represented Bolivia in 3 out of the 6 occasions they’ve participated. A long delayed road trip flick (“Once Upon a Time in Bolivia”) and a unique documentary (“Apricot”) round up the list of contenders.
1. "Forgotten" (Olvidados)
2. "Yvy Maraey: Land Without Evil" (Yvy Maraey: Tierra Sin Mal)
3. "Once Upon a Time in Bolivia" (Erase una vez en Bolivia)
4. "Apricot" (Durazno)
Brazil
Producing an impressive amount of films per year, the Brazilian film industry is seeing incredible progress recently. Particularly this year, the quality of works was exceptional across the board. Having such an overflow of great material could make it difficult to select just one. However, there are a few films that standout amongst the crowd. Fernando Coimbra’s debut feature “A Wolf at the Door” is undoubtedly the one to beat after receiving rave reviews and touring some of the most important international festivals. Its biggest competitors are the quiet character study “The Man of the Crowd” and the adorable coming-of-age tale “The Way He Looks.” Rounding up the top five are locally acclaimed “Runriver” and powerful Lgbt drama “Futuro Beach.”
1. "A Wolf at the Door" (O Lobo atrás da Porta)
2. "The Man of the Crowd" (O Homem das Multidões)
3. "The Way He Looks" (Hoje Eu Quero Voltar Sozinho)
4. "Riverrun" (Riocorrente)
5. "Futuro Beach" (Praia do Futuro)
Canada
This definitely seems like Xavier Dolan’s year. After sharing an award with New Wave patriarch Jean-Luc Godard in Cannes, the 25-year-old prodigy is almost a safe bet having two films that could represent his country. While “Mommy” is the clear favorite, it will have to go against “An Eye for Beauty, ” the latest film from Oscar-winner Denys Arcand. Both films will screen at Tiff in the upcoming weeks, just as time runs out for Canada to nominate a film by the end of September. Less probable but still great options are Dolan’s own “Tom at the Farm,” quirky black-and-white dramedy “Tu Dors Nicole,” and the well-received rural family drama “The Auction. ”
1. "Mommy"
2. "An Eye for Beauty" (Le Règne de la Beauté)
3. "Tom at the Farm" (Tom à la ferme)
4. "You's Sleeping Nicole" (Tu Dors Nicole)
5. "The Auction" (Le démantèlement)
Chile
Here is one of the few countries in the region with a very clear choice, but which sadly might decide to miss that opportunity. Alejandro Fernández Almendras ‘“To Kill a Man” won at Sundance, Rotterdam, Berlin, Cartagena amongst several other festivals and has received extremely positive reactions from critics and audiences. Yet, its opening date in its homeland (October 16th) might prevent it from being selected, which would be a regrettable mistake. A one-week run or an earlier release date would be a worthwhile investment. If they decide to leave it behind for next year, this great film would definitely miss its chance. If that is the case, the South American nation, which in recent years has garnered incredible success with films like “No” and “Gloria,” might decide to go with “The Dance of Reality,” the first film in over 20 years by veteran auteur Alejandro Jodorowsky. Other plausible candidates include “Illiterate” (starring Paulina Garcia), Marcela Said’s remarkable “The Summer of Flying Fish,” and historical biopic “Neruda.”
1. "To Kill a Man" (Matar a un Hombre)
2. "The Dance of Reality" (La Danza de la Realidad)
3. "Illiterate" (Las Analfabetas)
4. "The Summer of Flying Fish" (El Verano de los Peces Voladores)
5. "Neruda"
Colombia
Being forced to resort to mainstream cartel-themed fare in past occasions, this year has fortunately seen a fantastic reemergence of auteur-driven works in the country. Cartagena winner “Dust on the Tongue” is by far the most promising Colombian offer of the year with a thought-provoking premise. Next in line is “Mateo” about a young man struggling to pursue his passion for theater while living in a crime-ridden community. Other films include the touching “Catching Fireflies,” apocalyptic comedy “Chronicle of the End of the World,” and music-infused romance “Ciudad Delirio.” Franco Lolli’s award-winning “Gente de Bien” doesn’t have a release date yet, but will probably be in the running next year.
1. "Dust on the Tongue" (Tierra en la Lengua)
2. "Mateo"
3. "Chasing Fireflies" (Cazando Luciernagas)
4. "Chronicle of the End of the World" (Crónica del Fin del Mundo)
5. "Ciudad Delirio"
Costa Rica
Having three great films eligible for consideration, Costa Rica will likely enter the Oscar race for what would be only the third time in its history. Without a doubt, the country is spearheading Central America in terms of increased film production. Lauded throughout multiple festivals, “Red Princesses,” about a girl growing up in the Sandinista-era, is the most notable work. “Port Father,” a coming-of-age drama set in a coastal town and the comedy “All About the Feathers” are the other two that could be picked. Regardless of which one is selected, they all serve as an encouraging sign of growth for the Costa Rican industry.
1. "Red Princesses" (Princesas Rojas)
2. "Port Father" (Puerto Padre)
3. "All About the Feathers" (Por las Plumas)
Cuba
Hosting the Havana International Film Festival and its consistent investment in local talent make Cuba a unique place for film in the Caribbean. In spite of this, only a few national productions have reached cinemas this year. The three notable titles revolve around personal stories of survival and the struggles associated with living on the island. Winner of several international awards, “Behavior” is the clear favorite. “Melaza,” another local drama dealing with the economic challenges Cubans face and the gay love story “The Last Match,” complete the trio.
1. "Behavior" (Conducta)
2."Melaza"
3. "The Last Match" (La Partida)
Dominican Republic
For its size, this island nation has an impressive working industry that steadily produces films in diverse genres. The Dominican Republic will almost certainly participate again with one of the works by its homegrown talent. Screening in Toronto last year, crime romance “Cristo Rey” has the highest probability of being chosen. In second place is the documentary “The Mountain,” which centers on a unique expedition to Mount Everest by a Dominican team. Passionate road trip story “To the South of Innocence” and psychological thriller “Despertar ” conform the list of options.
1. "Cristo Rey"
2. "The Mountain"(La Montaña)
3. "To the South of Innocence" (Al Sur de la Inocencia)
4. "Despertar"
Ecuador
Seemingly dormant for many decades, the Ecuadorian film industry has recently exploded. Even though they have only submitted three times in the past, it appears they plan to make their presence more consistent moving forward. What is even more surprising, are the numerous alternatives they have to make their selection. At the top of the list is “Holiday,” which premiered in Berlin and has received considerable praise. Two other art house offers, “Silence in Dreamland” and “Saudade,” could be serious contenders. “Girl Without Fear,” a gritty crime film and “The Facilitator,” a politically charged work, have less chances but are still interesting offers.
1. "Holiday" (Feriado)
2. "Silence in Dreamland" (El Silencio en la Tierra de los Sueños)
3. "Saudade"
4. "Girl With No Fear" (Ciudad Sin Sombra)
5. "The Facilitator" (El Facilitador)
El Salvador
Sporadically producing feature length works due to the lack of initiatives that facilitate their funding, El Salvador has never entered the race. Nevertheless, there are three films that could potentially be submitted: Supernatural horror film "The Supreme Book," romantic comedy "The Re-Search," and the more viable choice, " The Four Cardinal Points," a documentary about the diverse lifestyles throughout the tiny country. The latter was exhibited commercially as part of Ambulante El Salvador for about a week, which could possibly make it eligible. But in all honesty, it is hard to think they’ll feel so inclined as to participate.
1. "El Salvador: The Four Cardinal Points" (El Salvador: Cuatro Puntos Cardinales)
2. "The Re-Search" (La ReBusqueda)
3. "The Supreme Book" (El Libro Supremo)
Guatemala
With only one submission under their belt back in 1994 and several missed opportunities in recent years, Guatemala might opt to remain out of the spotlight once again. If, however, they change their mind, there are three films that qualify to be entered. Focusing on the indigenous Maya‘s beliefs and legends, “Where the Sun is Born” is surely the most authentic and visually powerful of these films. Then there is “Pol,” a story about two teenage friends and their mishaps. Lastly, there is “12 Seconds,” a sort of slasher flick set in the countryside. It’s been 20 years since their last try, it wouldn’t hurt to see them make the effort once again.
1. "Where the Sun is Born" (Donde Nace el Sol)
2. "Pol"
3. "12 Seconds" (12 Segundos)
Honduras
Although they have never submitted an entry, the Central American country is showing signs of progress in terms of its film industry. With only two local, low budget films released this year, it is highly unlikely they will enter. Nevertheless, they do have an eligible film “11 Cipotes,” a sports comedy about a soccer team in a small town. The other film, “The Zwickys,” is surprisingly ineligible because it is mostly in English.
1. "11 Kids" (11 Cipotes)
Mexico
Now that the Mexican Academy has announced their shortlist - which strangely and inexplicably includes titles that have no scheduled release dates or that will be released after AMPAS' deadline (September 30th, 2014) - the landscape has dramatically changed. Three of the original selections mentioned here (“The Empty Hours,” “Potosi,” and “ Club Sandwich”) are not included among the finalists. It is important to note that films need to be submitted by the filmmakers in order to be considered by the Mexican Academy. One can assume that these films, though they qualify, decided not to participate. The 21 films listed include several documentaries such as “Purgatorio: A Journey Into the Heart of the Border,” “Disrupted” (Quebranto), “Eufrosina’s Revolution” (La Revolución de los Alcatraces), and “H2Omx" among others. But even if many of these are outstanding films, it is highly unlikely that the Academy will decide to go with a documentary over a narrative given their track record and the other options available. Comedic offers like the charming “Paraíso” by Mariana Chenillo, "Flying Low" (Volando Bajo), and "The Last Call" (Tercera Llamada) also made it in. Just like last year with “Instructions Not Included,” most people could assume that the film with the most commercial prospects would make for a good candidate for Oscar consideration, in this case that would be the biopic “Cantinflas," which was also listed. Fortunately, however, the selection committee often prefers to bet on films honored internationally regardless of their controversial content (“Heli,” “After Lucia,” “Silent Light,” “The Crime of Father Amaro”).
With the new additions, the possibilities have shifted. On the top spot is Alonso Ruiz Palacios’ black and white debut “Güeros,” which won in Berlin and Tribeca, and screened at Karlovy Vary. The festival pedigree will definitely help this unique road trip film set in Mexico City during the late 90s. The runner up is Luis Urquiza’s “Perfect Obedience,” though it did not have any festival exposure or a highly profitable theatrical run, the local critics praised the compelling portrayal of a depraved Catholic priest with satirical undertones. It would definitely make for a great contender if the Academy were willing to run the risk given its controversial subject matter. At number three we have Christian Diaz Pardo’s “Gonzalez,” an intriguing drama about a man looking to change his destiny by joining a for profit evangelical church. Dark comedy “ Workers,” by Salvadoran filmmaker Jose Luis Valle, comes in at number four. Lastly, there is Luis Estrada’s long awaited new film “The Perfect Dictatorship,” which made the cut despite having an October 16th release date. The film could definitely come into play; however, voters should consider the fact that its premise and humor might be too specific to the Mexican political idiosyncrasies to connect with foreign voters. Two other films that might be in the race next year are “Perpetual Sadness” (La Tirisia) and “ The Well” (Manto Acuifero)
1."Güeros"
2. "Perfect Obedience" (Obediencia Perfecta)
3. "Gonzalez"
4. "Workers"
5. "The Perfect Dictatorship" (La Dictadura Perfecta)
Nicaragua
With three submissions in over 30 years (1982, 1988, 2010), Nicaragua is the Central American nation with the most attempts at Oscar glory. More astonishing perhaps, is the fact that their first ever entry, “Alsino and the Condor,” earned them a nomination. These days production is almost non-existent. Still, the country’s most prolific filmmaker Florence Jaugey, responsible for their last submission “La Yuma,” made a small documentary titled “Class Days." It is just over 50 minutes long but actually had a theatrical run. Though eligible, it’s probable they’ll decide to skip this year. On the other hand, Jaugey has just finished a new narrative new feature, “The Naked Screen” (La Pantalla Desnuda), which will surely be part of the conversation next year.
1. "Class Days" (Dias de Clase)
Panama
An unprecedented amount of national productions were scheduled to premier in Panama during 2014. All of those four films - which by the country’s standards is an exceptional number - are documentaries. However, only two of them will be eligible given their set release dates. Out of those two, the top choice would certainly be Abner Benaim’s “Invasion” which uses reenactments in lieu of archive footage to revisit the American military intervention in the Central American country in 1989. The runner-up, “Majesty,” deals with the more lighthearted subject of carnival queens. In any case, should Panama decide to submit a film, this would be their first ever appearance.
1. "Invasion"
2. "Majesty" (Reinas)
Paraguay
Disappointed after missing the chance to submit last year's surprise hit “7 Boxes”due to the lack of a selection committee, Paraguayan authorities have stressed their wish to send a film to compete this time around. Unfortunately, it appears that their two best options might be scheduled to open theatrically past the Academy’s deadline. The documentary “Cloudy Times,” a Swiss co-production, has garnered positive reactions internationally and would be their best shot. A second choice could be the crime flick “Filthy Luck,” which sports a decent production value. But if neither of them manages to qualify, then the country’s only other option is yet another crime film “End of the Line.” In any case, hopefully they follow through with their intentions and participate for the first time.
1. "Cloudy Times" (El Tiempo Nublado)
2. "Filthy Luck" (Luna de Cigarras)
3. "End of the Line" (Fin de Linea)
Peru
The eclectic collection of Peruvian films released this year speaks of the great development the medium is experiencing in that country. The five films mentioned here represent the array of genres and stories coming out of Peru today. Given its incredible reception abroad, dark comedy “The Mute” by Daniel Vega Vidal & Diego Vega Vidal is undoubtedly the frontrunner. Behind it comes the intriguing thriller “Guard Dog” starring Peruvian star Carlos Alcántara, multi-narrative drama “The Gospel of the Flesh,” romantic tearjerker “Trip to Timbuktu,” and “Old Friends” about a group of elderly men on a mission. Definitely a though decision needs to be made.
1. "The Mute" (El Mudo)
2. "Guard Dog" (Perro Guardian)
3. "The Gospel of the Flesh" (El Evangelio de la Carne)
4. "Trip to Timbuktu" (Viaje a Tombuctu)
5. "Old Friends" (Viejos Amigos)
Uruguay
Last year the country decided to take a chance and submit the adorable animated film “Anina,” which despite not getting a nomination has become a great success. This time they have “The Militant,” a serious contender about a man retuning to his late father’s hometown. Empowered by a positive festival run, this seems to be their most ideal option. “23 Seconds,” a drama about an unlikely connection between two people and “Mr. Kaplan,” a buddy comedy by Álvaro Brechner - whose previous film “A Bad Day to Go Fishing” was selected a few years back - are the next best choices. The remaining film “At 60 km/h” is a documentary about a unique journey around the world.
1. "The Militant" (El Lugar del Hijo)
2. "23 Seconds" (23 Segundos)
3. "Mr. Kaplan"
4. "At 60 Km/h" (A 60 Km/h)
Venezuela
Dubbed as “the most expensive film ever made in Latin America” and focusing on the accomplishments of the country’s most important historical figure, selecting “The Liberator” is simply a no-brainer. Added to those qualities, the film is actually an elegantly achieved period piece that really showcases the sizable budget and director Alberto Arvelo’s talent. Two of his previous films have also represented his country in the past. On the other hand, this has been a monumental year for Venezuelan films. Festival darling “Bad Hair” would be the perfect choice if it weren’t going against the imposing major production. Other important films that could figure in the mix but have much less prospects are the emotional road-trip film “The Longest Distance,” the women-centered drama “Liz in September,” and the acclaimed thriller “Solo.”
1. "The Liberator" (El Libertador)
2. "Bad Hair" (Pelo Malo)
3. "The Longest Distance" (La Distnacia Mas Larga)
4. "Liz in September" (Liz en Septiembre)
5. "Solo"...
Having the opportunity to submit only one film, each country must carry out its own selection process. Once these decisions have been made, their chosen works will compete to make it to the nine-film shortlist, and eventually into the final five slots. Although this procedure allows for a certain degree of democracy, it also excludes all those other films that were left behind in their homelands. This, in turn, gives us a narrow view of what is being produced abroad.
Therefore, after lots of research and arduous educated guessing to put it together, the list below offers a more insightful look at this race before the actual individual selections are announced. For the sake of time, the amount of films is limited to five per country, but in some cases the choices are scarcer and less films are listed. While trying to speculate is always an uncertain endeavor, the factors taken into account to determine which are some of this year’s most important films in each country and their prospects of being chosen as their representative at the Academy Awards, were varied. Festival exposure, release date, the country’s previous submissions, and even the thematic elements of a few of them were considered to create this piece.
Clearly nothing is definitive at this point, but at the very least, this compilation will provide a sense of what the film industries in these territories are putting out and sharing with the world.
It is important to note that several of the films mentioned below are being handled by Mundial, a joint venture between Im Gobal and Canana, including "Gueros," "A Wolf at the Door," and "The Liberator."
Here is the first list dedicated to the Americas
Argentina
With four films presented at Cannes and several others receiving praise in festivals around the world, Argentina has several interesting options this year. Unfortunately, Lisandro Alonso’s period piece “Jauja” will almost certainly be ineligible due to its November release date, unless a qualifying one-week run is scheduled. That scenario seems unlikely. Screening in the Directors’ Forthnight, Diego Lerman’s “Refugee” (Refugiado) will open on October 3rd, also a few days after the deadline. That leaves the Almodovar-produced “Wild Tales” as the undisputed favorite. Acclaimed films such as “Natural Sciences," “The Third Side of the River”, “El Ardor“ (staring Gael Garcia Bernal), and “La Paz” are longer shots but still viable choices.
1. "Wild Tales" (Relatos Salvajes)
2. "Natural Sciences" (Ciencias Naturales)
3."The Ardor" (El Ardor)
4."The Third Side of the River" (La Tercera Orilla)
5."La Paz"
Bolivia
The last time the landlocked country submitted a film was back in 2009. However, this year offers several possibilities for the Bolivian film industry. Given its production value and historical theme, it is likely that - if they choose to send a film - it will be Mexican director Carlos Bolado’s “Forgotten” (Olvidados), which deals with the 70s Operation Condor. Another likely choice is “Yvy Maraey,” which highlights the mysticism of the country’s indigenous people and is the latest work by Juan Carlos Valdivia, whose films have represented Bolivia in 3 out of the 6 occasions they’ve participated. A long delayed road trip flick (“Once Upon a Time in Bolivia”) and a unique documentary (“Apricot”) round up the list of contenders.
1. "Forgotten" (Olvidados)
2. "Yvy Maraey: Land Without Evil" (Yvy Maraey: Tierra Sin Mal)
3. "Once Upon a Time in Bolivia" (Erase una vez en Bolivia)
4. "Apricot" (Durazno)
Brazil
Producing an impressive amount of films per year, the Brazilian film industry is seeing incredible progress recently. Particularly this year, the quality of works was exceptional across the board. Having such an overflow of great material could make it difficult to select just one. However, there are a few films that standout amongst the crowd. Fernando Coimbra’s debut feature “A Wolf at the Door” is undoubtedly the one to beat after receiving rave reviews and touring some of the most important international festivals. Its biggest competitors are the quiet character study “The Man of the Crowd” and the adorable coming-of-age tale “The Way He Looks.” Rounding up the top five are locally acclaimed “Runriver” and powerful Lgbt drama “Futuro Beach.”
1. "A Wolf at the Door" (O Lobo atrás da Porta)
2. "The Man of the Crowd" (O Homem das Multidões)
3. "The Way He Looks" (Hoje Eu Quero Voltar Sozinho)
4. "Riverrun" (Riocorrente)
5. "Futuro Beach" (Praia do Futuro)
Canada
This definitely seems like Xavier Dolan’s year. After sharing an award with New Wave patriarch Jean-Luc Godard in Cannes, the 25-year-old prodigy is almost a safe bet having two films that could represent his country. While “Mommy” is the clear favorite, it will have to go against “An Eye for Beauty, ” the latest film from Oscar-winner Denys Arcand. Both films will screen at Tiff in the upcoming weeks, just as time runs out for Canada to nominate a film by the end of September. Less probable but still great options are Dolan’s own “Tom at the Farm,” quirky black-and-white dramedy “Tu Dors Nicole,” and the well-received rural family drama “The Auction. ”
1. "Mommy"
2. "An Eye for Beauty" (Le Règne de la Beauté)
3. "Tom at the Farm" (Tom à la ferme)
4. "You's Sleeping Nicole" (Tu Dors Nicole)
5. "The Auction" (Le démantèlement)
Chile
Here is one of the few countries in the region with a very clear choice, but which sadly might decide to miss that opportunity. Alejandro Fernández Almendras ‘“To Kill a Man” won at Sundance, Rotterdam, Berlin, Cartagena amongst several other festivals and has received extremely positive reactions from critics and audiences. Yet, its opening date in its homeland (October 16th) might prevent it from being selected, which would be a regrettable mistake. A one-week run or an earlier release date would be a worthwhile investment. If they decide to leave it behind for next year, this great film would definitely miss its chance. If that is the case, the South American nation, which in recent years has garnered incredible success with films like “No” and “Gloria,” might decide to go with “The Dance of Reality,” the first film in over 20 years by veteran auteur Alejandro Jodorowsky. Other plausible candidates include “Illiterate” (starring Paulina Garcia), Marcela Said’s remarkable “The Summer of Flying Fish,” and historical biopic “Neruda.”
1. "To Kill a Man" (Matar a un Hombre)
2. "The Dance of Reality" (La Danza de la Realidad)
3. "Illiterate" (Las Analfabetas)
4. "The Summer of Flying Fish" (El Verano de los Peces Voladores)
5. "Neruda"
Colombia
Being forced to resort to mainstream cartel-themed fare in past occasions, this year has fortunately seen a fantastic reemergence of auteur-driven works in the country. Cartagena winner “Dust on the Tongue” is by far the most promising Colombian offer of the year with a thought-provoking premise. Next in line is “Mateo” about a young man struggling to pursue his passion for theater while living in a crime-ridden community. Other films include the touching “Catching Fireflies,” apocalyptic comedy “Chronicle of the End of the World,” and music-infused romance “Ciudad Delirio.” Franco Lolli’s award-winning “Gente de Bien” doesn’t have a release date yet, but will probably be in the running next year.
1. "Dust on the Tongue" (Tierra en la Lengua)
2. "Mateo"
3. "Chasing Fireflies" (Cazando Luciernagas)
4. "Chronicle of the End of the World" (Crónica del Fin del Mundo)
5. "Ciudad Delirio"
Costa Rica
Having three great films eligible for consideration, Costa Rica will likely enter the Oscar race for what would be only the third time in its history. Without a doubt, the country is spearheading Central America in terms of increased film production. Lauded throughout multiple festivals, “Red Princesses,” about a girl growing up in the Sandinista-era, is the most notable work. “Port Father,” a coming-of-age drama set in a coastal town and the comedy “All About the Feathers” are the other two that could be picked. Regardless of which one is selected, they all serve as an encouraging sign of growth for the Costa Rican industry.
1. "Red Princesses" (Princesas Rojas)
2. "Port Father" (Puerto Padre)
3. "All About the Feathers" (Por las Plumas)
Cuba
Hosting the Havana International Film Festival and its consistent investment in local talent make Cuba a unique place for film in the Caribbean. In spite of this, only a few national productions have reached cinemas this year. The three notable titles revolve around personal stories of survival and the struggles associated with living on the island. Winner of several international awards, “Behavior” is the clear favorite. “Melaza,” another local drama dealing with the economic challenges Cubans face and the gay love story “The Last Match,” complete the trio.
1. "Behavior" (Conducta)
2."Melaza"
3. "The Last Match" (La Partida)
Dominican Republic
For its size, this island nation has an impressive working industry that steadily produces films in diverse genres. The Dominican Republic will almost certainly participate again with one of the works by its homegrown talent. Screening in Toronto last year, crime romance “Cristo Rey” has the highest probability of being chosen. In second place is the documentary “The Mountain,” which centers on a unique expedition to Mount Everest by a Dominican team. Passionate road trip story “To the South of Innocence” and psychological thriller “Despertar ” conform the list of options.
1. "Cristo Rey"
2. "The Mountain"(La Montaña)
3. "To the South of Innocence" (Al Sur de la Inocencia)
4. "Despertar"
Ecuador
Seemingly dormant for many decades, the Ecuadorian film industry has recently exploded. Even though they have only submitted three times in the past, it appears they plan to make their presence more consistent moving forward. What is even more surprising, are the numerous alternatives they have to make their selection. At the top of the list is “Holiday,” which premiered in Berlin and has received considerable praise. Two other art house offers, “Silence in Dreamland” and “Saudade,” could be serious contenders. “Girl Without Fear,” a gritty crime film and “The Facilitator,” a politically charged work, have less chances but are still interesting offers.
1. "Holiday" (Feriado)
2. "Silence in Dreamland" (El Silencio en la Tierra de los Sueños)
3. "Saudade"
4. "Girl With No Fear" (Ciudad Sin Sombra)
5. "The Facilitator" (El Facilitador)
El Salvador
Sporadically producing feature length works due to the lack of initiatives that facilitate their funding, El Salvador has never entered the race. Nevertheless, there are three films that could potentially be submitted: Supernatural horror film "The Supreme Book," romantic comedy "The Re-Search," and the more viable choice, " The Four Cardinal Points," a documentary about the diverse lifestyles throughout the tiny country. The latter was exhibited commercially as part of Ambulante El Salvador for about a week, which could possibly make it eligible. But in all honesty, it is hard to think they’ll feel so inclined as to participate.
1. "El Salvador: The Four Cardinal Points" (El Salvador: Cuatro Puntos Cardinales)
2. "The Re-Search" (La ReBusqueda)
3. "The Supreme Book" (El Libro Supremo)
Guatemala
With only one submission under their belt back in 1994 and several missed opportunities in recent years, Guatemala might opt to remain out of the spotlight once again. If, however, they change their mind, there are three films that qualify to be entered. Focusing on the indigenous Maya‘s beliefs and legends, “Where the Sun is Born” is surely the most authentic and visually powerful of these films. Then there is “Pol,” a story about two teenage friends and their mishaps. Lastly, there is “12 Seconds,” a sort of slasher flick set in the countryside. It’s been 20 years since their last try, it wouldn’t hurt to see them make the effort once again.
1. "Where the Sun is Born" (Donde Nace el Sol)
2. "Pol"
3. "12 Seconds" (12 Segundos)
Honduras
Although they have never submitted an entry, the Central American country is showing signs of progress in terms of its film industry. With only two local, low budget films released this year, it is highly unlikely they will enter. Nevertheless, they do have an eligible film “11 Cipotes,” a sports comedy about a soccer team in a small town. The other film, “The Zwickys,” is surprisingly ineligible because it is mostly in English.
1. "11 Kids" (11 Cipotes)
Mexico
Now that the Mexican Academy has announced their shortlist - which strangely and inexplicably includes titles that have no scheduled release dates or that will be released after AMPAS' deadline (September 30th, 2014) - the landscape has dramatically changed. Three of the original selections mentioned here (“The Empty Hours,” “Potosi,” and “ Club Sandwich”) are not included among the finalists. It is important to note that films need to be submitted by the filmmakers in order to be considered by the Mexican Academy. One can assume that these films, though they qualify, decided not to participate. The 21 films listed include several documentaries such as “Purgatorio: A Journey Into the Heart of the Border,” “Disrupted” (Quebranto), “Eufrosina’s Revolution” (La Revolución de los Alcatraces), and “H2Omx" among others. But even if many of these are outstanding films, it is highly unlikely that the Academy will decide to go with a documentary over a narrative given their track record and the other options available. Comedic offers like the charming “Paraíso” by Mariana Chenillo, "Flying Low" (Volando Bajo), and "The Last Call" (Tercera Llamada) also made it in. Just like last year with “Instructions Not Included,” most people could assume that the film with the most commercial prospects would make for a good candidate for Oscar consideration, in this case that would be the biopic “Cantinflas," which was also listed. Fortunately, however, the selection committee often prefers to bet on films honored internationally regardless of their controversial content (“Heli,” “After Lucia,” “Silent Light,” “The Crime of Father Amaro”).
With the new additions, the possibilities have shifted. On the top spot is Alonso Ruiz Palacios’ black and white debut “Güeros,” which won in Berlin and Tribeca, and screened at Karlovy Vary. The festival pedigree will definitely help this unique road trip film set in Mexico City during the late 90s. The runner up is Luis Urquiza’s “Perfect Obedience,” though it did not have any festival exposure or a highly profitable theatrical run, the local critics praised the compelling portrayal of a depraved Catholic priest with satirical undertones. It would definitely make for a great contender if the Academy were willing to run the risk given its controversial subject matter. At number three we have Christian Diaz Pardo’s “Gonzalez,” an intriguing drama about a man looking to change his destiny by joining a for profit evangelical church. Dark comedy “ Workers,” by Salvadoran filmmaker Jose Luis Valle, comes in at number four. Lastly, there is Luis Estrada’s long awaited new film “The Perfect Dictatorship,” which made the cut despite having an October 16th release date. The film could definitely come into play; however, voters should consider the fact that its premise and humor might be too specific to the Mexican political idiosyncrasies to connect with foreign voters. Two other films that might be in the race next year are “Perpetual Sadness” (La Tirisia) and “ The Well” (Manto Acuifero)
1."Güeros"
2. "Perfect Obedience" (Obediencia Perfecta)
3. "Gonzalez"
4. "Workers"
5. "The Perfect Dictatorship" (La Dictadura Perfecta)
Nicaragua
With three submissions in over 30 years (1982, 1988, 2010), Nicaragua is the Central American nation with the most attempts at Oscar glory. More astonishing perhaps, is the fact that their first ever entry, “Alsino and the Condor,” earned them a nomination. These days production is almost non-existent. Still, the country’s most prolific filmmaker Florence Jaugey, responsible for their last submission “La Yuma,” made a small documentary titled “Class Days." It is just over 50 minutes long but actually had a theatrical run. Though eligible, it’s probable they’ll decide to skip this year. On the other hand, Jaugey has just finished a new narrative new feature, “The Naked Screen” (La Pantalla Desnuda), which will surely be part of the conversation next year.
1. "Class Days" (Dias de Clase)
Panama
An unprecedented amount of national productions were scheduled to premier in Panama during 2014. All of those four films - which by the country’s standards is an exceptional number - are documentaries. However, only two of them will be eligible given their set release dates. Out of those two, the top choice would certainly be Abner Benaim’s “Invasion” which uses reenactments in lieu of archive footage to revisit the American military intervention in the Central American country in 1989. The runner-up, “Majesty,” deals with the more lighthearted subject of carnival queens. In any case, should Panama decide to submit a film, this would be their first ever appearance.
1. "Invasion"
2. "Majesty" (Reinas)
Paraguay
Disappointed after missing the chance to submit last year's surprise hit “7 Boxes”due to the lack of a selection committee, Paraguayan authorities have stressed their wish to send a film to compete this time around. Unfortunately, it appears that their two best options might be scheduled to open theatrically past the Academy’s deadline. The documentary “Cloudy Times,” a Swiss co-production, has garnered positive reactions internationally and would be their best shot. A second choice could be the crime flick “Filthy Luck,” which sports a decent production value. But if neither of them manages to qualify, then the country’s only other option is yet another crime film “End of the Line.” In any case, hopefully they follow through with their intentions and participate for the first time.
1. "Cloudy Times" (El Tiempo Nublado)
2. "Filthy Luck" (Luna de Cigarras)
3. "End of the Line" (Fin de Linea)
Peru
The eclectic collection of Peruvian films released this year speaks of the great development the medium is experiencing in that country. The five films mentioned here represent the array of genres and stories coming out of Peru today. Given its incredible reception abroad, dark comedy “The Mute” by Daniel Vega Vidal & Diego Vega Vidal is undoubtedly the frontrunner. Behind it comes the intriguing thriller “Guard Dog” starring Peruvian star Carlos Alcántara, multi-narrative drama “The Gospel of the Flesh,” romantic tearjerker “Trip to Timbuktu,” and “Old Friends” about a group of elderly men on a mission. Definitely a though decision needs to be made.
1. "The Mute" (El Mudo)
2. "Guard Dog" (Perro Guardian)
3. "The Gospel of the Flesh" (El Evangelio de la Carne)
4. "Trip to Timbuktu" (Viaje a Tombuctu)
5. "Old Friends" (Viejos Amigos)
Uruguay
Last year the country decided to take a chance and submit the adorable animated film “Anina,” which despite not getting a nomination has become a great success. This time they have “The Militant,” a serious contender about a man retuning to his late father’s hometown. Empowered by a positive festival run, this seems to be their most ideal option. “23 Seconds,” a drama about an unlikely connection between two people and “Mr. Kaplan,” a buddy comedy by Álvaro Brechner - whose previous film “A Bad Day to Go Fishing” was selected a few years back - are the next best choices. The remaining film “At 60 km/h” is a documentary about a unique journey around the world.
1. "The Militant" (El Lugar del Hijo)
2. "23 Seconds" (23 Segundos)
3. "Mr. Kaplan"
4. "At 60 Km/h" (A 60 Km/h)
Venezuela
Dubbed as “the most expensive film ever made in Latin America” and focusing on the accomplishments of the country’s most important historical figure, selecting “The Liberator” is simply a no-brainer. Added to those qualities, the film is actually an elegantly achieved period piece that really showcases the sizable budget and director Alberto Arvelo’s talent. Two of his previous films have also represented his country in the past. On the other hand, this has been a monumental year for Venezuelan films. Festival darling “Bad Hair” would be the perfect choice if it weren’t going against the imposing major production. Other important films that could figure in the mix but have much less prospects are the emotional road-trip film “The Longest Distance,” the women-centered drama “Liz in September,” and the acclaimed thriller “Solo.”
1. "The Liberator" (El Libertador)
2. "Bad Hair" (Pelo Malo)
3. "The Longest Distance" (La Distnacia Mas Larga)
4. "Liz in September" (Liz en Septiembre)
5. "Solo"...
- 8/22/2014
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Sydney's Buzz
Bac Films
Circa 1988, the Paris-based company created by Jean Labadie is a company of many hats. The French Distribution and International Sales Co. Bac Films is an indie outfitter that counts Frédéric Jardin’s Sleepless Night, Nicolas Provost’s The Invader, Bruno Forzani and Hélène Cattet’s The Strange Colour Of Your Body’s Tears and the sublime Michel Franco’s After Lucia (2012 Cannes) as their recent slate. Head of Sales Gilles Sousa will be once again repping Baltasar Kormákur’s latest (they worked with him on The Deep).
Croisette 2014 Offerings:
Bac Films populate three sections this year. They’ve got Thomas Cailley’s Love at First Fight (aka Fighters) in the Directors’ Fortnight (see pic above), Un Certain Regard selected Philippe Lacôte’s Run and Pablo Fendrik’s El Ardor (starring Gael Garcia Bernal) gets Special Screening status. We’ve been highly anticipating the Gael Garcia Bernal starrer – he...
Circa 1988, the Paris-based company created by Jean Labadie is a company of many hats. The French Distribution and International Sales Co. Bac Films is an indie outfitter that counts Frédéric Jardin’s Sleepless Night, Nicolas Provost’s The Invader, Bruno Forzani and Hélène Cattet’s The Strange Colour Of Your Body’s Tears and the sublime Michel Franco’s After Lucia (2012 Cannes) as their recent slate. Head of Sales Gilles Sousa will be once again repping Baltasar Kormákur’s latest (they worked with him on The Deep).
Croisette 2014 Offerings:
Bac Films populate three sections this year. They’ve got Thomas Cailley’s Love at First Fight (aka Fighters) in the Directors’ Fortnight (see pic above), Un Certain Regard selected Philippe Lacôte’s Run and Pablo Fendrik’s El Ardor (starring Gael Garcia Bernal) gets Special Screening status. We’ve been highly anticipating the Gael Garcia Bernal starrer – he...
- 5/31/2014
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
Starring Mexican superstar Gael García Bernal, the Argentine film El Ardor (The Ardor) is set to premiere at this year's Cannes Film Festival as a Special Screening. The film by Pablo Fendrik is one of the few Latin American works present at the event and the expectations are high.
Here is a reprint of an interview by John Hopewell with Pablo Fendrik that appeared recently on Variety
Pablo Fendrik ’s “El Ardor,” an Amazon-set Western action adventure and Participant Media’s first investment under its Participant PanAmerica initiative, will play as a Special Screening at this year’s Cannes Festival.
The third feature from Fendrik, whose Blood Appears played Cannes’ Critics’ Week, El Ardor stars Gael Garcia Bernal as an Amazon rainforest settler, Kai, who befriends a tobacco farmer and his beautiful daughter (Alice Braga). When a band of brutal mercenaries slaughter the father and kidnap the daughter, Kai sets out to rescue her.
In both Fendrik’s move into more mainstream filmmaking and the film’s financing structure, which takes in regional co-production plus funding from the U.S. and Europe, El Ardor reps a step up in scale and ambition for Latin America. Variety talked with Fendrik in the run-up to Cannes.
Variety: “El Ardor” is a Western, and classic Hollywood Westerns often had a theme of civilizing the wild. But in your Western this process of civilization has become more negative.
Pablo Fendrik: That’s the whole point of using the genre. Respectfully turning it on its head. We are pretty much signing our own death sentences in this environment. Kai (Garcia Bernal), says that men should not be in the jungle. He means it. It’s O.K. to have a little farm where you can be self-sustainable, live from the land, without invading everything else. That’s certain point of balance. But when you have to feed seven billion people, no one’s thinking about anything except land for planting, what the world’s supposed to eat. We can’t make an actual Western these days about colonization of the West, because it’s completely anachronistic. The reality is the other way around. We’re not supposed to colonize everything.
Variety: Like Pablo Larraín’s No, Sebastián Lelio’s Gloria andAlejandro Fernández Almendras’ To Kill A Man, in contrast to your first two features, 2007’s The Mugger and 2008’s Blood Appears, El Ardor is a step-up in scale, budget, ambition and the use of stars. What did that stem from?
Pablo Fendrik: From a personal need to make a film of a different scale and dimension. When I finished Blood Appears and after taking it to string of festivals, I felt the need to work with something bigger aimed at a much larger audience, a more pleasant experience for the viewers.
Variety: El Ardor is lead produced by Magma Cine’s Juan-Pablo Gugliotta and Nathalia Videla Pena. It is also a pioneering pan Latin America-u.S.-Europe co-production. How did you manage to put that together?
Pablo Fendrik: The first partners interested in being in the project were Latin American — first of all Brazil, Bananeira Films, then Canana, the production company of Garcia Bernal, Diego Luna and Pablo Cruz. El Ardor’s sales agent Bac Films boarded later, bringing in the French co- producer Manny Films. Then, at the end Participant PanAmerica came in.
Variety: Doubling up as a star and a producer, Gael Garcia Bernal’s involvement seems crucial.
Pablo Fendrik: Gael and I started toying with the idea of making a film together in 2007. First I thought of another kind of film that wasn’t a jungle Western. Then I went to Misiones, into the forest for a few weeks, and when I came back, I wrote a first draft. Gael then became more directly involved in the production, and decided to come in with Canana and then as an actor. From the minute he came in, things started moving and we were finally able to bring Participant Media. In Argentina, the support of Axel Kutchevasky at Telefe, Telefonica Estudios and Aleph Media also proved crucial.
Variety: As a director, in El Ardor you begin quite a lot of scenes with a shot of nature, then you pan onto the characters. Also, the camera
often moves into a character or the scene, slowly creeping up on people or a scene.
Pablo Fendrik: The idea at the beginning is establish a certain sense of induction. The first five minutes of the film are dolly shots. We’re always going forward as a spectator. The idea is to introduce this mysterious world, it’s a jungle but it’s in this place that we sense that there’s something wrong. There’s some lurking menace around. And regarding camera movement, it has to do with trying to work against the style that I developed in my previous films, with too many close-ups in long lenses. I wanted to try a much more elegant and subtle kind of shooting style. I wanted it to be a pleasure to watch these people in this environment.
Variety: This is a near full-on action film. At the same time, you have a sense of environment that is stronger than in many films. Yes, this is an action-Western. At the same time, it deals with social issues, although they’re never rubbed in the spectator’s face. Can you talk about these elements? And how true to real events is El Ardor?
Pablo Fendrik: The secret is not to think about it as a social topic. For me, El Ardor is about revenge. But it deals with a situation that interests me: Deforestation, the violent eviction of people from their lands. Researching the script, I met some farmers who were kicked out from their land, or someone tried to years ago. About four to five years ago, the owner of a well-known estancia, a big estate called called La Fidelidad, was killed by mercenaries like the ones I portray in my film: Guys who came around the place by night, tortured him and his wife, forced him to sign a false bill of sale for his land, and when he refused, tortured him and ended up murdering them. They used the hand of the dead man to sign the paper. This happened in Formosa, another province in Argentina. The murders’ organizer was a big landlord who he wanted the land.
Variety: In another departure from classic Westerns, the characters are more shaded. Even the eldest brother, who orders the murder of the father, has moments of generosity, courage, affection.
Pablo Fendrik: I portrayed the lead mercenary and eldest brother, Tarquinio, as someone who’s reached the stage in his life where he’s absolutely drained. He’s been the leader of people who’ve done so much evil: that’s his job, as a way to make a living. But he’s tired. He’s someone who grew up in an extremely harsh, tough environment, which is the survival of the fittest. It’s the type of life he’s been forced to lead. The first time we see him, he stands up, rifle in hand. And never, at any point in the film is he ever seen without his rifle, until the very end. At the same time he’s obliged to be a father to his two brothers, a mentor. He tries to be a fair leader.
Variety: Could you also say that El Ardor is a woman’s Western? There’s a love story and Alice Braga’s character that drives the love story.
Pablo Fendrik: She is the sensitive soul of the film. She starts as a peasant woman, doing typical farm work, cooking for the men. But by the end she’s a woman capable of putting through a plan of vengeance. Of all the characters, hers is the largest character arc. When she’s attracted to the character of Kai: she takes the initiative, physically, and shows him what she feels for him. Kai is more instinctive, seems to be more bio-mystical, focused on the sensorial, more akin to an animal.
Here is a reprint of an interview by John Hopewell with Pablo Fendrik that appeared recently on Variety
Pablo Fendrik ’s “El Ardor,” an Amazon-set Western action adventure and Participant Media’s first investment under its Participant PanAmerica initiative, will play as a Special Screening at this year’s Cannes Festival.
The third feature from Fendrik, whose Blood Appears played Cannes’ Critics’ Week, El Ardor stars Gael Garcia Bernal as an Amazon rainforest settler, Kai, who befriends a tobacco farmer and his beautiful daughter (Alice Braga). When a band of brutal mercenaries slaughter the father and kidnap the daughter, Kai sets out to rescue her.
In both Fendrik’s move into more mainstream filmmaking and the film’s financing structure, which takes in regional co-production plus funding from the U.S. and Europe, El Ardor reps a step up in scale and ambition for Latin America. Variety talked with Fendrik in the run-up to Cannes.
Variety: “El Ardor” is a Western, and classic Hollywood Westerns often had a theme of civilizing the wild. But in your Western this process of civilization has become more negative.
Pablo Fendrik: That’s the whole point of using the genre. Respectfully turning it on its head. We are pretty much signing our own death sentences in this environment. Kai (Garcia Bernal), says that men should not be in the jungle. He means it. It’s O.K. to have a little farm where you can be self-sustainable, live from the land, without invading everything else. That’s certain point of balance. But when you have to feed seven billion people, no one’s thinking about anything except land for planting, what the world’s supposed to eat. We can’t make an actual Western these days about colonization of the West, because it’s completely anachronistic. The reality is the other way around. We’re not supposed to colonize everything.
Variety: Like Pablo Larraín’s No, Sebastián Lelio’s Gloria andAlejandro Fernández Almendras’ To Kill A Man, in contrast to your first two features, 2007’s The Mugger and 2008’s Blood Appears, El Ardor is a step-up in scale, budget, ambition and the use of stars. What did that stem from?
Pablo Fendrik: From a personal need to make a film of a different scale and dimension. When I finished Blood Appears and after taking it to string of festivals, I felt the need to work with something bigger aimed at a much larger audience, a more pleasant experience for the viewers.
Variety: El Ardor is lead produced by Magma Cine’s Juan-Pablo Gugliotta and Nathalia Videla Pena. It is also a pioneering pan Latin America-u.S.-Europe co-production. How did you manage to put that together?
Pablo Fendrik: The first partners interested in being in the project were Latin American — first of all Brazil, Bananeira Films, then Canana, the production company of Garcia Bernal, Diego Luna and Pablo Cruz. El Ardor’s sales agent Bac Films boarded later, bringing in the French co- producer Manny Films. Then, at the end Participant PanAmerica came in.
Variety: Doubling up as a star and a producer, Gael Garcia Bernal’s involvement seems crucial.
Pablo Fendrik: Gael and I started toying with the idea of making a film together in 2007. First I thought of another kind of film that wasn’t a jungle Western. Then I went to Misiones, into the forest for a few weeks, and when I came back, I wrote a first draft. Gael then became more directly involved in the production, and decided to come in with Canana and then as an actor. From the minute he came in, things started moving and we were finally able to bring Participant Media. In Argentina, the support of Axel Kutchevasky at Telefe, Telefonica Estudios and Aleph Media also proved crucial.
Variety: As a director, in El Ardor you begin quite a lot of scenes with a shot of nature, then you pan onto the characters. Also, the camera
often moves into a character or the scene, slowly creeping up on people or a scene.
Pablo Fendrik: The idea at the beginning is establish a certain sense of induction. The first five minutes of the film are dolly shots. We’re always going forward as a spectator. The idea is to introduce this mysterious world, it’s a jungle but it’s in this place that we sense that there’s something wrong. There’s some lurking menace around. And regarding camera movement, it has to do with trying to work against the style that I developed in my previous films, with too many close-ups in long lenses. I wanted to try a much more elegant and subtle kind of shooting style. I wanted it to be a pleasure to watch these people in this environment.
Variety: This is a near full-on action film. At the same time, you have a sense of environment that is stronger than in many films. Yes, this is an action-Western. At the same time, it deals with social issues, although they’re never rubbed in the spectator’s face. Can you talk about these elements? And how true to real events is El Ardor?
Pablo Fendrik: The secret is not to think about it as a social topic. For me, El Ardor is about revenge. But it deals with a situation that interests me: Deforestation, the violent eviction of people from their lands. Researching the script, I met some farmers who were kicked out from their land, or someone tried to years ago. About four to five years ago, the owner of a well-known estancia, a big estate called called La Fidelidad, was killed by mercenaries like the ones I portray in my film: Guys who came around the place by night, tortured him and his wife, forced him to sign a false bill of sale for his land, and when he refused, tortured him and ended up murdering them. They used the hand of the dead man to sign the paper. This happened in Formosa, another province in Argentina. The murders’ organizer was a big landlord who he wanted the land.
Variety: In another departure from classic Westerns, the characters are more shaded. Even the eldest brother, who orders the murder of the father, has moments of generosity, courage, affection.
Pablo Fendrik: I portrayed the lead mercenary and eldest brother, Tarquinio, as someone who’s reached the stage in his life where he’s absolutely drained. He’s been the leader of people who’ve done so much evil: that’s his job, as a way to make a living. But he’s tired. He’s someone who grew up in an extremely harsh, tough environment, which is the survival of the fittest. It’s the type of life he’s been forced to lead. The first time we see him, he stands up, rifle in hand. And never, at any point in the film is he ever seen without his rifle, until the very end. At the same time he’s obliged to be a father to his two brothers, a mentor. He tries to be a fair leader.
Variety: Could you also say that El Ardor is a woman’s Western? There’s a love story and Alice Braga’s character that drives the love story.
Pablo Fendrik: She is the sensitive soul of the film. She starts as a peasant woman, doing typical farm work, cooking for the men. But by the end she’s a woman capable of putting through a plan of vengeance. Of all the characters, hers is the largest character arc. When she’s attracted to the character of Kai: she takes the initiative, physically, and shows him what she feels for him. Kai is more instinctive, seems to be more bio-mystical, focused on the sensorial, more akin to an animal.
- 5/14/2014
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
It's customary for a few films to be added to the Cannes Film Festival lineup in the weeks following the initial announcement, raising cinephiles' hopes for whatever big-name prospect was left out to begin with -- and usually dashing them. A further six films were added today, the highest-profile of which is another French title: André Téchiné's "In the Name of My Daughter," starring Guillaume Canet and Catherine Deneuve. None of them, however, will play in Competition, which remains fixed at 18 features -- currently the lowest number since the 1990 festival. The new arrivals are: "In the Name of My Daughter" (Out of Competition): Titled "The Man Who Loved Too Much" in French, the latest from veteran director André Téchiné is based on the mysterious real-life case of heiress Agnes Le Roux, who disappeared without trace in 1977. Adele Haenel ("House of Tolerance") plays Le Roux, Catherine Deneuve her mother Renee,...
- 4/30/2014
- by Guy Lodge
- Hitfix
Hovering around the twenty-one to twenty-four feature film mark with at least a quarter of those films belonging to first time filmmakers, the Quinzaine des Realisateurs (a.k.a Directors’ Fortnight) has in the past couple of years, counted on a healthy supply of French, Spanish and Belgium produced film items, and has been geared towards the offbeat genre items as with last year’s edition curated by Edouard Waintrop and co. To be unveiled on the 22nd, as we attempted with our Critics’ Week predix, Blake Williams, Nicholas Bell and I (Eric Lavallee) are thinking out loud and hedging our bets on what the section might look like or what the programmers might be looking at for 2014. Here is our predictions overview:
Alleluia
Six years after presenting Vinyan at the Venice Film Festival, Fabrice Du Welz finally returns with potentially not one, but a pair of works for the ’14 campaign.
Alleluia
Six years after presenting Vinyan at the Venice Film Festival, Fabrice Du Welz finally returns with potentially not one, but a pair of works for the ’14 campaign.
- 4/16/2014
- by IONCINEMA.com Contributing Writers
- IONCINEMA.com
Variety reports that Jeffrey Skoll’s Participant Media is teaming with Image Nation Abu Dhabi as co-financer and collaborating once again with a docu helmer always in it for a good cause in Davis Guggenheim on a project surrounding the international, inspirational youth figure Malala Yousafzai. Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald will produce the project which they hope will find a distributor first and then bring goodness alongside teachers, books and classrooms into theaters sometime early next year.
Gist: In 2012 Malala Yousafzai was wounded when gunmen opened fire on her school bus in Pakistan’s Swat Valley. The then 14-year-old teenager, who had been targeted for speaking out on behalf of girls’ education in her community, was shot in the head and neck, sparking international media outrage. Yousafzai was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the youngest such nominee in history.
Worth Noting: One of our favorite producer-philanthropists, Jeff Skoll...
Gist: In 2012 Malala Yousafzai was wounded when gunmen opened fire on her school bus in Pakistan’s Swat Valley. The then 14-year-old teenager, who had been targeted for speaking out on behalf of girls’ education in her community, was shot in the head and neck, sparking international media outrage. Yousafzai was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the youngest such nominee in history.
Worth Noting: One of our favorite producer-philanthropists, Jeff Skoll...
- 4/10/2014
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
The Ardor
Director: Pablo Fendrik
Writer(s): Pablo Fendrik
Producers: Juan Pablo Gugliotta, Nathalia Videla Peña, Gael García Bernal
U.S. Distributor: Rights Available
Cast: Gael García Bernal, Alice Braga
In terms of visibility and breaking out, we’re betting that Pablo Fendrik’s third feature film (debut in the English language) will raise his profile much like Miss Bala did for Gerardo Naranjo. The auteur Argentinian filmmaker who paired with actor Arturo Goetz on distinctly antagonistic items such as The Mugger (2007) and Blood Appears (2008) has been cooking up this environmental-thriller for a while now.
Gist: Gael Garcia Bernal portrays a mysterious man who emerges from the Argentinean rainforest to rescue the kidnapped daughter (Alice Braga) of a poor farmer after mercenaries murder her father and take over his property.
Release Date: Seeing that both of his debut films screened in Cannes, this logically should be included in the...
Director: Pablo Fendrik
Writer(s): Pablo Fendrik
Producers: Juan Pablo Gugliotta, Nathalia Videla Peña, Gael García Bernal
U.S. Distributor: Rights Available
Cast: Gael García Bernal, Alice Braga
In terms of visibility and breaking out, we’re betting that Pablo Fendrik’s third feature film (debut in the English language) will raise his profile much like Miss Bala did for Gerardo Naranjo. The auteur Argentinian filmmaker who paired with actor Arturo Goetz on distinctly antagonistic items such as The Mugger (2007) and Blood Appears (2008) has been cooking up this environmental-thriller for a while now.
Gist: Gael Garcia Bernal portrays a mysterious man who emerges from the Argentinean rainforest to rescue the kidnapped daughter (Alice Braga) of a poor farmer after mercenaries murder her father and take over his property.
Release Date: Seeing that both of his debut films screened in Cannes, this logically should be included in the...
- 2/26/2014
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
Everything Will Be Fine
Director: Wim Wenders
Writer: Bjorn Olaff Johanessenn
Producers: Gian-Piero Ringel, Erwin M. Schmidt
U.S. Distributor: Rights Available
Cast: Rachel McAdams, James Franco, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Marie-Josée Croze
Initially, Sarah Polley had been attached in the role that went to McAdams (we’re hoping it’s because Polley is hard at work on her adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace), but even still, for Wim Wender’s first fiction feature since 2008′s Palermo Shooting, it’s got quite the exciting cast (and yes, it bears the same title as a 2010 film from Danish filmmaker Cristoffer Boe). The 2011 documentary Pina apparently gave Wenders the 3D bug, so we are curious to see how that technology will further influence the art house auteur.
Gist: While driving aimlessly after a quarrel with his girlfriend, a writer accidentally runs over and kills a child. The accident and its aftermath deeply traumatizes him.
Director: Wim Wenders
Writer: Bjorn Olaff Johanessenn
Producers: Gian-Piero Ringel, Erwin M. Schmidt
U.S. Distributor: Rights Available
Cast: Rachel McAdams, James Franco, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Marie-Josée Croze
Initially, Sarah Polley had been attached in the role that went to McAdams (we’re hoping it’s because Polley is hard at work on her adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace), but even still, for Wim Wender’s first fiction feature since 2008′s Palermo Shooting, it’s got quite the exciting cast (and yes, it bears the same title as a 2010 film from Danish filmmaker Cristoffer Boe). The 2011 documentary Pina apparently gave Wenders the 3D bug, so we are curious to see how that technology will further influence the art house auteur.
Gist: While driving aimlessly after a quarrel with his girlfriend, a writer accidentally runs over and kills a child. The accident and its aftermath deeply traumatizes him.
- 2/26/2014
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
The current biggest hit in México, We Are The Nobles ( Nosotros los Nobles), has grossed $32 million in its first months of release this spring. The film’s director, Gary "Gaz" Alazraki, was a young Mexican student at USC's film school more than 12 years ago when the idea came to him to make a movie satirizing his country's nouveau riche and newly powerful. The comedy is hitting the Mexican public’s social nerve in the way that Eric Toledano’s Untouchable hit the French audience last year. Both deal with the common social issues which are dividing the country – issues of the haves and the have-nots. L.A. Times discusses this break through as a social phenomenon. For Director Alazraki it is great; for México, perhaps it is a mixed blessing.
Nosotros los Nobles is actually a Warner "local-language" production, part of the intensifying pattern of U.S. studio involvement in overseas markets. This on one hand might be considered good for the Mexican film industry in that it demonstrates to the Mexican filmmakers the commercial imperative they need – adopting forms (like Nosotros' high-concept comedy) and marketing that can hold their own and fire up the mainstream. Warner actually had previously adapted this formula with their 2010 romantic comedy No Eres Tú, Soy Yo (It's Not You, It's Me) which holds the Number 5 spot in the domestic all-time list. However both films failed to gain footholds in the U.S. or international markets, whereas Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Amores Perros, starring Gael García Bernal, captured the international market as a bonafide, original Mexican feature, funded by private Mexican capital.
Warner, true to the majors’ treatment for this sort of local production, will predictably do little more internationally than to allow its release (after the pirates have already gotten to it) stateside -- through Gussi, a very strong Mexican distributor, and Cine Latino, a company owned by the ubiquitous Jim McNamara who is also a partner with Lionsgate, the second of U.S.’s only three Latino distribution companies, Pantelion. The third company is Cinema Tropical.
What Has Happened to Mexican Films in Mexico
In the mid 1990s, after México joined the North American Free Trade Area, Mexican cinemas were flooded by U.S. imports which obliterated the Mexican national industry overnight. Imcine was the last dam preventing Mexico being not merely flooded but drowned by Hollywood blockbusters.
And then a resurgence of Mexican films seems to have started again with the all-time hit Amores Perros in 2001 and El Crimen del Padre Amaro in 2002.
The exciting event of a local film out-grossing an American film in 2001 was the beginning of a worldwide trend in which local hits began to challenge U.S. or North American hegemony, not only in México but throughout the world.
To counteract this, the U.S. major studios began to implement another tactic. They began to invest in local production, as described above. This development and more about the U.S. hegemony is further elaborated on recently by Nancy Tartaglioni, readers who want to know more can read her article here.
An additional factor affecting the Mexican film industry today is the gravitational pull of Los Angeles. It is a strong force, not just for name auteurs like Alejandro González Iñárritu and Alfonso Cuarón, and Guillermo del Toro but also for the below-the-line crew in the thousands who can and do enrich the Mexican industry if they are not drawn to L.A., which ironically is itself struggling with runaway production and increasing unemployment for the L.A. local film trade.
Support For Film Production
Mexican filmmakers have been very open in their complaints since 2003 when the government plan to sell off its government-owned systems of support of filmmaking was thwarted by the country’s filmmakers. The government was forced to recognize officially that “the production, and in recent years, the coproduction of motion pictures, television series and international commercials have been important factors in the development of the film industry.”
The filmmakers’ demand for specific up-to-date information and support services for the film, television and video industries led to the creation of the National Film Commission, a nonprofit and specialized organization founded by the Mexican Film Institute (Imcine) and the Churubusco Azteca Film Studios. A good step-by-step guide to government support for filmmaking can be found here on Imcine’s official website.
Mexican Film Schools
Even with the increasing production of art house cinema in Mexico in which the two public film schools Ccc and Unam participate very actively, in effect, today México still has no real self-sustaining film industry.
One person interviewed in Guadalajara during the festival this past March says, “In México the government does everything, but it is not enough. Creativity is fettered by government laws.” If everything is subsidized, creativity falters. Creativity does not come out of a bureaucratic mindset.
The problem the subsidy system creates is that if you do not have money at risk, then you do not care about the return on the investment. Given production numbers are holding steady, the big problem for these finished films is theatrical distribution. Some suggest that a solution might be to allocate more money to the theaters to show the Mexican movies that do get made in order to give them a chance to earn back money and to force the films to be more commercial. Only one state out of the 31 states which comprise the United Mexican States offers exhibition support.
The sustainability of the Mexican film industry may be changing however. Law 226 permits money that would otherwise go to taxes to be invested instead into film production. This tax credit for private individuals and for privately owned business seems to be making a difference by encouraging private businesses to partake in production. This, along with improving access and marketing to theatrical exhibition, could create an actual industry.
Exhibition
Out of the approximately 100 films produced each year in México , 80% have government financing and only 30 or 40 of them get any theatrical release. Out of that only about 2 Mexican movies out of the 30 or 40 movies have any significant box office returns.
Of the 5,500 screens in México which the major U.S. studios fill with product, Sony/ Disney and Universal/ Warner Bros. dominate the market in México to the tune of 50% of the box office. Along with Fox and Paramount, they hold 91% of the box office receipts.
There were 252 non-Mexican films receiving theatrical distribution in 2012. 128 were from the U.S. (and grabbed 90% of the box office), 31 were from France, 13 from Spain, 11 from Latin America and 11 from other countries, including So. Korea.
While all the theaters are now digitized, online exhibition of films has not taken hold because the internet does not reach everyone and most Mexicans do not have credit cards to pay for downloading or streaming even if they did have internet access.
Changing the Model
Iñárritu, Cuarón and del Toro all appropriated a kind of American dynamism or genre literacy, as well as private financing, that broke from the European-influenced art-film model that Imcine, the Mexican public film-development organization had practiced since the 1980s, and they created such classics as Amores Perros, El crimen del Padre Amaro and Y Tu Mamá También.
Today, the newest development in México is that of Canana, the production and distribution company of Gael Garcia Bernal, Diego Luna, Pablo Cruz and Julian Levin. After its international successes, Canana signed a co-production agreement with Jeff Skoll’s Participant Media. The Academy Award nominated No was their first film together. They are now coproducing The Ardor. Canana also set up Mundial , a 50-50 joint venture with Stuart Ford’s U.S. based international sales company, Im Global, to sell Iberoamerican films internationally.
No demonstrates the power of coproductions today and international sales which increase both budgets and international commercial reach. The four production companies which coproduced No come from different countries, and each one brings special strengths to the production. The film was initiated by Chile’s top production company, Fabula, owned by the brothers Pablo Larraín and Juan de Dios Larraín who started with Fuga in 2006, broke out with Tony Manera in 2008 and most recently produced the sleeper hit of the Berlinale 2013, Gloria.
When Fabula cast the worldwide star Gael Garcia Bernal in No, the deal also included his company Canana as coproducer. This was the first coproduction of Canana and Fabula with U.S. based Participant who put up the Us$ 2,000,000 budget for the picture and then became a partner in a slate of coproductions. The French company, Funny Balloons, was also coproducer and more importantly, as the international sales company for No it was able to sell territories to back up the financing. It pre-sold or licensed the finished film extensively: Austria to Filmladen, Australia to Rialto Distribution), Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia to Babilla, Czech Republic to Film Distribution Artcam, Denmark to Reel Pictures Aps, France toFunny Balloons, Germany to Piffl, Greece to Strada Films, Hong Kong to Golden Scene, Hungary toCinefil Co Ltd., Italy, Mexico to Canana, Netherlands to Npo, Netherlands Public Broadcasting, New Zealand to Rialto, Norway to Art House, Peru, Portugal to Alambique, Russia & Cis to Frontiers, Singapore to Cathay, Spain to Golem, Sweden to Atlantic, Switzerland to Cineworx Gmbh, Turkey to Tiglon, United Kingdom toChannel Four Television. Box Office Mojo calculates international box office from these countries to be Us$ 5,408,080 plus the Sony Pictures Classics No. American box office reported at Us$ 2,343,664.
Even without domestic dominance, Mexican features make an impact on the international film industry. The worldwide trend of coproductions as the engine driving the international film business is very much in sync with what is happening today for young Mexican filmmakers who begin by the help of the state and are able to get their first films financed in their home countries, as well as for the “veterans” like Bernal and Luna, Iñárritu, Cuarón and del Toro who are fully integrated into the international film industry.
And the private equity growth in production looks promising as well. Last year, Mexican feature films financed 100% by private equity numbered 40 compared to 14 in 2011, 10 in 2010 and 9 in 2009. Films with state support last year numbered 70, up from an average of 58 in the previous years 2011, 2010, 2009 and 2008.
Another interesting note is that out of the 67 Mexican films that received theatrical distribution in 2012 (of the 112 total produced), 23 were by women. Bringing a different sort of equity to 50% of the population is also a goal of the international film community, and should be a goal of the Mexican government as well.
Nosotros los Nobles is actually a Warner "local-language" production, part of the intensifying pattern of U.S. studio involvement in overseas markets. This on one hand might be considered good for the Mexican film industry in that it demonstrates to the Mexican filmmakers the commercial imperative they need – adopting forms (like Nosotros' high-concept comedy) and marketing that can hold their own and fire up the mainstream. Warner actually had previously adapted this formula with their 2010 romantic comedy No Eres Tú, Soy Yo (It's Not You, It's Me) which holds the Number 5 spot in the domestic all-time list. However both films failed to gain footholds in the U.S. or international markets, whereas Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Amores Perros, starring Gael García Bernal, captured the international market as a bonafide, original Mexican feature, funded by private Mexican capital.
Warner, true to the majors’ treatment for this sort of local production, will predictably do little more internationally than to allow its release (after the pirates have already gotten to it) stateside -- through Gussi, a very strong Mexican distributor, and Cine Latino, a company owned by the ubiquitous Jim McNamara who is also a partner with Lionsgate, the second of U.S.’s only three Latino distribution companies, Pantelion. The third company is Cinema Tropical.
What Has Happened to Mexican Films in Mexico
In the mid 1990s, after México joined the North American Free Trade Area, Mexican cinemas were flooded by U.S. imports which obliterated the Mexican national industry overnight. Imcine was the last dam preventing Mexico being not merely flooded but drowned by Hollywood blockbusters.
And then a resurgence of Mexican films seems to have started again with the all-time hit Amores Perros in 2001 and El Crimen del Padre Amaro in 2002.
The exciting event of a local film out-grossing an American film in 2001 was the beginning of a worldwide trend in which local hits began to challenge U.S. or North American hegemony, not only in México but throughout the world.
To counteract this, the U.S. major studios began to implement another tactic. They began to invest in local production, as described above. This development and more about the U.S. hegemony is further elaborated on recently by Nancy Tartaglioni, readers who want to know more can read her article here.
An additional factor affecting the Mexican film industry today is the gravitational pull of Los Angeles. It is a strong force, not just for name auteurs like Alejandro González Iñárritu and Alfonso Cuarón, and Guillermo del Toro but also for the below-the-line crew in the thousands who can and do enrich the Mexican industry if they are not drawn to L.A., which ironically is itself struggling with runaway production and increasing unemployment for the L.A. local film trade.
Support For Film Production
Mexican filmmakers have been very open in their complaints since 2003 when the government plan to sell off its government-owned systems of support of filmmaking was thwarted by the country’s filmmakers. The government was forced to recognize officially that “the production, and in recent years, the coproduction of motion pictures, television series and international commercials have been important factors in the development of the film industry.”
The filmmakers’ demand for specific up-to-date information and support services for the film, television and video industries led to the creation of the National Film Commission, a nonprofit and specialized organization founded by the Mexican Film Institute (Imcine) and the Churubusco Azteca Film Studios. A good step-by-step guide to government support for filmmaking can be found here on Imcine’s official website.
Mexican Film Schools
Even with the increasing production of art house cinema in Mexico in which the two public film schools Ccc and Unam participate very actively, in effect, today México still has no real self-sustaining film industry.
One person interviewed in Guadalajara during the festival this past March says, “In México the government does everything, but it is not enough. Creativity is fettered by government laws.” If everything is subsidized, creativity falters. Creativity does not come out of a bureaucratic mindset.
The problem the subsidy system creates is that if you do not have money at risk, then you do not care about the return on the investment. Given production numbers are holding steady, the big problem for these finished films is theatrical distribution. Some suggest that a solution might be to allocate more money to the theaters to show the Mexican movies that do get made in order to give them a chance to earn back money and to force the films to be more commercial. Only one state out of the 31 states which comprise the United Mexican States offers exhibition support.
The sustainability of the Mexican film industry may be changing however. Law 226 permits money that would otherwise go to taxes to be invested instead into film production. This tax credit for private individuals and for privately owned business seems to be making a difference by encouraging private businesses to partake in production. This, along with improving access and marketing to theatrical exhibition, could create an actual industry.
Exhibition
Out of the approximately 100 films produced each year in México , 80% have government financing and only 30 or 40 of them get any theatrical release. Out of that only about 2 Mexican movies out of the 30 or 40 movies have any significant box office returns.
Of the 5,500 screens in México which the major U.S. studios fill with product, Sony/ Disney and Universal/ Warner Bros. dominate the market in México to the tune of 50% of the box office. Along with Fox and Paramount, they hold 91% of the box office receipts.
There were 252 non-Mexican films receiving theatrical distribution in 2012. 128 were from the U.S. (and grabbed 90% of the box office), 31 were from France, 13 from Spain, 11 from Latin America and 11 from other countries, including So. Korea.
While all the theaters are now digitized, online exhibition of films has not taken hold because the internet does not reach everyone and most Mexicans do not have credit cards to pay for downloading or streaming even if they did have internet access.
Changing the Model
Iñárritu, Cuarón and del Toro all appropriated a kind of American dynamism or genre literacy, as well as private financing, that broke from the European-influenced art-film model that Imcine, the Mexican public film-development organization had practiced since the 1980s, and they created such classics as Amores Perros, El crimen del Padre Amaro and Y Tu Mamá También.
Today, the newest development in México is that of Canana, the production and distribution company of Gael Garcia Bernal, Diego Luna, Pablo Cruz and Julian Levin. After its international successes, Canana signed a co-production agreement with Jeff Skoll’s Participant Media. The Academy Award nominated No was their first film together. They are now coproducing The Ardor. Canana also set up Mundial , a 50-50 joint venture with Stuart Ford’s U.S. based international sales company, Im Global, to sell Iberoamerican films internationally.
No demonstrates the power of coproductions today and international sales which increase both budgets and international commercial reach. The four production companies which coproduced No come from different countries, and each one brings special strengths to the production. The film was initiated by Chile’s top production company, Fabula, owned by the brothers Pablo Larraín and Juan de Dios Larraín who started with Fuga in 2006, broke out with Tony Manera in 2008 and most recently produced the sleeper hit of the Berlinale 2013, Gloria.
When Fabula cast the worldwide star Gael Garcia Bernal in No, the deal also included his company Canana as coproducer. This was the first coproduction of Canana and Fabula with U.S. based Participant who put up the Us$ 2,000,000 budget for the picture and then became a partner in a slate of coproductions. The French company, Funny Balloons, was also coproducer and more importantly, as the international sales company for No it was able to sell territories to back up the financing. It pre-sold or licensed the finished film extensively: Austria to Filmladen, Australia to Rialto Distribution), Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia to Babilla, Czech Republic to Film Distribution Artcam, Denmark to Reel Pictures Aps, France toFunny Balloons, Germany to Piffl, Greece to Strada Films, Hong Kong to Golden Scene, Hungary toCinefil Co Ltd., Italy, Mexico to Canana, Netherlands to Npo, Netherlands Public Broadcasting, New Zealand to Rialto, Norway to Art House, Peru, Portugal to Alambique, Russia & Cis to Frontiers, Singapore to Cathay, Spain to Golem, Sweden to Atlantic, Switzerland to Cineworx Gmbh, Turkey to Tiglon, United Kingdom toChannel Four Television. Box Office Mojo calculates international box office from these countries to be Us$ 5,408,080 plus the Sony Pictures Classics No. American box office reported at Us$ 2,343,664.
Even without domestic dominance, Mexican features make an impact on the international film industry. The worldwide trend of coproductions as the engine driving the international film business is very much in sync with what is happening today for young Mexican filmmakers who begin by the help of the state and are able to get their first films financed in their home countries, as well as for the “veterans” like Bernal and Luna, Iñárritu, Cuarón and del Toro who are fully integrated into the international film industry.
And the private equity growth in production looks promising as well. Last year, Mexican feature films financed 100% by private equity numbered 40 compared to 14 in 2011, 10 in 2010 and 9 in 2009. Films with state support last year numbered 70, up from an average of 58 in the previous years 2011, 2010, 2009 and 2008.
Another interesting note is that out of the 67 Mexican films that received theatrical distribution in 2012 (of the 112 total produced), 23 were by women. Bringing a different sort of equity to 50% of the population is also a goal of the international film community, and should be a goal of the Mexican government as well.
- 9/18/2013
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Before we unleash the beast that is our annual Top 100 Most Anticipated Films List for 2013, we thought we’d give our readers an eyeful on the projects we’re keeping tabs on for… the 2014 campaign. We’re a little nuts with ours lists, but in the upcoming year we’ll be reporting on several of these films as producers find coin, screenplays are finalized, tech crews are hired, cast come abroad and greenlights are announced. Our countdown begins with…:
100. Prodigal Summer – Dir. Nicole Kassell
99. Stepne – Dir. Maryna Vroda
98. We Are Now Beginning Our Descent – Dir. Pawel Pawlikowski
97. Tree Shade – Dir. Pedro Gonzalez Rubio
96. In Your Name – Dir. Marco Van Geffen
95. Twinkle Twinkle – Dir. Harmony Korine
94. Dead Spy Running – Dir. Adam Wingard
93. Leningrad – Dir. Giuseppe Tornatore
92. The Man Who Sold the World – Dir. Bill Condon
91. Used Guys – Dir. Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris
90. Untitled Freddie Mercury Biopic – Stephen Frears
89. Deux Nuits – Dir.
100. Prodigal Summer – Dir. Nicole Kassell
99. Stepne – Dir. Maryna Vroda
98. We Are Now Beginning Our Descent – Dir. Pawel Pawlikowski
97. Tree Shade – Dir. Pedro Gonzalez Rubio
96. In Your Name – Dir. Marco Van Geffen
95. Twinkle Twinkle – Dir. Harmony Korine
94. Dead Spy Running – Dir. Adam Wingard
93. Leningrad – Dir. Giuseppe Tornatore
92. The Man Who Sold the World – Dir. Bill Condon
91. Used Guys – Dir. Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris
90. Untitled Freddie Mercury Biopic – Stephen Frears
89. Deux Nuits – Dir.
- 1/8/2013
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Bac Films International has picked up sales duties on "The Ardor," an Amazon-set feature from director, Pablo Fendrik. Gael Garcia Bernal, left, and Alice Braga will star in this modern day Western, which is being sold at this week's American Film Market. Bernal will play an Amazon shaman who seeks revenge in the jungle after witnessing an attack. The film is due to start filming in March. Bac's Afm slate also includes Baltasar Kormakur's real life survival tale "The Deep," which is Iceland's entry for the 2013 foreign film Oscars. Other films that...
- 11/2/2012
- by Liza Foreman
- The Wrap
Grand Budapest Hotel
Saoirse Ronan ("Hanna," "Atonement") is set to play the female lead in Wes Anderson's next movie "The Grand Budapest Hotel." Ralph Fiennes, Jude Law, Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman also star.
The story is set 85 years ago in a Hungarian hotel, is partly inspired by the witty films of Billy Wilder and Ernst Lubitsch. Shooting kicks off early next year in Germany. [Source: Variety]
Wonderful Tonight
Patrick Dempsey and Amanda Seyfried have scored the lead roles in Christine Jeffs' rom-com "Wonderful Tonight"
The story involves a one-night stand which leads to a baby and a stand-off between two sudden parents about what they want from each other and themselves. [Source: Deadline]
The Ardor
Gael Garcia Bernal and Alice Braga are set to star in Pablo Fendrik's revenge thriller "The Ardor" at Bac Films. Shooting begins in the Amazon in March for a Fall film festival run.
Garcia-Bernal plays...
Saoirse Ronan ("Hanna," "Atonement") is set to play the female lead in Wes Anderson's next movie "The Grand Budapest Hotel." Ralph Fiennes, Jude Law, Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman also star.
The story is set 85 years ago in a Hungarian hotel, is partly inspired by the witty films of Billy Wilder and Ernst Lubitsch. Shooting kicks off early next year in Germany. [Source: Variety]
Wonderful Tonight
Patrick Dempsey and Amanda Seyfried have scored the lead roles in Christine Jeffs' rom-com "Wonderful Tonight"
The story involves a one-night stand which leads to a baby and a stand-off between two sudden parents about what they want from each other and themselves. [Source: Deadline]
The Ardor
Gael Garcia Bernal and Alice Braga are set to star in Pablo Fendrik's revenge thriller "The Ardor" at Bac Films. Shooting begins in the Amazon in March for a Fall film festival run.
Garcia-Bernal plays...
- 11/2/2012
- by Garth Franklin
- Dark Horizons
A modern tale of survival and revenge… This already sounds like a pretty cool description for the movie which will mark Pablo Fendrik‘s follow-up to his 2008 Blood Appears. And, as you already see in our title, two great names are attached to star in the whole thing – Gael Garcia Bernal and Alice Braga! Check out the rest of this report for more info!
The Ardor will center on a lone Amazon shaman, played by Garcia-Bernal, who comes across a humble tobacco farmer, and his beautiful daughter (I guess that girl is Braga). When a band of deforesters attack the tobacco farm, the daughter is kidnapped and forced to watch her father being brutally killed.
According to director Fendrick, this movie is a personal but action-packed Western, which will help us understand the struggle between man and nature, in a dazzling environment increasingly destroyed by deforestation.
Another interesting thing about...
The Ardor will center on a lone Amazon shaman, played by Garcia-Bernal, who comes across a humble tobacco farmer, and his beautiful daughter (I guess that girl is Braga). When a band of deforesters attack the tobacco farm, the daughter is kidnapped and forced to watch her father being brutally killed.
According to director Fendrick, this movie is a personal but action-packed Western, which will help us understand the struggle between man and nature, in a dazzling environment increasingly destroyed by deforestation.
Another interesting thing about...
- 11/2/2012
- by Jeanne Standal
- Filmofilia
If you know your world cinema, more particularly the Argentinean auteur scene, then you'd be familiar with names such as Pablo Fendrik and Lucia Puenzo. Variety reports that this pair of filmmakers will collaborate on "Hombres de humo" (Smoke Men)... - If you know your world cinema, more particularly the Argentinean auteur scene, then you'd be familiar with names such as Pablo Fendrik and Lucia Puenzo. Variety reports that this pair of filmmakers will collaborate on "Hombres de humo" (Smoke Men) - a project meant to reach a wider audience than those that went to see either of Fendrik's previous films (The Mugger and Blood Appears) which I happened to have caught at Cannes in back to back years. Fendrik will direct and co-write the thriller with Puenzo of Xxy fame. Puenzo is also wearing the producing hat and looking to secure funding locally and from Euro funds. Set in a city outside Buenos Aires,...
- 7/8/2010
- IONCINEMA.com
If you know your world cinema, more particularly the Argentinean auteur scene, then you'd be familiar with names such as Pablo Fendrik and Lucia Puenzo. Variety reports that this pair of filmmakers will collaborate on "Hombres de humo" (Smoke Men) - a project meant to reach a wider audience than those that went to see either of Fendrik's previous films (The Mugger and Blood Appears) which I happened to have caught at Cannes in back to back years. Fendrik will direct and co-write the thriller with Puenzo of Xxy fame. Puenzo is also wearing the producing hat and looking to secure funding locally and from Euro funds. Set in a city outside Buenos Aires, Hombres de humo begins with a man who's involved in Argentina's worst-ever multiple pileup, and seizes the opportunity to murder the woman in the passenger seat. Film then shuttles between the past and the future as...
- 7/8/2010
- IONCINEMA.com
Cannes's 6th Cinefondation Atelier has a lineup of directors which this year includes more known auteurs than previously. It has also joined with Mexico's Expresion den Corto for a summer residence program in Guanajuato, Mexico. Both programs include a dozen of the best young filmmakers in the world, offering them a platform designed to propel their careers with master's classes, workshops and meetings with public and private organizaitons to help obtain financing for their film projects.
The Cannes lineup of 15 films this year includes 4 films by first time directors one of whom is a woman and 2 Latino filmmakers.
Debuting directors:
Taiwan based former actress Show-Chun Lee from France, a protege of Claude Miller with Shanghai-Belleville
Karoly Ujj Meszaros from Hungary with Liza, the Fox-Fairy, a comedic serial killer nurse romp
Diego Quemada-Diez from Mexico with La Jaula de oro
Ruben Sierra Salles from Venezuela with Lucia
A third Latino filmmaker...
The Cannes lineup of 15 films this year includes 4 films by first time directors one of whom is a woman and 2 Latino filmmakers.
Debuting directors:
Taiwan based former actress Show-Chun Lee from France, a protege of Claude Miller with Shanghai-Belleville
Karoly Ujj Meszaros from Hungary with Liza, the Fox-Fairy, a comedic serial killer nurse romp
Diego Quemada-Diez from Mexico with La Jaula de oro
Ruben Sierra Salles from Venezuela with Lucia
A third Latino filmmaker...
- 4/15/2010
- by Sydney
- Sydney's Buzz
The Cannes International Film Festival has announced the participants for the 6th edition of the Atelier of Cinefondation. This workshop was created in 2005 to assist directors with financing and completing their projects. The workshop this year will include 15 projects from 15 different countries.
List of Participants:
The Ardor, Pablo Fendrik (Argentina)
Zincograph, Javor Gardev (Bulgaria)
Gibier D’Elevage, Rithy Panh (Cambodia / France)
Dream And Silence, Jaime Rosales (Spain)
Shanghai – Belleville, Show-Chun Lee (France)
Liza, The Fox-Fairy, Károly Ujj Mészáros, (Hungary)
Postcards From The Zoo, Edwin (Indonesia)
Khorramshahr, Massoud Bakhshi (Iran)
Decadent Sisters, Shinji Aoyama (Japan)
Les Etoiles De Sidi Moumen, Nabil Ayouch (Morocco)
La Jaula De Oro, Diego Quemada-Diez (Mexico)
Code Blue, Urszula Antoniak (Netherlands)
Circles, Sdran Golubovic (Serbia)
Come To My Voice, Hüseyin Karabey (Turkey)
Lucia, Ruben Sierra Salles (Venezuela)...
List of Participants:
The Ardor, Pablo Fendrik (Argentina)
Zincograph, Javor Gardev (Bulgaria)
Gibier D’Elevage, Rithy Panh (Cambodia / France)
Dream And Silence, Jaime Rosales (Spain)
Shanghai – Belleville, Show-Chun Lee (France)
Liza, The Fox-Fairy, Károly Ujj Mészáros, (Hungary)
Postcards From The Zoo, Edwin (Indonesia)
Khorramshahr, Massoud Bakhshi (Iran)
Decadent Sisters, Shinji Aoyama (Japan)
Les Etoiles De Sidi Moumen, Nabil Ayouch (Morocco)
La Jaula De Oro, Diego Quemada-Diez (Mexico)
Code Blue, Urszula Antoniak (Netherlands)
Circles, Sdran Golubovic (Serbia)
Come To My Voice, Hüseyin Karabey (Turkey)
Lucia, Ruben Sierra Salles (Venezuela)...
- 3/23/2010
- by NewsDesk
- DearCinema.com
Proving that the most difficult cinema to find financing for is national cinema (usually comprised with long takes, non-actors, low-budgets, cultural uniqueness, 35mm, and sublime cinematography), Cannes' 2010 L'Atelier Edition, now in its 6th year, contains some surprising names in vets Shinji Aoyama (middle), Nabil Ayouch, Jaime Rosales and Rithy Panh (left). - Proving that the most difficult cinema to find financing for is national cinema (usually comprised with long takes, non-actors, low-budgets, cultural uniqueness, 35mm, and sublime cinematography), Cannes' 2010 L'Atelier Edition, now in its 6th year, contains some surprising names in vets Shinji Aoyama (middle), Nabil Ayouch, Jaime Rosales and Rithy Panh (left). They'll be joining the likes of the next generation of bold filmmakers - in total the Cinefondation selected 15 projects from 15 countries. Among the names we know well, we have Pablo Fendrik (right) - a Cannes regular who presented his last picture Blood Appears, at the fest Bulgaria's...
- 3/23/2010
- IONCINEMA.com
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