MoMA to Present NY Premiere of Paula Markovitch's EL PREMIO

The Global Film Initiative (GFI) will be presenting the New York premieres of the Latin American films El premio / The Prize (pictured) by Paula Markovitch (Mexico/Argentina); El dedo / The Finger by Sergio Teubal (Argentina);Gordo, calvo y bajito / Fat, Bald, Short Man by Carlos Osuna (Colombia) as part of its annual Global Lens series, the annual collaboration between The Museum of Modern Art and GFI that is part of the touring film exhibition Global Lens, a project conceived to encourage filmmaking in countries with emerging film communities. 

Now on its ninth season, Global Lens 2012 will also be presenting the Brazilian film Riscado / Craft by Gustavo Pizzi, along with ten other films from Albania, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Iran, Iraq, Mexico, Morocco, Rwanda and Turkey. The series runs January 12 - 28 at the Museum of Modern Art with the attendance of some filmmakers who will travel to New York to present their work to local audiences.

The most-awarded Mexican film of 2011 (in co-production with Argentina), winner of numerous international prizes including Best Film at the Morelia Film Festival, The Prize tells the story of an anxious young mother and her precocious daughter who flee Buenos Aires for the temporary seclusion of a ramshackle cottage on a remote beach. Her political activist’s life-in-hiding is jeopardized after her seven-year-old daughter is selected to participate in a local school’s patriotic essay contest. Set during the years of Argentine dictatorship and its notorious Dirty War (1975–83), director Paula Markovitch draws on his own experiences to capture the lacunae of childhood’s social and psychological worlds in this exquisitely acted and atmospheric drama about innocence in tumultuous times.

Also set in Argentina during the military dictatorship, in the face of electoral fraud and intimidation, the severed finger of a respected local leader points the way forward for independent-minded citizens and their town’s quest for democracy after dictatorship in Sergio Teubal’s The Finger. Based on real events, this charming dramatic comedy pokes fun at small town ways while celebrating the birth of true democratic values. In Carlos Osuna’s delightful animated feature film, Fat, Bald, Short Man, the prospects for Antonio, a lonely middle-aged notary unexpectedly change after he joins a self-improvement group. Whilst in Gustavo Pizzi’s Craft, Bianca, a struggling actress and celebrity impersonator, lands an audition and what may be her “big break” after an inspired director recasts his film around her socially marginalized life as an underrated artist in Rio. Craft was co-written with the astounding Teles, who inhabits the role of Bianca with heartbreaking poignancy.

Latin American Films Top Best-of-2011 Lists

As 2011 came to an end, several publications published their best-of-the-year lists, which included some Latin American films. The most cherished Latin American film of the year was Patricio Guzmán's Nostalgia de la luz / Nostalgia for the Light (pictured), which was named Best Documentary Film in the past edition of the Cinema Tropical AWARDS and was featured in several lists including those published by the Village Voice (number three, Best Documentary),indieWIRE (number two, Best Documentary; number 22, Best Film), Reverse Shot (number four), Houston Chronicle (number seven), Slant Magazine (number nine), Cinespect (number eight, Best Film; and Best Documentary in no particular order), and Film Comment (number 16).

Guzmán’s film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010 and was theatrically released by Icarus Films in the US in March of 2011. The Chilean documentary was also listed in Dennis Lim’s piece on the Most Overlooked Films of 2011 published by The New York Times; was one of twelve select films that got a four-star rating in The Washington Post last year and was included on NPR’s slant of Five Breakthrough Documentaries.

The late Chilean filmmaker Raúl Ruiz, who died last August, was also featured in several lists with his last film Mysteries of Lisbon, it scored the place number three in Slant Magazine, number five in theVillage Voice, number six in Film Comment, and number seven in indieWIRE.

Additionally the Argentine film Historias extraordinarias / Extraordinary Stories by Mariano Llinás, which was released by Cinema Tropical at The Museum of Modern Art last May, also made it Lim’s piece on The New York Times, and it scored the place number ten in Reverse Shot and number 22 in Slant Magazine lists. The Mexican films El lugar más pequeño / The Tiniest Place by Tatiana Huezo and Año bisiesto / Leap Year by Michael Rowe also got mentioned in some critics’ lists published by indieWIRE,Filmmaker Magazine and Slant Magazine.

The Mexican submission to this year’s Academy Awards Miss Baladirected by Gerardo Naranjo, as well as the Argentine film Las Acacias directed by Pablo Giorgelli were included in the Best Undistributed Films of the Year by Film Comment and indieWIRE. Both films are scheduled for US release in 2012. Moreover film critic Howard Feinstein also included the Mexican film Fecha de caducidad / Expiration Date in his list of best of the year published by Filmmaker Magazine, and featured Mexican actress Úrsula Pruneda as one of the best performances of the year for her leading role in Hari Sama's El sueño de Lu / Lu's Dream.

UN CUENTO CHINO Wins Premios Sur in Argentina

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

Mexican Film EL INFIERNO Wins Havana Film Festival

Mexican film El infierno / Hell (pictured) by Luis Estrada won the Primer Premio Coral as Best Feature Film at the 33rd annual edition of the Havana Film Festival in Cuba that comes to an end today. The jury gave the second prize (Segundo Premio Coral) to Karim Aïnouz's O abismo prateado / The Silver Cliff from Brazil, whilst the award for Best Director went to José Padilha for Tropa de elite 2, O inimigo agora é outro / Elite Squad 2 / The Enemy Within.

In the documentary category, the prize for Best Film was awarded to Alejandra Sánchez Orozco's Agnus Dei, cordero de dios / Agnus Dei, Lamb of God; and in the Best First Film category, the top prize went to the Guatemalan film Distancia by Sergio Ramírez.

LAS MALAS INTENCIONES Named Best Peruvian Film of 2011

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

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

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

San Francisco-based Global Film Initiative announced the lineup for its annual Global Lens series that will premiere at The Museum of Modern Art in New York City January 12-28, 2012. Four out of the ten films that comprise the ninth edition of Global Lens are from Latin America: Paula Markovitch's El premio / The Prize (Mexico/Argentina, 2011, pictured); Sergio Teubal's El dedo / The Finger (Argentina, 2011); Gustavo Pizzi's Riscado / Craft (Brazil, 2011); and Carlos Osuna's Gordo, calvo y bajito / Fat, Bald, Short Man (Colombia, 2011).

After its run at MoMA, the series will embark on a yearlong tour around fifty cities around the U.S. and Canada, and it will simultaneously be released throughout the year on Virgin America airlines and available for online preview by industry professionals at Festival Scope.