Paraguayan Director Renate Costa: "I Cannot Longer Talk to Part of my Family Because of my Film"

By Lorena Ramírez-López

Last night, the Paraguayan documentary 108 / Cuchillo de Palo by Renate Costa was screened once again in New York City at the Exit Art gallery in midtown Manhattan, featuring a Skype conversation with the filmmaker afterwards. Costa pays homage to her late uncle, Héctor Rodolfo Costa Torres, as she investigates and reconstructs his life

Matthew Freundlich, programmer of the ‘Digimovies’ series at Exit Art moderated the conversation with the filmmaker, which had a surprise guest as the director's father Pedro Costa (no relation to the famed Portuguese director), who is featured in the documentary, stopped by the conversation to answer few questions. In the Q&A Costa mentioned that it was very difficult making the film: “There’s a section of my family I can no longer talk to because of it. It is not easy, but there’s an acceptance because it’s a human film”, she said.

Her father commented how this documentary has allowed his relationship with his daughter to grow, and how it helped relate them to each other and their friends. It allowed many people from not only the family, but also the neighborhood to remember and relate to the event. Renate Costa gave a sneak peek to her new short film project, Resistance about a mystic premiering in July. Her focus on the human portrayal is humble and inspiring as it gives a new platform for Paraguayan cinema to stand on.

Picture: the Skype conversation with Paraguayan director Renate Costa last night at Exit Art. Picture by Lorena Ramírez-López.

Latino Films at Hot Docs 2012

Hot Docs, Canadian International Documentary Festival has announced its lineup for its 2012 edition running April 26-May 6 in Toronto, Canada, and the festival includes nine films from Latin America and/or with Latin American themes.

The official lineup includes Colombianos, a Swedish film by director Tora Mårtens that tells the story of two vastly different Colombian brothers who were raised in Stockholm. One has returned to Colombia to study medicine, the other is still in Sweden, partying with his friends. Eventually, one brother convinces the other to come and live with him in Colombia to hopefully get him on the right track; Cuates de Australia / Drought by Mexican director Everardo González, a cinema verite portrait of families living  communally owned land in Northeast Mexico; El Huaso (pictured) by director Carlo Guillermo Proto whose father moves back to Chile from Toronto to fulfill his childhood dream of becoming a Chilean cowboy.

The other Latino films in the selection are Abuelas/ Grandmothers by director Afarin Eghbal, the testimonies of four of the grandmothers of Argentina's Plaza de Mayo; Inocente by directors Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine that recounts the story of a 15-year old girl who has grown up homeless on the streets of San Diego and uses her art and amazing creative ability as an outlet for empowerment; Laura (pictured) by Brazilian director Fellipe Gamarano Barbosa that tells the story of a South American socialite not quite making it in New York, yet desperate to keep up her persona.

And rounding up the lineup are Thomas Riedelsheimer's Garden of Sea, a visually stunning documentary that follows Spanish artist Cristina Iglesias as she creates an underwater installation in Mexico’s beautiful Sea of Cortez; Wildness by Wu Tsang about the historic Silver Platter Bar in Los Angeles, a staple in the Latino-LGBT community since 1963; the short film The Relationship Doctrine of Don Blanquito by Roger Nyard about a Rio-based rapper and his rants on sex and love; and Con mi corazón en Yambo / With My Heart in Yambo by Ecuadorian director Maria Fernanda Restrepo who goes back in time to follow the painful personal story of the disappearance of her brothers at the hands of the Ecuadorian police.  

Mexican Films EL INFIERNO and THE TINIEST PLACE Win San Diego Latino

The San Diego Latino Film Festival announced that the Mexican films El Infierno by Luis Estrada and El lugar más pequeño / The Tiniest Place by Tatiana Huezo were the big winners of the Premio Corazón Award in its 19th edition that ran March 8-18.

Estrada's feature won the prize for Best Narrative Feature while Huezo's film won as Best Documentary Feature. Alysa Nahmias and Ben Murray's Unfinished Spaces about Cuba's National Art Schools received a Special Jury Prize in the Documentary category, while Colombian film Pequeñas voces / Little Voices by Jairo Carrillo won the prize for Best Animated Feature. The Audience Award went to the Argentinean film Un cuento chino / Chinese Take-Away by Sebastián Borensztein.

Judge Orders Shelving of PRESUMED GUILTY DVDs in Mexico

As it was recently informed by some local newspapers, the ongoing saga for the Mexican documentary film Presunto culpable / Presumed Guilty (pictured) continues, as last February 29, a federal judge ordered the complete shelving of all of the DVDs for sale of the film in Mexico.

Judge Blanca Lobo ordered the recall of all of the DVDs that were for sale in Mexico (an estimated 20,000 according to the film's distributor Videomax) while waiting for the pronouncement of the Office of Radio, Television and Film of the Ministry of the Interior (Dirección General de Radio, Televisión y Cinematográfia de la Secretaría de Gobernación), in regards to whether the the documentary violent or not the right to privacy of Víctor Daniel Reyes. He was the witness that accused the film's protagonist Antonio Zúñiga for killing his cousin, a crime that Zuñiga never committed. Last year, when the film was released in theaters in Mexico, he filed a lawsuit claiming he never authorized the use of his image for the documentary.

Filmmakers Layda Negrete and Roberto Hernández announced today that they will contest the order as they claim they are not violating Reyes' privacy rights because the recording was done as part of a public hearing. The film was released on DVD in Mexico last July.

Bernardo Ruiz's REPORTERO to Have US Premiere at Full Frame Film Fest

Quiet Pictures announced today the US Premiere of Bernardo Ruiz's documentary feature film Reportero at the Full Frame Film Festival this April; followed by the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in Chicago and New York City in May/June; and it will air nationally on PBS through POV as part of the series’ 25th anniversary this fall.

The film, a gripping and timely documentary film that explores the crucial issues of violence on the border, corruption and power in Mexico, and the struggle for 'free-speech', follows veteran reporter Sergio Haro and his colleagues at Semanario Zeta, a Tijuana, Mexico-based muckraking weekly, as they stubbornly ply their trade in what has become one of the deadliest places in the world to be a journalist.

“Impunity reigns in Mexico, especially here along the northern border,” explains Adela Navarro, Sergio’s boss and Zeta’s co-director. “With guns and money, drug traffickers have control over police, judges, prosecutors, and entire towns. More than 40 journalists have been slain or have vanished in Mexico since December 2006, when President Felipe Calderón came to power and launched a government offensive against the country’s powerful drug cartels and organized crime groups. This makes investigative journalism extraordinarily difficult.” So difficult, that Semanario Zeta continues to receive new threats.

Despite these threats and attacks, the weekly continues its singular brand of aggressive, investigative reporting. “Through Ruiz's brave and trenchant filmmaking we begin to understand the heavy sacrifices involved in refusing to be silenced,” writes Meghan Monsour, programmer of Ambulante, the celebrated traveling documentary film festival created by Gael García Bernal, Diego Luna, and Pablo Cruz. Combining the techniques of journalism and cinematic documentary, Reportero delves into “the psychology of investigative journalism,” (Univision) taking the viewer in to the tough decisions that journalists like Sergio Haro make every day.  

Reportero, which was recently profiled and reviewed by San Diego Union-Tribune, Univision, Vice Mexico and cited in The New York Times, is currently on a 12-city tour of Mexico through, Ambulante.  The film just screened this past weekend to sold-out houses in Tijuana and a special “advance screening” at the San Diego Latino Film Festival, and it will play in the Northern Mexican city of Mexicali on March 20 and 21. The film will also be screened at select festivals and venues throughout the spring and summer.

Cinema Tropical/Interior 13 to Present NY Theatrical Run of Yulene Olaizola's ARTIFICIAL PARADISES

Cinema Tropical and Interior 13 have announced the US theatrical premiere run of Yulene Olaizola's acclaimed Mexican film Artificial Paradises / Paraísos artificiales, playing for one week engagement at Brooklyn's reRun Gastropub Theater March 30 - April 5. The director will travel to New York to introduce her film on opening night.

Hailed as a "poetic contemplation that balances a landscape's serene beauty with the small futile dramas of characters whose lives are ruled by intoxication" (Screen International) and acclaimed at Rotterdam and winner of the Best Cinematography Award at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival, Olaizola's elegant drama is a journey into the altered states and unlikely friendship of young heroin addict Luisa (Luisa Pardo) and pot-smoking, aging caretaker Salomón (Salomón Hernández).

Gloriously photographed, the film is an evocation of this odd couple's emotions, their attempts to escape from everyday life and reach an artificial Eden, as well as the storms brought on by their enjoyment of this experience in a crumbling Veracruz beach resort. This is Olaizola's second feature film, her debut feature film Intimidades entre Shakespeare y Víctor Hugo / Intimacies between Shakespeare and Victor Hugo (2009) received over 30 prizes in film festivals worldwide.

This is the first joint effort between Cinema Tropical and Mexico-City based Interior 13 to distribute films of emerging Latin American filmmakers in US theaters.