San Sebastian Announces Latin American Films in Competition

The San Sebastian Film Festival has announced the 12 films participating in the Horizontes Latinos section competing for a cash prize of  €35,000, including works from filmmakers from Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay and Colombia. Most of these selections have competed or have been presented throughout renowned film festivals, but will have their Spanish premiere in the 60th edition of the festival.

From Argentina comes Infancia clandestina, directed by Benjamín Ávila, his debut feature film which was awarded the Cine en Construcción from Premio Casa de America in 2011. And was presented at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight . The poignant story about a boy learning how to survive in a world of false passports and the continuous need to remain hidden, inaugurates the festival. Aquí y Alla, directed by Antonio Méndez Esparza, debuts his Mexican/Spain and American collaboration, which won the top prize at Cannes' Critics' Week award. It tells the story of Pedro, a married man with two daughters who tries to earn a living with his musical group upon his return to Mexico.

Director Alicia Cano presents her Uruguayan-German production of the film, El Bella Vista, a documentary that traces the history of a small town in Uruguay. As a place that began as a soccer club, it later turned into a brothel where transvestites roamed the streets and much later a Catholic chapel due to pressure from the conservations society. La demora / Delay from Mexican-Uruguayan director Rodrigo Plá, was presented during the Berlin Film Festival and examines a woman’s relationship with her father, an 80 year old man and victim to memory loss.

Winner at Cannes' Un Certain Regard, the Mexican film After Lucía / Después de Lucía (pictured) directed by Michel Franco focuses on a teenager bullied by classmates whose silence will only ensure terrible consequences. Brazilian director Marcelo Gomes presents Era uma Verónica / Once Upon a Time Veronica, which was originally screened at San Sebastian last year, as part of Cine en construcción deals with Verónica , a 26 year old who tries to fulfill her father’s last request: to find the love of her life.

Joven y alocada / Young and Wild by Chilean director Marialy Rivas was also screened during last year’s Cine en Construcción, won this year’s “Best Screenplay” in the category of World Cinema in the Sundance Film Festival, and was selected for the  Generation section in the Berlin Film Festival. Joven y alocada is the portrait of a rebellious 17 year old in a strict evangelical family who finds an enormous obstacle in her quest to follow the “right road.” From acclaimed director Carlos Reygadas is Post Tenebras Lux (pictured), which competed as an Official Selection during the Cannes Film Festival and won the prize for Best Director, a film about the life of Juan and his family who live in a world where both their suffering and pain is either complimentary or against one another.

The Colombian film La Playa, directed by Juan Andrés Arango, competed in the category of Un Certain Regard at Cannes, as well as Cine en construcción as a work-in-progress. It is the story of Tomás, whose journey to find his younger brother in Bogotá, will force him to face his fears and the pain of the past.

Salsipuedes by Mariano Luque from Argentina, a selection in Toulouse, Cannes and BAFICI film festivals, is about a Carmen and her husband Rafa’s camping trip and his inability to enjoy it.

William Vega's La Sirga, which also participated in Directors' Fortnight in Cannes and was awarded in Toulouse, is the story of Alicia, a woman who has lost everything and decides to go in search of her Uncle Óscar's hostel in the laguna La Concha. Finally the Argentinean film, El Último Elvis by Armando Bo tells of a man who believes he is the reincarnation of Elvis and must choose between his family or his dreams. 

In addition to these 12 titles, the festival announced that the Argentinean director Carlos Sorín will be participating in the Official Competition with his most recent film Días de pesca / Fishing Days, about a 50-year-old alcoholic who takes up a hobby and decides to go fishing in a small town where is estranged daughter lives. It is the fourth time that Sorín participates in the Spanish festival.

The festival celebrating its 60th edition, will take place from September 21-29, and will be held in San Sebastian, Spain. 

In Memoriam: Chavela Vargas and Film

Costa Rican-born Mexican legendary singer Chavela Vargas died today due to respiratory and heart complications at the age of 93 at a hospital in the city of Cuernavaca. The famed ranchera singer, born Isabel Vargas Lizano, was a Mexican icon that defied stereotypes. She recorded over 80 albums performing in the world’s most prestigious venues including Carnegie Hall in New York City in 2003.

Chavela Vargas had a limited yet influential relationship with cinema, largely in part to her friendship to Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar. “I don’t think there is a stage big enough in this world for Chavela,” once wrote the filmmaker who played a fundamental role for her to gain international recognition.

Chavela Vargas debuted in film with a small role in José Bolaños' La Soldadera / The Female Soldier (1967) starring Silvia Pinal. She also worked with German filmmaker Werner Herzog in his 1991 film Scream of Stone / Cerro Torre: Schrei aus Stein, starring Donald Sutherland and Vittorio Mezzogiorno, in which she plays an elderly native woman called Indianerin.

Almodóvar featured songs performed by Chavela Vargas in some of his films including “Luz de Luna” in Kika (1993); “En el último trago” in The Flower of My Secret / La Flor de mi secreto (1995); and “Somos” in Live Flesh / Carne Trémula (1997). 

In 2002 Chavela Vargas was featured in Julie Taymor’s Frida, the biopic of the iconic Mexican painter played by Salma Hayek. Vargas is not only featured in the film’s soundtrack with the songs “La Llorona” and “Paloma negra”, but also has a cameo role as La Pelona, singing “La Llorona.”

Alejandro González Iñárritu featured the Vargas’ song “Tú me acostumbraste” in the soundtrack of his 2006 film Babel; while Sebastián Cordero featured her song “Sombras” in his 2009 film Rabia / Rage; and her song “Simples cosas” was included in the 2008 documentary feature film Los que se quedan / Those Who Remain by Carlos Haggerman and Juan Carlos Rulfo.

She was also prominently featured in Beto Gómez’s documentary Hasta el último trago corazón / Till the Last Drop... My Love! (2005), about some of Mexico's most renowned female performers. Her last last participation in film was in Salvando al soldado Pérez / Saving Private Pérez (2011), also directed by Gómez, performing the song “Corazón negro.”

Chavela Vargas in Frida (Julie Taymor, US, 2002):

Chavela Vargas in Kika (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain, 1995):

Chavela Vargas in Hasta el último trago corazón / Till the Last Drop... My Love! (Beto Gómez, Mexico, 2005):

Everardo González's Doc DROUGHT Gets NYC and LA Theatrical Run

Drought / Cuates de Australia (pictured) the award-winning documentary by Mexican director Everardo González will have a theatrical premiere run in New York City and in Los Angeles this August as part of the 2012 edition of the annual DocuWeeks Theatrical Documentary Showcase presented by the International Documentary Association.

Hailed as a "poetic portrait of a town withstanding terrible hardships, (...) Drought ranks with the best of recent Latin American nonfiction" by Variety's Robert Koehler, the film opens for a week on Friday, August 10 at the IFC Center in New York City, and on Friday, August 17 also for a week at the Laemmle Noho 7 in Los Angeles. González will be present on both cities for Q&A sessions at select screenings. 

Winner of the prizes for Best Documentary at both the Los Angeles and the Guadalajara Film Festivals, González’s fourth feature documentary tells the story of the residents from the communal land of Cuates de Australia in the northern part of Mexico that annually perform a massive exodus searching for water during the drought. During this exile, men, women, elders, and children wait for the first drops of water to return to their lands, a metaphor of a small town that hides from death.

Marcel Rasquin's HERMANO Set for U.S. Theatrical Release

Music Box Films has announced the U.S. Theatrical run of the soccer drama Hermano, Marcel Rasquin’s debut feature film. A box office hit in Venezuela and the country’s official submission to the Academy Awards in 2011, the film will open at the AMC Empire 25 and Cinema Village theaters in New York City on Friday, August 24, and in over 20 cities across the country including Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, San Diego and San Francisco.

Hermano tells a simple and powerful story about two kids raised together as brothers: Daniel (Fernando Moreno) and Julio (Eliú Armas) – who struggle to become professional soccer players. Both exceptional players, in La Ceniza slum, the opportunity of a lifetime arrives when a headhunter for the Caracas Football Club invites them to a try-out with the team. But their life in the slum interferes and a tragedy shakes them, forcing them to make a choice: the unity of their family or their lifelong dream?

Rasquin’s debut feature film premiered at the Moscow Film Festival were it won the top prize for Best Film, the Audience Award and the Critic's Prize. The also received the top prize for Best Narrative Feature at the Naples Film Festival, the Audience Award at the Los Angeles Latino Film Festival and a Special Jury Mention for Best First Film at the Havana Film Festival.

In Appreciation: Jorge Ruiz

By Amalia Córdova, New York University

On March 16, 2006 the Smithsonian Institution paid a tribute to award-winning Bolivian director Jorge Ruiz (March 16, 1924, Sucre - July 24, 2012, Cochabamba, Bolivia), the first “Latino” director to be awarded the James Smithson Bicentennial Medal. Other recipients of this distinction include George Lucas, Robert Redford, and Steven Spielberg.

The event showcased one of Ruiz’s most well known films Vuelve Sebastiana! / Come Back Sebastiana! (1953, Bolivia, pictured), an unpretentious documentary short-film about a young woman from the Chipaya people of the Bolivian highlands, now hailed as one of the most memorable ethnographic films produced in the last century.

In 1991 at the Festival of Three Continents of Nantes, France, Vuelve Sebastiana was recognized as the first indigenous film made in Latin America, and Ruiz was declared the “father of indigenous Andean cinema,” an extraordinary achievement for a film made with a low budget and an unlikely candidate to represent Bolivia to the world. In 2004, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Film Archive, in collaboration with the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival and California State University at Long Beach created a new 35mm print of the film with English subtitles.

Ruiz pioneered in sound and color filmmaking with his colleague and soundman, Augusto Roca. They shot Bolivia’s first talkie, Virgen India / Indian Virgin in 1949 and the film that launched the era of color for Bolivian cinema, Donde nació un imperio / Where an Empire Was Born (1949). Ruiz is perhaps the director that has placed Bolivian films in the limelights of theaters international festivals, identifying its modest film industry and reinforcing the social role of cinema, covering social reality through fiction, documentary and sheer artistic expression.

His extensive career spans over one hundred films, counting features and shorts, numerous awards, including an emeritus doctorate, and a National Culture Award from his homeland in 2001. In addition, he directed the Bolivian Film Institute in 1957. In 1958, John Grierson declared Ruiz "one of the six most important documentary filmmakers in the world." In the words of fellow Bolivian director Jorge Sanjinés, Ruiz was beyond an extraordinary cinematographer, he was also “a very simple and sensitive man, far from proud, who crafted with responsibility a pioneering work, seeking out humble Bolivians as protagonists of his numerous films and building from early on, prestige and respect for our country in this field of art and technology.”

Chilean Film DE JUEVES A DOMINGO Wins Polish Film Fest

The debut feature From Thursday till Sunday / De jueves a domingo (pictured) by Chilean director Dominga Sotomayor was awarded the top prize, the Grand Prix, at the 12th edition of the New Horizons International Film Festival which came to a close yesterday Sunday, July 29 in Wroclaw, Poland. The film follows the perspective of two children who travel with their parents on a road trip from Santiago Chile to the north of Chile on what might be their last family vacation due to marital problems. The Polish award comes with a cash price of €20,000.

Additionally, the Brazilian film Neighbouring Sounds / O som ao redor by Kleber Mendonça Filho received the FIPRESCI award given by film critics associated in the International Federation of Film Critics.  The film takes place in present day Recife, Brazil in a middle-class neighborhood where anxieties surface with the arrival of an independent private security firm.

In its 12th edition, the New Horizons Film Festival featured a retrospective of recent Mexican cinema and had some guest Mexican directors including Carlos Reygadas and Nicolás Pereda. On the Road by Brazilian director Walter Salles was the closing night film of the Polish film festival.