Mortensen to Produce and Star New Alonso Film

Oscar-nominated actor Viggo Mortensen has signed on to produce and star in Lisandro Alonso's new film project to be shot in Denmark and Argentine, Variety reports. The film will be produced by Massive Inc. together with Mortensen's Perceval Films and Alonso's 4L production company, along with Mantarraya Films and Fortuna Films.

The yet-untitled film is scheduled to be shot early next year based on a script by Alonso and Fabián Casas. The film will tell the story of Dane and his daughter who journey from Denmark to an unknown desert that exists in a realm beyond the confines of civilization.

This will be Alonso's fifth feature film after La Libertad (2001), Los Muertos (2004), Fantasma (2006), and more recently Liverpool (2008).

Born in New York City, Mortensen grew up in Argentine until he was the age of 11, where he attended primary school and acquired fluent Spanish. He recently stared the Argentine film Todos tenemos un plan / Everybody Has a Plan, the debut feature film by Ana Piterbarg which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival last September.

Hubert Bals Fund Awards 10 Latin American Film Projects

After a record number of 399 entries, the Hubert Bals Fund has announced the winners of its 2012 Fall round which includes 10 projects from Latin America featuring new productions by Michel Lipkes (Mexico), Dominga Sotomayor (Chile, pictured right), Felipe Guerrero (Colombia, pictured left) and Milagros Mumenthaler (Argentina), among others. The Hubert Bals Fund is an initiative of the International Film Festival Rotterdam that provides grants to international cinema projects in various stages of completion. 

Winners of the Script and Project Development grant include Extraño pero verdadero / Strange but True by Mexican filmmaker Michel Lipkes; Oscuro animal / Obscure Animal directed by Felipe Guerrero from Colombia, Mariano Luque’s Otra Madre / Another Mother from Argentina, and Chilean director Dominga Sotomayor’s Tarde para morir joven / Late to Die Young, who was previously awarded the Tiger Award at the Rotterdam Film Festival for her debut feature film De jueves a domingo / Thursday Till Sunday.

Digital Production includes a grant won by  Argentine director Milagros Mumenthaler, for her newest production Pozo de aire. Previously awarded the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival for her debut feature film Abrir puertas y ventanas / Back to Stay, Pozo proves to be a much more experimental project using family portraits to focus on the notion of absence.  

Films awarded on their last leg of production are Noche / Night by Leonardo Brzezicki from Argentina; Penumbra directed by Eduardo Villanueva from Mexico; and two films from Brazilian directors, Ricardo Pretti and Bruno Safadi, O rio nos pretence / Rio Belongs to Us and O uivo da gaita / The Harmonica’s Howl, respectively.

Beristáin and González-Rubio Win Morelia

The debut feature by Natalia Beristáin Egurrola No quiero dormir sola / She Doesn't Want to Sleep Alone (pictured) won the prize for Best Mexican Feature Film at the 10th edition of the Morelia Film Festival which ran November 3-11 in Mexico. The film, which had its World premiere at the last edition of the Venice Film Festival, tells the story of Amanda, a young woman forced to take care of her alcoholic grandmother.

The prize for Best Mexican Documentary Film went to Pedro González-Rubio's Inori, a portrait of a small mountain community in Japan that's undergoing changing lifestyles. This is the third major prize for González-Rubio in Morelia having also won the prize for Best Documentary in 2005 for Toro Negro (co-directed with Carlos Armella), and the prize for Best Feature Film in 2010 for Alamar.

The jury gave two Special Mentions in the documentary competition to Eugenio Polgovsky's Mitote and Diego Gutiérrez's Partes de una familia. The Audience Award went to I Hate Love by Humberto Hinojosa, while Michelle Ibaven's No hay lugar lejano received the prize for Best Documentary Film Made by a Woman.

Legendary Argentine Filmmaker Leonardo Favio Dies

Legendary filmmaker Leonardo Favio, one of most respected Argentine directors of alltime, died today at the age of 74 in Buenos Aires from a chronic disease. Born Fuad Jorge Jury in a small town in the province of Mendoza, Argentina in 1938, Favio was known for most Latin Americans as a known as a pop singer/songwriter. Having a rough childhood that was part spent in a reform school, he tried different occupations -from boxing to singing, before he tried his luck as a movie actor in the country's capital.

Favio got a starring role in Leopoldo Torres Nilson's El secuestrador / The Kidnapper (1958), which made him an overnight sensation, "the Argentinean James Dean" he was known. He had a strong and popular career as an actor for the following decade, and until he decided to take a stab at directing, encouraged by Torre Nilson. In 1964 he made his debut feature film Crónica de un niño solo / Chronicle of a Lonely Child (pictured right), which was partly autobiographical, the story of Piolín, an impoverished young kid who escapes a rehabilitation center looking for a better life.

Between 1966 and 1975, Favio directed five films, which were highly acclaimed: Éste es el romance del Aniceto y la Francisca, de cómo quedó trunco, comenzó la tristeza y unas pocas cosas más... / The Romance of Aniceto and Francisca (1966); El dependiente / The Employee (1969); Juan Moreira (1973); Nazareno Cruz y el Lobo / Nazareno Cruz and The Wolf (1975); and Soñar, soñar / Dream, Dream (1976).

By the seventies, he had also became more involved in politics, becoming a fervent militant of the Peronist movement. During the Argentine military dictatorship, Favio fled the countryand devoted himself to popular music. He became an immensely popularLatin American singerwith romantic ballads that were big hits like "Hoy corté una flor", "Fuiste mía un verano", "Ella, ella ya me olvidó", "Quiero aprender de memoria", "Ding, dong, las cosas del amor" and "La cita."

In 1993 he had a comeback to filmmaking directing the film Gatica, the story of apopular Argentine boxer in the 1940s and 1950s nicknamed El Mono, "the monkey", which had some autobiographical resonance to Favio's life. For the following five years, he devoted himself to Perón, sinfonía del sentimiento/ Perón, A Symphony of Feeling (1999), a six-hour film epic and didactic film shot on video, attempting to explain the legacy of the Peronist movement.

In 2008, he directed his last film Aniceto (pictured left), which was a remake of his classic film The Romance of Aniceto and Francisca as a ballet production. The film went to win eight Silver Condor awards, including the prizes for Best Film and Best Director, given by Argentine Film Critics Association. In 2010, Favio was appointed Argentina's Ambassador of Culture by President Cristina Kirchner.

Cinema Tropical had a retrospective of his work in the fall of 2001 at thePioneer Theater in downtown Manhattan showing six of his feature films including Chronicle of a Lonely Child, The Employee,Dream, Dream, and Gatica.

AFTER LUCÍA Awarded at Chicago

The Mexican film Después de Lucía / After Lucía (pictured) was awarded the Silver Hugo Special Jury Prize at the 48th edition of the Chicago International Film Festival, which ran October 11-25. Michel Franco's sophomore film which won the prestigious Un Certain Regard prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival is an intense, shocking exploration of the violent effects of bullying that tells the story of teenager Alejandra (played by Tessa Ía) who is mourning her mother and lonely in a new school.

When a video emerges of her drunkenly having sex in a bathroom, she immediately becomes a target for the popular kids. Their torments grow in intensity and cruelty, wearing down the weary Alejandra's resistance.

Chilean Film STEFAN V/S KRAMER Breaks All-Time Local Records

The film Stefan v/s Kramer has become the most popular film in the history of the Chile, having been watched by over 2 million people in its 12 weeks of its continued theatrical run and surpassing American blockbusters such as Ice Age 4, Avatar, Titanic and Toy Story 3.

Starring actor/comedian Stefan Kramer and locally distributed by 20th Century Fox, the film is a comedy that tells the fictionalized story of Kramer, a renowned Chilean impersonator who, having achieved success, needs to reclaim his family life with his wife (played by Paloma Soto, Kramer's wife in real life) and children while he's combating the anger of the public figures that he has impersonated.

In the film, co-directed by Kramer with Sebastián Freund and Eduardo Prieto, the comedian impersonates more than 19 characters including Chilean president Sebastián Piñera.

Watch the trailers (in Spanish):