Costa Rica Sweeps at Ícaro Film Fest

The Ícaro Film Festival has announced its winners for this year's awards, and for this edition, Costa Rica proved to be a major contender, winning six prizes total including both Best Central American Feature Film and Best Director for Por las Plumas / All About the Feathers, (pictured), directed by Neto Villalobos. The film was chosen for its simple story an genuine portrait of the human necessity to connect with others. Villalobos' directorial debut is a deadpan comedy that tells the story of Chalo, a security guard who wants to get into cockfighting.

The Costa Rican film Princesas Rojas / Red Princess, the directorial debut by Laura Astorga was awarded Best Screenplay and Best Art Direction. This year's winner for Best Central American Documentary Film went to Justicia Para mi hermana directed by Kimberly Bautista from Guatemala. Best Production was given to El Xendra, hailing from Honduras and directed by Juan Carlos Fanconi.

This year's edition took place from November 14 - 21 in La Antigua, Guatemala. Created by Casa Comal, this festival is the largest in the region and prides itself on its diversity and tolerance.

TropicalFRONT at Intelatin Cloudcast: November Show

In this November edition of TropicalFRONT on Intelatin Cloudcast, Sergio Muñoz and Carlos A. Gutiérrez talk about the Baja International Film festival and the Brazilian film Reaching for the Moon, directed by Bruno Barreto. Afroxander does a feature on Diego Luna's Cesar Chavez: An American Legend, while Sergio does a review on the films Veronica and Captive Beauty, both available on VOD.

Finally, this show features an interview with Edward James Olmos for the film Go For Sisters, directed by John Sayles. The music in this month's show features the Mexican Institute of Sound, La Minitik del Miedo and Ottomar Liebert. Music for the show is curated by DJ Canyon Cody of Subsuelo. This will be the last show on Filmcraft for 2013. Thanks for a great year!

Listen to the show on iTunes or on the Cloud.

Ventana Sur Announces Selections for 2013

Ventana Sur, Latin America's premiere film market, has announced Cannes Cinefondation curator George Goldenstern's selections for this year's Primer Corte or First Cut. This year's films will compete for awards which will aid in areas of sound design, post-production, and distribution. The initiative began with the aim of presenting films at the height of their production, or the "first cut."

This year's lineup includes in No es vigilia / It's No Vigil directed by Hermes Paralluelo from Spain and Colombia, Retrato de un comportamiento animal / Portrait of an Animal Behavior by Gonzalo Lugo and Florencia Colucci of Uruguay, Los bañistas / Open Cage from Max Zunino from México, Feriado / Holiday (pictured) directed by Diego Araujo of Ecuador and Argentina, Argentina's Ciencias naturales / Natural Sciences directed by Matías Lucchesi and Blue Lips directed by Daniela de Carlo, Julieta Lima, Gustavo Lipsztein, Antonello Novellino, Nacho Ruiperez and Nobuo Shima of Argentina and Spain.

Ventana Sur 2013 will take place from December 3-6 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

World Cinema Fund Awards Four Latin American Projects

Supported by the Berlin Film Festival, the World Cinema Fund has chosen the film projects that will receive funding. Four out of the five grantees to receive production funding are Latin American, and two of three films to get distribution support are also Latin American. Those chosen, of 121 submissions from as many as 43 countries, will be awarded funds totaling to $222,000.

The films which received production funding include the Colombian project Los hongos (pictured) to be directed by Oscar Ruiz Navia and produced by Burning Blue and Contravia Films and the Cuban project Benjamín o el planetario, by Carlos Machado Quintela with production companies Rizoma from Argentina and M-Appeal from Germany. From Paraguay, is Paz Encina's documentary Ejercicios de la memoria, with producer Autentika Film from Germany. The last film included is Te prometo anaquia, by Julio Hernandez Cordon from Guatemala. This production will be teaming up with Interior 13 from Mexico.

The films awarded distribution are Chile's Carne de Perro directed by Fernando Guzzoni, and Jose Luis Valle's Workers, from Mexico. A successful year for Latin American films, the World Cinema Fund has awarded production and distribution funding since 2004.

Mexican Hit NOSOTROS LOS NOBLES Opens Friday in the U.S.

Cinelatino, the nation’s leading Spanish-language movie channel, announced it will release Nosotros Los Nobles (We are the Nobles, pictured), one of Mexico’s highest-grossing films of all time, in select AMC theaters across the United States on Friday, November 1, 2013. This deal marks the first time the cable network will release a film theatrically.

Nosotros Los Nobles took Mexico by storm when it launched in March of this year, quickly becoming the most successful film in the country’s history at the time of its release, surpassing the previous box office record set by the 2002 megahit El Crimen del Padre Amaro starring Gael García Bernal.

The movie centers on three spoiled ‘juniors’—the term used in Mexico to describe the rich children of the country’s elite class—who get cut off from their family fortune and are forced to work for the first time, creating hilarious and awkward situations as they adjust to the real world.

"One of the reasons the film has been so successful is because it feels like a Hollywood comedy, but in Spanish,” said Gaz Alazraki, the film’s director. “There haven’t been many Mexican comedies with happy endings in our recent history, and the audience has a definite thirst for a family comedy free of nudity, violence, drug cartels, experimental narratives, or tragic endings."

The class-disparity issue also touched a chord with Mexican audiences, not just among the working class but across both ends of the audience spectrum. "Nosotros Los Nobles is both a feel-good family comedy and a social satire that mocks the class differences in Mexico, which is one of our defining characteristics as a nation. The poor can laugh at the rich, and the rich can laugh at themselves," added Alazraki.

"This kind of film hadn’t come around in more than a decade and we knew we had to acquire it,” said James M. McNamara, Chairman of Cinelatino. “This film has all the right elements for a theatrical release: a highly-entertaining storyline, excellent acting, high-quality production, and a good moral lesson. It is the kind of feel-good movie that audiences will love and we are confident it will perform as well in the U.S. as it did in Mexico."

Nosotros Los Nobles will launch in some of AMC’s highest-grossing Latino theaters in the country, in the high-density Hispanic markets of Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Houston, Dallas, Chicago, San Francisco/San Jose, Phoenix, San Diego, Las Vegas, and Charlotte. The film will play in Spanish with English subtitles.

IDA Awards Nominates Couple of Latino Docs

The IDA Documentary Awards announced today the nominees for its annual 29th edition dedicated to the art of documentary film. Among the nominees, there are two Latino projects: Viewfinder: Latin America (pictured) produced by Al Jazeera English nominated for Best Limited Series Award, and OME: Tales from a Vanishing Homeland by director Raul O. Paz Pastrana from the School of Visual Arts in New York City nominated for the David L. Woper Student Documentary Award.

Directed by by Manuel Contreras, Russ Finkelstein, Alfonso Gastiaburo, Juan Pablo Rojas, Paola Gosalvez, Luciana Freitas Silva, Susanna Lira, Fernanda Polacow and Juliana Borges, and produced by Rodrigo Vázquez and Patricia Boero, Viewfinder: Latin America is Al Jazeera’s documentary series that showcases independent filmmaking talent from the region. These films focus on the power of storytelling to bring about a deeper insight into the impact of global events on local communities. These are stories brought through the experiences of people on the front lines of a rapidly changing world.

Filmed in the heart of the Ecuadorian Amazon and directed by Mexican-American filmmaker Raul O. Paz Pastrana, OME: Tales From a Vanishing Homeland tells the story of the changing way of life of the Huaorani, one of Ecuador’s most isolated indigenous groups, who live in the Yasuni biosphere, the most biodiverse place on Earth. Ome offers incredible access to a unique and ancient way of life that highlights the Huaorani’s connection to land and family, and hints at the future that awaits as oil companies threaten to destroy Ome, their territory.

The winners of the 29th annual IDA Documentary Awards will be announced at a ceremony in Los Angeles on December 6, 2013.