Distribution company Kino Lorber has announced today the acquisition of all US rights to Patricio Guzmán’s The Pearl Button / El botón de nácar (pictured), the critically acclaimed follow up to Guzmán’s Nostalgia for the Light.
Winner of a Silver Bear for Best Script at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, The Pearl Button garnered rave reviews after its world premiere and will receive a national release via Kino Lorber during the fall of 2015 after key festival playdates. Theatrical rollout in over 50 markets along with educational distribution will be followed by digital release on all major platforms, coordinated with physical media sales.
This diptych with Nostalgia for the Light explores familiar themes within Patricio Guzmán’s oeuvre: memory, land, and Chiles’ historical past. But in this new work, he has created a uniquely spellbinding and fluid journey through Chile’s history using water as its thematic and aesthetic center.
Chile’s 2,670 miles of coastline, the largest archipelago in the world, presents a supernatural landscape. It’s dazzling volcanoes, mountains and glaciers also echo historically the voices of the Patagonian Indigenous people, the first English sailors and brutalized political prisoners. It’s the waters of this unending coastline that hold the secret of two mysterious buttons retrieved from its ocean floor.
Patricio Guzmán unravels meaning from these buttons as though attached to the present by threads of history; they become riveting metaphors for universal crimes against humanity. Breathtaking aerial shots of Chile’s southernmost Tierra del Fuego are juxtaposed with an investigation of state crimes by Chile’s military junta and rare interviews with the last descendants of its indigenous people. The result is a film that both illuminates and transcends Chile’s history with resonance for all humankind.
This deal was negotiated between Kino Lorber CEO Richard Lorber and Pyramide International’s Lucero Garzon, Head of sales and international acquisitions.
Richard Lorber commented: “Patricio Guzmán has accomplished the rare cinematic feat of revealing the universal in the particular. We are honored to bring to American audiences a work of profound poetic and political vision.”
The Cinefondation’s Atelier has announced the 15 participants for its 11th edition this year that represent 14 countries, including two Latin American projects, Diário de Viagem / Butterfly Diaries by Paula Un Mi Kim (pictured left) from Brazil and El concursante / The Contestant by Carlos Osuna (pictured below) from Colombia.
The Tribeca Film Festival announced today its first slate of programming for its 2015 edition, which includes the world premiere of the Costa Rican film Viaje (pictured) as the only Latin American film in the World Narrative Feature Competition.
El Museo del Barrio in New York City will be hosting with Televisa Foundation and CONACULTA the art exhibit ‘Under The Mexican Sky: Gabriel Figueroa, Art and Film.’ The exhibition – presented for the first time in a museum in New York – on view March 4 through June 27, 2015, celebrates the successes and legacy of Gabriel Figueroa (1907-1997), a prolific Mexican cinematographer who worked both in Mexico and Hollywood. Figueroa built an enduring image of Mexico though his iconic visual style and is considered one of the more important cinematographers of the 20th century. 
The exhibition features film clips, stills, and paintings by eminent artists of the mid-20th century in Mexico. Televisa Foundation collection, the collections of the Museo de la Estampa and the Museo Nacional in Mexico, as well as Figueroa’s own archive have also provided photographs, prints, posters and documents. Also shown is film, video and photographic work by other artists and filmmakers from the period such as Buñuel, Sergei Eisenstein, Edward Weston, and Tina Modotti, who draw from the vast inventory of distinctly Mexican imagery associated with Figueroa’s cinematography or were influenced by his vision.
Also shown is film, video and photographic work by other artists and filmmakers from the period such as Buñuel, Sergei Eisenstein, Edward Weston, and Tina Modotti, who draw from the vast inventory of distinctly Mexican imagery associated with Figueroa’s cinematography or were influenced by his vision.
New Directors/New Films, presented by The Museum of Modern Art and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, announced today the complete lineup for its 44th edition and it will feature the North American premieres of the Argentinean films La mujer de los perros / Dog Lady (pictured left) by Laura Citarella & Verónica Llinás and Parabellum by Lukas Valenta Rinner, and the New York premiere of the Colombian film Los Hongos by Oscar Ruiz Navia.
In Parabellum (pictured right) a Buenos Aires office worker finishes his day, visits his father in a rest home, lodges his cat in a kennel, and cancels his phone service. The next day, he and 10 equally nondescript individuals are transported up the Tigre delta in blindfolds and arrive at a secluded, well-appointed resort for a vacation with a difference. Instead of yoga and nature walks, the days’ activities range from hand-to-hand combat and weapons instruction to classes in botany and homemade explosives. Welcome to boot camp for preppers, the destination of choice for the serious Apocalypse Tourist. Austrian filmmaker Lukas Valenta Rinner handles his material in his home country’s familiar style, with cool distance, minimal dialogue, and carefully composed frames, interpolating the action with extracts from the invented Book of Disasters, a must-read for anyone warming up for the collapse of civilization as we know it—people, are you in?
In Los Hongos (pictured left) Cali street artists Ras and Calvin are good friends and collaborators despite hailing from disparate backgrounds. While one takes art classes, the other steals paint from his job in order to tag whatever surfaces he can find. Inspired by the Arab Spring protests, the pair bands together with a group of graffiti artists in order to paint a tribute to the student demonstrators. Oscar Ruiz Navia’s second feature could be termed a coming-of-age film, but Los Hongos heads in unexpected directions: while possibilities of hooking up abound, the pair’s mutual interest in making a statement that might also push forward new ideas in their own country expands what we usually see in characters growing up on-screen. This moment in the lives of two kids figuring it out encompasses all the possibilities: family, friends, sex, art, and, when they least expect it, the prospect of doing something of value. Full of color and great music, Los Hongos comprises a charming and vibrant portrait of a young, lively Colombia.
