Cinema Tropical

San Sebastian Announces Latino Titles

The San Sebastian Film Festival has unveiled part of its lineup for its 63rd edition with a variety of Latin American titles. The official competition this year includes The Apostate / El apóstata (pictured left) by the Uruguayan filmmaker Federico Veiroj; Eva Doesn’t Sleep / Eva no duerme by Argentinean filmmaker Pablo Agüero; and the Dominican-Spanish production The King of Havana / El rey de La Habana by Agustí Villaronga.

The Apostate follows Tamayo, who struggles with his parent’s expectations and has formally had his name struck from the Catholic church’s baptismal record, strives to settle on his own path. This is Veiroj’s third feature film and the San Sebastian Film Festival will mark its official World Premiere

Aguero’s Eva Doesn’t Sleep (pictured right) is a reimagining of the 25-year odyssey of Eva Peron’s embalmed corpse beginning in 1952, based of Aguero’s own research. After her corpse was embalmed she was secretly sent to Italy with the Vatican’s compliance, later returned to Spain and finally to Argentina where Colonel Emilio Massera (Gael García Bernal) finally officially buried Evita after the junta’s 1976 coup d’etat – under six meters of cement.

The King of Havana is based on the same-titled novel by Cuba’s Pedro Juan Gutierrez in 1990s Havana, a city punished by shortages after the collapse of Soviet support for the Island. Reinaldo, a teenager who escapes a correctional facility begins to hustle for money and falls in love with Magda. Their relationship unfolds amongst a Havana in turmoil.

The New Directors section features two Latin American titles: Paula by Argentinean director Eugenio Canevari, which tells the story of a young girl working for a wealthy family who becomes pregnant and unsure who the father is, and the Chilean film Sex Life of Plants / Vida sexual de las plantss by Sebastian Brahm, which follows Barbara who is in love with Guille but after a tragic accident his entire personality changes.

The Horizontes Latinos section will feature Salvador del Solar’s Magallanes, in which Magallanes' life is flipped upside down when he meets Celina, a women he met in the violent years when he was a soldier with the Peruvian Army. Magallanes is a Peruvian-Argentine-Colombian-Spanish production.

Patricio Guzmán’s latest documentary The Pearl Button / El botón de nácar will also screen in this section. The Chilean-Spanish-French production documents the settlement of Chile’s Tierra del Fuego, including some of the last surviving descendants of the original Alacalufe and Yaghan inhabitants. The film took home the Silver Bear for Best Script earlier this year at the Berlin International Film Festival.

Outside of the competition the Spanish-Argentinean production Truman by Cesc Gay will also be screened.

The San Sebastian Film Festival will take place September 18 - 26 in Spain.






MINOTAUR by Nicolás Pereda Will Premiere at Toronto

The Toronto Film Festival has announced today an additional slate of 40 films for the upcoming 40th edition, which includes the world premiere of Minotaur / Minotauro (pictured) the latest film production by prolific Mexican director Nicolás Pereda, in the Wavelengths section of the festival.

Starring Pereda’s regular actors Gabino Rodríguez, Luisa Pardo, and Francisco Barreiro, the Mexican-Canadian film is a lovely, wraithlike fantasy that observes three roommates as they sleep, dream, read and receive visitors in the communal space of their Mexico City apartment.

The 40th edition of the Toronto Film Festival will take place September 10-20 in Canada.

 





Latino Directors Michèle Stephenson and Carlos Sandoval Nominated to the Emmys

The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) announced the nominations for their 36th Annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards which includes nominations for Latino filmmakers Michèle Stephenson and Carlos Sandoval.

Haitian-Panamanian filmmaker Michèle Stephenson was nominated for four Emmy Awards for her documentary feature American Promise (pictured right), which she co-directed with her husband Joe Brewster. The film earned three nominations for Best Documentary, Outstanding Coverage of a Current News Story-Long Form, and Outstanding Editing.

In American Promise, the filmmakers follow their son and his best friend through the U.S. educational system. Though both boys start out at the prestigious Dalton School, circumstances later force one into a public high school.

Filmmaker Carlos Sandoval, of Mexican American and Puerto Rican descent, was nominated for his documentary film The State of Arizona (pictured right), co-directed with Catherine Bambini, for Outstanding Investigative Journalism-Long-Form.

The turbulent battle over indocumented immigration in Arizona that came to a head with Senate Bill 1070 frames The State of Arizona, a riveting documentary tracking multiple perspectives — activists, politicians, Latino immigrants, controversial Sheriff Joe Arpaio, ranchers, and others — as America eyes the results.

The News & Documentary Emmy Awards will be presented on Monday, September 28th, 2015, at a ceremony at Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall in New York City.

 





Jonás Cuarón's DESIERTO to Premiere at Toronto

The Toronto Film Festival announced the first selection slate for its 40th anniversary edition, which includes the world premiere of the Mexican film Desierto by Jonás Cuarón as special presentation.

Produced by Alfonso Cuarón, Carlos Cuarón, Alex García and Charles Gillibert, and starring Gael García Bernal and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Desierto is a thriller about a group of would-be immigrants whose dream of entering the US becomes a nightmare when a deranged vigilante begins stalking them through the Sonoran Desert.

The Special Presentations section the festival also announced the North American premiere of the Chilean film The Club / El club by Pablo Larráin, which had its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival last February, where it was awarded the Grand Jury Prize. 

The 40th edition of the Toronto Film Festival will take place September 10-20 in Canada.

 





THE SECOND MOTHER Starring Regina Casé Coming to U.S. Theaters in August

Oscilloscope Laboratories has announced the U.S. theatrical release of The Second Mother / Quele Horas Ela Volta?, the acclaimed film by Brazilian director Anna Muylaert, starring the great Regina Casé, one of the South American country’s finest actors.

The film had its world premiere to great critical and popular acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year where it received the Special Jury Prize for Acting, and then went on to play the Panorama section at the Berlin Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award.

“Beautifully written and acted with precision” (Boyd van Hoeij, The Hollywood Reporter) The Second Mother will open Friday, August 28 at the Angelika Film Center in New York City, and the Laemmle Royal in Los Angeles, before expanding to other cities, including Miami, Boston, Chicago, Portland, and D.C., throughout the fall.
An excitingly fresh take on some classic themes and ideas,

The Second Mother centers around Val (played by Casé), a hard-working live-in housekeeper in modern day Sao Paulo. Val is perfectly content to take care of every one of her wealthy employers’ needs, from cooking and cleaning to being a surrogate mother to their teenage son, who she has raised since he was a toddler.

However, when Val’s estranged daughter Jessica (Camila Márdila) suddenly shows up the unspoken but intrinsic class barriers that exist within the home are thrown into disarray. Jessica is smart, confident, and ambitious, and refuses to accept the upstairs/downstairs dynamic, testing relationships and loyalties and forcing everyone to reconsider what family really means.

 






Latin American Titles Headed to Venice

The Venice Film Festival -the longest running film festival in the world- has announced the lineup for its 72nd edition which includes several Latin American productions.

Two Latin American films will be representing the region in the main international competition of the festival: The Clan / El Clan (pictured left) by Pablo Trapero from Argentina, and Desde allá (pictured below right) by Lorenzo Vigas from Venezuela, in co-production with Mexico.

La calle de la amargura by Mexican veteran director Arturo Ripstein will have its world premiere as a special out of competition selection.

The Horizons section of the festival -an international competition dedicated to films that represent the latest aesthetic and expressive trends in international cinema- will also see the premieres of two Brazilian films and one from Mexico: Neon Bull / Boi Neon by Gabriel Mascaro and Mate-me por favor by Anita Rocha da Silveira, and Un monstruo de mil cabezas by Uruguayan-born director Rodrigo Pla.

As previously announced, the Chilean film The Memory of Water / La memorial del agua by Matías Bize will have its world premiere as part of Venice Days, the independent parallel section of the festival, and Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón will be a member of the jury for the main competition.

The 72nd edition of the Venice Film Festival will take place September 2-12 in Italy.