Matías Meyer’s YO Wins at Morelia

Yo (pictured left), the fourth feature film by Mexican filmmaker Matías Meyer was presented with the award for Best Film at the 13th edition of the Morelia Film Festival last night.

The film tells the story of Yo, a strong young man, but with limited mental skills. He says he is fifteen years old, although he seems to be older. He lives and works in his mother’s restaurant by a busy freeway. Yo loves his mother but hates her lover. One day he meets Elena, an eleven year old girl, who will change his life for ever.

Te Prometo Anarquía / I Promise You Anarchy by Julio Hernández Cordón was presented with a Special Jury Mention and the Guerrero Press Award for Best Mexican Feature Film, while Elisa Miller’s El placer es mío / The Pleasure Is Mine received the award for Best First or Second Mexican Feature Film. Jack Zagha Kababie’s Almacenados / Warehoused received the Audience Award.

In the documentary competition Betzabé García’s Los reyes del pueblo que no existe / Kings of Nowhere (pictured right) won the top prize for Best Mexican Documentary, and was also presented with the award for Best Mexican Documentary Made by a Woman. The film follows three families live in a village partially submerged by water in Northwestern Mexico: Pani and Paula do not want to close their tortilleria and spend their spare time rescuing the town from ruins; Miro and his parents dream of leaving but can’t; Yoya and Jaimito live in fear but have everything they need.

Everardo González’s El Paso and Trisha Ziff’s El hombre que vio demasiado / The Man Who Saw Too Much, received the Ambulante Special Award.

The 13th edition of the Morelia Film Festival took place October 23 - November 1, in Mexico.

SAND DOLLARS to Open in NYC, LA and Miami this November, Plus on DVD/VOD

Breaking Glass Pictures has announced the U.S. theatrical and VOD/DVD release the art-house romance Sand Dollars / Dólares de arena starring legendary film actress Geraldine Chaplin (Talk to Her). Directed by Laura Amelia Guzmán and Israel Cárdenas, Sand Dollars will be released in theaters on November 6 and on VOD/DVD November 24.

A stand out at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival, the film has been selected by the Dominican Republic as its contender for the 2016 Academy Awards in the Foreign Language Film competition.

Sand Dollars will open at Cinema Village in New York City on November 6; and at Laemmle Playhouse in Los Angeles, and the Tower Theater in Miami on November 13. It will be available on the following VOD platforms starting November 24: iTunes, Amazon Instant, Vudu, Google Play, iNDEMAND, and Vubiquity.

In this “enchanting and thoughtful” (Hollywood Reporter) romance, an older European woman becomes captivated with a young Dominican woman struggling to make ends meet. Every afternoon Noelí (played by Yanet Mojica), goes to the beaches at Las Terrenas with her boyfriend to look for ways to make a living at the expense of one of the many tourists that wander the beach.

As people parade through her life, Noelí has a steady client; Anne, a mature French woman who, as time goes by, has found an ideal refuge on the island to spend her last years. When Noeli’s boyfriend feigns to be her brother, he outlines a plan in which Noelí travels to Paris with the old lady and sends him money every month. For Noelí, the relationship with Anne is one of convenience, but the feelings become more intense as the departure date closes in.

The Dominican/Mexican/Argentinean production based on Jean-Noel Pancrazi’s novel “Les Dollars des Sables” had its world premiere at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival. Since then the film has participated as an official selection of several prestigious international film festivals, including Miami, Palm Springs, Rome, and Cairo, receiving numerous awards including for Best Actress at the Chicago and Havana film festivals.

Mascaro’s NEON BULL Triumphs at Rio

Gabriel Mascaro’s Neon Bull / Boi Neon (pictured left) was the top winner at the 17th edition of the Rio Film Festival receiving the award for Best Film. The film was also presented with the awards for Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography and Best Supporting Actress.

This is the third time since 2012 that a filmmaker from the Brazilian city of Recife receives the top prize at the festival (after Kleber Mendonça Filho in 2012 and Lírio Ferreira in 2014).

Mascaro’s second feature film follows Iremar, a cowboy who works at a traditional rodeo in rural Brazil, While he's not afraid to get his hands dirty, Iremar's real dream is to design exotic outfits for dancers.

The Best Director award was presented to two filmmakers: Anita Rocha da Silveira for Kill Me Please / Mata-me Por Favor, and Ives Rosenfeld for Hopefuls / Aspirantes.

Petra Costa and Lea Glob’s Olmo and the Seagull / Olmo e a Gaivota (pictured right) was the winner for the Best Documentary award, while Maria Ramos received the Best Director Documentary award for her film Future June / Futuro Junho.

The Audience Award was presented to Roberto Berliner’s Heart of Madness / Nise – O Coração da Loucura in the fiction category, and to Victor Lopes’ Betinho – Hope on the Line / Betinho- A Esperança Equilibrista.

The 17th edition of the Rio Film Festival tool place October 1-14 in Brazil.

Mexican Docs MATRIA and BERING to Have U.S. Premiere at Margaret Mead Film Fest

The acclaimed Mexican documentary feature films Matria by Fernando Llanos by Bering. Balance and Resistance / (Bering. Equilibrio y Resistencia) by Lourdes Grobet will have their long-awaited U.S. premiere as part of the official selection of the 2015 Margaret Mead Film Festival, which will take place October 22-25 at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

Winner of the Best Documentary Film at the Morelia Film Festival, Llano’s debut feature tells the story of Antolín Jiménez, who was one of Mexico’s most distinguished charros or horsemen. He fought alongside Pancho Villa, represented the state of Oaxaca in Congress, and was the president of the National Charro Association. In 1942, as rumors spread of a Nazi invasion of Mexico, Jiménez formed and trained a group of 100,000 fighters to repel the attack.

Seventy years later, Jimenez’s grandson Llanos brings us the film Matria, tracing the director’s quest to understand more about his mysterious grandfather and the culture of charros in the mid-20th century. Deeply rooted family secrets are unearthed in the process, and what begins as a character profile becomes an entangled story of family lore and a window into the history of modern Mexico.

In Bering. Balance and Resistance (pictured right), Lourdes Grobet, one of Mexico’s most renowned photographers–probably best to American audiences for her series on Mexican professional wrestling– takes a lyrical approach to the fabled Bering Strait and the Little and Big Diomede Islands, which is the border between the United States and Russia, straddling the International Date Line.

These remote outposts are home to a small Inuit community that has traversed these borders for years, for trade, hunting, and festivals. Grobet closely follows the day-to-day lives of the residents of Little Diomede, U.S.A., as they balance a modern lifestyle with the preservation of ancient customs and language. Slow-moving, wide-angle cinematography makes for an immersive viewing experience of the punishing Arctic, one that invokes Flaherty’s classic, Nanook of the North.

Patricio Guzmán's THE PEARL BUTTON Arrives in the U.S. This Fall

New York City-based distribution company Kino Lorber has announced the U.S. theatrical release of The Pearl Button / El bóton de nácar the mesmerizing documentary by Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzmán, which opens Friday, October 23 at the IFC Center and Lincoln Plaza Cinema in New York City, followed by Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Berkeley, San Francisco, Santa Fe and Washington DC in November.

Hailed as a "cinematic accomplishment," (Indiewire), The Pearl Button premiered earlier this year in the main competition of the 65th Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the Silver Bear for Best Script.

After contemplating the heavens in Nostalgia for the Light, Guzmán turns his masterful eye to the ocean to uncover the history of the indigenous people of Patagonia. In pre-colonial times, the nomadic Kaweskar (or “water people”) lived and thrived in harmony with the sea; today they have all but vanished.

Interviewing the last of the Kaweskar, Guzmán chronicles the terrible devastation wrought by this almost complete genocide, discovering an unsettling parallel to the thousands who were disappeared by more recent regimes.

The Western Patagonia, located in the south of Chile, has endless islands, islets, rocks and fjords. There are estimated to be around 46,000 miles of coastline. Parts of this region have never been explored. It encompasses the far south of the continent and stretches from the Gulf of Penas to Staten Island (the southernmost point of South America).

This immense labyrinth of water reminds us of mans’ aquatic origins and the history of humanity. In it are the voices of the Patagonian indigenous people, of the first English sailors and also those of its political prisoners. Some say that water has memory. The Pearl Button shows that it also has a voice.

Cecilia Aldarondo Is the First Recipient of the Roberto Guerra Documentary Fund

Filmmaker Kathy Brew and UnionDocs have announced Puerto Rican director Cecilia Aldarondo (pictured) as the first recipient of the Roberto Guerra Documentary Fund with a cash prize of $2,500 to support the completion of her first feature-length documentary Memories of a Penitent Heart (pictured below).

In Aldarondo’s debut feature, twenty-five years after her uncle Miguel died of AIDS, Aldarondo tracks down his gay lover and cracks open a Pandora’s box of unresolved family drama. The film is currently in post-production and the grant funds will be used towards costs of an original music score for the film.

Aldarondo's personal documentary Memories of a Penitent Heart has been supported by grants and fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, the Sundance Institute, The Time Warner Foundation, Firelight Media, The Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation, and The National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP). In 2015, Memories of a Penitent Heart was selected for IFP's Independent Filmmaker Lab as well as Sundance Institute's Edit and Story Lab. That same year, Aldarondo was selected as one of Filmmaker Magazine's "25 New Faces of Independent Film."

The Roberto Guerra Documentary Fund was launched in the fall of 2014 during the Fifth Contemporary Peruvian Film Showcase, and is named after the late Peruvian New York-based filmmaker who died in January 2014. The Fund aims to honor Roberto Guerra’s life and legacy in the field by supporting and encouraging an emerging Latin-American or US-based Latino filmmaker living in New York in the creation of his or her documentary work.

Media artist Kathy Brew, Roberto Guerra’s long-time collaborator and wife, established the Fund in partnership with UnionDocs as the non-profit administrator. To date, the fund has raised almost $15,000. A select group of people in the field were invited to nominate potential candidates and then a selection panel composed by curator Maria-Christina Villaseñor, video artist Edín Vélez, and Cinema Tropical’s Carlos A. Gutiérrez, convened to select the winner.