Ripstein’s BLEAK STREET to Have U.S. Theatrical Premiere Run at Film Forum in NYC

Film Forum has announced the U.S. theatrical premiere of Arturo Ripstein’s Bleak Street / La calle de la amagura, beginning Wednesday, January 20, 2016, for a two-week engagement.

The veteran auteur and master of the Mexican bizarre plunges the audience into a Mexico City demimonde of crime, prostitution, and luchador wrestling. The film’s luscious black-and-white cinematography recounts a true crime story of twin mini-luchadores (who never remove their masks), the mother who adores them, and two prostitutes whose best days are long behind them. Ripstein imbues his Bunuelian tableaux with both empathy and dark humor.

Best known in the U.S. for Deep Crimson / Profundo carmesí (1997), Ripstein has been making movies for over fifty years. His work has been a key influence on the generation of Mexican filmmakers currently dominating both the independent and blockbuster film landscape.

Ripstein was the recipient of a special award honoring his distinguished career at the 2015 Venice Film Festival, where Bleak Street also had its world premiere.

Bleak Street, distributed in the U.S. by Leisure Time Features, is also confirmed to play at the Landmark Nuart in Los Angeles, the Landmark Opera Plaza in San Francisco, and the Landmark Shattuck in Berkeley, opening March 11, 2016.

Colombia’s EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT Gets Shortlisted for the Oscars

Ciro Guerra’s Embrace of the Serpent / El abrazo de la serpiente from Colombia is one of the nine films that were shortlisted in the 88th edition of the Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Language category, as it was announced this evening. It is the only Latin American film with chances to garner a nomination in next year’s Oscars. Colombia has never received an Oscar nomination since it started submitting candidates in 1980.

At once blistering and poetic, the ravages of colonialism cast a dark shadow over the South American landscape in Embrace of the Serpent, the third feature by Guerra. Filmed in stunning black-and-white, the film centers on Karamakate, an Amazonian shaman and the last survivor of his people, and the two scientists who, over the course of 40 years, build a friendship with him.

The film was inspired by the real-life journals of two explorers (Theodor Koch-Grünberg and Richard Evan Schultes) who traveled through the Colombian Amazon during the last century in search of the sacred and difficult-to-find psychedelic Yakruna plant.

Embrace of the Serpent, winner of the Directors’ Fortnight top prize at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, will open in U.S. theaters in February 2016 released by Oscilloscope Pictures.

The nominations for the 88th Academy Awards will be announced on January 14.

Goya Awards Announces Latin American Nominees

Magallanes by Salvador del Solar

The Spanish Academy of Motion Pictures and Arts announced this morning the nominations for the 30th edition of the Goya Awards, Spain's national film awards, which includes nominees from Argentina, Chile, Cuba and Peru.

Competing for Best Ibero-American film are the films The Clan / El clan by Pablo Trapero, La once / Tea Time by Maite Alberdi from Chile (pictured left), Magallanes by Salvador del Solar from Peru (pictured below), and Vestido de novia / His Wedding Dress by from Cuba.

Other Latin American nominees include the Spanish-Argentinean co-production film Truman by Cesc Gay, which was nominated in six categories for Best Film, Best Actor -for the Argentinean protagonist Ricardo Darín-, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Editing.

The Cuban actress Yordanka Ariosa also garnered a nomination for Breakthrough Performance for her role in the film The King of Havana / El rey de La Habana.

The winners of the 30th annual Goya Awards will be announced on February 6, 2016 in Madrid.

Brazilian Actress Marília Pêra Dies

Brazilian actress Marília Pêra lost the battle to lung cancer and died last Saturday, December 5, at the age of 72 at her home in Rio de Janeiro.

Born January 22, 1943 in Rio, Pêra was a prolific actress who worked in film, television, and theater. She was hailed as "one of the decade's (1980s) ten best actresses" by film critic Pauline Kael, and she won the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress in 1982 for her role as Sueli in Hector Babenco's acclaimed Pixote.

After working extensively as a dancer in theater musicals and television, she landed her first film role in 1968 in Eduardo Coutinho’s The Man Who Bought the World / O Homem Que Comprou o Mundo. He’d work with Coutinho again in 2007 in Jogo de Cena / Playing.

She acted in more than twenty films working with filmmakers such as Carlos Diego’s in Better Days Ahead / Dias Melhores Virão (1990) -for which received Best Actress awards at the Gramado and Cartagena film festivals- and Tieta (1996); with Walter Salles in Central Station (1998); and with Paulo César Saraceni inTraveler / O Viajante (1999).  Other films include Bar Esperança (1983), and Angels of the Night / Anjos da Noite (1987).

Pêra is perhaps best known overseas for her character in Babenco’s Pixote, becoming the first South American actress ever honored in North America with a Best Actress Prize awarded by the National Society of Film Critics Awards. The film itself was also nominated for the Best Foreign Film Golden Globe.

Trapero's THE CLAN Coming to U.S. Screens this January

Fox International Productions and Twentieth Century Fox have announced the U.S. theatrical release date for The Clan, which will open on January 29, 2016 on a limited platform basis starting in New York and Los Angeles. The film will be marketed by Fox International Productions and distributed by Twentieth Century Fox.

Written and directed by Argentinean auteur filmmaker Pablo Trapero (Carancho, White Elephant), The Clan tells the true story of a middle-class family pulled into a world of kidnapping, ransom and murder by the family’s patriarch.

The film is currently breaking box office records in Argentina, and its impressive accolades include: Argentina’s Official Submission for Foreign Language Film at the 88th Academy Awards®, Winner of the Silver Lion Best Director Award at the Venice Film Festival for Trapero, Official Selection at the Toronto International Film Festival, and it has just been announced as an Official Selection at the upcoming AFI Fest in November. The producers are Hugo Sigman, Matías Mosteirín, Agustín Almodóvar, Pedro Almodóvar and Esther García, the same producing team behind last year’s smash hit Wild Tales, as well as Trapero.

On the surface the Puccios live like most families. Arquímedes (Guillermo Francella) presides over a modest household where his wife, sons, and daughters gather over evening home cooked meals to discuss their days. Eldest son Alejandro (Peter Lanzani) is a star rugby player who is manipulated into helping his father carry out the meticulously planned abductions.  But when kidnapping turns to murder, Alejandro must finally face the truth that his father, his hero, is a cold-blooded killer.

The film stars beloved comedic Argentinean actor Guillermo Francella, who delivers a performance for the ages as Arquímedes, along with a break out performance by Peter Lanzani as his son Alejandro.

Iñárritu and Larraín Earn Golden Globes Nominations

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced this morning the nominations for the 73rd annual Golden Globe Awards, which include Latin American filmmakers Alejandro González Iñárritu, and Pablo Larráin.

Mexican director González Iñárritu’s The Revenant was nominated for Best Motion Picture, Drama, for Best Director, and for Best Actor. The film tells the story of legendary frontiersman Hugh Glass (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) who sustains injuries from a brutal bear attack while exploring the uncharted wilderness in the 1800s. When his hunting team leaves him for dead, Glass must utilize his survival skills to find a way back home to his beloved family. Grief-stricken and fueled by vengeance, Glass treks through the wintry terrain to track down John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), the former confidant who betrayed and abandoned him.

This marks González Iñárritu’s third Golden Globe nomination for Best Director, after Babel in 2007, and Birdman last year. The Mexican filmmaker has won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture, Drama for Babel, and for Best Screenplay for Birdman.

The Chilean film The Club / El Club by Pablo Larraín was nominated for Best Motion Picture, Foreign Language. In the Silver-Bear winning film, four unrelated men and the woman who tends their domestic needs live in a secluded house in a small seaside tow. All former priests, they have been sent to this quiet exile to purge the sins of their pasts, the separation from their communities the worst form of punishment by the Church. Their fragile stability is disrupted by the arrival of an emissary from the Vatican who seeks to understand the effects of their isolation, and a newly-disgraced housemate.

Additionally, Mexican actor Gael García Bernal received a nomination for Best Best Actor in a TV Series, Comedy for his work in Mozart in the Jungle; Wagner Moura from Brazil received a nomination for Best Actor in a TV Series, Drama for Narcos; the Netflix series Narcos was nominated for Best TV Series, Drama
; Gina Rodriguez from Jane the Virgin was nominated for Best Actress in a TV Series, Comedy; and Guatemalan-born Oscar Isaac was nominated for Best Actor in a Limited-Series or TV Movie.

The 73rd edition of the Golden Globe Awards, presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, will air January 10, 2016.