The Rotterdam Film Festival announced this evening the winners of its 45th edition, which included three productions from South America.
A Special Jury Award in the Tiger Award competition with a cash prize of €10,000 was presented to The Last Land / La última tierra, the debut feature by Paraguayan director Pablo Lamar (pictured left), for it exceptional artistic achievement in sound design.
In precise, unhurried compositions of image and sound, Lamar’s film portrays a man and his dying wife, living in a remote hut in the hills of Paraguay. All the stages of mourning are passed through in a single day in this wordless account of an emotional earthquake.
The winner of the new Bright Future Award with a cash prize of €10,000 was the Argentinean film The Pretty Ones / Las lindas (pictured right) by Melisa Liebenthal. Melisa, filmmaker and character in the film is young, intelligent and funny, but also critical and ironic. She interviews her friends, reconstructs herself as a person using family photos and videos, and reflects on the images and expectations society has of young women.
Additionally the Colombian film Embrace of the Serpent/ El abrazo de la serpiente by Ciro Guerra was the winner of the Hubert Bals Fund Dioraphte Award 2016, also with a cash prize of €10,000, and presented to the Hubert Bals Fund-supported film receiving the highest votes from the festival audience.
The 45th edition of the Rotterdam Film Festival took place January 27 - February 7 in the Netherlands.
600 Miles / 600 millas the directorial debut of Mexican filmmaker Gabriel Ripstein, winner of the Best First Film Award at the Berlin Film Festival and a Cinema Tropical Award nominee for Best First Film, opens today February 5, in theaters across the United States distributed by Pantelion Films. 
The Mexican documentary feature film Kings of Nowhere / Los reyes del pueblo que no existe by Betzabé García will have its highly anticipated New York premiere as part of the official selection of The Museum of Modern Art’s 2016 edition of Doc Fortnight 2016: An International Festival of Nonfiction Film at MoMA. The film, co-presented by Cinema Tropical, will screen on February 24th and 25th with the attendance of the filmmaker.
A once-prosperous village in Mexico, flooded by the careless construction of a new dam, is abandoned by all but three families who cling to their lives amid the rising waters. Interviews with the villagers and tours of passages through the waterways reveal a world brought back from the brink of extinction—until the hope found in the daylight is all but extinguished by unseen raiders in the treacherous night.
SXSW announced their 2016 lineup for the Narrative Feature Film Competition yesterday. SXSW pledges to showcase independent discoveries from up-and-coming directors and this year’s selection includes four films from Latin America. Brazil represents Latin America in a big way this year at SXSW— three of the four films hail from region.
The Ecuadorian film (in co-production with Colombia and Mexico) UIO: Take me for a Ride / UIO Sácame a pasear (pictured left) by Micaela Rueda will also receive its world premiere in the SXGlobal section of the festival. Starting her senior year in high school, Sara doesn't have many friends and is caught between an overbearing mother, and a more understanding father. With uneasiness at school and tension in the household, Sara escapes to smoke in a little alley alone – that is – until Andrea, a new classmate, arrives. A close friendship develops to all that can see, but behind closed doors, an intimate relationship unfolds, which, when discovered, throws everything into disarray.
Fox International Productions and Twentieth Century Fox have announced the U.S. theatrical release date for The Clan, which will open on Friday, March 18, 2016 on a limited platform basis starting in New York City and Los Angeles. The film will be marketed by Fox International Productions and distributed by Twentieth Century Fox.
La Jaula de Oro (The Golden Dream), the acclaimed debut feature by Spanish-born Mexican director Diego Quemada-Diez, is now available on VOD in the United States. The film, which had its world premiere at Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section, where it was presented with the Un Certain Talent Award, the Gillo Pontecorvo Award, and a François Chalais Award Special Mention, is available on 
Hailed by The Wall Street Journal as “ferocious, uncompromising and a synthesis of front-page news and mythic hero’s journey,” and starring an impressive ensemble cast of non-professional actors, La Jaula de Oro is the story of three teenagers from the slums of Guatemala who travel to the U.S. in search of a better life. On their journey through Mexico they meet Chauk, a Tzotzil kid from Chiapas who doesn’t speak Spanish. Travelling together in cargo trains, walking on the railroad tracks, they soon have to face a harsh reality.
