EL CHARRO DE TOLUQUILLA To Premiere at Guadalajara and Tribeca

The Mexican documentary feature The Charro of Toluquilla / El Charro de Toluquilla, the directorial debut by José Villalobos, will have its world premiere this weekend at the Guadalajara Film Festival, followed by its international premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival this April.

Written and directed by Villalobos, El Charro de Toluquilla follows Jaime García who appears to be the quintessentially machismo mariachi singer, yet beneath his magnetic confidence lies a man struggling to maintain a relationship with his estranged family while living as an HIV-positive man. In Villalobos’s remarkable cinematic debut, he utilizes vivid tableaus and stylized perspective to paint a beautifully unique and emotional portrait of a man divided.

El Charro de Toluquilla will participate in the official Ibero-American documentary competition at Guadalajara, and it is also in the competition for the Mezcal Award for Best Mexican Feature. At Tribeca, the film will premiere in the Viewpoints section, which is the festival's home for films with bold directorial visions, and embraces underrepresented perspectives, styles, and characters.

El Charro de Toluqilla won funding from the Gabriel Figueroa Film Fund, and the Tribeca Film Institute Latin American Media Arts Fund.

Tribeca Announces Latin American Titles for its 15th Edition

Tribeca Film Festival announced the first half of its lineup this morning, featuring eight Latin American and Latino-themed titles thus far.

Opening the International Narrative Competition is the world premiere of Madly an Argentine-Australian-American-Indian-Japanese-English production that is an international anthology of short films exploring love in all its permutations. The film is directed by Mexican actor Gael García Bernal, Chilean filmmaker Sebastian Silva, as well as, Mia Wasikowska, Anurag Kashyap, Sion Sono, and Natasha Khan.

Also in the International Narrative Competition is Icaros: A Vision (pictured left) by Leonor Caraballo and Matteo Norzi from Peru and the United States.  An American woman in search of a miracle embarks on an adventure in the Peruvian Amazon. At a healing center, she finds hope in the form of an ancient psychedelic plant known as ayahuasca. With her perception forever altered, she bonds with a young indigenous shaman who is treating a group of psychonauts seeking transcendence, companionship, and the secrets of life and death. Tribeca will mark the film’s world premiere.

Receiving its North American premiere is Argentine feature The Tenth Man / El Rey del Once written and directed by Daniel Burman. Burman (All In) returns to Tribeca with this tender exploration of community, and the intricacies of the father-son relationship. Ariel is summoned to Buenos Aires by his distant father, who runs a Jewish aid foundation in El Once, the bustling Jewish neighborhood where he spent his youth.

In the World Documentary Competition Memories of a Penitent Heart (pictured right) from Puerto Rico will have its world premiere. Filmmaker Cecilia Aldarondo, decades after the death of her uncle, Miguel,  who, like many gay men in the 1980s, moved from Puerto Rico to New York City, locates his estranged lover to understand the truth, and in the process opens up long-dormant family secrets.

Four Latino films, will screen in the Viewpoints section. Brazilian Califórnia by Marina Person will receive its North American premiere. Califórnia is a coming-of-age tale about a high school student, Estela, growing up in São Paulo in the 1980s. Estela is doing all she can to get to California to visit her glamorous and cultured uncle. While focused on keeping her grades up, her life is complicated by romance, sex, and social pressures.

From Mexico The Charro of Toluquilla / El Charro De Toluquilla (pictured left) directed by José Villalobos Romero is a documentary following Jaime García who appears to be the quintessentially machismo mariachi singer, yet beneath his magnetic confidence lies a man struggling to maintain a relationship with his estranged family while living as an HIV-positive man. This will mark its international premiere.

Also in its international premiere is The Human Thing / La Cosa Humana by Cuban filmmaker Gerardo Chijona. The film opens with a thief breaking into the home of a famous writer, and unknowingly stealing what turns out to be the only manuscript of his upcoming story. In desperate need of money, he submits it to a contest, which will see him competing with the very writer he robbed.

Actor Martinez, directed and written by Nathan Silver and Mike Ott will have its North American Premiere. The film follows Arthur Martinez, a computer repairman and aspiring actor who commissions indie directors Ott and Silver to film his life. In the directors' first collaboration, we see them follow Arthur as he goes to work, drives around, and auditions for a love interest (Lindsay Burdge), leading them to question the meaning of the project, and ultimately that of identity and stardom.

The 15th edition of the Tribeca Film Festival will take place April 13-24 in New York City.

Iñárritu Is the King of Hollywood

Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu won the Academy Award for Best Director for The Revenant, making it the third consecutive win for a Mexican filmmaker for Best Director, and becoming the first filmmaker to win the Oscar back to back in this category in 65 years. Only American filmmakers Joseph L. Mankiewicz and John Ford had won the Oscar for Best Director in two consecutive years in 1950 and 1951, and 1939 and 1940, respectively.

"They don’t listen to you. They see the color of our skin. So what a great opportunity to our generation to really liberate ourself from all prejudice and this tribal thinking" Iñarritu said on stage and make sure for once and forever that the color of skin becomes as irrelevant as the length of our hair." This was Iñárritu's fourth Oscar win, after the three Oscars he won last year for Birdman (for Best Picture, Director, and Original Screenplay).

The Revenant, which was the most nominated film of the evening in 12 categories, took home three statuettes in total. Mexican DP Emmanuel Lubezki made history this evening by winning his third consecutive Oscar for Best Cinematography for Iñarritu’s film (after Gravity in 2014, and Birdman in 2015) and becoming the first cinematographer to achieve the three-peat in the history of the Academy Awards. “This is incredible,” Lubezki said in his acceptance speech, “I want to share it with the cast and crew, especially my compadre, Mr. Iñárritu.”

Chilean filmmakers Gabriel Osorio and Pato Escala won the Oscar for Best Short Film for Historia de un oso / Bear Story, becoming the first Chilean production to ever win an Academy Award, notwithstanding that the Chilean-born cinematographer Claudio Miranda won an Academy Award in 2013 for Lif of Pi.

The 88th Academy Awards were presented this evening in Los Angeles, California.

Who to Root For at the Oscars: The Latin American Nominees

Latin America shines at tonight’s the Academy Awards. A total of nine nominations are held by Latin American talent from Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico. Furthermore, many of the nominees have made cinematic history—Alejandro González Iñárritu’s (pictured left) potential to become a two-in-a-row winner, Colombia’s first-ever nomination and the first-ever nominated Latin American animated film.

The Revenant leads the Oscar race this year with a whopping 12 nominations. The Revenant was nominated for Best Picture, Directing, Actor in a Leading Role, Actor in a Supporting Role, Cinematography, Costume Design, Film Editing, Makeup and Hairstyling, Production Design, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing and Visual Effects.

This is not Mexican filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu’s first brush with Oscar gold— all of his feature-length films have made it to the Academy Awards in varying categories over the years. He was first nominated in 2001 for Best Foreign Language Film for his debut feature Amores perros. The film explored Mexican society in Mexico City told via three intertwining stories.

Iñárritu continued with the theme of intertwining stories with 21 Grams (2003) which nabbed actors Naomi Watts and Benicio Del Toro acting nominations and Babel (2006) which received nominations in both the Best Picture and Directing categories. In 2010 Biutiful received a nomination for Best Foreign Language Film and for Best Actor. Javier Bardem’s nomination for Best Actor was the first-ever performance entirely in the Spanish-language to be nominated in the category.

Last year Iñárritu’s Birdman (2014) took home the gold statute in the most prestigious categories including, Best Picture, Directing, Original Screenplay and Cinematography. If The Revenant takes home the Oscar this year it will mark Iñárritu’s second Academy Award win in a row— the third time it’s ever happened in Oscar history. The last two filmmakers to achieve this were John Ford in 1939/1940 and Joseph L. Mankiewicz in 1949/1950. Also, a second consecutive Oscar win for Iñárritu for Best Director will mean the third consecutive time that a Mexican wins the Academy Award in that category.

Longtime collaborator Mexican DP Emmanuel Lubezki (pictured above right) receives his eighth nomination with The Revenant. If he takes home the gold on Oscar Sunday it will mark his third in-a-row win— he previously won for Birdman and Gravity (2013). This would make him the first in Oscar history to receive the Award for Cinematography in three consecutive years.

Martín Hernández could receive his second win in-a-row for Best Sound Editing, he also won the previous year for Birdman.

Ciro Guerra’s El abrazo de la serpiente / Embrace of the Serpent marks Colombia’s first Academy Award nomination in the Foreign Language category. Embrace of the Serpent 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 Evans 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 marks Guerra’s third film. His first two films, La sombra del caminante / Wandering Shadows (2004) and Los viajes del viento / The Wind Journeys (2009) were also selected as Colombia’s submissions for the Academy Awards for their respective years, but were not nominated.

Brazilian animated film O Menino e o Mundo / Boy and the World, written and directed by Alê Abreu, is the first ever Latin American film to be nominated in the category. Cuca, suffering from the absence of his father, leaves his village and discovers a fantastic world dominated by animal-machines and strange beings.

Animated short film by Chilean filmmaker Gabriel Osorio (pictured right with Pato Escala), Historia de un oso / Bear Story, is the story of a bear that wants to escape from the circus and reunite with its family. This marks the young filmmaker’s first film and first nomination.

Also in the world of animation, the California-born Jonas Rivera is nominated for Inside Out alongside Pete Docter in the Best Animated Feature category.

US-Mexican production Cartel Land by Matthew Heineman received a nomination for Best Documentary Feature. The film focuses on the vigilante groups fighting Mexican drug cartels.

We’ll find out which filmmakers will make Oscar history in a few hours. Stay tuned!

Check Out the 25 Latin American Oscar Noms for Best Foreign Language Film

With the Oscar nomination for Ciro Guerra’s El abrazo de la serpiente / Embrace of the Serpent, Colombia has become the ninth Latin American country to receive a nomination for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards, for a total of 25 Latin American nominations in its 88-year history. Argentina remains the only country to have ever won an Oscar in that category, and it has done it twice.

Mexico is the country with the most Oscar nominations with eight: Macario (Roberto Gavaldón, 1961), which became the first Latin American to be nominated for Best Foreign Language Film; The Important Man / Ánimas Trujano (Ismael Rodríguez, 1961); The Pearl of Tlayucan / Tlayucan (Luis Alcoriza, 1962); Letters from Marusia / Actas de Marusia (Miguel Littín, 1975); Amores Perros (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2000); The Crime of Father Amaro / El crimen del Padre Amaro (Carlos Carrera, 2002); Pan’s Labyrinth / El laberinto del fauno (Guillermo del Toro, 2006); and Biutiful (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2010).

Argentina has received seven nominations total, having won in 1986 with Luis Puenzo’s The Official Story / La history oficial (pictured above left) and in 2010 with The Secret in Their Eyes / El secreto de sus ojos by Juan José Campanella (pictured above right). The other five Argentinean nominees are The Truce / La tregua (Sergio Renán, 1974); Camila (María Luis Bemberg, 1984), the first nomination for Best Foreign Language Film to a film directed by a Latin American woman director; Tango / Tango, no me dejes nunca (Carlos Saura, 1988); El hijo de la novia / Son of the Bride (Juan José Campanella, 2001); and more recently, Wild Tales / Relatos salvajes (Damián Szifron, 2014).

Brazil has been nominated four times with Keeper of Promises / O Pagador de Promessas (Anselmo Duarte, 1962); O Quatrilho (Fábio Barreto, 1995); Four Days in September / O Que É Isso Companheiro? (Bruno Barreto, 1997). French-Brazilian co-production Black Orpheus / Orfeu Negro by Marcel Camus won the Academy Award in 1959 representing France.

Cuba, Chile, Nicaragua, Peru and Puerto Rico, have earned a nomination each. Cuba earned its nomination with Strawberry and Chocolate / Fresa y chocolate by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea in 1995; Pablo Larraín’s No (pictured left) from Chile was nominated in 2013; Miguel Littín’s Alsino and the Condor / Alsino y el cóndor was Nicaragua’s Oscar nomination in 1963; Milk of Sorrow / La teta asustada (2009) by Claudia Llosa earned Peru’s nomination in 2010; and What Happened to Santiago / Lo que le pasó a Santiago by Jacobo Morales earned the nomination for Puerto Rico in 1990 -it’s important to mention that under new guidelines, Puerto Rico is no longer able to submit candidates to the Oscars.

Uruguay was nominated in 1993 for Adolfo Aristarain’s A Place in the World / Un lugar en el mundo, however the film was declared ineligible and was disqualified after the Academy deemed that the production was largely Argentinean.

Four Latin American Films Selected for New Directors/New Films

The Film Society of Lincoln Center and The Museum of Modern Art announced its full New Directors/New Films lineup yesterday, featuring 27 features and 10 shorts. New Directors/New Films strives to discover new works by emerging and dynamic filmmaking talent. This year’s edition brings four titles from the Latin American region.

The Spanish-French-Uruguayan production The Apostate / El apóstata (pictured left) by Uruguayan filmmaker Federico Veiroj will be showcased, which won the FIPRESCI Prize and Special Mention of the Jury at San Sebastián International Film Festival last year. The Apostate observes a young Spaniard’s maddening efforts to abandon the Catholic Church. Channeling his spiritual forebear, Luis Buñuel, Veiroj brings gentle irony with wry humor and deep conviction.

Kill Me Please / Mate-me por favor (pictured right) from Brazil by Anita Rocha da Silveira is the filmmaker’s debut feature. The film takes place in Barra da Tijuca, the West Side Zone of Rio de Janeiro where a wave of murderers plague the area. Bia, a fifteen year old girl, who has an encounter with death finds herself doing anything to make sure she's alive. The film premiered last fall at Venice Film Festival and will have its U.S. premiere at SXSW before it hits New Directors/New Films.

Also from Brazil, Gabriel Mascaro’s acclaimed Neon Bull / Boi Neon (pictured below) will screen. The film has won numerous awards including, Venice Horizons Award - Special Jury Prize at Venice Film Festival,  Platform Prize - Honorable Mention at TIFF and Best Film, Screenplay and Cinematography at Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival. Neon Bull follows handsome cowboy Iremar as he travels around to work at vaquejada rodeos, a Brazilian variation on the sport in which two men on horseback attempt to bring a bull down by its tail. Iremar dreams of becoming a fashion designer, creating flamboyant outfits for his co-worker, single mother Galega.

Receiving its New York premiere is Mexican-German production I Promise You Anarchy / Te prometo anarquía by Julio Hernández Cordón. The film follows two skaters, Miguel and Johnny, who sell their own blood for the ER black market for easy money until a big transaction ends up bad for everyone involved.

The 45th annual New Directors/New Films will take place March 16-27 in New York City.