Mexican Judge Orders Suspension of the Theatrical Release of PRESUMED GUILTY

A federal judge ordered today in Mexico the temporary suspension of the screening of the documentary film Presunto culpable / Presumed Guilty in its theatrical release in Mexico, based on the petition of a person and former police officer that appears in the film who claims the improper use of his image, according to Mexican newspapers. The order came today after the film directed by Roberto Hernández, Geoffrey Smith and Layda Negrete, has had an impressive run in Mexican screens and is on its way to become the top grossing Mexican documentary of all time. Nevertheless the judicial order is not immediate and the Ministry of the Interior that grants the corresponding screening permits for films in Mexico has said through a spokesperson that they will appeal the decision of the judge. Both Hernández and Negrete have claimed the judiciary order is an attempt of censorship on their film. The film was broadcast in the U.S. last summer as part of PBS' POV series, it is distributed by Icarus Films.

Watch the trailer:





Pablo Larraín's POST MORTEM Wins Cartagena Film Festival


The 51st edition of the Cartagena International Film Festival that comes to a close today announced that the Chilean film Post Mortem by Pablo Larraín won the prize as Best Fiction Film. The jury composed by Mexican filmmaker Arturo Ripstein, Sundance programmer Caroline Libresco and
Screen International's editor Mike Goodridge decided to give a Special Jury Prize to the Peruvian film October by Daniel and Diego Vega. The Uruguayan film La vida útil / A Useful Life by Federico Veiroj was the winner of the Fipresci Award, whilst the Colombian film Pequeñas voces by Jairo Carrillo and Oscar Andrade and La sociedad del semáforo by Rubén Mendoza, took the prize as Best Documentary Film and Best Colombian Film respectively.





Mexico and the Oscars: Eight Down, and Counting

Eight was no lucky number for Mexico as Alejandro González Iñarritu's film Biutiful (pictured) lost to the Danish film In a Better World as Best Foreign Language Film in the 83rd edition of the Academy Awards that took place tonight in LA. Mexico has received eight nominations in total in this category -being the Latin American country with more nominations, but has never won the Oscar. The Mexican films that have been nominated in the foreign language category have been Macario (Roberto Gavaldón, 1960); Animas Trujano (Ismael Rodríguez, 1961); TlayucanActas de Marusia (Miguel Littín, 1975); Amores Perros (González Iñárritu, 2000); The Crime of Father Amaro (Carlos Carrera, 2002); Pan's LabyrinthBiutiful this year. González Iñarritu himself hasn't been able to bring home an Oscar home, besides Amores Perros, his film Babel (2007) was nominated for seven Academy Awards and only won for Best Original Music Score. (Luis Alcoriza, 1962); (Guillermo del Toro, 2006) and





Tropicast: the National Cinema Debate

 

Cinema Tropical was once again honored to team up with the Americas Society to present the Tropichat “From Buñuel to González Iñárritu: The Pitfalls of the National Cinema Debate”.  Panelists Gerard Dapena, Daniel Loría, and Paul Julian Smith, along with moderator Carlos Gutiérrez of Cinema Tropical, discussed what constitutes national cinema, both the official “rules” of what is defined as national cinema by individual countries as well as how national cinema is perceived by the public, as well as the fluidity of talent moving across the less stringent borders of the world of cinema.  While examples from the past centered on Buñuel and stars from his films, discussion of present day examples was more or less entrenched in the cross cultural cinematic phenomenon represented by Mexico’s “Tres Amigos” (Alejandro González Iñárritu -pictured, Guillermo del Toro, and Alfonso Cuarón). 

The timing of this discussion couldn’t have been more poignant, especially as once again the nomination process for the Academy Award’s  “Best Foreign Film” category sparked controversy over its archaic rules and inspired questions of national cinema.  As Mexico and Spain selected co-productions, González Iñárritu’s Biutiful and Icíar Bollaín’s También la lluvia / Even the Rain respectively, to represent their countries in this category, both the diminishing presence of cinema born of just one nation and the inability of the Academy to recognize the current situation of most productions outside of the United States became evidently clear. The night ended with important questions of distribution and accessibility, processes that the idea of national cinema can sometimes hinder or enhance.  However as the audience expressed their appreciation of these hybrid films it was clear that in the end people enjoy a good film no matter what nationality it claims.

To listen to the audio version of the Tropicast click here.

Panelists:
Gerard Dapena is a scholar of Hispanic Cinemas and Visual Culture. He has published and lectured on different aspects of Spanish and Latin American film and art history and taught at a number of colleges in the U.S.

Daniel Loría. Daniel Loría's writing on cinema and the film industry has appeared in indieWIRE and Not Coming to a Theater Near You. He holds an M.A. in cinema studies from New York University and a B.A. in the same field from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Paul Julian Smith is Distinguished Professor in the Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Program at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. He is the author of fifteen books including: Amores Perros (BFI 2003), Desire Unlimited: The Cinema of Pedro Almodóvar (Verso, 2001) and Spanish Screen Fiction: Between Cinema and Television (Liverpool UP, 2009). He is a regular contributor to Sight & Sound and Film Quarterly.

Moderated by Carlos A. Gutiérrez, Director of Cinema Tropical. 





PRESUNTO CULPABLE On Its Way to Become the Highest Grossing Doc in Mexican History


The acclaimed documentary film Presunto culpable / Presumed Guilty (pictured) by Roberto Hernández, Geoffrey Smith and Layda Negrete is on its way to become the highest grossing Mexican documentary film ever. On its opening weekend the film made $6,434,071 MX (approximately $532,005 USD) landing on the number sixth spot of the box office on top of films such as The King's Speech and The Fighter, and with an estimated audience of 127,646. With those strong numbers the film is bound to surpass Luis Mandoki's Fraude 2006 as the highest grossing Mexican documentary, which was seen by over 300, 000 people on its theatrical release in 2007. Presunto culpable, which has won numerous prizes around the world, unmasks the Mexican judiciary system telling the story of Toño, a young man wrongly accused of a crime he never committed. The film was distributed by the exhibition company Cinépolis which is the largest cineplex chain in Mexico and throughout Latin America.





Paula Markovitch's film EL PREMIO Receives Silver Bear at the Berlinale

The debut feature film by filmmaker Paula Marcovitch El Premio (Mexico/France/Poland) was awarded the Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Achievement at the 61st edition of the Berlin International Film Festival. Both Wojciech Staron and Barbara Enriquez shared the Silver Bear prize ex aequo for the film's cinematography and production design respectively.

Latin American cinema has generally been well received at the Berlinale, in the past few years Peruvian film La teta asustada / The Milk of Sorrow by Claudia Llosa and Brazilian film Elite Squad / Tropa de elite by José Padilha have both won the Golden Bear as Best Film.