Special Screening of SEVA VIVE Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Flaherty Seminar in Puerto Rico

The Puerto Rican documentary Seva vive / Seva Lives by Francisco Serrano was screened last Monday with the attendance of the filmmaker as part of the Flaherty NYC series at Anthology Film Archives in downtown Manhattan. The screening was presented in collaboration with the Puerto Rico Film Society and Cinema Tropical in the context of the 50th anniversary of the 7th Robert Flaherty Film Seminar, that was held in Barranquitas, Puerto Rico, and was programmed by Dorothy Olson.

The Flaherty Seminar and Puerto Rico had a strong ongoing relationship for many years, as some American documentary filmmakers participated with the Division of Community Education (DIVEDCO), Puerto Rican government agency under the Department of Education created in the mid 40s with the purpose of integrating the rural population into the modernization and industrialization process in the island. The agency brought together a group together of artists of different backgrounds, and produced films about different issues including education, hygiene and democracy that mainly featured nonprofessional actors from rural areas. Filmmaker Willard Van Dyke, who would later serve as Board President of the Flaherty and Director of MoMA's Department of Film, made the film El de los cabos blancos / One Lucky Horse for the DIVEDCO in 1957.

Pictured: Film publicist Soldanela Rivera with filmmaker Francisco Serrano following the screening.

TROPA DE ELITE 2 Big Winner of the Grand Prix of Brazilian Cinema

José Padilha's Tropa de Elite 2: O Inimigo Agora é Outro / Elite Squad 2: Now the enemy is another (pictured), which became the highest grossing Brazilian film ever, was the big winner at the 10th edition of the Grand Prix of Brazilian Cinema (Grande Prêmio do Cinema Brasileiro) that took place last night in Rio de Janeiro organized by the Brazilian Film Academy. Padilha's sequel won nine of the 15 categories for which was nominated including the award for Best Film, Best Director, and Best Actor for Wagner Moura. The award for Best Documentary went to The Man Who Bottled Clouds / O Homem que Engarrafava Nuvens by Lírio Ferreira whilst the award for Best Foreign Film went to the Argentine film El secreto de sus ojos / The Secret in Their Eyes by Juan José Campanella. The Academy gave a special award to producers Lucy and Luiz Carlos Barreto, for their contribution to Brazilian cinema.

Natalia Almada Receives the Alpert Award

Mexican filmmaker Natalia Almada has been selected as the 2011 recipient of the Alpert Award in the Film/Video category, as it was announced by The Herb Alpert Foundation. The Alpert Award in the Arts provides unrestricted, annual prizes of $75,000 to "five engaged, independent artists working in the fields of dance, film/video, music, theatre and the visual arts." The award is by California Institute of the Arts, and it "rewards experimenters who are challenging and transforming art, their respective disciplines, and society."  Natalia Almada has made three feature films to date: Al Otro Lado, El General (winner of the US Directing Award at the Sundance Film Festival in 2010) and more recently El Velador, which had its world premiere at New Directors/New Films Festival in New York and was featured out of competition at Cannes' Directors Fortnight just last week. "Exploring experimental and documentary cinema, Almada combines artistic expression with social inquiry to make films that are both personal reflections and critical social commentaries," says the Alpert Foundation.

Argentine Film LAS ACACIAS Winner of the Caméra d'Or at Cannes

As the 64th edition of the Cannes Film Festival came to a close today, it was announced that Argentine film Las Acacias (pictured) by Pablo Giorgelli was the winner of the Caméra d'Or award as Best First Feature Film. The film, which premiered at Critics' Week section, tells the story of a truck driver giving a ride to a woman with a little baby on the road between Asunción, Paraguay and Buenos Aires, Argentina. Since the Caméra d'Or award was created in 1978, only three Latin American films have received the prize: Oriana by Fina Torres from Venezuela in 1985, and the Mexican film Año bisiesto / Leap Year by Michael Rowe just last year (Mexican director Carlos Reygadas received a Special Mention for his film Japón in 2002). Las Acacias had also been awarded two prizes as it was announced few days ago: the OFAJ Young Critics Prize and the ACID (Association of Independent Cinema for its Distribution) / CCAS (Main Fund of Social Activities) award.

Luis Estrada's EL INFIERNO Sweeps Mexico's Ariel Awards

Luis Estrada's film El infierno / Hell swept the 53rd annual edition of the Ariel Awards, Mexico's national film award, including the prizes for Best Film, Best Director and Best Actor for Damián Alcázar. Diego Luna's Abel, which was also nominated as Best Film, took the prized for Best Screenplay and Best New Actor, whilst Felipe Cazal's Chicogrande, the third film nominated in the Best Film category and nominated for eight awards went home empty-handed.

The awards ceremony took place at the Fine Arts Palace in Mexico City last night and it was chaired by filmmaker Carlos Carrera who's the president of the Mexican Academy of Film Arts and Sciences.

Interview with Diego Vega, Codirector of OCTUBRE

Octubre, the first feature film from Peruvian brothers Daniel and Diego Vega, is a deadpan dark comedy incorporating influences ranging from Jim Jarmush and Aki Kaurismaki to Robert Bresson, and winner of the Jury Prize at Cannes Film Festival-Un Certain Regard.  Coming out amidst a wave of recent Peruvian successes such as Claudia Llosa's La Teta Asustada (The Milk of Sorrow, 2009) and Javier Fuentes-León's ContracorrienteUndertow, 2010), Octubre is another stunning example of the creative new work coming from this region.
(
Released by New Yorker Films, Octubre opens theatrically in New York City on May 6.  The following interview of co-director Diego Vega was conducted upon the film’s North American premiere at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival.

Michael Guillén: October is an enchanting fable and the line that jumped out of the movie at me was: "Poor is not someone who has little but he who wants a lot." This struck me as the lesson of your film's fable, particularly because your main character Clemente is a money lender who somehow misses the true value of his transactions. How did you and your brother go about developing this story? Did one of you write it? Did you both write it?

Diego Vega: We started on October quite a long time ago. The first idea came after I graduated from film school—I studied at Escuela Internacional de Cine y Televisión in Cuba—and when I came back to Peru, I was full of films and emotions from having been at the school. I liked Robert Bresson's films a lot and had seen his last film L'Argent many times. As you might remember, L'Argent is about a counterfeit bill that crosses the lives of many characters with tragic consequences.

Guillén: Fascinating! I failed to make that connection.

Vega: Well, also in Peru, we have a lot of fake money in circulation. Peru has a "fake" culture in the sense of piracy. Everything is sold as something it's not. You buy something and it's not the real designer label; it's not the original. It's common for Peruvians to be suspicious and scrutinizing when anyone pays them with paper money. Whether it's paying for a taxi, going to a small store, eating at a restaurant, anywhere, people will always check the money you are handing them to see if it's fake. So the influence of Bresson's L'Argent and this cultural practice in Peru of doubting authenticity were the origins of October. [Continue reading]