THE TINIEST PLACE Wins Spotlight Award at the Cinema Eye Honors

Tatiana Huezo's debut feature film El lugar más pequeño / The Tiniest Place (pictured), was the recipient of the Spotlight Award at the 2012 Cinema Eye Honors for Nonfiction Filmmaking that took place last Wednesday at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York City. The Spotlight Award is for "those films that haven't yet received the attention they deserve." New York audiences will have a chance to see the Mexican production soon as it will be shown as part of the Cinema Tropical Festival at 92YTribeca on Sunday, January 22.

Brazil and Chile Competing for Rotterdam's Tiger Award

The Rotterdam Film Festival announced today the 15 films competing for its 2012 Tiger Awards Competition (for first and second featured films) in its 41st edition, which include two productions from Brazil and one from Chile: Kleber Mendoça Filho's O som ao redor / Neighbouring Sounds and Eduardo Nunes' Southwest / Sudoeste (Brazil); and the Chilean road movie De jueves a domingo / Thursday Till Sunday by Dominga Sotomayor. It was also announced that Brazilian actress and filmmaker Helena Ignez (The Red Light Bandit) will be part of the this year's official jury. 

UN CUENTO CHINO; BOLETO AL PARAÍSO; MISS BALA and VIOLETA SE FUE A LOS CIELOS Nominated to the Goya Awards

The Spanish Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences announced today the nominees for the 26th edition of the Goya Awards, celebrating the best of Spanish cinema. In the Best Hispanic-American Film category films from four Latin American countries were nominated: Un cuento chino (pictured) by Sebastián Borensztein from Argentina; Violeta se fue a los cielos by Andrés Wood from Chile; Boleto al paraíso by Gerardo Chijona from Cuba; and Miss Bala by Gerardo Naranjo from Mexico. Additionally Mexican actress Salma Hayek also got a nomination as Best Actress for her work with director Alex de la Iglesia in his latest film La chispa de la vida. The winners will be announced at a special ceremony in Madrid on February 19.

MoMA to Present NY Premiere of Paula Markovitch's EL PREMIO

The Global Film Initiative (GFI) will be presenting the New York premieres of the Latin American films El premio / The Prize (pictured) by Paula Markovitch (Mexico/Argentina); El dedo / The Finger by Sergio Teubal (Argentina);Gordo, calvo y bajito / Fat, Bald, Short Man by Carlos Osuna (Colombia) as part of its annual Global Lens series, the annual collaboration between The Museum of Modern Art and GFI that is part of the touring film exhibition Global Lens, a project conceived to encourage filmmaking in countries with emerging film communities. 

Now on its ninth season, Global Lens 2012 will also be presenting the Brazilian film Riscado / Craft by Gustavo Pizzi, along with ten other films from Albania, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Iran, Iraq, Mexico, Morocco, Rwanda and Turkey. The series runs January 12 - 28 at the Museum of Modern Art with the attendance of some filmmakers who will travel to New York to present their work to local audiences.

The most-awarded Mexican film of 2011 (in co-production with Argentina), winner of numerous international prizes including Best Film at the Morelia Film Festival, The Prize tells the story of an anxious young mother and her precocious daughter who flee Buenos Aires for the temporary seclusion of a ramshackle cottage on a remote beach. Her political activist’s life-in-hiding is jeopardized after her seven-year-old daughter is selected to participate in a local school’s patriotic essay contest. Set during the years of Argentine dictatorship and its notorious Dirty War (1975–83), director Paula Markovitch draws on his own experiences to capture the lacunae of childhood’s social and psychological worlds in this exquisitely acted and atmospheric drama about innocence in tumultuous times.

Also set in Argentina during the military dictatorship, in the face of electoral fraud and intimidation, the severed finger of a respected local leader points the way forward for independent-minded citizens and their town’s quest for democracy after dictatorship in Sergio Teubal’s The Finger. Based on real events, this charming dramatic comedy pokes fun at small town ways while celebrating the birth of true democratic values. In Carlos Osuna’s delightful animated feature film, Fat, Bald, Short Man, the prospects for Antonio, a lonely middle-aged notary unexpectedly change after he joins a self-improvement group. Whilst in Gustavo Pizzi’s Craft, Bianca, a struggling actress and celebrity impersonator, lands an audition and what may be her “big break” after an inspired director recasts his film around her socially marginalized life as an underrated artist in Rio. Craft was co-written with the astounding Teles, who inhabits the role of Bianca with heartbreaking poignancy.

Latin American Films Top Best-of-2011 Lists

As 2011 came to an end, several publications published their best-of-the-year lists, which included some Latin American films. The most cherished Latin American film of the year was Patricio Guzmán's Nostalgia de la luz / Nostalgia for the Light (pictured), which was named Best Documentary Film in the past edition of the Cinema Tropical AWARDS and was featured in several lists including those published by the Village Voice (number three, Best Documentary),indieWIRE (number two, Best Documentary; number 22, Best Film), Reverse Shot (number four), Houston Chronicle (number seven), Slant Magazine (number nine), Cinespect (number eight, Best Film; and Best Documentary in no particular order), and Film Comment (number 16).

Guzmán’s film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010 and was theatrically released by Icarus Films in the US in March of 2011. The Chilean documentary was also listed in Dennis Lim’s piece on the Most Overlooked Films of 2011 published by The New York Times; was one of twelve select films that got a four-star rating in The Washington Post last year and was included on NPR’s slant of Five Breakthrough Documentaries.

The late Chilean filmmaker Raúl Ruiz, who died last August, was also featured in several lists with his last film Mysteries of Lisbon, it scored the place number three in Slant Magazine, number five in theVillage Voice, number six in Film Comment, and number seven in indieWIRE.

Additionally the Argentine film Historias extraordinarias / Extraordinary Stories by Mariano Llinás, which was released by Cinema Tropical at The Museum of Modern Art last May, also made it Lim’s piece on The New York Times, and it scored the place number ten in Reverse Shot and number 22 in Slant Magazine lists. The Mexican films El lugar más pequeño / The Tiniest Place by Tatiana Huezo and Año bisiesto / Leap Year by Michael Rowe also got mentioned in some critics’ lists published by indieWIRE,Filmmaker Magazine and Slant Magazine.

The Mexican submission to this year’s Academy Awards Miss Baladirected by Gerardo Naranjo, as well as the Argentine film Las Acacias directed by Pablo Giorgelli were included in the Best Undistributed Films of the Year by Film Comment and indieWIRE. Both films are scheduled for US release in 2012. Moreover film critic Howard Feinstein also included the Mexican film Fecha de caducidad / Expiration Date in his list of best of the year published by Filmmaker Magazine, and featured Mexican actress Úrsula Pruneda as one of the best performances of the year for her leading role in Hari Sama's El sueño de Lu / Lu's Dream.

UN CUENTO CHINO Wins Premios Sur in Argentina

The film Un cuento chino / A Chinese Tale by Sebastián Borensztein won the top prize as Best Film in the 6th annual edition of the Premios Sur given by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences of Argentina (Academia de las Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas de la Argentina) at a ceremony tonight in Buenos Aires. The film won a total of three awards including also the one for Best Actor for Ricardo Darín. The Western Aballay by Fernando Spiner which is Argentina's submission to the Oscars, won eight awards total including the prize for Best Director, whilst Sebastián Mitre's El estudiante / The Student took home four awards for Best First Film, for Best Screenplay, Breakthrough Actor and Breakthrough Actress.