Few Awards for Latin American Cinema at the Berlinale

Even though Latin American cinema has a solid performance at the Berlin Film Festival in recent years, José Padilha's Tropa de elite / Elite Squad (Brazil) and Claudia Llosa's La teta asustada / The Milk of Sorrow (Peru) have won the top prize back to back in 2008 and 2009, the 62nd edition of the Berlinale (running from February 9 - 19) wasn't as generous, with few Latin American films winning some minor prizes. 

Llosa participated again at this year's festival with the film Loxoro which was awarded the Teddy Award for Best Short Film, an international prize for films with LGBT topics presented by an independent jury. Brazilian short film L by Thais Fujinaga received a Special Mention for the Deutsche Kinderhilfswerk for Best Short Film, whilst his fellow countryman Cao Hamburger was the third place in the Panorama Section Audience Award for fiction film for his feature film Xingu. 

Additionally the Uruguayan-Mexican co-production La demora / The Delay by Rodrigo Plá received the Ecumenical Jury Prize and the Tagesspiegel Readers’ Jury of the Forum Section. In that same section Celina Murga's documentary film Escuela normal / Normal School (Argentina) received a Special Mention for the Caligari Award, prize sponsored by the Federal Association of Communal Film Work and the Filmdienst  magazine. 

José Álvarez's CANICULA Selected for True/False Film Fest

The True/False Film Festival announced today the lineup for its 2012 edition which includes the Mexican documentary film Canícula by director José Álvarez. The film takes places in the Totonac village of Zapotal, Santa Cruz, where the tension between tradition and the creeping forces of modernity plays a dynamic role for the entire film.

Other selected films with Latin American content include Malik Bendjelloul's Searching for Sugar Man, about Mexican-American singer songwriter Sixto Diaz Rodriguez whose music was highly popular in South Africa; Victor Kossakovsk's ¡Vivan las Antipodas! about Earth’s antipodal pairs including Rios, Argentina, and Patagonia in Chile; and Wojciech Staron's Argentinian Lesson about a small Polish kid trying to adapt to a new life in Buenos Aires; and Nadav Kurtz's Paraíso, a short film about three Mexican immigrants who clean the windows of Chicago's tallest skyscrapers.

On its ninth edition, the True/False Film Festival, focusing on documentary film, will take place March 1-4 in Columbia, Missouri. 

Santa Barbara Film Fest Honors Two Latin American Films

The 27^th Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF), which ran from January 26 to February 5, honored two Latin American films, as it was announced on the last day of this year’s festival. The Nueva Vision Award for the best Spanish/Latin American film went to Júlia Murat’s Historias que so existem quando lembradas / Found Memories (pictured).

The Brazilian director’s first fiction feature is about a young photographer who comes across a lonesome ghost town with only a few elderly residents. Murat’s film contemplates the divisions and the bonds between the young and the old. US distributor Film Movement acquired the film at the Toronto Film Festival last September, for release in the second quarter of this year.

The jury awarded an honorable mention to Alejandro Bellame Palacios’s film El rumor de las piedras / The Rumble of the Stones. The film depicts a mother’s love for her children and her concern for their future. It is a family’s quest to overcome tragedy amidst the social problems of modern Venezuela. The film was also Venezuela’s official submission for the Academy Awards Best Foreign Film category.

Brazilian Tiradentes Film Fest Announces 2012 Winners

 

 

Last Saturday, January 28, the Mostra de Cinema de Tiradentes, a Brazilian film festival that has been getting momentum in the past few years, announced the winner's of this year’s edition that ran January 20-28 at this colonial town in Minas Gerais. The main award as Best Film went to Adirley Queirós’s A cidade é uma só? / Is the City One Only? (pictured). The film explores the daily life of a socially excluded portion of the Brazilian population living in and around the capital city. In addition, the jury selected as Best Film Eduardo Morotó's Quando morremos a noite / When We Die at Night.

 

The Youth Jury’s pick for Best Film was HU from Pedro Urano and Joana Traub Cseko a documentary film that is a unique study of a building divided in two. On one side, it is a public hospital, and on the other, a ruin. Through the exploration of this building, the filmmakers examine the state of Brazil’s public health and education systems.  Lastly, the Audience Award went to Helvécio Ratton documentary film O mineiro e o queijo / Minas People and their Cheese. Ratton’s film delves into the world of the Minas’ artisanal cheese and the thousands of families whose livelihood depends on its production.

Chilean Film DE JUEVES A DOMINGO Wins Tiger Award Award at Rotterdam Film Fest

The Rotterdam International Film Festival, which started on January 25 is running through this Sunday, February 5, announced the winners of the Tiger Awards of its 41st edition, and one of the top prizes went to the Chilean film De jueves a domingo / Thursday till Sunday (pictured). The debut feature film by Dominga Sotomayor is a road movie set in the car of a middle class family en route to a holiday trip to the north, while the marriage is falling apart.

Even though Rotterdam has awarded numerous Latin American films in the past, Sotomayor's film becomes the first Chilean production to win the Tiger Award. Some past Latin American winners of the Tiger Award include Mexican film Alamar by Pedro González Rubio and Costa Rican film Agua fría de mar by Paz Fábrega in 2010; Brazilian film Baixio das bestas by Cláudio Assis in 2007; Juan Pablo Rebella and Pablo Stoll's 25 Watts (Uruguay) in 2001; and Pablo Trapero's Mundo Grúa (Argentina) in 2000.

Additionally, it was announced that Brazilian film Neighboring Sounds / O son ao redor by Kleber Mendonça Filho received the FIPRESCI Award given by the International Federation of Film Critics. 

Latino Component in the Upcoming SXSW Festival

The South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival has announced its lineup for next edition to be held in Austin, Texas, March 9 through the 17. This year's selection features a strong representation of Latino talent in nearly every category. In the Narrative Feature Competition, the Mexican-German-American co-production film Los Chidos (pictured) from director/screenwriter, Omar Rodríguez López will have its world premiere. In this film, the Gonzales family tries hard to hold on to their beautiful Latino traditions of misogyny and homophobia when a tall, white, industrialist stranger appears, challenging their place in the exploitative food chain.

The Documentary Feature Competition will feature the world premiere of Annie Eastman's Bay of All Saints. This documentary film looks at the life of three single mothers facing homelessness when the last of the notorious water slums is demolished in Bahia, Brazil. Additionally, the Emerging Visions section featuring audacious, risk-taking artists in the new cinema landscape that demonstrate raw innovation and creativity in documentary and narrative filmmaking, will be premiering in the U.S. the Brazilian film Hard Labor (pictured) from director/screenwriter team, Juliana Rojas and Marco Dutra. In this film, Helena prepares to open her own business: a neighborhood grocery store. When her husband Octavio is suddenly fired from his job, Helena is left to support the family alone.

 In this same section, Mark Kendall's debut feature La Camioneta: The Journey of One American School Bus (pictured) will be making its world premiere. The documentary films follows the journey of one out-of-service American school bus on a 3,000-mile adventure across the borders between the Americas, at it is repaired, repainted and resurrected into a Guatemalan camioneta.

The 24 Beats per Second section, focusing on sounds, culture and influence of music and musicians, with an emphasis on documentary will be featuring the world premiere of Amor Crónico (Cuba / USA) directed by famed actor Jorge Perugorría. Weaving footage of singer Cucu Diamantes’ Cuban tour into a fictional love story, the film is an energetic display of her glamorous and infectious performance style and a fascinating portrait of Cuba today.

 The SX Global section, featuring filmmaking talent, including premieres, interactive documentaries and shorts will show Argentinean film Pompeya from director/screenwriter team, Tamae Garateguy and and Diego A. Fleischer. The film tells the story of a film director who hires two screenwriters to make a gangster movie, and a fiction feast starts: femmes fatales, mobs fighting for the same neighborhood and a limitless hero who defies every movie concept. Meanwhile on the Estonian-Swedish co-production documentary film Cubatón - El Médico Story (pictured) by Daniel Fridell, El Médico, a Cuban house doctor who wants to become a cubatón star is facing a serious choice between serving the state and becoming a popstar. The SX Global section will also feature ¡Vivan las Antipodas! (Germany/The Netherlands/Argentina/Chile) by director Victor Kossakovsky. This documentary film takes a look at a common question: What is happening just at this moment beneath our very feet at the other side of the planet?

The Festival Favorites section will feature the U.S. Premiere of the horror film Lovely Molly, by Cuban-born director Eduardo Sánchez, whilst the Special Events section of the festival will feature Casa de mi Padre (pictured) by director Matt Piedmont and screenwriter Andrew Steele. In this comedy, Will Ferrell plays a Mexican rancher who must defend his father's home against the country's most infamous drug lord. The film is costarred by Mexican actors Gael García Bernal, Diego Luna and the late Pedro Armendáriz Jr.