Mexican Film by Natalia Beristáin to Premiere at Venice

Natalia Beristain's debut feature film No quiero dormir sola / She Doesn't Want to Sleep Alone (pictured) will have its World Premiere at the 27th edition of the Venice Film Festival's Critics' Week, it was announced today. The Mexican film will participate in the competition of this independent section of the festival along with other six films from countries such as China, Sweden, Italy, and Romania.

Starring Mariana Gajá and Adriana Roel, Beristain's film tells the story of Amanda, who has a problem, if she is alone, she can’t sleep. Her days pass in a calm, orderly fashion; she fills her nights with lovers that help her pass the hours. Her world is upset overnight when she has to take care of her old and alcoholic grandmother Dolores, a retired actress who now lives on memories of her past glory.

The winners of the Venice Critics' Week films will be selected by the audience with a cash prize of 5,000 euros. All the film entries will compete alongside titles in the Official Selection for the festival's Golden Lion of the Future. The 69th edition of the Venice Film Festival runs August 29 through September 8.

Outfest Awards Latino Talent

Outfest, the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, announced the winners for its 30th edition which came to a close today, with some prizes awarded to Latino talent. Chilean writer/director Marialy Rivas received the Special Programming Award for Emerging Talent for her film Young & Wild / Joven y alocada. According to the jury, the prize was awarded "for crafting a stylistically fearless film to match the excitement, danger and chaos that can erupt with youthful sexual exploration."

The Audience Award for Outstanding First U.S. Dramatic Feature Film with a cash prize of $5,000 went to Mosquita y Mari, directed by Aurora Guerrero. Its protagonist Fenessa Pineda, was also awarded the prize for Outstanding Actress in a US Dramatic Feature Film. According to the jury "this actress brought nuance and subtlety to a fresh coming of age story", and she won the prize "for beautifully capturing the fleeting moments of transition from innocence to curiosity to self-discovery."

The prize for Outstanding Screenwriting in a US Dramatic Feature Film, was awarded to Brazilian screenwriter Mauricio Zacharias and American filmmaker Ira Sachs for Keep the Lights On, directed by Sachs, which was also awarded the  prize for Outstanding U.S. Dramatic Feature Film.
 

Rodrigo Moreno and Pablo Stoll Awarded in Sao Paulo

The Argentine film Un mundo misterioso / A Mysterious World (pictured) by Rodrigo Moreno and the Uruguayan film 3 by Pablo Stoll where the big winners of the 7th edition of the São Paulo Latin American Film Festival sharing the main prize for Best Film.

Moreno's film starring by Esteban Bigliardi and Cecilia Rainero is the story of a likeable oddball moving through a paralysed society threatened by economic ruin. Stoll's film is a comedy about three people condemned to the same, absurd fate: being a family. For Rodolfo life at home feels empty and cold, as if he doesn’t belong there. Meanwhile, his first wife Graciela and their teenage daughter, Ana, are going through defining moments in their lives. Subtly, Rodolfo will try to slip back into the place he once had next to them and walked away from ten years ago.

Both films are made in co-production by the Argentine production company Rizoma and the Uruguayan Control Z Films. This year's festival jury was composed by film by film programmer and producer Violeta Bava, film programmer Erick González, director Federico Veiroj, film programmer and distributor Sandro Fiorin and actor César Troncoso. The festival took place July 12-19 in the Brazilian city. 

Three Prizes for Latin American Cinema at Jerusalem Film Fest

The Jerusalem Film Festival which took place July 5-14, awarded the Latin American films Aquí y allá / Here and There by Antonio Méndez Esparza, El lugar más pequeño / The Tiniest Place by Tatiana Huezo and Papirosen (pictured) by Gastón Solnicki with special prizes.

The debut feature by Méndez Esparza, Aquí y Allá / Here and There, received the The Nathan Cummings Foundation Award, in the amount of $5,000 USD. According to the jury, the film "captures with immediacy and authenticity the rituals and demands of daily rural life. With a focus on one Mexican family, using nonprofessional actors, it touches on the global issue of unemployment, giving voice to those usually not heard." The Ostrovsky Family Foundation Award with a cash prize of $2,000 was presented to Huezo's documentary feature El lugar más pequeño / The Tiniest Place. "The large-scale massacre of El Salvadorans beginning in 1979 is evoked in this film by present-day witnesses. Layers of memory emerge from individual as well as collective details, while sounds, images of nature, and voices beautifully construct a coherent political point of view," wrote jury composed by film programmer and producer Violeta Bava; Annette Insdorf, director of Undergraduate Film Studies at Columbia, and Erez Pery, artistic director of the Cinema South Festival.

Additionally, the Argentine film Papirosen by Solnicki received the Lia Award, presented by the Joan Sourasky-Constantiner Holocaust Multimedia Research Center of the Jerusalem Cinematheque, in the amount of $3,000 USD.

World Cinema Fund Awards Peruvian and Argentine Projects

The Berlinale World Cinema fund has announced the winners of its latest round of funding which includes two Latin American film projects: NN from Peru, and Refugiado from Argentina, along with five other international films.

NN is a Piedra Alada production in partnership with the German Autentika Films. It will be directed by Héctor Galvez and Adrián Campos. Awarded with 40,000 euros (around $48,000 USD) NN was previously awarded Best Screenplay at the 33rd edition of the Havana Film Festival. It tells the story of an exhumation which complicated the lives of several characters. 

Refugiado is Argentine director Diego Lerman's new project with producer Campo Cine SRL and their German partner, 27 Films Production. Also receiving an amount of 40,000 euros, the film tells the poetic story of Matias, a 4 year-old boy dressed as Spider-Man who arrives at a women’s shelter with his mother and a small plastic dinosaur.

Since its inception, the WCF has awarded production and distribution funds to film from around the world. All of the films complete have gone on to screen in theaters or have participated in renowned film festivals. . Making their selection from 122 submissions with a total of 43 countries, judges include  film scholar and curator Viola Shafik (Germany/Egypt), documentary producer Marta Andreu (Spain), distributor and producer Jan De Clercq (Belgium) and WCF project managers Sonja Heinen and Vincenzo Bugno.

García Bernal to Be Honored at Locarno Film Fest

The Locarno Film Festival announced today that Mexican actor Gael García Bernal will be honored with the Excellence Award, along with British actress Charlotte Rampling, joining the Swiss festival’s long tradition of honoring actors with an international standing. Past recipients include Susan Sarandon, John Malkovich and Willem Dafoe.

The festival pays tribute to the actor through this year’s screenings of two of his most important roles: Pedro Almodovar’s La mala educacion / Bad Education, an examination of Franco-era religious schooling and sexual abuse on two childhood friends (and lovers) and Michel Gondry’s La science des reves / The Science of Sleep, a fantastical comedy in which a man’s vivid dreams and imagination interfere with his ability to interact with his reality.  

Locarno will also be screening Bernal’s latest film, No, Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larrain’s historical drama about Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. Before No screens on August 8 in the famous Piazza Grande, Bernal will be on hand to receive the award. Bernal also participated in last year’s festival when the film director Julia Loktev's The Loneliest Planet participated in the main competition.

The 65th edition of Locarno will take place from August 1st through 11th.