Marcel Rasquin's HERMANO Set for U.S. Theatrical Release

Music Box Films has announced the U.S. Theatrical run of the soccer drama Hermano, Marcel Rasquin’s debut feature film. A box office hit in Venezuela and the country’s official submission to the Academy Awards in 2011, the film will open at the AMC Empire 25 and Cinema Village theaters in New York City on Friday, August 24, and in over 20 cities across the country including Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, San Diego and San Francisco.

Hermano tells a simple and powerful story about two kids raised together as brothers: Daniel (Fernando Moreno) and Julio (Eliú Armas) – who struggle to become professional soccer players. Both exceptional players, in La Ceniza slum, the opportunity of a lifetime arrives when a headhunter for the Caracas Football Club invites them to a try-out with the team. But their life in the slum interferes and a tragedy shakes them, forcing them to make a choice: the unity of their family or their lifelong dream?

Rasquin’s debut feature film premiered at the Moscow Film Festival were it won the top prize for Best Film, the Audience Award and the Critic's Prize. The also received the top prize for Best Narrative Feature at the Naples Film Festival, the Audience Award at the Los Angeles Latino Film Festival and a Special Jury Mention for Best First Film at the Havana Film Festival.

In Appreciation: Jorge Ruiz

By Amalia Córdova, New York University

On March 16, 2006 the Smithsonian Institution paid a tribute to award-winning Bolivian director Jorge Ruiz (March 16, 1924, Sucre - July 24, 2012, Cochabamba, Bolivia), the first “Latino” director to be awarded the James Smithson Bicentennial Medal. Other recipients of this distinction include George Lucas, Robert Redford, and Steven Spielberg.

The event showcased one of Ruiz’s most well known films Vuelve Sebastiana! / Come Back Sebastiana! (1953, Bolivia, pictured), an unpretentious documentary short-film about a young woman from the Chipaya people of the Bolivian highlands, now hailed as one of the most memorable ethnographic films produced in the last century.

In 1991 at the Festival of Three Continents of Nantes, France, Vuelve Sebastiana was recognized as the first indigenous film made in Latin America, and Ruiz was declared the “father of indigenous Andean cinema,” an extraordinary achievement for a film made with a low budget and an unlikely candidate to represent Bolivia to the world. In 2004, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Film Archive, in collaboration with the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival and California State University at Long Beach created a new 35mm print of the film with English subtitles.

Ruiz pioneered in sound and color filmmaking with his colleague and soundman, Augusto Roca. They shot Bolivia’s first talkie, Virgen India / Indian Virgin in 1949 and the film that launched the era of color for Bolivian cinema, Donde nació un imperio / Where an Empire Was Born (1949). Ruiz is perhaps the director that has placed Bolivian films in the limelights of theaters international festivals, identifying its modest film industry and reinforcing the social role of cinema, covering social reality through fiction, documentary and sheer artistic expression.

His extensive career spans over one hundred films, counting features and shorts, numerous awards, including an emeritus doctorate, and a National Culture Award from his homeland in 2001. In addition, he directed the Bolivian Film Institute in 1957. In 1958, John Grierson declared Ruiz "one of the six most important documentary filmmakers in the world." In the words of fellow Bolivian director Jorge Sanjinés, Ruiz was beyond an extraordinary cinematographer, he was also “a very simple and sensitive man, far from proud, who crafted with responsibility a pioneering work, seeking out humble Bolivians as protagonists of his numerous films and building from early on, prestige and respect for our country in this field of art and technology.”

Chilean Film DE JUEVES A DOMINGO Wins Polish Film Fest

The debut feature From Thursday till Sunday / De jueves a domingo (pictured) by Chilean director Dominga Sotomayor was awarded the top prize, the Grand Prix, at the 12th edition of the New Horizons International Film Festival which came to a close yesterday Sunday, July 29 in Wroclaw, Poland. The film follows the perspective of two children who travel with their parents on a road trip from Santiago Chile to the north of Chile on what might be their last family vacation due to marital problems. The Polish award comes with a cash price of €20,000.

Additionally, the Brazilian film Neighbouring Sounds / O som ao redor by Kleber Mendonça Filho received the FIPRESCI award given by film critics associated in the International Federation of Film Critics.  The film takes place in present day Recife, Brazil in a middle-class neighborhood where anxieties surface with the arrival of an independent private security firm.

In its 12th edition, the New Horizons Film Festival featured a retrospective of recent Mexican cinema and had some guest Mexican directors including Carlos Reygadas and Nicolás Pereda. On the Road by Brazilian director Walter Salles was the closing night film of the Polish film festival.

Queens Launches New Immigrant Film Fest

Queens, with a population of over 2 million people of which 26.5% is of Hispanic descent, is the location of the new  The Other Side Film Festival, which is being billed as the first film festival for immigrants in Queens, focusing on Latin Americans and Latinos. The aim of the festival is to create a space for the invisible, the displaced— the immigrants to develop diverse initiatives that enrich and raise awareness about the audiovisual culture with a special focus on the cultural, political and social aspects of the diverse community of New York City, specifically in the distinct borough of Queens.

The non-competitive film festival which is organized by Momentos de Arte y Cultura, CUNY John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Movimiento Audiovisual Alternativo y Comunitario de Ciudad Bolivar (Bogota, Colombia) opened on Friday, July 27 and runs through Wednesday, July 31.

The festival features the work and talent of promising Latin American filmmakers from different countries including the United States, Spain, Mexico, and Ecuador, among others. The lineup ranges from animation, shorts and a special emphasis on films and documentaries that showcase the situations of the immigrants. Additionally, as part of the program "Semillero", a series to encourage filmmaking and production, there will be multiple workshops in different areas of audiovisual training. 

Actress Lupe Ontiveros Passes Away

Renowned Mexican-American actress Lupe Ontiveros, 69, passed away this Thursday evening in Los Angeles. For the U.S. Latino community, Ontiveros was one of the most recognized actresses in cinema. With films like Zoot Suit (Luis Valdes, 1981), and Real Women Have Curves (Patricia Cardoso, 2002), Ontiveros built her career on playing immigrant characters.

She gained attention with her performance in the 1983 film El Norte directed by Gregory Nava, with whom she worked with in his subsequent film My Family / Mi familia (1995), and Selena (1997) in which she played the role of Yolanda Saldívar, the convicted murderer of the famed Tejano singer.

She also worked with director James L. Brooks in the Academy Award-nominated As Good as it Gets (1997); with director Miguel Arteta in Chuck & Buck (2000) for which she earn a nomination for Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture at the Independent Spirit Awards; and with director Todd Solondz in Storytelling (2001).

According to reports, she suffered from liver cancer. The news of her death has unexpected shocked and sent waves through social media from the Latino community. The daughter of Mexican immigrants, Ontiveros was born in El Paso, Texas in 1942. When awarded the NALIP Lifetime Achievement award, actor Edward James Olmos described her as a prolific artist and “as good as it gets.” Ontiveros is survived by her husband and three adult children.

JUAN OF THE DEAD to Open Vancouver Latin American Film Fest

The Cuban film Juan de los Muertos / Juan of the Dead directed by Alejandro Brugués will open the 10th edition of the Vancouver Latin American Film Festival to take place from August 31 through September 9 in the Canadian city. Brugués film tells the story of Juan, a man who starts his own business as a zombie slayer with the motto "Juan de los Muertos will kill your loved ones."

For years, the Vancouver Latin American Film Festival has strived to advance the public’s understanding and appreciation of Latin American Cinema. Several categories in the festival include first-time directors, documentary, and short films.

As part of its 10th year celebration, the festival had chosen to spotlight Argentine Cinema, featuring films from first time Argentine directors, historic shorts from the National School of Cinematographic Experimentation and Direction, all culminating in a retrospective on the work by directors Mariano Cohn and Gaston Duprat and the screenwriter Andrés Duprat.

Special sections included in the festival are Casa Comal, which includes work from the School of Film and Television in Guatemala, Indigenous Short Films from British Columbia and beyond, Young Woman in Film, a selection from the Mexico City Women Film Festival. Other sections include Canada Looks South, dedicated to Canadian and Latin-Canadian filmmakers who explore Latin American subjects, and Queer Latin Cinema, a section in collaboration with the Premio Maguey (Queer Award at the Guadalajara Film Festival).

Closing the festival is the Canadian premiere of Argentine Sebastían Borensztein’s Un cuento chino / Chinese Takeaway, the story of Roberto, a lonely man who lodges a Chinese boy in his house despite comical cultural differences.