Mexican Film Selected for Rome Film Fest's Official Competition

The Rome Film Festival announced yesterday its official lineup for this year’s 7th edition, which will take place November 9-17 at the Italian capital, and includes the Mexican film Mai Morire (pictured) directed by Enrique Rivero, as the only Latin American film in its official competition.

Starring Margarita Saldaña, Amalia Salas and Juan Chirinos, Mai Morire tells the story of Chayo, and her return to her hometown of Xochimilco, a place of incomprehensible beauty, in order to care for he elderly mother and cope with her death. In the process, she must give up something that as a woman and mother is inalienable: her freedom. Spanish-born filmmaker Enrique Rivera presents his sophomoric drama after his 2008 acclaimed debut feature Parque Via.

The Festival also announced part of the lineup for its Cinema XXI which includes the Argentine/Nicaraguan documentary El ojo del tiburón / The Eye of the Shark by Alejo Hoijman, the Brazilian film O batuque dos astros by Júlio Bressane and the Brazilian-produced omnibus film Invisible World/ Mundo invisível by international filmmakers Wim Wenders, Theo Angelopoulos, Atom Egoyan, Manoel De Oliveira, Guy Maddin, Marco Bechis, Laís Bodanzky, Maria de Medeiros, Jerzy Stuhr and Gian Vittorio Baldi.

Additionally, it was announced that Dominican filmmaker Laura Amelia Guzmán (Cochochi, Jean Gentile), will be a member of this year's jury for First and Second Films.

Global Film Initiative Awards Projects from Venezuela, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica and Uruguay

The San Francisco-based organization the Global Film Initiative announced today that ten film projects have been selected to receive production funding as part of their Initiative's Summer 2012 granting cycle which includes four Latin American projects from Venezuela, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica and Uruguay.

The Latin American winning projects are:

- Pelo malo / Bad Hair by Mariana Rondón, Venezuela.
A showdown looms as nine-year-old Junior suspects his haggard, out-of-work single mother would love him more if he straightens the unruly hair he inherited from his absent father;

- Del color de la noche / Colored Like the Night by Agliberto Meléndez, Dominican Republic.
In the last days of his mayoral campaign, terminally ill José Francisco Peña Gómez, leader of the Dominican Revolutionary Party, records a dramatic public address of forgiveness to his racist opponents before returning home to die.


- Puerto Padre / Port Father by Gustavo Fallas Vargas, Costa Rica.
As a teenage orphan from Chira Island searches for his godfather on the mainland, his innocent memory of childhood is gradually replaced by an unsettling reality upon learning the truth about his origins.

- Tanta agua / So Much Water (pictured) by Ana Guevara and Leticia Jorge, Uruguay.
As a rainstorm puts a damper on a seaside family vacation, fourteen-year-old Lucía struggles to assert her independence and individuality--in spite of her father's well-intentioned but overbearing attempts to bond with her.

The Granting Program awards fifteen to twenty grants per year, of up to $10,000 each, to filmmakers whose work exhibits artistic excellence, accomplished storytelling and cultural perspective on daily life. Funds received from grants are used to subsidize post-production costs such as laboratory and sound mixing fees, and access to advanced editing systems.
 
Since the Initiative's founding in 2002, the Granting Program has awarded 132 grants to deserving film projects from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Central & Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Oceania.

DE JUEVES A DOMINGO Wins Valdivia

The Chilean film De jueves a domingo / Thursday till Sunday (pictured) by Dominga Sotomayor won the top prize for Best Film with a cash prize of $4,000 USD in the international competition of the 19th edition of the Valdivia Film Festival, which ran October 2-7 in Chile. The Argentine film Viola by director Matías Piñeiro received the Jury's Special Prize, while Polvo by Guatemalan director Julio Hernández Cordón received a Special Mention in the same category.

The prize for Best Chilean Film was for Carlos Klein's Donde vuelan los cóndores, with a cash prize of over $6,000 USD, and Ignacio Rodríguez's La chupilca del diablo received a Special Jury Prize in the Chilean cinema category with a cash prize of $10,000 for international promotion. Klein's film also received the Audience Award, along with the Uruguayan film El Bella Vista by Alicia Cano.

The jury for the international competition was composed by Argentine producer Violeta Bava, Peruvian film critic/programmer John Campos Gómez, and Chilean filmmaker Ignacio Agüero, while the Chilean competition jury was composed by Argentina actress Romina Paula, Argentine producer Pablo Udenio and Chilean filmmaker Alberto Fuguet.

González Iñárritu Directs Ad for Facebook

Mexican director Alejandro González Iñarritu has directed a 90-second promotional video for social network Facebook which was launched this week as the social network reached the billion-member mark. The video untitled "The Things that Connect Us" is Facebook's first major ad, and it was undertaken by Wieden & Kennedy, a Portland-based ad agency who hired the Oscar-nominated director of films such as Amores Perros, Babel and Biutiful to direct it.

Watch the video:

Complete List of Latin American Academy Award Submissions

[October 2, 2012 Update] Uruguay announced it has selected Rodrigo Plá's La Demora (a co-production film with Mexico and France) to represent the country in the Foreign Language category for the Oscars. The third feature film by Plá, starring Carlos Vallarino and Roxana Blanco, is a study of a single-mother and his aging, dangerously forgetful father, whose presence in her cramped home is driving her to desperate measures. 

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[September 28, 2012 Update] Argentina has selected Benjamín Ávila's Infancia clandestina / Clandestine Childhood as its Oscar entry for this year. Produced by filmmaker Luis Puenzo, the film  screened at Cannes' Directors' Fortnight, and has been acquired for US distribution by Film Movement for a November release. Set in Argentina in 1979, the film shows the hidden lives of political militants during the Argentine dictatorship through the eyes of a 12 year-old boy that has just returned from exile with his family. Ávila's debut feature film is largely based on his own personal story.

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[September 26, 2012 Update] Peru announced today that Rosario García-Montero's debut feature Las malas intenciones / The Bad Intentions will represent the country in the Oscar's Foreign Language category. The film, a coming of age tale set in the convoluted Lima in the 1980s, tells the story of eight-year-old Cayetana who is captivated by reports of guerrilla attacks and fascinated with the lives and deaths of the heroes of Peruvian independence. On more related news, Argentina will announce its candidate film this Friday, September 28. 

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A handful of Latin American countries have already selected their official submissions for the Foreign Language Film category for the 85th edition of the Academy Awards which will take place on February 24, 2013. So far Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Venezuela, have announced the films that will be representing each country for the Oscars.

Brazil has selected O Palhaço / The Clown, a charming, light-hearted dramedy co-written and directed by lead actor Selton Mello. The film tells the story of the father/son clown duo of Pangaré and Puro Sangue who work in a traveling circus in the Brazilian countryside.

Chile is submitting No the newest film by Pablo Larraín which stars Mexican actor Gael García Bernal and was the winner of the top prize in this year's Directors' Fortnight at Cannes. The film tells the fictionalized story of René Saavedra, an ad man who designs the marketing campaign to take dictator Augusto Pinochet out of power in the 1988 national plebiscite.

Colombia has opted for Carlos Moreno's drug crime thriller El Cartel de los Sapos / The Cartel of Snitches which stars Manolo Cardona, Tom Sizemore, Juana Acosta and Kuno Becker. The third film by Moreno (Perro come perro, Todos tus muertos) is based on the life story of former drug trafficker Andrés López who adapted his memoir into a telenovela and co-wrote the film's screenplay.

Jaque mate / Checkmate by José María Cabral is the Dominican Republic's candidate which is the fourth film ever that the Caribbean nation has submitted to the Oscars. The film was selected out of 10 contenders, which marks a local record. Cabral's film is about a TV host who receives a call from his family's kidnappers while he's on air. Mexico has selected Michel Franco's Después de Lucía / After Lucía which won the top prize at Cannes' Un Certain Regard section. The film follows the young Lucía, who just moved to town with her dad. She is new at school and becomes a victim of bullying by his new classmates.

Last, but not least, Venezuela has announced that Hernán Jabes' drama Piedra, papel o tijera / Rock, Paper Scissors will be representing the South American country.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will announce the five nominees for Best Foreign-Language Film on January 10. The last Latin American film to have won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film was Juan José Campanella's El secreto de sus ojos / The Secret in their Eyes in 2009. 

      

 

        

Natalia Almada Bestowed a MacArthur 'Genius' Grant

Filmmaker Natalia Almada is one the 23 recipients of this year's MacArthur Foundation's 'genious grants' as it was revealed this afternoon, few hours ahead of the scheduled official announcement. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation awards $500,000 (paid out in equal quarterly installments over five years) to between 20 and 40 U.S. citizens a year who display "exceptional merit and promise for continued and enhanced creative work."

Unlike most other grants, there is no way to apply for the MacArthur, often referred to as the 'genius grant.' Past recipients include writers, scientists, artists, humanists, teachers, entrepreneurs, farmers, and fishermen, among others.

Almada’s most recent film El Velador: The Night Watchman premiered at New Directors/New Films Festival and the Cannes' Directors' Fortnight last year, the film is currently being broadcast on PBS as part of the 25th anniversary season of the P.O.V. Series. Almada was the recipient of the 2009 Sundance Documentary Directing Award for her film about her great-grandfather, Mexican president Plutarco Elías Calles, El General. Almada’s previous directing credits include All Water Has a Perfect Memory (2001), an experimental short film that received international recognition, and Al Otro Lado, her award-winning debut feature documentary about immigration, drug trafficking and corrido music.

Her films have screened at the Sundance Film Festival, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), dOCUMENTA(13) and the Whitney Biennial. Almada has been a MacDowell Colony Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, a USA Fellow and a TEDx speaker, and was the recipient of the 2011 Alpert Award in Film/Video. She lives in Mexico City.

Dominican-American writer Junot Díaz also received one of this year's grants.