AFTER LUCÍA Awarded at Chicago

The Mexican film Después de Lucía / After Lucía (pictured) was awarded the Silver Hugo Special Jury Prize at the 48th edition of the Chicago International Film Festival, which ran October 11-25. Michel Franco's sophomore film which won the prestigious Un Certain Regard prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival is an intense, shocking exploration of the violent effects of bullying that tells the story of teenager Alejandra (played by Tessa Ía) who is mourning her mother and lonely in a new school.

When a video emerges of her drunkenly having sex in a bathroom, she immediately becomes a target for the popular kids. Their torments grow in intensity and cruelty, wearing down the weary Alejandra's resistance.

Chilean Film STEFAN V/S KRAMER Breaks All-Time Local Records

The film Stefan v/s Kramer has become the most popular film in the history of the Chile, having been watched by over 2 million people in its 12 weeks of its continued theatrical run and surpassing American blockbusters such as Ice Age 4, Avatar, Titanic and Toy Story 3.

Starring actor/comedian Stefan Kramer and locally distributed by 20th Century Fox, the film is a comedy that tells the fictionalized story of Kramer, a renowned Chilean impersonator who, having achieved success, needs to reclaim his family life with his wife (played by Paloma Soto, Kramer's wife in real life) and children while he's combating the anger of the public figures that he has impersonated.

In the film, co-directed by Kramer with Sebastián Freund and Eduardo Prieto, the comedian impersonates more than 19 characters including Chilean president Sebastián Piñera.

Watch the trailers (in Spanish):

Latin American Docs Headed to IDFA

The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) has announced the official lineup for its 25th anniversary edition which will take place between November 14-25 in The Netherlands and will feature several Latin American films. The Brazilian documentary film Doméstica / Housemaids by Gabriel Mascaro, will be representing Latin American in the official feature-length competition.

Te Uruguayan film Todavía el amor / Love Still (pictured) by Guzmán García and the Chilean film Nosotras, las mujeres, y el pasajero / The Women and the Passenger by Patricia Correa and Valentina Mac-Pherson will be participating in the mid-length competition, while the Swedish-British film Searching for Sugar Man by Malik Bendjelloul will be screened in the Music Documentary Section.

The Brazilian film Elena by Petra Costa will be competing in the First Appearance category for emerging filmmakers, while the Mexican short film El árbol / The Three by Gastón Andrade has been selected for the Student Documentary Competition.  

The Panorama section of the festival will feature four Latin American films including Bernardo Ruiz's Reportero (USA/Mexico); Gabriel Mascaro's Ebb & Flow (Brazil, pictured right); Cristian Soto and Catalina Vergara's The Last Station (Chile); and Carlos Klein's Where the Condors Fly (Chile). This last film will be shown as part of a retrospective of Russian filmmaker Victor Kossakovsky's work which also includes the film ¡Vivan las Antípodas! an Argentina-Germany-The Netherlands-Chile co-production.

The Argentine film La chica del sur / The Girl from the South by José Luis García will be shown in the non-competitive Reflecting Images - Best of Fests section, while Mercedes Moncada's Palabra mágicas / Magic Words ((Mexico/Guatemala/Nicaragua) will be screened in the Reflecting Images - Masters presenting new works from renowned documentary authors.

Three Brazilian shorts will participate in the Paradocs section of the festival, featuring films that go beyond the frame of traditional documentary filmmaking: Cao Guimaraes' Limbo (pictured right); Leonardo Sette and Isabel Penoni's Enraged Pigs; and Gregorio Graziosi's Monument. Additionally, Nicolás Entel's Pecados de mi padre / Sins of My Father will have a special screening as part of the Constructing History program.

IDA Documentary Awards Nominates Latino Films

The International Documentary Association announced today the nominees for the 28th edition of the IDA Documentary Awards which includes some Latino-themed films. Malik Bendjelloul's Searching for Sugar Man (pictured), about the incredible story of Mexican-American musician Sixto Rodríguez who became an unlikely star in South Africa, was nominated for Best Feature Award, while Mark Kendall's La Camioneta was nominated for the David L. Woper Student Documentary Award.

Peter Getzels and Eduardo López's Harvest of Empire, which is based on the book by the columnist Juan González focuses on the direct connection between the long history of U.S. intervention in Latin America and the immigration crisis, was nominated for two awards: the ABCNews Videosource Award, which is given for the best use of news footage as an integral component in a documentary; and the Humanitas Documentary Award, given to a documentarian whose film strives to unify the human family by exploring the stories of human beings who are different in culture, race, lifestyle, political loyalties and religious beliefs.

The 2012 IDA Documentary Awards winners will be announced in ceremony in Los Angeles on Friday, December 7.

NEIGHBORING SOUNDS Is the Big Winner at Rio

The Brazilian film Neighboring Sounds / O som ao redor (pictured) by Kleber Mendonça Filho's was the big winner of the 2012 edition of the Rio Film Festival which ran September 25-October 11 in Brazil, taking the prizes for Best Film and Best Screenplay. The film portrays life in the a middle class neighborhood in Recife, which changes with the arrival of a private security firm.

The award for Best Director was for Eryk Rocha for his documentary Jards about Brazilian musician and composer Jards Macalé, an influential local figure in the 1970s. The documentary film Helio Oiticica, made by César Oiticica Filho, the nephew of the late famed Brazilian visual artist won the prize for Best Documentary Film.

DOC NYC Selects a Handful of Latino-Themed Docs for its 3rd Edition

DOC NYC, New York’s Documentary Festival has announced its lineup for its third edition, which will take place November 8-15 at the IFC Center and Chelsea’s SVA Theater, showcasing 115 films, including a handful of Latino-themed films: the feature films La Camioneta, Shenandoah, Searching for Sugar Man, and the short films Crooked Lines and The Needle.

This year's DOC NYC will present the local premiere of La Camioneta, directed by Mark Kendall, which shows the migration of decommissioned American school buses that to Guatemala where they are repaired, repainted and resurrected as brightly-colored camionetas. This film follows  on bus and the five lives it intertwines with during its transformation.

Shenandoah directed by Pulitzer Prize-winner David Turnley is the portrait of a U.S. community on trial. A town’s identity in disrepair when four football stars are charged in the beating and murder of an undocumented Mexican immigrant named Luis Ramirez. DOC NYC will also present a special screening of Malik Bendjelloul’s Searching for Sugar Man, which is currently out in theaters, about Mexican-American singer Sixto Rodriguez.

From a clandestine cosmetic clinic in his modest home in Puerto Rico, Carmen Oquendo-Villar and José Correa-Vigier's The Needle follows José Quiñones who deals both treatment and advice. But in spite of the tight bond he has formed with his largely LGBT clientele, Quiñones decides to reach out to the estranged family that rejected him.

Lucy Walker's short film Crooked Lines is the story of Ailson Eraclito Da Silva, the best rower in Brazilian history, the Micheal Phelps of his sport. Growing up in a leper colony on the banks of the Amazon, he’s constantly discriminated against. His dream, though, is to win Olympic Gold. But Ailson has an Achilles heel — he’s heavy for the lightweight category he competes in.