INFANCIA CLANDESTINA Tops Sur Awards

Benjamín Ávila's debut feature film Infancia clandestina / Clandestine Childhood (pictured) topped the 7th edition of the Sur Awards that are given by the Argentinean Academy of Film Arts and Sciences, winning in 10 out of the 16 categories for which was nominated including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor (Ernesto Alterio), Best Actress (Natalia Otero), Best Original Script and Best Editing. The awards were handed at a ceremony that took place in Buenos Aires last night (Tuesday).

Based on real events in his life and set in Argentina in 1979, Ávila's film follows Juan, a 12-year-old boy who lives with his family under fake identities. Juan's parents and his uncle are members of the Montoneros Organization, who fight against the dictatorship that rules the country. Infancia clandestina, which is Argentina's official selection both to the Academy Awards and the Goya Awards, will be released by Film Movement in the United States in January 2013.

Armando Bo's debut feature film El último Elvis / The Last Elvis followed in number of prizes, winning six awards including for Best Cinematography and Best Music. Pablo Giorgelli's Las Acacias received the prize for Best First Film, while the prize for Best Adapted Screenplay was awarded to Paula Hernández y Leonel D’agostino for Un amor. Fernando 'Pino' Solanas' received the prize for Best Documentary.

docBsAs Announces Winners

By Richard Shpuntoff

Doc Buenos Aires (docBsAs) closed out its twelfth edition this past Monday evening (December 3) with an awards ceremony for pitched projects and docs in progress. The forum which began in 2001 as a workshop for pitching and project development and included a handful of Argentine projects, along with one Chilean doc, has expanded to an impressive range of films from Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, and Peru.

The forum now includes two mentoring programs, a pitch workshop, a docs-in-progress section and, within the framework of the Ventana Sur, the largest documentary film market in Latin America. Non-Latin Americans came from all over Europe and North America to learn about the latest projects including representatives from the Tribeca Film Institute, Sundance, HotDocs, the National Film Board of Canada, Arte France, Vision du Reel and PBS International.

Award winners included: Las flores del Pepe (Uruguay), Hotel Nueva Isla (Cuba/Spain), Jonas e o circo sem lona (Brazil), La quebrada (Ecuador) and Cuando los muertos están más secos (Bolivia). For a complete list of winners and participants, check out the docBsAS home page.

Photos: Above left, award-winners Claudio Araya Silva (director of Cuando los muertos están más secos), Irene Gutierrez (director ofHotel Nueva Isla), Ramiro Ozer Ami (co-director of Las flores del Pepe) and Sebastian Mayayo (co-director of Las flores del Pepe).

Above right, Liliana Mazure, president of INCAA (Intituto Nacional de Cine y Artes Audiovisuales), and Monique Simard of the National Film Board of Canada, with the winners. Photos by Richard Shpuntoff.

Kimberly Bautista Wins HBO/NALIP Doc Filmmaker Award

Filmmaker Kimberly Bautista has been selected as the recipient of the 2012 HBO/NALIP Documentary Filmmaker Award for her film Justice for My Sister (pictured) the story of one woman's unstoppable determination in seeking justice for her sister's murder. Committed to social change, the films awarded by HBO/NALIP present an uncompromising quality and honesty, and were judged on their unique causes, professional quality and structure, tone and style presented to the audience.

Kimberly Bautista is a Los Angeles-based Colombian and Irish-American filmmaker. She was a Princess Grace Award recipient in 2008 and a Latino Producers Academy Fellow in 2010. She was also the recipient of the prestigious yearlong Latino Artists Mentorship from the National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP) in 2010.

Her film tells the story of Adela, 27, who left home for work one day and never returned. Her ex-boyfriend beat her until she was unrecognizable and left her at the side of the road. Determined to see that Adela's killer is held accountable, her sister Rebeca, 34, takes on Guatemala's notoriously corrupt legal system. Completely transformed by her three-year fight, Rebeca emerges as a leader in her rural community with a message for others: justice is possible

HBO-NALIP also announced the two finalists for their Documentary Filmmaker Awards: Purgatorio, directed by Rodrigo Reyes, which reflects on the the flaws of human nature, using a stunning mosaic of compelling characters and broken landscapes of the US-Mexico border; and Diego Briceño's The Gospel of Camilo Torres, based on an uncovered 10-minute conversation between he and Father Camilo Torres, a controversial Colombian figure of the 60's. In a journey to piece together the lost memory of this man, images and stories are collected from both the priest's followers and detractors.  

The Documentary Filmmaker Award comes with a $10,000 cash prize for the winner, giving them the opportunity to continue telling their stories about the Latino experience. Chosen by a panel of professional filmmakers and the HBO Documentary Films executive, films are chosen out of many high quality submissions. 

A Mexican and a Colombian Film Winners at Ventana Sur

The Mexican film project Los insólitos peces gatos / The Amazing Cat Fish (pictured) by Claudia Sainte Luce and the Colombian film Tierra en la lengua / Dust on the Tongue by Rubén Mendoza were the winners of the First Cut (Primer Corte) section of the 2012 edition of Ventana Sur, a Latin American film market created in November 2009 by INCAA and the Marché du Film of the Cannes Film Festival.

The debut film by Sainte Luce, produced by Canibal Networks, Jaqueca Films and with support from the Foprocine Fund, is a semi-autobiographical family-set love story. It follows the growing friendship between a lonely young girl, who works at a supermarket, and a mother and her children. The awarded film received five prizes: 15,000 euros for distribution in France from Cine Plus Club; $1,330-$5,200 per country to Europa Distribution members releasing the film; up to $5,200 in Titra TVS post-production services; $2,600 from EU pic promotion scheme Eye on Films; and an ad campaign from Argentina's Film Suez.

Mendoza's Tierra en la lengua won the Haciendo Cine awards, which comes with different post-productions services. The film follows a pair of brothers travel to see their ailing grandfather. 

Margaret Mead Film Fest Awards Nicaraguan Coproduction

Adam Isenberg, the director of the Nicaraguan-Turkish co-production film Una vida sin palabras / A Life Without Words (pictured) is the winner of the 2012 Filmmaker Award given by the Margaret Mead Film Festival, the film festival announced it last night at its closing ceremony at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

The documentary film tells the story of two siblings born deaf in rural Nicaragua who have never strayed more than a few miles from the farm where they were born, reaching adulthood with no written, spoken, or signed language. When an NGO worker tries to teach them their first words, the quiet but moving drama that unfolds poses provocative questions about the meaning and nature of language, of aid work, and of documentary film.

The Margaret Mead Filmmaker Award recognizes documentary filmmakers who embody the spirit, energy, and innovation demonstrated by anthropologist Margaret Mead in her research, fieldwork, films, and writings. The award is given to a filmmaker whose feature documentary displays artistic excellence and originality of storytelling technique while offering a new perspective on a culture or community remote from the majority of our audiences' experience.

NO and HALLEY to Sundance

The Sundance Film Festival unveiled today more titles that will participate in the Spotlight, Park City at Midnight and New Frontier sections of the 2013 edition of the festival in January, which will feature works by the Chilean director Pablo Larraín, the debut feature by Mexican director Sebastián Hofman and an installation by Mexican artist Lozano-Hemmer.

The Spotlight section will feature No by Larraín starring actor Gael García Bernal. When Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet calls for a referendum to decide his permanence in power, the opposition persuades a young advertising executive to head its campaign. With limited resources and under scrutiny, he conceives a plan to win the election.

The New Frontier section which highlights work that celebrates experimentation and the expansion of cinema culture through the convergence of film, art, and new media technology will feature the U.S. premiere of Halley, the debut feature by Sebastián Hofmann that tells the story of Alberto, who is dead and can no longer hide it. Before surrendering to his living death, he forms an unusual friendship with Luly, the manager of the 24-hour gym where he works as a night guard.

In the New Frontier section, Mexican artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer will show his installation Pulse Index, a beautifully resonant, interactive media installation that records the heart rates and fingerprints of participants and exhibits them in a beautiful Fibonacci pattern.

The Festival also announced the World premiere of We Are What We Are by Jim Mickle, the American remake of the Mexican film Somos lo que somos by Jorge Michel Grau.