Two Mexican Films Competing at the LA Film Fest

The Los Angeles Film Festival has just announced today its full lineup for this year's competition, which includes two Mexican films in its competition: Jose Luis Valle's Workers (pictured) and Rodrigo Reyes's Purgatorio.

Out of the twelve film that are featured in the Narrative Competition, the Mexican / German production of Workers by Salvadorean-Mexican director Valle will have it U.S. Premiere. Screened at Berlinale's Panorama, Valle's feature debut paints an affecting picture of the division of labor in today’s ostensibly egalitarian society with the story of a long-separated couple during their days leading to their retirement. Films in the Narrative Competition compete for the Filmmaker Awards and are also eligible for the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature or Best International Feature.

This year's Documentary Competition presents the Mexican-US co-production film Purgatorio (pictured right) directed by Rodrigo Reyes, which illustrates a deeply compassionate portrait of the U.S.-Mexico border, bringing together a universe of small stories into a compelling cinematic experience that reveals its chaotic and wounded heart.

Films in this competition are also eligible for Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature or Best International Feature. Two Mexican films have won the prize for Best Documentary at the LA Film Festival in the past few years: Los que se quedan / Those Who Remain by Juan Carlos Rulfo and Carlos Haggerman in 2009; and Cuates de Australia / Drought by Everardo González last year.

The Festival will also include an International Showcase which will highlight innovative independent narrative and documentary features from around the world. Eligible for this year's Audience Awards for Best International Feature, Best Narrative Feature, or Best Documentary Feature is Valentina Macpherson and Patricia Correa's Chilean film, The Women and the Passenger / Las mujeres del pasajero (pictured left). A U.S. premiere, this documentary that reflects on love through the experiences of four women, maids of an emblematic Santiago motel, which will let us peek into an radiography of Marin 014 passengers.

The Summer Showcase section includes Sebastían Silva's Crystal Fairy, about a few twenty-something friends traveling in Chile, who are planning on taking a road trip to experience a legendary shamanistic hallucinogen called the San Pedro Cactus. This section also includes Ecuadorian director Sebastián Cordero's upcoming science-fiction film Europa Reporta, a unique blend of documentary, alternative history and science fiction thriller," the film follows the story a team of astronauts sent to be the first manned mission to Jupiter's moon Europa. Films in this section are eligible for Audience Awards for Best International Feature, Best Narrative Feature, or Best Documentary Feature.

The Los Angeles Film Festival, presented by Film Independent, will run from June 13 - 23, presenting close to 200 films during its 10-day run.

Lucía Puenzo Headed to Cannes' A Certain Regard

The Cannes Film Festival announced last Friday some additional titles for both its Official Competition as well as its A Certain Regard Section which include Wakolda (pictured) the newest film by Argentinean filmmaker Lucía Puenzo (XXY, El niño pez / The Fish Child).

Puenzo's Wakolda joins Mexican film La Jaula de Oro by Spanish-born director Diego Quemada-Diez, as the two only Latin American feature films competing in the A Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival.

Starring Natalia Oreiro, Diego Peretti and Àlex Brendemühl and based on Puenzo's own novel of the same name, Wakolda tells the story of a German man who meets an Argentinean family in an isolated region of Patagonia and asks them to guide him in a convoy along a deserted route known as the route of death. The traveler is Josef Mengele, the infamous “Angel of Death” who performed gruesome experiments on concentration camp inmates during Nazi Germany.

Quemada-Diez's debut feature film follows a group of Central-American and Mexican children, documenting their harrowing journey toward California, their arrival, and experiences in the U.S.

The 66th edition of the Cannes Film Festival will take place May 15 - 26.

Hari Sama and Pedro González-Rubio Winners at the Riviera Maya

Hari Sama's Despertar del polvo / Awakening Dust (pictured) and Pedro González-Rubio's Inori were the top winners at the 2nd edition of the Riviera Maya Film Festival which took place in Mexico. Both films competing in the Mexican Platform section of the festival received the Kukulkan Award consisting of $300,000 Mexican pesos, (about $24,600 USD) for each film, to be used in the promotion and distribution.

Hari Sama's third feature film (Sin ton ni sonia, El sueño de Lu / Lu's Dream) is a tale of corruption, violence and inexorable fate. The film tells the story of a homeless man who runs into Rosa, an old acquaintance that asks him to help her godson, who has been accused by corrupted cops of sexual abuse and murder.

Shot in Japan, Pedro González-Rubio's Inori tells the story of a small Japanese mountain village, which was cheerful and full of activity, but these days is a desolate place, inhabited exclusively by elderly people.

In the rivieraLAB section of the festival, dedicated to supporting work in progress, Matías Meyer's Yo and Manuel Ferrari's De la noche a la mañana / From Night Till Day were the winners of the rivieraLAB/Co-Prodution Award consisting of $200,000 Mexican pesos (about $16,400 USD) for each project. La última película / The Last Film by Raya Martín and Mark Peranson, and Feguibox by Rubén Monsuy and Gabriel Amdur were the winners of the rivieraLAB/Work in Progress Award with also a cash prize of $200,000 Mexican pesos.

The second edition of the Riviera Maya Film Festival took place April 21-27 at Cancun, Playa del Carmen, Tulum, Puerto Morelos and Holbox in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.

Film Movement Acquires Uruguayan Film TANTA AGUA for the U.S.

The distribution company Film Movement has acquired the U.S. rights for the Uruguayan-German-Mexican co-production film Tanta agua / So Much Water (pictured), the debut feature film by Ana Guevara and Leticia Jorge. The film premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in the Panorama section last February and it had its U.S. premiere last month at the Miami International Film Festival where it won the Grand Prize and Best Screenplay awards.

The film tells the story of Lucia, a 14-year-old girl whose parents are divorced; she and her brother live with their mother. Their father Alberto, a chiropractor, only sees his kids occasionally. He rents a cabin at the hot springs. The holiday is going to be short and it looks as if it's about to rain. Their hearts sink on arrival. It's forbidden to use the pools because of an electric storm. Alberto tries to keep them amused and make good of their disastrous family break, but the harder he tries the worse it gets.

The distribution deal was negotiated by Film Movement’s Rebeca Conget with Virginie Devesa of Alpha Violet, with plans for a release later this year. Film Movement is a New York-based distribution company who has the U.S. rights for the Argentinean film Infancia Clandestina / Clandestine Childhood, the Colombian film La Sirga and the Mexican film Alamar, among other Latin American titles.

Ecuadorean Film Wins Austin's Cine Las Americas Film Festival

Cine Las Americas announced today the award winners for the 16th edition of their international film festival, which took place on April 16 to 21 in Austin, Texas. The Ecuadorean film Mejor no hablar de ciertas cosas / Porcelain Horse by Javier Andrade won the Jury Award for Best Narrative Feature, while the American documentary Young Lakota by Marion Lipschutz & Rose Rosenblatt, won the Jury Award for Best Documentary Feature, as well as the Audience Award for Documentary Feature. 

The narrative jury decided to give three Special Jury Awards: one for Cinematography to Jairo Boisier's La jubilada / The Retiree (Chile); another one for Performance to Cecilia Suárez in her leading role in Lucía Carrera's Nos vemos papá / See You, Dad (Mexico); and a Special Jury Mention for Experimental Approach to Narrative to El efecto K. el Montador de Stalin / The K. Effect. Stalin's Editor from Spain.

Two documentary films were awarded an Honorable Mention each: El alcalde / The Mayor by Emiliano Altuna, Diego Enrique Osorno, Carlos Rossini (Mexico), and Habana Muda by Eric Brach (France/Cuba).

The American productions Delusions of Grandeur by Iris Almaraz was the Audience Award winner for Narrative Feature.

Jodorowsky Returns to Filmmaking After 23 Years

With today's announcement of the world premiere of the film La danza de la realidad / The Dance of Reality at Cannes' Directors' Fortnight section, legendary 84-year-old Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky (pictured) returns to filmmaking after a 23-year hiatus.

A playwright, actor, author, musician, comics writer, and spiritual guru, in addition to filmmaker, Jodorowsky gained international fame with his sophomore film, the acid western El Topo (1970) which he made in Mexico.

The film became the first midnight cult film in the United States (it still plays once in a while in midnight shows at the IFC Center in New York City). His follow up production, the Mexican-American co-production La montaña sagrada / The Holy Mountain (1973), a surrealist exploration of western esotericism, was also equally successful.

After an attempt to bring Frank Herbert's novel Dune to the big screen, Jodorowsky made three more films: the French drama Tusk (1980), the surrealist Mexican-Italian horror Santa Sangre (1989, pictured right), and the British production The Rainbow Thief starring Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif (1990).

For many years, there was a lot of speculation of Jodorowsky's return to cinema -there were rumors of a sequel to El Topo (Los Hijos del Topo), allegedly to be starred by American rock musician Marilyn Manson, but none of those projects materialized.

2013 marks the much-anticipated comeback of the Chilean cult filmmaker to the big screen with La danza de la realidad / The Dance of Reality. Based on his autobiography of the same name, Jodorowsky returns to his childhood town of Tocopilla in Chile. In addition to the world premiere of his newest film, Directors' Fortnight will also screen the documentary film Jodorowsky’s Dune by Franck Pavich which chronicles the failed attempt by the Chilean director to shoot Herbert's novel.