LA CAMIONETA to Be Released in NY and LA

Follow Your Nose Films has announced the U.S. theatrical run of La Camioneta, the acclaimed debut feature by Mark Kendall, a US-Guatemala co-production. The film opens for one week on Friday, May 31 in New York City at Brooklyn's reRun Gastropub theater, and in Los Angeles on Friday, June 6 at Downtown Independent, followed by a national tour including screenings at Digital Gym in San Diego (July 2-7), at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus (July 17), and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston (September 20 and 27).

La Camioneta, a surprising and unique documentary film, traces the migration and transformative journey of a decommissioned American school bus to the streets of Guatemala. Every day dozens of decommissioned school buses leave the United States on a southward migration that carries them to Guatemala, where they are repaired, repainted, and resurrected as the brightly-colored camionetas that bring the vast majority of Guatemalans to work each day. Since 2006, nearly 1,000 camioneta drivers and fare-collectors have been murdered for either refusing or being unable to pay the extortion money demanded by local Guatemalan gangs

Winner of an IDA Documentary Award, and an official selection of the SXSW, Los Angeles, and Guadalajara Film Festivals, La Camioneta follows one such bus on its transformative journey: a journey between North and South, between life and death, and through an unfolding collection of moments, people, and places that serve to quietly remind us of the interconnected worlds in which we live. Variety has praised Kendall, as "a name to watch."

Latino Winners of the 2013 Student Academy Awards

Three Latino directors are winners at the 40th annual edition of the Student Academy Awards, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences announced today. Colombian-born director David Aristizabal from the University of Southern California won in the Documentary category with his short film A Second Chance, while Nuyorican director Raffy Cortina from Occidental College won in the Alternative category with his short film Bottled Up (pictured), and Swiss-Mexican director Mauro Mueller from Columbia University was a winner in Narrative category with his film Un mundo para Raúl / A World for Raul.

David Aristizabal was born in Bogota and earned a BA in filmmaking and he then studied Economics in Colombia. He worked in television and directed three short films (1000 Colombian Pesos, and the documentaries Penalty and 213) before moving to Los Angeles to pursue a MFA in Film and TV production from USC.

His 23-minute documentary short A Second Chance is his thesis project. The film tells the story of a combat medic who can’t adjust to civilian life following his honorable discharge and post traumatic stress diagnosis. After applying for a support dog, he looks to a rescued companion for a second chance at life. 

Raffy Cortina was born in Spanish Harlem in New York City. He moved to Los Angeles to study film at Occidental College in Los Angeles and in 2007 founded his own production company, Flavor Films. His fantasy short film Bottled Up (pictured right) tells the story of a dockworker who's life is trapped in the current of monotony. His only refuge is a wish bottle that embodies his desire to escape the mundane.

 
Starring Alexander Barceló, Adrián Alonso (Under the Same Moon) and Gerardo Taracena (Apocalypto), Mueller's Un mundo para Raúl is a dramatic coming-of-age story told from the perspective of Raul, a thirteen year old boy in Mexico. Mueller's short films have played at various festivals including Hong Kong, Singapore, Huesca, Morelia, Brooklyn, Denver, Outfest, Frameline35 and have won numerous awards including twice the CINE Golden Eagle Award, Big Beach Best directing award, and IFP Audience Award.

Additionally, one other Mexican-theme project was also a winner at the 2013 Student Academy Awards: Día de los Muertos (pictured left) by Lindsey St. Pierre and Ashley Graham from the Ringling College of Art and Design which won in the Animation category.

Pablo Larraín and Maite Alberdi Win Chilean National Arts Award

Pablo Larraín (pictured) and Maite Alberdi were the winners of Chile's Altazor Award of the National Arts for Best Director, Fiction and Documentary, respectively. The winners were announced at a ceremony yesterday in Santiago, Chile. Larraín was nominated for his film No, and he was competing against Cristián Jiménez for his film Bonsái and Sebastián Silva and Pedro Peirano for their film Gatos viejos / Old Cats. 

Alberdi won the prize for her documentary film El salvavidas / The Lifeguard, and she had been nominated with Teresa Arredondo for her film Sibila and Carlos Klein with Donde vuelan los cóndores.

The Altazor Award, named in honor of Vicente Huidobro's epic poem, is an annual prize which recognizes the best of Chilean arts, including film. Other winners of the Chilean National Arts prize in the Film category this year were Jaime Vadell for Best Actor for his role on No, Bélgica Castro for Best Actress in Silva and Peirano's Gatos viejos, and Peirano and Silva for Best Screenplany for the same film. Peirano was competing against himself as he had also been nominated in the Best Screenplay documentary for Joven y alocada / Young and Wild and Larraín's No.

Past winners include Andrés Wood for Violeta se fue a los cielos / Violeta Went to Heaven in 2012, and Machuca in 2005; Matía Bize for La vida de los peces / The Life of Fish in 2011, Silva for La nana / The Maid in 2010, and La vida me mata / Life Kills Me in 2008, and Patricio Guzmán for Nostalgia de la luz / Nostalgia for the Light in 2011, and Salvador Allende in 2006.

Ignacio Agüero Doc Is Censored by Chilean TV

The documentary feature film El diario de Agustín / Agustín's Newspaper (pictured) by renowned director Ignacio Agüero was pulled from broadcasting on Chilean cable TV channel ARTV last Thursday, April 25, after it had been advertised to air as part of a series on Agüero's work. The film, made in 208, focuses on Agustín Edwards, owner of leading Chilean newspaper El Mercurio, and his ties to the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship and its abuses.

In an unexpected decision, this Wednesday Natalia Arcos presented her resignation as director of ARTV, in light of the decision to cancel the broadcasting of the film. The Chilean Association of Documentary Filmmakers (Asociación de Documentalistas de Chile, ADOC), made public a letter this week denouncing the censorship act and supporting the filmmaker and the former director of the TV channel.

Agüero's controversial film had been subject of previous acts of censorship, for instance TVN (Televisión Nacional de Chile), the state-owned TV channel had acquired the broadcasting rights of the film over three years ago, but failed to program it during all this time -the rights expire this same month. El diario de Agustín is yet to be broadcasted in Chilean television.

The film journalism students from the University of Chile as they launch an investigation into the work of the newspaper, and its reporting of and role in their country’s political history, in particular around the election of Salvador Allende in 1970, the violent coup against him in 1973, and the subsequent seventeen years of the military regime.

ADOC's letter of support is backed by numerous local and international film professionals and organizations including Constanza Arena from CinemaChile, Ricardo Greene director of FIDOCS, Documentary Film Festival of Santiago; Colette Loumède, executive producer of the National Film Board of Canada; Jonathan Miller from Icarus Films; Bruno Bettati, Raúl Camargo, and Erick González from the Valdivia Film Festival; Marcelo Panozzo, director of BAFICI, the Buenos Aires Independent Film Festival; and Maria Bonsanti, director of the Cinéma du Réel Festival.

Watch the trailer:

The Most Popular Peruvian Films of All-Time

       

       

As Ricardo Maldonado's comedy film ¡Asu Mare! is making history this week becoming the most successful film at the Peruvian box office ever, TropicalFRONT brings you the list of the highest grossing films in the country. Out of the ten films in the list, five of them have been directed by Francisco Lombardi and Eduardo Schuldt. Lombardi has the number three and four films in the list, while Schuldt's animated films occupy the number five, seven and eight places in the list.

1. ¡Asu mare! (Ricardo Maldonado, 2013) / 2.3 million spectators*

2. La fuga del Chacal (Augusto Tamayo, 1987), 980,000 spectators

3. Pantaleón y las visitadoras / Captain Pantoja and the Special Services (Francisco Lombardi, 1999), 635,130 spectators

4. No se lo digas a nadie / Don't Tell Anyone (Francisco Lombardi, 1998), 475,810 spectators

5. El Delfín, la historia de un soñador (Eduardo Schuldt, 2009), 373,628 spectators

6. Mañana te cuento (Eduardo Mendoza de Echave, 2005), 288,242 spectators

7. Piratas en el Callao (Eduardo Schuldt, 2005), 285,509 spectators

8. Dragones: destino de fuego (Eduardo Schuldt, 2006), 270,721 spectators

9. Ciudad de M (Felipe Degregori, 2000), 249,511 spectators

10. La teta asustada / The Milk of Sorrow (Claudia Llosa, 2009), 248,973 spectators

*Still in release.

¡ASU MARE! Breaks All-Time Records in Peruvian History

The comedy ¡Asu Mare! (pictured) by Ricardo Maldonado broke all-time records this week in Peru becoming the most successful film in the history of the South American country, having been seen by over 2.34 million people, beating the previous record holder Ice Age 4, which was seen by 2.31 million people in 2012.

Since its premiered on April 11, the film has broken several all-time records in Peru including the biggest opening day ever (with over 150,000 spectators in 255 screens), the fastest film ever to sell one million tickets in the shortest amount of time, and the all-time grossing Peruvian film ever.

Written and starring comedian Carlos Alcántara aka "Cachín", ¡Asu Mare! is the film adaptation of Alcántara's stand-up comedy show by the same name, and it stars most of the actors from the popular Peruvian sitcom Patacláun which aired locally in the late nineties. The semi-biographical film tells the the story of Alcántara's from his modest upbringing living with his mother to his rise to fame.

The hit comedy was produced by Tondero Films, co-stars Gisela Ponce de León, Anahí de Cárdenas, Gonzalo Torres, Carlos Carlín, Emilia Drago, and Gisela Valcárcel, and it was released by New Century Films, the local company that releases Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox's productions. ¡Asu Mare! had grossed over 19.8 million Peruvian soles ($7.6 million USD approximately) at the box office.

Check out the list of the most successful Peruvian films of all-time, brought to you by TropicalFRONT.

Watch the trailer (in Spanish):