Mexican Film REZETA Wins Top Prize at Slamdance

The Mexican film Rezeta (pictured) by Fernando Frías was given the Jury Award for Narrative Feature, the top prize of the 20th edition of the Slamdance Film Festival. The award includes donated legal services and Kodak film.

Rezeta, a 21-year-old model born in Kosovo, arrives in Mexico City after living off of her beauty in many different countries. Soon she meets Alex, the guy in charge of cleaning her trailer during her first commercial gig in Mexico. Their friendship unfolds naturally, but after two failed attempts at dating stereotypical Mexican males Rezeta becomes romantically interested in Alex. This is the story of their complicated love.

Born and raised in Mexico City, Frías was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to study toward an advanced degree at Columbia University in New York City, where he currently lives.

Created in 1995, Slamdance bills itself as the alternative to the Sundance Film Festival by showcasing independent films concurrently in Park City, Utah.

Meet the Nominees of the 4th Annual Cinema Tropical Awards: First Film

         

In the Best First Film competition, five films -from Argentina, Chile, Cuba, Peru, and Uruguay, have been nominated as the most outstanding breakthrough Latin American films of the year. The winners will be announced at a special event on Wednesday, January 29 at The New York Times Company headquarters.

First Film Category Nominees

CARNE DE PERRO / DOG'S FLESH
A film by Fernando Guzzoni  (Chile/France/Germany, 2012)
Nominated for Best First Film

Winner of the Best Film prize at San Sebastian's New Directors section and the Ingmar Bergman Award for Best First Film at the Goteborg Film Festival, Fernando Guzzoni's Carne de perro focuses on the complicated week in the life of Alejandro. A 55 year old, solitary, fragile and unpredictable man crushed by the hostility of his past. Here we have someone anxious for a new identity who becomes lost amid his ghosts and his obsessions. A man with a distorted view of reality who begins to disintegrate dangerously. This is a present-day story of a former torturer who tries to reinvent his life and give it a new meaning.

EL LIMPIADOR / THE CLEANER
A film by Adrián Saba (Peru, 2012)
Nominated for Best First Film

Eusebio, a man whose work as a forensic cleaner is to sterilize places where someone has died, is the busiest he has ever been since the outbreak of a mysterious outbreak that has the city of Lima in its grips. One day, while cleaning an abandoned house, he comes across a boy hiding in a wardrobe; it is obvious his parents are dead. Now, with the mission to find the boy's remaining family, Eusebio takes charge of the child and tries to look after him in a slowly dying city. El limpiador, the first film by Spanish-born Peruvian director, was feature at numerous film festivals including San Sebastian, Seattle and Palm Springs.

MELAZA / MOLASSES
A film by Carlos Díaz Lechuga (Cuba/France/Panama, 2012)
Nominated for Best First Film

Sugar was always the essence of Cuba, sugar mills the heart that gave life to most of the country’s villages. Melaza, named for its large sugarcane fields, was one of those. However, there is no sugar cane in Melaza anymore, the sugar mill was shut down,  sugar production was suspended and workers are on hold. Monica and Aldo, a young married couple, struggles for survival in an intent to save their world without loosing their faith. Carlos Díaz Lechuga's assured directorial debut feature had its world premiere as part of the 2013 Rotterdam Film Festival.

LOS SALVAJES / THE WILD ONES
A film by Alejandro Fadel (Argentina, 2012)
Nominated for Best First Film

Like in a western, it all begins with an escape. Five teenagers violently escape a reformatory school in an Argentinean province. They must pilgrimage a hundred kilometers on foot, across the hills, for the promise of a home to continue their days. They hunt to feed, rob houses they come across, do drugs, bathe in the river, fight with each other and make love: A progressive voyage into the wilderness, that soon becomes a mystic fable about courage and grace. The debut feature film by Alejandro Fadel -who has worked as a screenwriter for Pablo Trapero, Adrián Caetano and Walter Salles, was an official selection of Cannes' Critics Week in 2012.

Click here to watch the trailer

TANTA AGUA / SO MUCH WATER
Nominated for Best Film, Best Director, and Best First Film
U.S. distributor: Film Movement

What could be worse than being 14 and on vacation with your father, stuck indoors during a seemingly endless rainstorm? Alberto and his two children, Lucia and Federico, set off to a hot springs resort for a short vacation. Alberto, who doesn't see his kids much since the divorce, refuses to allow anything to ruin his plans. But the springs are closed until further notice due to heavy rains, and Lucia's adolescent rebellion clashes against her father's enthusiastic efforts for family quality time. Winner of multiple awards at different international film festivals, the debut feature film by the directing duo of Ana Guevara and Leticia Jorge, extends the artistry of recent Uruguayan cinema.

Meet the Nominees of the 4th Annual Cinema Tropical Awards: Fiction

       

       

Cinema Tropical recently announced the nominees for the 4th Annual Cinema Tropical Awards, celebrating the best of Latin American films of the year. The winners will be announced at a special event on Wednesday, January 29 at The New York Times Company headquarters.

This edition promises to be as competitive as ever, as some seasoned filmmakers including Cannes-winner Carlos Reygadas and Sundance-winner Sebastián Silva, are joined by newcomers in the nominations. Three films from Chile (all produced by the Larraín brothers' Fabula company), an Argentine film and Uruguayan film vie for the top prize as Best Latin American Film of the Year. Coincidentally, for this fourth edition, four out of the five nominated films are the director's fourth feature film (for Reygadas, Larraín, Piñeiro and Silva).

Fiction Category Nominees

CRYSTAL FAIRY & THE MAGICAL CACTUS
A film by Sebastián Silva (Chile, 2013)
Nominated for Best Director
U.S. distributor: IFC Films

The fourth feature film by U.S.-based Chilean director Sebastián Silva (The Maid) follows Jamie (played by Michael Cera), an American that travels in Chile. He invites Crystal Fairy (played by Gaby Hoffmann) an eccentric woman to join his group's quest to score a fabled hallucinogen, a move that finds him at odds with his new companion, until they drink the magic brew on a beach at the edge of the desert. Produced by Pablo Larraín (No), and Juan de Dios Larraín, the film premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival where it won the World Cinema Dramatic Directing Award. Crystal Fairy was released in U.S. theaters by IFC Films last summer.

GLORIA
A film by Sebastián Lelio (Chile/Spain, 2013)
Nominated for Best Film
U.S. distributor: Roadside Attractions

Winner of the Silver Bear prize for Best Actress, Sebastián Lelio's Gloria is a wonderful character study magisterially performed by Paulina García. Gloria is "woman of a certain age," but still feels young. Though lonely, she makes the best of her situation and fills her nights  love at social dance clubs for single adults. Her fragile happiness changes the day she meets Rodolfo. Their intense passion, to which Gloria gives her all, leaves her vacillating between hope and despair -- until she uncovers a new strength and realizes that, in her golden years, she can shine brighter than ever. The film opens in U.S. theaters this coming January 24.

NO
A film by Pablo Larraín (Chile/USA/France/Mexico, 2012)
Nominated for Best Film and Best Director
U.S. distributor: Sony Pictures Classics

In 1988, Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet, due to international pressure, is forced to call a plebiscite on his presidency. The country will vote YES or NO to Pinochet extending his rule for another eight years. Opposition leaders for the NO persuade a brash young advertising executive, Rene Saavedra (played by Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal), to spearhead their campaign. Against all odds, with scant resources and under scrutiny by the despot's minions, Saavedra and his team devise an audacious plan to win the election and set Chile free. Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and a favorite at the 2012 Cannes' Directors Fortnight, Pablo Larraín's No is a powerful mediation on politics, history, and advertising.

POST TENEBRAS LUX
A film by Carlos Reygadas
Nominated for Best Film and Best Director
U.S. distributor: Strand Releasing

Post Tenebras Lux ("light after darkness"), the most recent film by Mexican director Carlos Reygadas (Silent Light) is a stunningly photographed, impressionistic psychological portrait of a family and their place within the sublime, unforgiving natural world. Reygadas was awarded the prize for Best Director at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival for this film which palpably explores the primal conflicts of the human condition. The film was released by Strand Releasing in the U.S. and played at Film Forum in New York City

TANTA AGUA / SO MUCH WATER
Nominated for Best Film, Best Director, and Best First Film
U.S. distributor: Film Movement

What could be worse than being 14 and on vacation with your father, stuck indoors during a seemingly endless rainstorm? Alberto and his two children, Lucia and Federico, set off to a hot springs resort for a short vacation. Alberto, who doesn't see his kids much since the divorce, refuses to allow anything to ruin his plans. But the springs are closed until further notice due to heavy rains, and Lucia's adolescent rebellion clashes against her father's enthusiastic efforts for family quality time. Winner of multiple awards at different international film festivals, the debut feature film by the directing duo of Ana Guevara and Leticia Jorge, extends the artistry of recent Uruguayan cinema.

VIOLA
A film by Matías Piñeiro (Argentina, 2012)
Nominated for Best Film and Best Director
U.S. distributor: Cinema Guild

Directed by Matías Piñeiro, one of Argentina's most sensuous and daring new voices, Viola is a mystery of romantic entanglements and intrigues among a troupe of young actors in a small theater in Buenos Aires performing Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night." Acclaimed by the New York Times' Manohla Dargis as "a triumph of narrative imagination and bottom-line ingenuity," the film landed on several top best lists of the year.

Cuarón and Lubezki Nominated to the Oscars

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has unveiled this morning the nominees for the 86th edition of the Oscars which include Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón for Best Director for his film Gravity, as well as Mexican DP Emmanuel Lubezki for Best Cinematography for his work in the same film. Gravity leads this year's Oscars nominations, tied with American Hustle with 10, including nominations for Best Film, Best Actress, Best Editing, and Best Special Effects, among other categories.

Cuarón becomes the fourth Latin American nominated as Best Director after Argentine Hector Babenco for Kiss of the Spider Woman in 1985, Brazilian Fernando Meirelles for City of God in 2003, and Mexican Alejandro González Iñárritu for Babel in 2006. Cuarón himself had been previously nominated for the Oscars (with his brother Carlos) in 2002 for Best Original Screenplay for his film Y Tu Mamá También.

This is Lubezki's sixth Academy Awards nomination for Best Cinematography since 1996, two of them for his work in other films directed by Cuarón: A Little Princess in 1996 and Children of Men in 2006.

This year no Latin American production was nominated in the Best Foreign Language Film category.

The 86th Academy Awards will take place March 2nd in Los Angeles.

Doc Films Presents Series on Contemporary Latin American Cinema in Chicago

The University of Chicago’s Doc Films - the longest running student film society in the country - continues its expansive survey of recent Latin American cinema, aptly entitled “Neighboring Sounds: Contemporary Latin American Cinema", with a screening of Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Cinema Tropical Award-winning Neighboring Sounds / O Som ao Redor (pictured).

The critically lauded 2012 drama is the second installment in a weekly series that will run through March 16 and feature films ranging from the Alfonso Cuarón’s modern classic Y Tu Mamá También, to Carlos Reygadas' 2012 Cannes sensation Post-Tenebras Lux. Programmed by Mojo Lerwin and Hugo Fernandes, the series is one of the largest surveys of Latin American cinema to play Chicago in recent history.

Other films to be screened include Matías Piñeiro's Viola and Lisandro Alonso's Liverpool, both from Argentina. All screenings take place at the Max Palevsky Cinema in Ida Noyes Hall at The University of Chicago.

Berlinale's Official Competition to Feature Four Latin American Directors

The venerable Berlinale International Film Festival has announced the complete lineup for the official competition of its upcoming 64th edition. Of the 20 films competing for Golden and Silver Bears, three are from Latin America - a significant increase from last year, where Sebastián Lelio’s Gloria was the only Latin American representation in competition.

Not surprisingly, the two countries represented are perennial regional powerhouses Argentina - with two films - and Brazil with one. The films are: The Third Side of the River / La tercera orilla (pictured) by Celina Murga, Praia do Futuro (pictured below) by Karim Aïnouz, and Historia Del Miedo by Benjamín Naishtat.

Additionally Peruvian director Claudia Llosa will also participate in Berlin's main competition with the film Aloft, a Spanish-Canadian co-production.

Murga's fourth feature film tells the story of Nicolas, a 16-year-old boy, lives in a small town in the Argentine province of Entre Ríos. Nicolas’ father, a much respected local doctor, has fathered two families and lives two parallel lives. Nicolas takes this situation for granted, as though it were completely normal, for it’s the only reality he knows. Yet, the tension of the situation must inevitably explode one way or another. Nicolas will have to make a decision.

Aïnouz's fifth feature film follows Donato who is a lifeguard. He spends his days looking at the sea. Ayrton loves motorbikes and admires the courage of Donato, his older brother, to throw himself into the waves to save strangers. One day Donato rescues a blue-eyed man named Konrad. On this very day Donato starts to vanish... And Ayrton starts searching for him.

Naishat's debut feature, a co-production between Argentina, Uruguay, Germany, and France, is about an abandoned plot of land in the suburbs and an uncontrollable wave of smoke spark uncertainty and chaos.

In addition, the festival’s Berlinale Shorts and Panorama sections will feature films from Cuba, Peru and Brazil, with dozens of countries represented from all over the world. The festival will take place in Berlin from the 6-16 of February.