Ribeiro and Rondón Awarded at Outfest

The Brazilian film The Way He Looks / Hoje eu quero voltar sozinho (pictured left), the directorial feature by Daniel Ribeiro, and the Venezuelan film Bad Hair / Pelo Malo were awarded at the 2014 edition of Outfest, the Los Angeles LGBT Film Festival, as it was announced today. Ribeiro's film was presented with the Award for Dramatic Feature, while Rondón's Bad Hair was presented with the Special Programming Award for Freedom.

Set to the bouncy beats of Belle and Sebastian, the Brazilian euphoric, sun-kissed coming-of-age fable The Way He Looks was a sensation at the 2014 Berlin Film Festival, where it swept the Teddy Award and FIPRESCI prize.

The film follows Leonardo, who spends his days allowing his best friend Giovana to drag him around town. Being blind has always been an inconvenience for Leonardo, but his angsty adolescence gets a lift when the handsome and smooth-talking Gabriel turns down numerous offers from ogling girls to hang with Leonardo after school. The longer they spend together, the more apparent their shared attraction becomes – not just to them but to a spurned Giovana as well. As social pressure mounts on both to fit within their confined social boxes, the two must decide whether to ignore their feelings or to throw caution to the wind and admit that they might actually be falling in love. The film will be released in the U.S. by the hand of Strand Releasing.

Trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty, with employment prospects looking grim, in Bad Hair (pictured right) a panicked single mother lashes out at her effeminate 9-year-old son for potentially being gay. The film tackles racial and sexual prejudices within an impoverished section of Venezuela without making villains of its characters. Filmmaker Mariana Rondón's film floored audiences and critics at the Toronto International Film Festival, earning praise for its striking camera work and harrowing portrayal of desperation and abuse. The film will be in U.S. theaters this fall by the hand of FiGa Films and Cinema Tropical. 

The 2014 edition of Outfest took place July 10-20 in Los Angeles, California.

Sundance Awards Colombian Documentary Project NUESTRO MONTE LUNA

The Colombian documentary film project Nuestro Monte Luna (pictured) by Pablo Álvarez-Mesa has been awarded with funds from the Sundance Film Institute's Documentary Film Program, the organization announced last Monday as it unveiled the winners of the program's Spring 2014 grants.

The film, which is in its post-production stages, follows a group of teenaged Colombian matadors. Through everyday gestures, sounds, images, and rituals, an intimate camera interprets bullfighting as a living metaphor for the personal, cultural and historical struggles of these group of matadors.

Born in Medellín, Pablo Álvarez-Mesa/s short films have played extensively at international film festivals including Sheffield, Hot Docs, Silverdocs, and RIDM. His last documentary, Jelena’s Song, won the Pierre and Yolanda Perrault award at the Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois in Montreal. Pablo now resides in Montreal, Quebec where he is currently a Film Production MFA candidate at Concordia University.

The Sundance Film Insitute also awarded funds to Pamela Yates' most recent documentary film 500 Years.  The film documents the 2013 genocide trial of former Guatemalan president Efrain Rios Montt, and its aftermath. Rios Montt stood trial for the killing of 1,700 Maya Ixil people from 1982-1983 – the first trial in the history of the Americas for the genocide of indigenous people. When Rios Montt is found guilty, a higher Guatemalan court vacates the verdict – and 500 Years follows the diverse responses among various members of Guatemalan society.

Rejtman, Piñeiro and Mascaro to Premiere at Locarno

The Locarno Film Festival has announced the full lineup for its 67th edition which includes the world premiere of two films from Argentina and one from Brazil in its official competition: Martín Rejtman's Dos disparos / Two Gun Shots (pictured left), Matías Piñeiro's La Princesa de Francia / The Princess of France and Gabriel Mascaro's August Winds / Ventos de Agosto.

Rejtman's long-awaited feature film Two Gun Shots is an ensemble film about Mariano, a 16-year-old boy, who without any apparent reason, shoots himself twice, but survives. It then records the somewhat comically bathetic consequences of the event, the biggest of which perhaps is that the family dog finds a new home. Rejtman, one of the founding figures of the New Argentinean cinema of the late nineties is known for his films Silvia Prieto (1999) and The Magic Gloves (2003).

Also from Argentina, Matías Piñeiro's will be presenting The Princess of France (pictured right), the third installment of his Shakespearean project. A year after his father’s death in Mexico, Victor returns to Buenos Aires with a twofold mission. On the one hand, he brings with him a new project for his former theater company; on the other, he abandons his part as The Princess of France and takes up a new role in front of five actresses who know him all too well, but who don´t know that time to work will soon become a time to think again about lost loves.

Brazilian director Gabriel Mascaro's August Winds (pictured below) follows Shirley has left the big city to live in a small seaside town and look after her grandmother. She drives a tractor in a local coconut plantation and is having a fling with Jeison, who also works on the farm, and who dives for fish on the high seas. Amidst the storms that invade the region in the month of August, a wind researcher, who registers the sea breezes in the Intertropical Zone of Convergence, arrives in the town. The high tides and the growing winds mark the following days of the inhabitants of the village weaving a poetic narrative on the duel between life and death, the Wind and the Sea.

Other Latin American film announced to participate this year at Locarno are the Uruguayan film Los enemigos del dolor by Arauco Hernández, the Colombian film Los hongos by Oscar Ruiz Navia, and the Mexican film Navajazo by Ricardo Silva in the Concorso Cineasti del presente competition for first or second feature films. The Brazilian film Power of Affections by Helena Ignez will be screened out of competition. 

Additionally, four Latin American films will be screened in the festival's Signs of Life section for experimental films: Clenched Fists by Pedro Diogenes, Ricardo Pretti, & Luiz Pretti from Brazil, The Gold Bug by Alejo Moguillansky and Favula by Raúl Perrone, both from Argentina, and The Absent by Mexican director Nicolás Pereda.

The 67th edition of the Locarno Film Festival will take place August 6-16 in Switzerland.

REPORTERO Receives Emmy Nomination

Reportero (pictured) the documentary film by Bernardo Ruiz, received a News and Documentary Emmy Award nomination in the Outstanding Informational Programming—Long-Form category. The film follows a veteran reporter and his colleagues at Zeta, a Tijuana-based independent newsweekly, as they stubbornly ply their trade in one of the deadliest places in the world for members of the media. In Mexico, more than 50 journalists have been slain or have vanished since December 2006, when former President Felipe Calderón came to power and launched a government offensive against the country’s powerful drug cartels and organized crime.

The film, which premiered in Mexico City in 2012, has screened in 28 countries and has been translated into five languages. In the U.S., it has screened in over 39 cities through P.O.V. In Mexico, the film screened in 12 cities through the itinerant documentary festival, Ambulante.

The 35th Annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards will be presented on Tuesday, September 30th, 2014, at a ceremony at Frederick P. Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York.

Nahuel Pérez Biscayart Named Best Actor at Karlovy Vary

Argentinean actor Nahuel Pérez Biscayart was awarded the Best Actor prize at the 49th edition of the Karlovy Vary festival for his leading role in the Belgian-Canadian co-production film All Yours / Je suis à toi by David Lambert.

Born in Buenos Aires in 1986, Pérez Biscayart has appeared in numerous films, plays, and television productions. He joined his first theatre workshop at age 13 and has since studied under some of Argentina’s best drama teachers. His performances range from roles in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to Cocteau’s Les Parents terribles.

In 2007, he was the lead in the film La Sangre Brota / Blood Appears by Pablo Fendrik, which won a young critics’ award at Cannes in 2008. For his performance in Alexis dos Santos' Glue, a coming-of-age film in which he plays a gawky teenager, Biscayart won Best Actor awards at the Nantes International (2006) and DiBa (Barcelona Digital, 2007) film festivals. He was a participant of Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative in 2008 working with mentor Kate Valk.

All Yours tells the story of Lucas (played by Pérez Biscayart), he arrives in Belgium to visit local bakery owner Henry, who has fallen in love with him via the internet. Their ideas about living together, however, differ greatly. Employing lightness and humor, director Lambert explores the human core, desire and longing.

The 49th edition of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival took place July 4-12 in the Czech Republic.

World Cinema Fund Supports Joint Project by Alejandro Landes and Alexis dos Santos

The Berlinale's World Cinema Fund has announced the winning projects for its 20th round of support which includes the Colombian-Argentinean filmMonos to be directed by filmmakers Alejandro Landes (Porfirio, pictured left) and Alexis Dos Santos (Glue). The project will receive 40,000 euros destined towards its production.

For in the distribution funds category, Mexican film Los insólitos peces gato / The Amazing Catfish, the debut feature by Claudia Sainte-Luce will be supported with 5,000 euros for its German distribution under the hand of the distribution company Arsenal.

Since its creation in 2004, the World Cinema Fund has awarded production and distribution funding to a total of 119 projects chosen from 2,261 submissions from Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, Central and Southeast Asia, and the Caucasus.

This past May two World Cinema Fund-supported films were premiered at the international film festival in Cannes. Argentinean director Lisandro Alonso’s Jauja was shown in the “Un Certain Regard” section, where it won the FIPRESCI Prize, while  Diego Lerman’s Refugiado, also from Argentina, screened in the “Directors’ Fortnight” section.