BAL Holds 14th Edition with New Director

By Richard Shpuntoff

The Buenos Aires Lab (BAL), a production lab for Latin American independent film, held its 14th edition this past weekend at BAFICI, the Buenos Aires Festival of Independent Film, and for the first time ever with a new director. Founded in 2002 by Ilse Hughan of Fortuna Films and Violeta Bava of Ruda Cine, BAL was the first program of its kind to support Latin American films at their various stages of production. After 13 years of running the program they founded, Hughan and Bava have passed the torch on to Agustina Costa Varsi, also a producer, whose most recent film Il Solengo had its U.S. premiere at Art of the Real earlier this month.

Costa Varsi is taking the reins at a moment of great changes and challenges in the region. On one front, BAL inspired the creation of many similar programs in other Latin American nations and in recent years the program has been looking to meet more specific needs for producers and filmmakers so as not to make itself redundant. And on the other, after over a decade of increased governmental support for Argentine film, the future looks very uncertain for Argentine filmmakers. The new presidential administration that came in this past December and marks a 180 degree opposition to the outgoing administration, is reviewing the policies Argentine Film Institute (INCAA) and considering funding cuts or, at the very least, a restructuring of priorities.

Nele Wohlatz, a German filmmaker who has lived in Argentina for six years, and whose film El futuro perfecto / The Perfect Future (pictured right) about a young Chinese immigrant in Argentina won two awards at the BAL (see complete list of films and awards below), talked about the importance of federal funding for filmmakers in Argentina: “My first two films were funded in large part by the Film Institute. For a lot of filmmakers here, this funding has offered us possibilities for taking important first steps in our careers.” Alejandra Grinschpun, who is one of two producers of Soldado / Soldier which also won two of the Work-in-Progress awards, noted that “in the last ten years, Argentine documentary film has grown in quantity, as well as quality and diversity (in large part due to the “digital fund” which provides funding for low budget digital films), but that currently the filmmaking world, and the world of culture in general here, is in a state of alert.”

BAL Director Costa Varsi stated that “BAL’s role is to complement what already exists, so as the new director I am focusing on what already exists and not trying to second guess the new government.” Along with the traditional Work-in-Progress competition which was the central event of this year’s BAL, Costa Varsi put a new focus on distribution. Wohlatz said she was particularly excited about the new “distribution tutorials”. BAL invited Aranka Matits of Featurette and Tom Davia of Cinemaven to sit down one-on-one with all the participants to discuss festivals and distribution. Costa Varsi explained, “Next year I plan to expand the program on distribution, but I want to keep the one-on-one meetings we started this year as a confidential space where filmmakers and producers can ask questions they might feel uncomfortable about making in front of a group of peers: Can I ask a festival about transportation and lodging if they haven’t offered? How much do different festivals pay for screening films out of competition? How much do cable channels pay for rights? BAL started exclusively as a production lab, but we need to expand what it can provide to producers and filmmakers to help them not just finish their film but bring it to broader audiences."

Selected projects and awards

1922 (Argentina / Francia / Alemania)
Director: Martín Mauregui
Producers: Agustina Llambi Campbell y Fernando Brom

Al desierto / To the Desert (Argentina)
Director: Ulises Rosell
Producers: Ezequiel Borovinsky, Alejandro Israel
Winner:  Lahaye Award

António um dois três / Antonio one two three (Brazil / Portugal)
Director: Leonardo Mouramateus
Producer: Gustavo Beck
Winner: Estudio Ñandú Award

El futuro perfecto (working title) / The Perfect Future (Argentina)
Director: Nele Wohlatz
Producer: Cecilia Salim
Winner: Audiovisual District Award and Cinecolor Award

Elon não acredita na morte / Elon Doesn’t Believe in Death (Brazil)
Director: Ricardo Alves Jr.
Producers: Thiago Mac êdo Correia, Michael Wahrmann

Fin de semana / Weekend (Argentina)
Director: Moroco Colman
Producer: Sofía Castells
Winner: Marché du Film Producers Workshop Award

Los decentes (Argentina / Austria / Corea)
Director: Lukas Valenta Rinner
Producer: Ana Godoy

Los territorios / Territories (Argentina / Brasil / Chile / Palestina)
Director: Iván Granovsky
Producers: Ezequiel Pierri, Jerónimo Quevedo

Soldado / Soldier (Argentina)
Director: Manuel Abramovich
Producers: Gema Juárez Allen, Alejandra Grinschpun
Winner: Talkbox Award and Universidad del Cine Award

Viejo Calavera / Dark Skull (Bolivia)
Director: Kiro Russo
Producer: Pablo Paniagua
Winner: Pomeranec Award, Sinsistema Award and Marché du Film Producers Workshop Award

New Films by Jodorowsky and Larraín Selected for Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight

Two Chilean films will be representing Latin America at the 48th edition of the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar at the Cannes Film Festival. With a lineup of 18 features film, the independent section will host the world premiere of the new films by Chilean directors Alejandro Jodorowsky and Pablo Larraín: Endless Poetry and Neruda.

Set during the 1940s and 1950s, Poesía sin fin / Endless Poetry portrays filmmaker Jodorowsky’s young adulthood in the capital city of Santiago, Chile. There, he decides to become a poet and is introduced, by destiny, into the foremost bohemian and artistic circle of the time. He meets Enrique Lihn, Stella Diaz Varín, Nicanor Parra and many others of the country’s young, promising and unknown artists who would later become the titans of Latin America's literature. Endless Poetry is a tale of poetic experimentation; the story of a unique youth that lived as not many before them had dared: sensually, authentically, freely, madly.

Starring Mexican actor Gael García Bernal and Alfredo Castro and set between 1946 and 1948, in Neruda, an inspector hunts down Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda, who becomes a fugitive in his home country in the late 1940s for joining the Communist Party.

Also premiering in the Directors' Fortnight is the Brazilian short film Abigail by Isabel Penoni and Valentina Homem, which connects the dots of a human map that links the indigenous Amazon cultures to Afro-Brazilian religions. The reverse of the inverse, a house of nearly extinct memories.

Additionally the Critics’ Week section of the Cannes Film Festival announced its lineup for this year, which includes the Brazilian short film O Delírio é a Redenção dis Aflitos / Delusion Is Redemption To Those In Distress by Fellipe Fernandes as the only Latin American contender in its official selection. The Colombian short film Los pasos del agua by César Augusto Acevedo will have a special screening celebrating the 55th anniversary of Critics’ Week.

The 69th edition of the Cannes Film Festival will take place May 11-22 in France.

MAGALLANES Tops the Havana Film Fest New York

Peruvian film Magallanes by Salvador del Solar was the winner of the award the Best Film at the 17th edition of the Havana Film Festival, New York, it was announced last night at the closing night ceremony at the Directors Guild Theatre in Midtown Manhattan.

The film follows an aged Peruvian taxi driver, who was formerly an aide to a feared military officer in the bloodiest days of government repression during the Shining Path insurgency. He unexpectedly re-encounters a young indigenous woman who was brutally victimized by his superior. But can this aging cabbie suddenly transform himself into an extortionist, or is he still in love with the women after all these years.

Ana Katz’s Mi Amiga del Parque from Argentina received a Special Jury Mention in the fiction category, while Santiago Mitre’s Paulina/ La Patota, also from Argentina received the awards for Best Director and Best Actress (for Dolores Fonzi).

The Guatemalan film La prenda / The Pawn by Jean Cosme Delaloye received the award for Best Documentary, while Paciente / Paciente by Jorge Caballero from Colombia received a Special Jury Mention.

The 17th edition of the Havana Film Festival, New York took place April 7-15.

GLORIA and THE THIN YELLOW LINE Lead Mexico’s Ariel Awards

Two debut features, Gloria (pictured below) and La delgada línea amarilla / The Thin Yellow Line (pictured left) lead in nominations for the 58th edition of the Ariel Awards, Mexico’s national film award presented by the Mexican Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Both films received 14 nominations including for Best Film.

Gloria, the biopic of Mexican pop star Gloria Trevi, directed by the Swiss-born filmmaker Christian Keller will also be competing for Best First Film, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actress for Sofía Espinosa and Best Actor for Marco Pérez.

The Thin Yellow Line, Celso García’s drama about five financially strapped men who are hired to paint the center stripe along 120 miles of Mexican state highway, received four nominations in acting categories: Damián Alcázar for Best Actor, and Joaquín Cosío, Silverio Palacios and Gustavo Sánchez Parra for Best Supporting Actor. The film is also nominated for Best First Film, Best Cinematography, and Best Original Screenplay, among other categories.

Following closely in are Las elegidas / The Chosen Ones by David Pablos with 13 nominations, and Gabriel Ripstein’s directorial debut 600 millas / 600 Miles with 12 nominations, both of them nominated for Best Mexican Film of the Year. Completing the nominees for Best Film is Rodrio Plá’s Un monstruo de mil cabezas / A Monster With a Thousand Heads.

Competing for Best Documentary are Trisha Ziff’s El hombre que vio demasiado / The Man Who Saw Too Much, Everardo González’s El Paso, Betzabé García’s Los reyes del pueblo que no existe / Kings of Nowhere, Flavio Florencio’s Made in Bangkok and Natalia Bruschtein’s Tiempo suspendido / Suspended Time.

Four Latin American films received nomination for Best Ibero-American Film: El abrazo de la serpiente / Embrace of the Serpent by Ciro Guerra from Colombia, El clan / The Clan by Pablo Trapero from Argentina, El club / The Club by Pablo Larraín from Chile and El lobo detrás de la puerta / Wolf Behind the Door by Fernando Coimbra from Brazil.

The 58th edition of the Ariel Awards will take place in Mexico City on May 28, 2016.

Key Figure of Cuban Cinema Julio García Espinosa Dies

Julio García Espinosa, one of the most prominent figures in Cuban cinema died Wednesday at the age of 89 in Havana. He was a filmmaker, screenwriter, cinema theorist, one of the founders of the Instituto Cubano de Arte e Industria Cinematográfica (ICAIC), as well as director of the Havana Film Festival and the Cuban Film School.

Born on September 5, 1926 in the capital of the country, he studied filmmaking at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografía in Rome, Italy (where Gabriel García Márquez and Fernando Birri also studied).

He worked in theater as an actor and director, and we also wrote radio shows. He directed his first short El mégano in 1955 in collaboration with Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, which is considered thefor the New Cuban Cinema.

During the Cuban Revolution he directed the documentary films Esta tierra nuestra y La vivienda and was appointed chief of cinema in the office of culture of the rebel army.

After the triumph of the Revolution he helped create the Cuban Film Institute, ICAIC, where he worked as Director of Artistic Programming, Vice-president, and later President until 1991. He also worked as Vice-minister of Culture between 1982 and 1990, and during his tenure he also directed the Havana Film Festival. Between 2004 and 2007 he served as director of the International School of Cinema and TV in San Antonio de los Baños.

His criticism and essays were influential internationally, being his essay "Towards an Imperfect Cinema" [Read the essay in English, translated by Julianne Burton] perhaps the most widely known. In his seminal essay, García Espinosa pleads for an imperfect cinema, which eschews technical perfection. He argues that aesthetic perfection only demands a passive attitude from the audience whereas and an imperfect cinema addresses the issues of its audience, therefore requiring active participation.

García Espinosa directed six feature fiction films in total: Cuba baila / Cuba Dances (1959) , Aventuras de Juan Quin Quin / The Adventures of Juan Quin Quin (1967), La inútil muerte de mi socio Manolo / The Useless Death of My Pal, Manolo (1989), and Rei­na y Rey (1994). He directed seven documentaries total and work in over 20 films as a screenwriter, including Humberto Solás’ Lucía (1968), and Sergio Giral’s El otro Francisco / The Other Francisco (1974).

Kleber Mendonça Filho Debuts at Cannes' Official Competition

The Cannes Film Festival unveiled today the lineup for the official competition for its 69th edition, which includes the world premiere of Aquarius by Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho (pictured left) as the only Latin American film contender.

This is Mendonça Filho's first time participating at Cannes' main competition, and the first time a Brazilian filmmaker participates in the festival's main slate since Walter Salles in 2012 with his adaptation of On the Road.

Mendonça Filho’s follow up to his acclaimed debut feature Neighboring Sounds / O som ao redor stars Sonia Braga (Kiss of the Spider Woman) as Clara, a65-year-old retired, widowed music writer, and alone in the apartment building Aquarius after her three grown children have moved away. Oh, and she’s mastered the gift of time travel.

Cannes also unveiled the lineup for its Un Certain Regard Section with also one Latin American contender, the Argentinean film La larga noche de Francisco Sanctis / Francisco Sanctis’s Long Night, the debut feature by Francisco Márquez and Andrea Testa.

Set in 1977 during the Argentinean military dictatorship, the film tells the story of Francisco Sanctis who works as an administrative employee. One afternoon, his old schoolmate Elena contacts him to give hime two names and addresses. The army will find these people and will kidnap them. Francisco begins his long night wondering whether trying to save the lives of two unknown people at the risk of his own life.

The 69th edition of the Cannes Film Festival will take place May 11-22 in France.