The Nazi past of the Berlinale’s founding director Alfred Bauer, which only publicly emerged in 2020, did not influence its structure and program under his directorship from 1951 to 1976, a new study by the festival has concluded.
The joint expanded report, carried out in partnership with the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History (LfZ), follows a preliminary joint investigation, commissioned in response to revelations in the German newspaper Die Zeit in early 2020 that Bauer had played a significant role in the filmmaking apparatus of the Nazi regime.
The new study was set in motion to ascertain whether Bauer’s previous Nazi sympathies had influenced the editions of the festival that he led. The Berlinale will hold a public panel on November 2 to discuss the findings of the report.
“We wish to thank the LfZ for the extensive, detailed research on Alfred Bauer. Since 2020, there has been the certainty that Bauer held a...
The joint expanded report, carried out in partnership with the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History (LfZ), follows a preliminary joint investigation, commissioned in response to revelations in the German newspaper Die Zeit in early 2020 that Bauer had played a significant role in the filmmaking apparatus of the Nazi regime.
The new study was set in motion to ascertain whether Bauer’s previous Nazi sympathies had influenced the editions of the festival that he led. The Berlinale will hold a public panel on November 2 to discuss the findings of the report.
“We wish to thank the LfZ for the extensive, detailed research on Alfred Bauer. Since 2020, there has been the certainty that Bauer held a...
- 10/21/2022
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
The Berlin Film Festival was not significantly shaped by the Nazi activities of Alfred Bauer, its first festival director, new research has found. But the festival will hold itself up for scrutiny, with a public discussion next month about Bauer and how he disguised his affiliations.
Revelations about Bauer’s past came to the surface in January 2020 due to reporting by Die Zeit newspaper.
Bauer, a film historian, was appointed to head the festival in 1951 following its inception by Oscar Martay, a film officer in the U.S. Army who worked in the Information Service Branch of the U.S. High Commissioner for Germany. Bauer oversaw the Berlinale until 1976. The festival introduced the Alfred Bauer Prize in his honor following his death in 1986.
The festival cancelled the award and commissioned the independent Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History (IfZ) to examine Bauer’s position in the Nazi film bureaucracy more closely.
The...
Revelations about Bauer’s past came to the surface in January 2020 due to reporting by Die Zeit newspaper.
Bauer, a film historian, was appointed to head the festival in 1951 following its inception by Oscar Martay, a film officer in the U.S. Army who worked in the Information Service Branch of the U.S. High Commissioner for Germany. Bauer oversaw the Berlinale until 1976. The festival introduced the Alfred Bauer Prize in his honor following his death in 1986.
The festival cancelled the award and commissioned the independent Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History (IfZ) to examine Bauer’s position in the Nazi film bureaucracy more closely.
The...
- 10/21/2022
- by Patrick Frater and Ed Meza
- Variety Film + TV
Click here to read the full article.
Two years after shocking revelations about the secret Nazi past of Berlin International Film Festival founder Alfred Bauer, the Berlinale will publish the findings of an independent study on Bauer the festival commissioned with the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History (IfZ).
The Berlinale will also hold a public panel discussion on the study and its revelations Nov. 2 in Berlin.
Bauer helped found the Berlin festival, one of the world’s top-tier film events, and was director of the Berlinale from 1951 to 1976. But in 2020, just ahead of the Berlinale’s 70th anniversary, German newspaper Die Zeit published revelations about Bauer that indicated he had lied about his deep involvement in Nazi film propaganda.
As part of the Reichsfilmintendanz, the division set up by Hitler’s propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels to promote the Nazis’ racist and anti-Semitic agenda, Bauer approved such films as Veit Harlan...
Two years after shocking revelations about the secret Nazi past of Berlin International Film Festival founder Alfred Bauer, the Berlinale will publish the findings of an independent study on Bauer the festival commissioned with the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History (IfZ).
The Berlinale will also hold a public panel discussion on the study and its revelations Nov. 2 in Berlin.
Bauer helped found the Berlin festival, one of the world’s top-tier film events, and was director of the Berlinale from 1951 to 1976. But in 2020, just ahead of the Berlinale’s 70th anniversary, German newspaper Die Zeit published revelations about Bauer that indicated he had lied about his deep involvement in Nazi film propaganda.
As part of the Reichsfilmintendanz, the division set up by Hitler’s propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels to promote the Nazis’ racist and anti-Semitic agenda, Bauer approved such films as Veit Harlan...
- 10/21/2022
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Seven titles to play as part of Tfl Film Parade on Festival Scope platform.
TorinoFilmLab is to mark its 15th edition by showcasing a selection of titles that have successfully been developed at the training, networking and development event.
The Tfl Film Parade will share a selection of seven titles chosen among over 150 films developed within the Tfl’s development programmes.
The films – which all went on to premiere at A-list festivals - will be released online and accessible for free to anyone who registers on Tfl’s long-term partner-platform Festival Scope, in the original language with English subtitles.
Each...
TorinoFilmLab is to mark its 15th edition by showcasing a selection of titles that have successfully been developed at the training, networking and development event.
The Tfl Film Parade will share a selection of seven titles chosen among over 150 films developed within the Tfl’s development programmes.
The films – which all went on to premiere at A-list festivals - will be released online and accessible for free to anyone who registers on Tfl’s long-term partner-platform Festival Scope, in the original language with English subtitles.
Each...
- 10/17/2022
- by Tim Dams
- ScreenDaily
Seven titles to play as part of Tfl Film Parade on Festival Scope platform.
TorinoFilmLab is to mark its 15th edition by showcasing a selection of titles that have successfully been developed at the training, networking and development event.
The Tfl Film Parade will share a selection of seven titles chosen among over 150 films developed within the Tfl’s development programmes.
The films – which all went on to premiere at A-list festivals - will be released online and accessible for free to anyone who registers on Tfl’s long-term partner-platform Festival Scope, in the original language with English subtitles.
Each...
TorinoFilmLab is to mark its 15th edition by showcasing a selection of titles that have successfully been developed at the training, networking and development event.
The Tfl Film Parade will share a selection of seven titles chosen among over 150 films developed within the Tfl’s development programmes.
The films – which all went on to premiere at A-list festivals - will be released online and accessible for free to anyone who registers on Tfl’s long-term partner-platform Festival Scope, in the original language with English subtitles.
Each...
- 10/17/2022
- by Tim Dams
- ScreenDaily
Germany Weeps For The Victims Of HanauAs the 70th Berlin film festival was about to open in the capital a 43-year-old German racist opened fire at two Shisha (hookah pipe) joints in the secondary city of Hanau, near Frankfurt, killing 11 Turkish and Kurdish German residents and wounding many others. He then returned home where he calmly killed his mother and himself leaving a long death note condemning the Islamic takeover of the country.The news of the film festival gala opening ceremony was relegated to the middle pages of most papers as the entire nation reels in shock.Artistic director Carlo Chatrian ©, executive director of Berlinale International Film Festival Mariette Rissenbeek (R) and host Samuel Finzi observe a minute of silence in honor of victims of a shooting in Hanau as they attend the opening gala of the 70th Berlinale International Film Festival in Berlin, Germany, February 20, 2020. [Photo/Vcg]The turnout at...
- 4/13/2020
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
The distributor carefully targeted a demographic of women over the age of 40, in particular parents, educators, teachers and care professionals.
German director Nora Fingscheidt’s System Crasher, a drama about a troubled nine-year-old girl who is caught in an overstretched social welfare system, was a highlight at the Berlinale in February.
It impressed the Juliette Binoche-led Competition jury, which handed Fingscheidt’s debut feature the Silver Bear Alfred Bauer prize for a film that “opens new perspectives”. Even more portentously for its commercial prospects, System Crasher won the readers’ jury award of the Berliner Morgenpost newspaper.
The film has...
German director Nora Fingscheidt’s System Crasher, a drama about a troubled nine-year-old girl who is caught in an overstretched social welfare system, was a highlight at the Berlinale in February.
It impressed the Juliette Binoche-led Competition jury, which handed Fingscheidt’s debut feature the Silver Bear Alfred Bauer prize for a film that “opens new perspectives”. Even more portentously for its commercial prospects, System Crasher won the readers’ jury award of the Berliner Morgenpost newspaper.
The film has...
- 11/5/2019
- by 158¦Martin Blaney¦40¦
- ScreenDaily
This year’s FilMart marks the international sales debut of Beijing-based distributor Times Vision, which brings to Hong Kong a slate led by crime thriller “Savage” and animated feature “Nezha.” The company will be presenting nine live action films, including one documentary, and seven animated titles.
Times Vision is led by CEO Nathan Hao, who co-founded Chinese indie distributor Lemon Tree and led its international division before joining the newly established Times Vision in 2017. Times Vision imports foreign titles – primarily arthouse films, but it also has begun delving into the remake rights market – and is now getting into production as well. It is currently at work with Chinese partners on pre-production for a remake of 2016 Japanese Oscar entry “Her Love Boils Water.”
“We are famous for being good buyers of festival titles,” Hao told Variety. “Tvod is a new thing for Chinese audiences for foreign films. Streaming is a better...
Times Vision is led by CEO Nathan Hao, who co-founded Chinese indie distributor Lemon Tree and led its international division before joining the newly established Times Vision in 2017. Times Vision imports foreign titles – primarily arthouse films, but it also has begun delving into the remake rights market – and is now getting into production as well. It is currently at work with Chinese partners on pre-production for a remake of 2016 Japanese Oscar entry “Her Love Boils Water.”
“We are famous for being good buyers of festival titles,” Hao told Variety. “Tvod is a new thing for Chinese audiences for foreign films. Streaming is a better...
- 3/17/2019
- by Rebecca Davis
- Variety Film + TV
Screen’s regularly updated list of foreign language Oscar submissions.
Nominations for the 91st Academy Awards are not until Tuesday January 22, but the first submissions for best foreign-language film are now being announced.
Last year saw a record 92 submissions for the award, which were narrowed down to a shortlist of nine. This was cut to five nominees, with Sebastián Lelio’s transgender drama A Fantastic Woman ultimately taking home the gold statue.
Screen’s interview with Mark Johnson, chair of the Academy’s foreign-language film committee, explains the shortlisting process from submission to voting.
Submitted films must be released theatrically...
Nominations for the 91st Academy Awards are not until Tuesday January 22, but the first submissions for best foreign-language film are now being announced.
Last year saw a record 92 submissions for the award, which were narrowed down to a shortlist of nine. This was cut to five nominees, with Sebastián Lelio’s transgender drama A Fantastic Woman ultimately taking home the gold statue.
Screen’s interview with Mark Johnson, chair of the Academy’s foreign-language film committee, explains the shortlisting process from submission to voting.
Submitted films must be released theatrically...
- 9/11/2018
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
Screen’s regularly updated list of foreign language Oscar submissions.
Nominations for the 91st Academy Awards are not until Tuesday January 22, but the first submissions for best foreign-language film are now being announced.
Last year saw a record 92 submissions for the award, which were narrowed down to a shortlist of nine. This was cut to five nominees, with Sebastián Lelio’s transgender drama A Fantastic Woman ultimately taking home the gold statue.
Screen’s interview with Mark Johnson, chair of the Academy’s foreign-language film committee, explains the shortlisting process from submission to voting.
Submitted films must be released theatrically...
Nominations for the 91st Academy Awards are not until Tuesday January 22, but the first submissions for best foreign-language film are now being announced.
Last year saw a record 92 submissions for the award, which were narrowed down to a shortlist of nine. This was cut to five nominees, with Sebastián Lelio’s transgender drama A Fantastic Woman ultimately taking home the gold statue.
Screen’s interview with Mark Johnson, chair of the Academy’s foreign-language film committee, explains the shortlisting process from submission to voting.
Submitted films must be released theatrically...
- 9/11/2018
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
Thunderbird Releasing has dropped the trailer and official poster for Marcelo Martinessi’s The Heiresses.
Read our review of the film here
Written and directed by Paraguayan filmmaker Marcelo Martinessi, the film premiered in competition at the Berlin International Film Festival winning Silver Bear for Best Actress and the Alfred Bauer (Silver Bear) and Fipresci prizes for Best Film.
The film stars Ana Brun, Margarita Irun and Ana Ivanova.
Also in trailers – First trailer for M. Night Shyamalan’s Glass debuts
The film hits cinemas August 10.
The Heiresses Official Synopsis
Chela and Chiquita, both descended from wealthy families in Asunción, Paraguay, have been together for 30 years. But recently, their financial situation has worsened, and they begin to sell off their inherited possessions. When their debts lead fo Chiquita being imprisoned on fraud charges, Chela is forced to face a new reality as she begins to break out of her shell...
Read our review of the film here
Written and directed by Paraguayan filmmaker Marcelo Martinessi, the film premiered in competition at the Berlin International Film Festival winning Silver Bear for Best Actress and the Alfred Bauer (Silver Bear) and Fipresci prizes for Best Film.
The film stars Ana Brun, Margarita Irun and Ana Ivanova.
Also in trailers – First trailer for M. Night Shyamalan’s Glass debuts
The film hits cinemas August 10.
The Heiresses Official Synopsis
Chela and Chiquita, both descended from wealthy families in Asunción, Paraguay, have been together for 30 years. But recently, their financial situation has worsened, and they begin to sell off their inherited possessions. When their debts lead fo Chiquita being imprisoned on fraud charges, Chela is forced to face a new reality as she begins to break out of her shell...
- 7/23/2018
- by Zehra Phelan
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
The Berlin Film Festival has come to a close, and Adina Pintilie’s “Touch Me Not” has emerged with the film world’s nicest looking award: the Golden Bear for Best Film. Wes Anderson was awarded the Silver Bear for Best Director by the six-person jury, which was led by Tom Tykwer and seems to have been as wowed by “Isle of Dogs” as critics have been.
“Touch Me Not” also won the prize for Best First Feature, marking an auspicious debut for Pintilie; “The Heiress” is also a double winner, having been awarded both the Alfred Bauer Prize and Best Actress laurels for Ana Brun. Here’s the full list of winners:
Golden Bear for Best Film: “Touch Me Not,” Adina Pintilie
Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize: “Twarz” (“Mug”), Małgorzata Szumowska
Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize: “The Heiress,” Marcelo Martinessi
Silver Bear for Best Director: Wes Anderson, “Isle of Dogs...
“Touch Me Not” also won the prize for Best First Feature, marking an auspicious debut for Pintilie; “The Heiress” is also a double winner, having been awarded both the Alfred Bauer Prize and Best Actress laurels for Ana Brun. Here’s the full list of winners:
Golden Bear for Best Film: “Touch Me Not,” Adina Pintilie
Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize: “Twarz” (“Mug”), Małgorzata Szumowska
Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize: “The Heiress,” Marcelo Martinessi
Silver Bear for Best Director: Wes Anderson, “Isle of Dogs...
- 2/24/2018
- by Michael Nordine
- Indiewire
Wes Anderson named festival’s best director for Isle Of Dogs.
The awards of the 68th Berlin Film Festival were handed out on Saturday evening (February 24), with the Golden Bear for best film going to Adina Pintilie’s Touch Me Not, which also scooped best first feature.
Scroll down for a list of winners
There were 24 films in this year’s competition section, 19 of which were eligible for the Golden Bear.
Wes Anderson won the festival’s Silver Bear best director prize for his competition opener Isle Of Dogs. Anderson regular Bill Murray accepted the award on the director’s behalf.
This year’s international competition jury was headed up by German director Tom Tykwer, who was joined by Cécile de France, Chema Prado, Moonlight producer Adele Romanski, Ryūichi Sakamoto, and film critic Stephanie Zacharek.
The jurors took a different view to Screen International’s jury of critics and awarded the Golden Bear to Touch Me Not, which...
The awards of the 68th Berlin Film Festival were handed out on Saturday evening (February 24), with the Golden Bear for best film going to Adina Pintilie’s Touch Me Not, which also scooped best first feature.
Scroll down for a list of winners
There were 24 films in this year’s competition section, 19 of which were eligible for the Golden Bear.
Wes Anderson won the festival’s Silver Bear best director prize for his competition opener Isle Of Dogs. Anderson regular Bill Murray accepted the award on the director’s behalf.
This year’s international competition jury was headed up by German director Tom Tykwer, who was joined by Cécile de France, Chema Prado, Moonlight producer Adele Romanski, Ryūichi Sakamoto, and film critic Stephanie Zacharek.
The jurors took a different view to Screen International’s jury of critics and awarded the Golden Bear to Touch Me Not, which...
- 2/24/2018
- by Tom Grater
- ScreenDaily
Ever since making his feature debut with the darkly comical Sitcom, French writer/director François Ozon has been making the world feeling horny and shocked with his films, often at the same time. With a body of work that also includes Water Drops on Burning Rocks, Under the Sand, In the House and the glorious one-two punch of 8 Women and Swimming Pool, you’d think the prolific provocateur might soon be running out of tricks.
Think again. His latest erotic thriller, L’amant double, which premiered in competition at Cannes this year, proved to be the film scandaleux of the festival. Starring Marine Vacth as Chloé, a young woman who one day discovers her psychiatrist partner Paul (Jérémie Renier) might have an evil twin brother and gradually loses herself in a web of deceit and kinks, it’s the kind of dangerously sexy farce at which Ozon excels.
We had...
Think again. His latest erotic thriller, L’amant double, which premiered in competition at Cannes this year, proved to be the film scandaleux of the festival. Starring Marine Vacth as Chloé, a young woman who one day discovers her psychiatrist partner Paul (Jérémie Renier) might have an evil twin brother and gradually loses herself in a web of deceit and kinks, it’s the kind of dangerously sexy farce at which Ozon excels.
We had...
- 10/18/2017
- by Zhuo-Ning Su
- The Film Stage
Netflix is prepping its first Polish-language original series with Oscar-nominated director Agnieszka Holland helming, along with Kasia Adamik. The pair recently collaborated on Holland’s Spoor which is Poland’s submission this year for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar and won the Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize in Berlin last February. The Kennedy/Marshall Company and The House Media Company are producing the alternative history Cold War spy thriller for the streaming…...
- 9/13/2017
- Deadline TV
25 films comprise the main slate of 55th edition set to run from September 28-October 15.
The Film Society of Lincoln Center has announced the 25 films for the main slate of the 55th New York Film Festival.
This year’s selection showcases films honoured at Cannes such as Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or-winner The Square, Robin Campillo’s Critics’ Prize winner Bpm, and Agnès Varda and Jr’s Faces Places.
From Berlin, Aki Kaurismäki’s Silver Bear winner The Other Side Of Hope and Agnieszka Holland’s Alfred Bauer Prize-winner Spoor mark the returns of two New York Film Festival veterans, while Luca Guadagnino makes his debut with Call Me By Your Name (pictured).
As previously announced, the opening night screening is Richard Linklater’s Last Flag Flying, while Todd Haynes’ Wonderstruck is the Centerpiece, and Woody Allen’s Wonder Wheel will close the festival.
Nyff Director and Selection Committee Chair Kent Jones said: “Every year, I’m asked...
The Film Society of Lincoln Center has announced the 25 films for the main slate of the 55th New York Film Festival.
This year’s selection showcases films honoured at Cannes such as Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or-winner The Square, Robin Campillo’s Critics’ Prize winner Bpm, and Agnès Varda and Jr’s Faces Places.
From Berlin, Aki Kaurismäki’s Silver Bear winner The Other Side Of Hope and Agnieszka Holland’s Alfred Bauer Prize-winner Spoor mark the returns of two New York Film Festival veterans, while Luca Guadagnino makes his debut with Call Me By Your Name (pictured).
As previously announced, the opening night screening is Richard Linklater’s Last Flag Flying, while Todd Haynes’ Wonderstruck is the Centerpiece, and Woody Allen’s Wonder Wheel will close the festival.
Nyff Director and Selection Committee Chair Kent Jones said: “Every year, I’m asked...
- 8/8/2017
- ScreenDaily
25 films comprise the main slate of 55th edition set to run from September 28-October 15.
The Film Society of Lincoln Center has announced the 25 films for the main slate of the 55th New York Film Festival.
This year’s selection showcases films honoured at Cannes such as Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or-winner The Square, Robin Campillo’s Critics’ Prize winner Bpm, and Agnès Varda and Jr’s Faces Places.
From Berlin, Aki Kaurismäki’s Silver Bear winner The Other Side Of Hope and Agnieszka Holland’s Alfred Bauer Prize-winner Spoor mark the returns of two New York Film Festival veterans, while Luca Guadagnino makes his debut with Call Me By Your Name (pictured).
As previously announced, the opening night screening is Richard Linklater’s Last Flag Flying, while Todd Haynes’ Wonderstruck is the Centerpiece, and Woody Allen’s Wonder Wheel will close the festival.
Nyff Director and Selection Committee Chair Kent Jones said: “Every year, I’m asked...
The Film Society of Lincoln Center has announced the 25 films for the main slate of the 55th New York Film Festival.
This year’s selection showcases films honoured at Cannes such as Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or-winner The Square, Robin Campillo’s Critics’ Prize winner Bpm, and Agnès Varda and Jr’s Faces Places.
From Berlin, Aki Kaurismäki’s Silver Bear winner The Other Side Of Hope and Agnieszka Holland’s Alfred Bauer Prize-winner Spoor mark the returns of two New York Film Festival veterans, while Luca Guadagnino makes his debut with Call Me By Your Name (pictured).
As previously announced, the opening night screening is Richard Linklater’s Last Flag Flying, while Todd Haynes’ Wonderstruck is the Centerpiece, and Woody Allen’s Wonder Wheel will close the festival.
Nyff Director and Selection Committee Chair Kent Jones said: “Every year, I’m asked...
- 8/8/2017
- ScreenDaily
It’s beginning to look a lot like fall festival season. On the heels of announcements from Tiff and Venice, the 55th edition of the New York Film Festival has unveiled its Main Slate, including a number of returning faces, emerging talents, and some of the most anticipated films from the festival circuit this year.
This year’s Main Slate showcases a number of films honored at Cannes including Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or–winner “The Square,” Robin Campillo’s “Bpm,” and Agnès Varda & Jr’s “Faces Places.” Other Cannes standouts, including “The Rider” and “The Florida Project,” will also screen at Nyff.
Read MoreTIFF Reveals First Slate of 2017 Titles, Including ‘The Shape of Water,’ ‘Downsizing,’ and ‘Call Me By Your Name’
Elsewhere, Aki Kaurismäki’s Silver Bear–winner “The Other Side of Hope” and Agnieszka Holland’s Alfred Bauer Prize–winner “Spoor” come to Nyff after Berlin bows.
This year’s Main Slate showcases a number of films honored at Cannes including Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or–winner “The Square,” Robin Campillo’s “Bpm,” and Agnès Varda & Jr’s “Faces Places.” Other Cannes standouts, including “The Rider” and “The Florida Project,” will also screen at Nyff.
Read MoreTIFF Reveals First Slate of 2017 Titles, Including ‘The Shape of Water,’ ‘Downsizing,’ and ‘Call Me By Your Name’
Elsewhere, Aki Kaurismäki’s Silver Bear–winner “The Other Side of Hope” and Agnieszka Holland’s Alfred Bauer Prize–winner “Spoor” come to Nyff after Berlin bows.
- 8/8/2017
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
Closing Night, Remarks, WinnersInternational Jury: Olafur Eliasson, Artist (Iceland); Dora Bouchoucha Fourate, Producer (Tunisia), Julia Jentsch, Actress (Germany); Maggie Gyllenhaal, Actress, Producer (U.S.); Paul Verhoeven — Jury President — Director, Screenwriter (The Netherlands); Wang Quan’an, Director, Screenwriter (People’s Republic of China); Diego Luna, Actor, Director (Mexico)
A new tradition of sharing a “coup de champagne” on Closing Night of the Berlinale seems to be in the making with Ben and Stephanie Gibson and us. Last year we found ourselves together at the Hyatt for pre-Closing Night Drinks; this year we shared a coup at the Berlinale Palast before the crowd arrived.
Closing Night Before the Crowds Arrive
Ben, btw, is the director of dffb, the German Film School in Berlin. Read more in my previous blog here. He and his wife Stephanie could make a great TV series with the stories of their families. Once the crowd took over,...
A new tradition of sharing a “coup de champagne” on Closing Night of the Berlinale seems to be in the making with Ben and Stephanie Gibson and us. Last year we found ourselves together at the Hyatt for pre-Closing Night Drinks; this year we shared a coup at the Berlinale Palast before the crowd arrived.
Closing Night Before the Crowds Arrive
Ben, btw, is the director of dffb, the German Film School in Berlin. Read more in my previous blog here. He and his wife Stephanie could make a great TV series with the stories of their families. Once the crowd took over,...
- 2/28/2017
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
A certain mutant send-off may have gotten the most global attention out of the 2017 Berlin Film Festival, but if one retracts their claws, some of the finest in major international cinema comes into focus. Ahead of our picks of the best of the festival, the jury has delivered their awards.
Led by Paul Verhoeven, the jury made up of Dora Bouchoucha Fourati, Olafur Eliasson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Julia Jentsch, Diego Luna, and Wang Quan’an gave the Hungarian drama On Body and Soul the top prize of Golden Bear, while Aki Kaurismäki picked up Best Director for The Other Side of Hope and Kim Min-hee earned Best Actress for her latest Hong Sang-soo collaboration On The Beach At Night Alone.
Check out the winners below (with a hat tip to Deadline) along with links to reviews where available. One can also see our full coverage here.
Golden Bear for Best...
Led by Paul Verhoeven, the jury made up of Dora Bouchoucha Fourati, Olafur Eliasson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Julia Jentsch, Diego Luna, and Wang Quan’an gave the Hungarian drama On Body and Soul the top prize of Golden Bear, while Aki Kaurismäki picked up Best Director for The Other Side of Hope and Kim Min-hee earned Best Actress for her latest Hong Sang-soo collaboration On The Beach At Night Alone.
Check out the winners below (with a hat tip to Deadline) along with links to reviews where available. One can also see our full coverage here.
Golden Bear for Best...
- 2/19/2017
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
The 67th Berlin International Film Festival has come to a close, and winners have been selected for top prizes. The international jury this year included president Paul Verhoeven, Dora Bouchoucha Fourati, Olafur Eliasson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Julia Jentsch, Diego Luna, and Wang Quan’an.
Read More: The 2017 IndieWire Berlinale Bible: Every Review, Interview and News Item Posted During the Festival
Check out the full list below:
*Golden Bear for Best Film:
“Testről és lélekről” (“On Body and Soul”)
by Ildikó Enyedi
Producers: Monika Mécs, András Muhi, Ernő Mesterházy
*Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize
“Félicité”
by Alain Gomis
*Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize
“Pokot” (“Spoor”)
by Agnieszka Holland
*Silver Bear for Best Director
Aki Kaurismäki
for “Toivon tuolla puolen” (“The Other Side of Hope”)
*Silver Bear for Best Actress
Kim Minhee
in “Bamui haebyun-eoseo honja” (“On the Beach at Night Alone”)
by Hong Sang-soo
*Silver Bear for Best Actor
Georg Friedrich
in...
Read More: The 2017 IndieWire Berlinale Bible: Every Review, Interview and News Item Posted During the Festival
Check out the full list below:
*Golden Bear for Best Film:
“Testről és lélekről” (“On Body and Soul”)
by Ildikó Enyedi
Producers: Monika Mécs, András Muhi, Ernő Mesterházy
*Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize
“Félicité”
by Alain Gomis
*Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize
“Pokot” (“Spoor”)
by Agnieszka Holland
*Silver Bear for Best Director
Aki Kaurismäki
for “Toivon tuolla puolen” (“The Other Side of Hope”)
*Silver Bear for Best Actress
Kim Minhee
in “Bamui haebyun-eoseo honja” (“On the Beach at Night Alone”)
by Hong Sang-soo
*Silver Bear for Best Actor
Georg Friedrich
in...
- 2/18/2017
- by William Earl
- Indiewire
On Body And Soul took home the Golden Bear Photo: Courtesy Of the Berlin Film Festival
Hungarian drama On Body And Soul (Testrol es lelkrol), directed by Ildiko Enyedi's, won the Golden Bear for best film at the Berlin Film Festival tonight.
The offbeat love story, set in a slaughterhouse, had earlier taken a Fipresci critics prize and two other accolades from the independent juries.
The Silver Bear grand jury prize went to Alain Gomis's Kinshasa-set drama Félicité and the Silver Bear Alfred Bauer prize for a feature film that opens new perspectives went to Agnieszka Holland's Spoor.
Aki Kaurismaki was named best director for The Other Side of Hope, which tells the blackly comic tale of an illegal emigre in Finland.
The best actress Silver Bear went to Kim Min-hee, star for her performance in Hang Sangsoo's On the Beach at Night Alone, while Georg Friedrich...
Hungarian drama On Body And Soul (Testrol es lelkrol), directed by Ildiko Enyedi's, won the Golden Bear for best film at the Berlin Film Festival tonight.
The offbeat love story, set in a slaughterhouse, had earlier taken a Fipresci critics prize and two other accolades from the independent juries.
The Silver Bear grand jury prize went to Alain Gomis's Kinshasa-set drama Félicité and the Silver Bear Alfred Bauer prize for a feature film that opens new perspectives went to Agnieszka Holland's Spoor.
Aki Kaurismaki was named best director for The Other Side of Hope, which tells the blackly comic tale of an illegal emigre in Finland.
The best actress Silver Bear went to Kim Min-hee, star for her performance in Hang Sangsoo's On the Beach at Night Alone, while Georg Friedrich...
- 2/18/2017
- by Amber Wilkinson
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
On Body and SoulThe Notebook's Giovanni Marchini Camia has been covering the Berlin International Film Festival since its opening day, with additional help from Neil Bahadur and Christopher Small and more coverage to come. The 2017 awards have just been announced from a jury consisting of Paul Verhoeven (Jury President), Dora Bouchoucha Fourati, Olafur Eliasson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Julia Jentsch, Diego Luna and Wang Quan'an.Golden BEAROn Body and Soul (Ildikó Enyedi)Silver Bear Grand Jury PRIZEFélicité (Alain Gomes)Alfred Bauer PRIZESpoor (Agnieszka Holland)Best DIRECTORAki Kaurismäki (The Other Side of Hope)reviewBEST ACTRESSKim Min-hee (On the Beach at Night Alone)review | director interviewBEST ACTORGeorg Friedrich (Bright Nights)Best SCRIPTSebastián Lelio and Gonzalo Maza (A Fantastic Woman)Outstanding Artistic CONTRIBUTIONEditor Dana Bunescu, Ana, mon amour (Cãlin Peter Netzer)...
- 2/18/2017
- MUBI
Update With Key Speeches: Hungarian title On Body And Soul takes best film; Aki Kaurismaki, Sebastian Lelio among winners; Insyriated and I Am Not Your Negro scoop Panorama audience awards; 2018 festival dates revealed.
The awards ceremony for the 67th Berlin Film Festival took place this evening (18 Feb) with winners including Ildiko Enyedi, Alain Gomis, Agnieszka Holland and Sebastian Lelio.
Scroll down for full list of winners
Ildikò Enyedi’s Hungarian feature On Body and Soul - the unusual love story of two damaged souls trying to make contact in a harsh world - was the big winner on the night taking home the Golden Bear for best film in the Competition as well as the Ecumenical and Fipresci juries’ prizes for best film in the Official Competition and the Berliner Morgenpost Readers’ Award.
Enyedi’s film - which is handled internationally by Berlin-based sales agent Films Boutique and had been hotly tipped for the Golden Bear - is...
The awards ceremony for the 67th Berlin Film Festival took place this evening (18 Feb) with winners including Ildiko Enyedi, Alain Gomis, Agnieszka Holland and Sebastian Lelio.
Scroll down for full list of winners
Ildikò Enyedi’s Hungarian feature On Body and Soul - the unusual love story of two damaged souls trying to make contact in a harsh world - was the big winner on the night taking home the Golden Bear for best film in the Competition as well as the Ecumenical and Fipresci juries’ prizes for best film in the Official Competition and the Berliner Morgenpost Readers’ Award.
Enyedi’s film - which is handled internationally by Berlin-based sales agent Films Boutique and had been hotly tipped for the Golden Bear - is...
- 2/18/2017
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney) andreas.wiseman@screendaily.com (Andreas Wiseman)
- ScreenDaily
The golden and silver bears are being handed out for the 67th Berlin Film Festival; Insyriated and I Am Not Your Negro scoop Panorama audience awards; 2018 festival dates revealed.
The awards ceremony for the 67th Berlin Film Festival is taking place tonight (18 Feb). Follow the event’s live stream here from 6pm GMT (7pm Cet) and below for live updates.
The international jury comprised Paul Verhoeven (director), Dora Bouchoucha Fourati (producer), Olafur Eliasson (artist), Maggie Gyllenhaal (actress), Julia Jentsch (actress), Diego Luna (actor) and Wang Quan’an (director).
The Panorama and Generation sections have already revealed winners including Insyriated and I Am Not Your Negro. Scroll down for winners in additional sections.
The Berlinale also announced its 2018 dates: February 15 - 25, which is one week later than this year’s edition.
The full list of Berlin 2017 winnersGolden Bear for Best Film
Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize
Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize
Silver Bear for Best Director
Silver [link=tt...
The awards ceremony for the 67th Berlin Film Festival is taking place tonight (18 Feb). Follow the event’s live stream here from 6pm GMT (7pm Cet) and below for live updates.
The international jury comprised Paul Verhoeven (director), Dora Bouchoucha Fourati (producer), Olafur Eliasson (artist), Maggie Gyllenhaal (actress), Julia Jentsch (actress), Diego Luna (actor) and Wang Quan’an (director).
The Panorama and Generation sections have already revealed winners including Insyriated and I Am Not Your Negro. Scroll down for winners in additional sections.
The Berlinale also announced its 2018 dates: February 15 - 25, which is one week later than this year’s edition.
The full list of Berlin 2017 winnersGolden Bear for Best Film
Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize
Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize
Silver Bear for Best Director
Silver [link=tt...
- 2/18/2017
- by andreas.wiseman@screendaily.com (Andreas Wiseman)
- ScreenDaily
Conventional limitations on cinematic runtimes, often driven by basic practical and commercial concerns, are at once arbitrary and enduring. Under 90 minutes is short; over 150 minutes is long. Short films lie on one end of the spectrum and Andy Warhol on the other. But even limiting discussion to non-experimental feature films reveals a wide variation in the use of massive duration, discussions of which tend to be obscured by the hyperbole (in both directions) that such films often elicit. (This hyperbolic tendency also extends to trilogies, multi-part films, or even novels and literature in general. Just ask anyone who’s seen Sátántangó or read Infinite Jest.) Nonetheless, such films tend to be fascinating opportunities for exploration, both in their justification for and use of such length. And on the occasion of Mubi’s retrospective of Lav Diaz’s filmography (the body of work that most consistently makes use of duration), three vastly different 2016 films,...
- 11/29/2016
- MUBI
This year’s Tokyo International Film Festival (Tiff) will feature five unique Filipino dramas. The Philippine Entertainment Portal reports that Die Beautiful, I America, Birdshot, Hele Sa Hiwagang Hapis and Shiniuma will be part of the festival’s 29th year.
Die Beautiful stars Paolo Ballesteros as a transwoman and beauty pageant veteran whose dying wish is to be dressed as Lady Gaga for her funeral. The film is directed by Jun Lana. It is the only Filipino film included in the main competition. This marks Lana’s second run at Tiff. His 2013 freshman entry Barber’s Tales won the Tiff Best Actress award for its star Eugene Domingo.
Hele Sa Hiwagang Hapis or “A Lullaby To The Sorrowful Mystery” is Lav Diaz’s eight-hour epic for Tiff’s World Focus Section. Anchored by Philippine superstars John Lloyd Cruz and Piolo Pascual, Hele Sa Hiwagang Hapis is a fantastical meditation on Philippine literature,...
Die Beautiful stars Paolo Ballesteros as a transwoman and beauty pageant veteran whose dying wish is to be dressed as Lady Gaga for her funeral. The film is directed by Jun Lana. It is the only Filipino film included in the main competition. This marks Lana’s second run at Tiff. His 2013 freshman entry Barber’s Tales won the Tiff Best Actress award for its star Eugene Domingo.
Hele Sa Hiwagang Hapis or “A Lullaby To The Sorrowful Mystery” is Lav Diaz’s eight-hour epic for Tiff’s World Focus Section. Anchored by Philippine superstars John Lloyd Cruz and Piolo Pascual, Hele Sa Hiwagang Hapis is a fantastical meditation on Philippine literature,...
- 10/10/2016
- by Ella Palileo
- AsianMoviePulse
The Spanish festival reveals titles of the first competitive edition of the Zabaltegi-Tabakalera section that will award a $22,200 (€20,000) prize.
Bertrand Tavernier’s documentary A Journey Through French Cinema, seen at Cannes Classics, will be the opening film of the Zabaltegui-Tabakalera section of the festival, which includes diverse titles that have premiered at other festivals. San Sebastian notes that the section is “open to the most varied and surprising movies of the year.”
The French director has been a San Sebastian regular since 1982, when Coup de Torchon was screened in the Official Selection, and he later was honoured with a retrospective of his films. Two of his titles — It All Starts Today (1999) and Holy Lola (2005) — have landed the audience award. Tavernier was also at the Spanish festival in 2013 where Quai D’Orsay won the best screenplay award.
It’s the first time that the Zabaltegui-Tabakalera section is competitive, with a prize of $22,200 (€20,000) for the winning film. The rest of...
Bertrand Tavernier’s documentary A Journey Through French Cinema, seen at Cannes Classics, will be the opening film of the Zabaltegui-Tabakalera section of the festival, which includes diverse titles that have premiered at other festivals. San Sebastian notes that the section is “open to the most varied and surprising movies of the year.”
The French director has been a San Sebastian regular since 1982, when Coup de Torchon was screened in the Official Selection, and he later was honoured with a retrospective of his films. Two of his titles — It All Starts Today (1999) and Holy Lola (2005) — have landed the audience award. Tavernier was also at the Spanish festival in 2013 where Quai D’Orsay won the best screenplay award.
It’s the first time that the Zabaltegui-Tabakalera section is competitive, with a prize of $22,200 (€20,000) for the winning film. The rest of...
- 7/14/2016
- ScreenDaily
Industry Days 2016 includes the fifth edition of Us in Progress and the third edition of Paris Coproduction Village. Industry Days aims at becoming a reference in professional meetings for French and European producers, with a strong positioning towards the enhancement of emerging cinematography.
Paris Co-Production Village Unveils Its Project Selections
Organized by Les Arcs European Film Festival within the frame of the Champs-Elysées Film Festival Industry Days, Paris Co-production Village is a development and financing platform for feature projects selected worldwide.
For its third edition, which will take place June 8-10, 2016 in Paris, the 12 following projects have been selected:
-"Afronauts" by Frances Bodomo (2015 - short film « Afronauts » Sundance Ff, Berlinale, AFI Fest, Chicago Iff ; 2014 - short film "Boneshaker" Sundance Ff, SXSW Ff, Chicago Iff, Edinburgh Iff) produced by Nomadic Independence (USA).
-"Blood-Drenched Beard" by Aly Muritiba (2015 - "To My Beloved" San Sebastian Ff Horizontes Latinos, Official Competition Montreal World Film Festival; 2015 - "Tarantula" Venice Ff Orizonti) produced by Rt Features (Brazil).
-"The Bus to Amerika" by Derya Durmaz (2015 - short film "Mother Virgin No More" Berlinale Generations 14plus Short Film Competition) produced by Mars Production (Turkey).
-"Dark Lies the Island" by Ian Fitzgibbon (2011 - "Death of a Superhero" Toronto Iff, Jury and Audience Awards Les Arcs European Film Festival ; 2010 - "Perrier's Bountru" Toronto Iff, Seattle Iff) produced by Grand Pictures (Ireland).
-"God Exists, her Name is Petrunija" by Teona Strugar Mitevska (2012 - "The Woman Who Brushed Her Tears" Berlinale Panaroma Special; 2008 - "I am from Tito Veles" Berlinale Panorama Section, Special Jury Award Sarajevo Ff, Toronto Iff, Cannes Ff Acid selection) produced by Sisters and Brother Mitevski Production (Macedonia).
-"Golden Voices" by Evgeny Ruman (2015 - "The Man in the Wall" Rotterdam Iff, Best acting Award Odessa Iff; 2012 - "Igor & the Cranes' Journey" Toronto Iff, Special Mention Haifa Iff) produced by United Channel Movies (Israel).
-"Prince" by Sebastian Muñoz produced by Niña Niño Films (Chile) and Le Tiro Films (Argentina).
-"Remarkable Things During a Killing" by Joko Anwar (2015 - "A Copy of my Mind" Venice Iff, Toronto Iff, Busan Iff, Rotterdam Iff; 2012 - "Ritual" SXSW, Gerardmer Fantasy Ff) produced by Lo-Fi Flicks (Indonesia).
-"When the Waves are Gone" by Lav Diaz (2016 - "A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery"Alfred Bauer Award Berlinale Official Competition; 2014 - "From What is Before" Golden Leopard Locarno Iff, Audience Award Sao paulo Iff) produced by Epicmedia (The Philippines).
Projets selected within the frame of the Focus Colombia :
"Almost Never Too Late" by Alfonso Acosta (2012 - "The Crack" Busan Iff, Sao Paulo Iff, Gerardmer Fantasy Ff, Neuchatel International Fantastic Ff) produced by Cabecitanegra Producciones.
-"The Stone" by Rafael Martinez Moreno (2015 - short film "Round Numbers" Zinebi Bilbao Official Selection; 2012 - short film "120 Minutes of Freedom", Bogota International Film Festival) produced by Miramar Entertainment.
-"The Tailor" by Cesar Heredia (2015 - short film "Elefante" Official Competition Cartagena Iff) produced by Corte Film, Tree House Film (Panama) and Diafragma (Colombia).
This selection aims at showing the diversity of world cinema, in terms of geography as well as a balance between newcomers and experienced directors. It includes:
- 1 American project, 1 Israeli project, 3 European projects, 2 Asian projects and 5 projects from Latin America including 3 projects part of the Colombian Focus
- 5 first feature films projects (marked with *)
Colombia is the guest country of this third edition
In partnership with Proimágenes Colombia, Paris Coproduction Village will present this year a « Colombian Focus », inviting 3 Colombian projects in development. A conference, organized with the support of the Cnc, will take place during the event and will discuss the improvement of the French-Colombian coproduction framework.
In addition, the 6 residents of Cannes Film Festival Cinéfondation will join the selection:
-"Feathers of a Father" by Omar El Zohairy (Egypt)
-"Fronteira" by Nuno Baltazar (Portugal)
-"Letters from the Land of the Tarahumara" by Federico Cecchetti (Mexico/France)
-"Tinnitus" by Gregorio Grazios (Brazil)
-"The Users" by Ivan Ikic (Serbia)
-"Disappearance" by Ali Asgari (Iran)
All these projects will benefit from one-to-one pre-scheduled meetings with producers, sales agents, distributors, from networking events, as well as seminars taught by leading film industry professionals.
Paris Coproduction Village is supported by the Cnc, Procirep and Cofiloisirs. It is organized in collaboration with our partners Cannes Cinéfondation, Ace, Cinando, Haf (Hong-Kong Asian Film Financing Forum), Variety, LatAm, Producers Network, Screen, Eave, Europa International, Cineuropa and Ecran Total.
The team behind Paris Coproduction Village is the team of Les Arcs European Film Festival, that is to say:
Pierre-Emmanuel Fleurantin, CEO
Jérémy Zelnik, Head of Industry
Alice Guilbaud, Coproduction Village Manager
Guillaume Calop, General Manager
Claire-Marine Piétriga, General Coordinator
Clémentine Larroudé, Head of Partnerships
Fabienne Silvestre-Bertoncini, Public and Institutional Relations
Us in Progress Unveils Its Project Selection
Us in Progress will take place in the scope of the 5th edition of Champs-Elysées Film Festival in Paris on June 8-10. The Program is a joint initiative between the American Film Festival in Wroclaw, the Champs-Elysées Film Festival in Paris and Black Rabbit Film in New York. It is the first and only industry event devoted to Us indies in Europe. The aim of the program is to present Us indie films in post-production to European buyers in order to foster the circulation and distribution of American indie films in Europe.
For the 5th edition of Us in Progress within the scope of the Industry Days, 4 feature-length narrative films have been selected to compete for the Us in Progress Prize :
-"California Dreams" Directed by Mike Ott / Produced by Alex Gioulakis
-"Easy Living" Directed by Adam Keleman / Produced by Laura Wagner
-"Everything Beautiful is Far Away" Directed by Pete Ohs and Andrea Sisson / Produced by Andrea Sisson and Saul Germaine
-"Otto : My Life is a Soundtrack" Directed by Margarita Jimeno / Andrew Corkin and Sol Bondy
This year, we are also introducing documentaries at the Us in Progress Paris with the selection of 2 films:
-"Academy" Directed by Brent Chesanek / Produced by Andrew Renzi and Andrew Corkin
-"Whirlybird" Directed by Matt Yoka / Produced by Steve Holmgren, Erin Lee Carr, Greg Lanesey and Matt Radecki
For two days, the project holders will present their rough cuts to 40 top European sales agents, distributors, festivals programmers and producers. On the third day, they will get advices and feedbacks from the screenings through one-to-one meetings with the buyers.
The awarded film will get post-production, acquisition and promotion services offered by our partners : TitraFilm, Europa Distribution, Producers Network, Ciné +, Eaux Vives Productions, Indiewire-SydneysBuzz, Centre Phi, Kickstarter and a newcomer the Studios d’Arenberg (Arenberg Creative Mine).
Us in Progress involves two yearly get-togethers and the next edition will take place in Wroclaw in October 2016 in the scope of the American Film Festival. Us in Progress Wroclaw’s submissions starts from April 6th to August 31st.
Paris Co-Production Village Unveils Its Project Selections
Organized by Les Arcs European Film Festival within the frame of the Champs-Elysées Film Festival Industry Days, Paris Co-production Village is a development and financing platform for feature projects selected worldwide.
For its third edition, which will take place June 8-10, 2016 in Paris, the 12 following projects have been selected:
-"Afronauts" by Frances Bodomo (2015 - short film « Afronauts » Sundance Ff, Berlinale, AFI Fest, Chicago Iff ; 2014 - short film "Boneshaker" Sundance Ff, SXSW Ff, Chicago Iff, Edinburgh Iff) produced by Nomadic Independence (USA).
-"Blood-Drenched Beard" by Aly Muritiba (2015 - "To My Beloved" San Sebastian Ff Horizontes Latinos, Official Competition Montreal World Film Festival; 2015 - "Tarantula" Venice Ff Orizonti) produced by Rt Features (Brazil).
-"The Bus to Amerika" by Derya Durmaz (2015 - short film "Mother Virgin No More" Berlinale Generations 14plus Short Film Competition) produced by Mars Production (Turkey).
-"Dark Lies the Island" by Ian Fitzgibbon (2011 - "Death of a Superhero" Toronto Iff, Jury and Audience Awards Les Arcs European Film Festival ; 2010 - "Perrier's Bountru" Toronto Iff, Seattle Iff) produced by Grand Pictures (Ireland).
-"God Exists, her Name is Petrunija" by Teona Strugar Mitevska (2012 - "The Woman Who Brushed Her Tears" Berlinale Panaroma Special; 2008 - "I am from Tito Veles" Berlinale Panorama Section, Special Jury Award Sarajevo Ff, Toronto Iff, Cannes Ff Acid selection) produced by Sisters and Brother Mitevski Production (Macedonia).
-"Golden Voices" by Evgeny Ruman (2015 - "The Man in the Wall" Rotterdam Iff, Best acting Award Odessa Iff; 2012 - "Igor & the Cranes' Journey" Toronto Iff, Special Mention Haifa Iff) produced by United Channel Movies (Israel).
-"Prince" by Sebastian Muñoz produced by Niña Niño Films (Chile) and Le Tiro Films (Argentina).
-"Remarkable Things During a Killing" by Joko Anwar (2015 - "A Copy of my Mind" Venice Iff, Toronto Iff, Busan Iff, Rotterdam Iff; 2012 - "Ritual" SXSW, Gerardmer Fantasy Ff) produced by Lo-Fi Flicks (Indonesia).
-"When the Waves are Gone" by Lav Diaz (2016 - "A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery"Alfred Bauer Award Berlinale Official Competition; 2014 - "From What is Before" Golden Leopard Locarno Iff, Audience Award Sao paulo Iff) produced by Epicmedia (The Philippines).
Projets selected within the frame of the Focus Colombia :
"Almost Never Too Late" by Alfonso Acosta (2012 - "The Crack" Busan Iff, Sao Paulo Iff, Gerardmer Fantasy Ff, Neuchatel International Fantastic Ff) produced by Cabecitanegra Producciones.
-"The Stone" by Rafael Martinez Moreno (2015 - short film "Round Numbers" Zinebi Bilbao Official Selection; 2012 - short film "120 Minutes of Freedom", Bogota International Film Festival) produced by Miramar Entertainment.
-"The Tailor" by Cesar Heredia (2015 - short film "Elefante" Official Competition Cartagena Iff) produced by Corte Film, Tree House Film (Panama) and Diafragma (Colombia).
This selection aims at showing the diversity of world cinema, in terms of geography as well as a balance between newcomers and experienced directors. It includes:
- 1 American project, 1 Israeli project, 3 European projects, 2 Asian projects and 5 projects from Latin America including 3 projects part of the Colombian Focus
- 5 first feature films projects (marked with *)
Colombia is the guest country of this third edition
In partnership with Proimágenes Colombia, Paris Coproduction Village will present this year a « Colombian Focus », inviting 3 Colombian projects in development. A conference, organized with the support of the Cnc, will take place during the event and will discuss the improvement of the French-Colombian coproduction framework.
In addition, the 6 residents of Cannes Film Festival Cinéfondation will join the selection:
-"Feathers of a Father" by Omar El Zohairy (Egypt)
-"Fronteira" by Nuno Baltazar (Portugal)
-"Letters from the Land of the Tarahumara" by Federico Cecchetti (Mexico/France)
-"Tinnitus" by Gregorio Grazios (Brazil)
-"The Users" by Ivan Ikic (Serbia)
-"Disappearance" by Ali Asgari (Iran)
All these projects will benefit from one-to-one pre-scheduled meetings with producers, sales agents, distributors, from networking events, as well as seminars taught by leading film industry professionals.
Paris Coproduction Village is supported by the Cnc, Procirep and Cofiloisirs. It is organized in collaboration with our partners Cannes Cinéfondation, Ace, Cinando, Haf (Hong-Kong Asian Film Financing Forum), Variety, LatAm, Producers Network, Screen, Eave, Europa International, Cineuropa and Ecran Total.
The team behind Paris Coproduction Village is the team of Les Arcs European Film Festival, that is to say:
Pierre-Emmanuel Fleurantin, CEO
Jérémy Zelnik, Head of Industry
Alice Guilbaud, Coproduction Village Manager
Guillaume Calop, General Manager
Claire-Marine Piétriga, General Coordinator
Clémentine Larroudé, Head of Partnerships
Fabienne Silvestre-Bertoncini, Public and Institutional Relations
Us in Progress Unveils Its Project Selection
Us in Progress will take place in the scope of the 5th edition of Champs-Elysées Film Festival in Paris on June 8-10. The Program is a joint initiative between the American Film Festival in Wroclaw, the Champs-Elysées Film Festival in Paris and Black Rabbit Film in New York. It is the first and only industry event devoted to Us indies in Europe. The aim of the program is to present Us indie films in post-production to European buyers in order to foster the circulation and distribution of American indie films in Europe.
For the 5th edition of Us in Progress within the scope of the Industry Days, 4 feature-length narrative films have been selected to compete for the Us in Progress Prize :
-"California Dreams" Directed by Mike Ott / Produced by Alex Gioulakis
-"Easy Living" Directed by Adam Keleman / Produced by Laura Wagner
-"Everything Beautiful is Far Away" Directed by Pete Ohs and Andrea Sisson / Produced by Andrea Sisson and Saul Germaine
-"Otto : My Life is a Soundtrack" Directed by Margarita Jimeno / Andrew Corkin and Sol Bondy
This year, we are also introducing documentaries at the Us in Progress Paris with the selection of 2 films:
-"Academy" Directed by Brent Chesanek / Produced by Andrew Renzi and Andrew Corkin
-"Whirlybird" Directed by Matt Yoka / Produced by Steve Holmgren, Erin Lee Carr, Greg Lanesey and Matt Radecki
For two days, the project holders will present their rough cuts to 40 top European sales agents, distributors, festivals programmers and producers. On the third day, they will get advices and feedbacks from the screenings through one-to-one meetings with the buyers.
The awarded film will get post-production, acquisition and promotion services offered by our partners : TitraFilm, Europa Distribution, Producers Network, Ciné +, Eaux Vives Productions, Indiewire-SydneysBuzz, Centre Phi, Kickstarter and a newcomer the Studios d’Arenberg (Arenberg Creative Mine).
Us in Progress involves two yearly get-togethers and the next edition will take place in Wroclaw in October 2016 in the scope of the American Film Festival. Us in Progress Wroclaw’s submissions starts from April 6th to August 31st.
- 5/19/2016
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Lav Diaz. Photo © Bradley Liew."Cinema shows another world, a different world," says the man who, in 1896, first showed the Lumières' cinematograph in the Philippines. These lines are spoken 120 years later in Lav Diaz's majestic A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery, all eight hours of which premiered in competition at the Berlinale in an audaciously prominent gesture of support from the festival for this Filipino director's sprawling, deeply political epic of storytelling. That different world of the Lumières, that which the cinema can show, is precisely what A Lullaby envisions: the previously untold, unseen history of the outskirts of the 1896 Philippine Revolution. In other words, this movie's other world is the world, but one without such images, sounds and movement—until now.This saga shot in somber, high contrast black and white of fierce crispness and tremendous stature alternates between two groups, one all men and the other mostly women,...
- 3/1/2016
- by Daniel Kasman
- MUBI
The organizers of the Hong Kong International Film Festival (Hkiff) announced that the winners of the Berlinale 2016 will be present on this years programme.
The programme will include the winners of the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize; “Death in Sarajevo” (Bosnia-Herzegovina) by the Danis Tanovic, the winner of the Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize; “A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery” (Philippines) by Lav Diaz; and winner of the Outstanding Artistic Contribution (Cinematography); “Crosscurrent” (China) by Yang Chao.
The Hkiff will also present the winners of the Teddy Award Best Feature Film; “Tomcat” (Austria) by Handl Klaus. Both winners of the Ecumenical Prize (Forum 2016); “Barakah meets Barakah” (Saudi Arabia) by Mahmoud Sabbagh and “Those Who Jump” (Denmark) by Abou Bakar Sidibé, Estephan Wagner and Mortiz Siebert.
Last but not least the festival will screen the winners of the Golden Bear for Best Short; “Batrachian’s Ballad” (Portugal) by Leonor Teles, and...
The programme will include the winners of the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize; “Death in Sarajevo” (Bosnia-Herzegovina) by the Danis Tanovic, the winner of the Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize; “A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery” (Philippines) by Lav Diaz; and winner of the Outstanding Artistic Contribution (Cinematography); “Crosscurrent” (China) by Yang Chao.
The Hkiff will also present the winners of the Teddy Award Best Feature Film; “Tomcat” (Austria) by Handl Klaus. Both winners of the Ecumenical Prize (Forum 2016); “Barakah meets Barakah” (Saudi Arabia) by Mahmoud Sabbagh and “Those Who Jump” (Denmark) by Abou Bakar Sidibé, Estephan Wagner and Mortiz Siebert.
Last but not least the festival will screen the winners of the Golden Bear for Best Short; “Batrachian’s Ballad” (Portugal) by Leonor Teles, and...
- 2/24/2016
- by Sebastian Nadilo
- AsianMoviePulse
Cinema Tropical, the acclaimed New York-based organization dedicated to promoting Latin American cinema in the United States, is celebrating its 15th Anniversary with the 2016 edition of the Cinema Tropical Festival presented with the Museum of the Moving Image. Presenting six feature films from Argentina, Guatemala, Panama, Peru, and Puerto Rico, the festival will feature select winners and nominees from the 6th Annual Cinema Tropical Awards, which were announced at a special ceremony at the New York Times Company headquarters last month.
Founded in 2001 by Carlos A. Gutiérrez and Monika Wagenberg with the mission of distributing, programming and promoting what was to become the biggest boom of Latin American cinema in decades, Cinema Tropical has become the leading presenter of Latin American cinema in the United States. In its 15 years of existence, it has theatrically released 25 Latin American feature films, more than any other U.S. distributor, and has produced numerous film series with multiple cultural organizations. Through a diversity of programs and initiatives, Cinema Tropical is thriving as a dynamic and groundbreaking 501(c)(3) non-profit media arts organization experimenting in the creation of better and more effective strategies for the distribution and exhibition of foreign cinema in this country.
The Cinema Tropical Festival brings the best of contemporary Latin American cinema to New York City audiences, offering a chance to experience the dynamic and inventive film productions from the region. The opening night screening of "Mala Mala," winner of the Cinema Tropical Award for Best U.S. Latino Film, will be followed a Q&A with filmmakers Dan Sickles and Antonio Santini, and a 15th Anniversary celebration reception.
The festival will feature the U.S. premiere of the Tiger Award winner "Videophilia (and Other Viral Syndromes") by Juan Daniel F. Molero, which became the first Peruvian film ever to receive the top prize at the Rotterdam Film Festival, with the filmmaker in attendance. The lineup also includes the New York premieres of Juan Schnitman’s debut feature "The Fire," winner of the Best Film Award at the Transylvania Film Festival, and Abner Benaim’s "Invasión," Panama’s first film to be submitted for the Best Foreign Language Oscar.
From Guatemala, Best First Film winner and recipient of the Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize at the 2015 Berlinale, Jayro Bustamante’s "Ixcanul" will screen on Saturday. The Argentine film "Jauja" by Lisandro Alonso starring Viggo Mortensen, and winner of the Cinema Tropical for Best Latin American Film of the Year, will close out the Festival on Sunday evening.
Other winners at the Cinema Tropical included "Invasion" (Panama) for Best Documentary Film, "Ixcanul" (Guatemala) for Best First Film "Mala Mala" for Best U.S. Latino Film, Pablo Larraín ("The Club," Chile) for Best Director, Feature Film, and Betzabé García ("Kings of Nowhere," Mexico) for Best Director, Documentary.
Schedule:
"Mala Mala"
(Dan Sickles and Antonio Santini, USA/Puerto Rico, color, 87 min. In Spanish and English with English subtitles)
Winner Best U.S. Latino Film – Cinema Tropical Awards The critically acclaimed Mala Mala explores the intimate moments, performances, friendships and activism of trans identifying people, drag queens and others who defy typical gender identities in Puerto Rico. The film features Ivana, an activist; Soraya, an older sex-change pioneer; Sandy, a prostitute looking to make a change; and Samantha and Paxx, both of whom struggle with the quality of medical resources available to assist in their transition. Hailed as “Sensitive and thoughtful” by the New York Times and winner of the audience award for documentary film at the Tribeca Film Festival, Mala Mala affirms that the quest to find oneself can be both difficult and beautiful. A Strand Releasing release. Q&A with filmmakers, reception to follow.
Friday, February 26, 7:00pm
"Invasion"
(Invasión, Abner Benaim, Panama/Argentina, 2014, 93 min. In Spanish with English subtitles) New York Premiere Winner, Best Documentary – Cinema Tropical Awards Using reenactments and interviews, filmmaker Abner Benaim documents the collective memory -as well as the selective amnesia- of his fellow Panamanians around the 1989 U.S. invasion to overthrow General Manuel Noriega. The lives of the people of the Central American nation were deeply shaken by the American military incursion. Invasion–Panama’s first film to be submitted for the Best Foreign Language Oscar– is a witty and engaging documentary that talks about the perils of sovereignty, democracy and endangered virtues of today’s ultra-capitalist world. The film not only explores the mechanisms in which memory is turned into history, but holds a mirror to the present to show how the recent past shapes the current Panama.
Saturday, February 27, 12:30pm
"Ixcanul"
(Jayro Bustamante, Guatemala/France, 2015, 93 min. In Kaqchikel and Spanish with English subtitles)
Winner, Best First Film – Cinema Tropical Awards
Winner of the Berlinale’s Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize–the top honor ever won by a Central American film– Ixcanul marks the auspicious debut of Guatemalan filmmaker Jayro Bustamante. The film follows María (played by María Mercedes Coroy), a 17-year-old Mayan girl who lives and works in a coffee plantation that sits at the base of an active volcano in Guatemala. Although Maria dreams of going to the 'big city,' her condition as an indigenous woman does not permit her to change her destiny, and an arranged wedding is waiting for her. A snake bite forces her to go out into the modern world where her life is saved, but at a steep price. Ixcanul is a beautiful and poignant meditation on the clash between tradition and modernity. A Kino Lorber release.
Saturday, February 27, 3:00pm
"The Fire"
(El incendio, Juan Schnitman, Argentina, 2015, 95 min. In Spanish with English subtitles) New York Premiere Nominated, Best First Film – Cinema Tropical Awards On the way to closing the contract on their first home, Lucía and Marcelo withdraw a hundred thousand dollars in cash from their bank. The seller can’t make it to the signing and it gets postponed to the next day. Frustrated, they head back to their old place and put the money away. The next 24 hours will unveil the true nature of their love, the crisis they are in, and the violence within themselves. “A riveting chamber piece of subtle shifts and evenhanded power struggles (Variety), Schnitman’s debut feature film was the winner of the Best Film Award at the Transylvania Film Festival.
Saturday, February 27, 5:00pm
"Videophilia (And Other Viral Syndromes)"
(Videofilia (y otros síndromes virales), Juan Daniel F. Molero, Peru/USA, 2015, color, 102 min. In Spanish with English subtitles) U.S. Premiere Nominated, Best First Film – Cinema Tropical Awards The first Peruvian film to ever win the Tiger Award at the Rotterdam Film Festival, Videophilia (and Other Viral Syndromes) follows Luz, a teenage misfit from Lima who meets online Junior, a weird slacker who is obsessed with conspiracy theories, Mayan prophecies of the end of the world, and underground porn. They try to hook up in the real life but supernatural events start to unfold to guide their destinies. Set in Lima, Juan Daniel F. Molero’s exhilarating debut fiction film is a playful mashup of internet cafes, slackers, not-so-innocent schoolgirls, amateur porn, Google Glass, acid trips and guinea pigs as extras in an exorcism.
Q&A with filmmaker
Saturday, February 27, 7:00pm
"Jauja"
(Lisandro Alonso, Argentina/Denmark/France/Mexico, 2014, color, 108 min. In Danish and Spanish with English subtitles) Winner Best Fiction Film – Cinema Tropical Awards An astonishingly beautiful and gripping Western starring Viggo Mortensen, Jauja begins in a remote outpost in Patagonia during the late 1800s. Captain Gunnar Dinesen has come from abroad with his fifteen year-old daughter to take an engineering job with the Argentine army. Being the only female in the area, Ingeborg creates quite a stir among the men. She falls in love with a young soldier, and one night they run away together. When Dinesen realizes what has happened, he decides to venture into enemy territory, against his men’s wishes, to find the young couple. Featuring a superb performance from Mortensen, Jauja (the name suggests a fabled city of riches sought by European explorers) is the story of a man’s desperate search for his daughter, a solitary quest that takes him to a place beyond time, where the past vanishes and the future has no meaning. A Cinema Guild release.
Sunday, February 28, 4:30pm...
Founded in 2001 by Carlos A. Gutiérrez and Monika Wagenberg with the mission of distributing, programming and promoting what was to become the biggest boom of Latin American cinema in decades, Cinema Tropical has become the leading presenter of Latin American cinema in the United States. In its 15 years of existence, it has theatrically released 25 Latin American feature films, more than any other U.S. distributor, and has produced numerous film series with multiple cultural organizations. Through a diversity of programs and initiatives, Cinema Tropical is thriving as a dynamic and groundbreaking 501(c)(3) non-profit media arts organization experimenting in the creation of better and more effective strategies for the distribution and exhibition of foreign cinema in this country.
The Cinema Tropical Festival brings the best of contemporary Latin American cinema to New York City audiences, offering a chance to experience the dynamic and inventive film productions from the region. The opening night screening of "Mala Mala," winner of the Cinema Tropical Award for Best U.S. Latino Film, will be followed a Q&A with filmmakers Dan Sickles and Antonio Santini, and a 15th Anniversary celebration reception.
The festival will feature the U.S. premiere of the Tiger Award winner "Videophilia (and Other Viral Syndromes") by Juan Daniel F. Molero, which became the first Peruvian film ever to receive the top prize at the Rotterdam Film Festival, with the filmmaker in attendance. The lineup also includes the New York premieres of Juan Schnitman’s debut feature "The Fire," winner of the Best Film Award at the Transylvania Film Festival, and Abner Benaim’s "Invasión," Panama’s first film to be submitted for the Best Foreign Language Oscar.
From Guatemala, Best First Film winner and recipient of the Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize at the 2015 Berlinale, Jayro Bustamante’s "Ixcanul" will screen on Saturday. The Argentine film "Jauja" by Lisandro Alonso starring Viggo Mortensen, and winner of the Cinema Tropical for Best Latin American Film of the Year, will close out the Festival on Sunday evening.
Other winners at the Cinema Tropical included "Invasion" (Panama) for Best Documentary Film, "Ixcanul" (Guatemala) for Best First Film "Mala Mala" for Best U.S. Latino Film, Pablo Larraín ("The Club," Chile) for Best Director, Feature Film, and Betzabé García ("Kings of Nowhere," Mexico) for Best Director, Documentary.
Schedule:
"Mala Mala"
(Dan Sickles and Antonio Santini, USA/Puerto Rico, color, 87 min. In Spanish and English with English subtitles)
Winner Best U.S. Latino Film – Cinema Tropical Awards The critically acclaimed Mala Mala explores the intimate moments, performances, friendships and activism of trans identifying people, drag queens and others who defy typical gender identities in Puerto Rico. The film features Ivana, an activist; Soraya, an older sex-change pioneer; Sandy, a prostitute looking to make a change; and Samantha and Paxx, both of whom struggle with the quality of medical resources available to assist in their transition. Hailed as “Sensitive and thoughtful” by the New York Times and winner of the audience award for documentary film at the Tribeca Film Festival, Mala Mala affirms that the quest to find oneself can be both difficult and beautiful. A Strand Releasing release. Q&A with filmmakers, reception to follow.
Friday, February 26, 7:00pm
"Invasion"
(Invasión, Abner Benaim, Panama/Argentina, 2014, 93 min. In Spanish with English subtitles) New York Premiere Winner, Best Documentary – Cinema Tropical Awards Using reenactments and interviews, filmmaker Abner Benaim documents the collective memory -as well as the selective amnesia- of his fellow Panamanians around the 1989 U.S. invasion to overthrow General Manuel Noriega. The lives of the people of the Central American nation were deeply shaken by the American military incursion. Invasion–Panama’s first film to be submitted for the Best Foreign Language Oscar– is a witty and engaging documentary that talks about the perils of sovereignty, democracy and endangered virtues of today’s ultra-capitalist world. The film not only explores the mechanisms in which memory is turned into history, but holds a mirror to the present to show how the recent past shapes the current Panama.
Saturday, February 27, 12:30pm
"Ixcanul"
(Jayro Bustamante, Guatemala/France, 2015, 93 min. In Kaqchikel and Spanish with English subtitles)
Winner, Best First Film – Cinema Tropical Awards
Winner of the Berlinale’s Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize–the top honor ever won by a Central American film– Ixcanul marks the auspicious debut of Guatemalan filmmaker Jayro Bustamante. The film follows María (played by María Mercedes Coroy), a 17-year-old Mayan girl who lives and works in a coffee plantation that sits at the base of an active volcano in Guatemala. Although Maria dreams of going to the 'big city,' her condition as an indigenous woman does not permit her to change her destiny, and an arranged wedding is waiting for her. A snake bite forces her to go out into the modern world where her life is saved, but at a steep price. Ixcanul is a beautiful and poignant meditation on the clash between tradition and modernity. A Kino Lorber release.
Saturday, February 27, 3:00pm
"The Fire"
(El incendio, Juan Schnitman, Argentina, 2015, 95 min. In Spanish with English subtitles) New York Premiere Nominated, Best First Film – Cinema Tropical Awards On the way to closing the contract on their first home, Lucía and Marcelo withdraw a hundred thousand dollars in cash from their bank. The seller can’t make it to the signing and it gets postponed to the next day. Frustrated, they head back to their old place and put the money away. The next 24 hours will unveil the true nature of their love, the crisis they are in, and the violence within themselves. “A riveting chamber piece of subtle shifts and evenhanded power struggles (Variety), Schnitman’s debut feature film was the winner of the Best Film Award at the Transylvania Film Festival.
Saturday, February 27, 5:00pm
"Videophilia (And Other Viral Syndromes)"
(Videofilia (y otros síndromes virales), Juan Daniel F. Molero, Peru/USA, 2015, color, 102 min. In Spanish with English subtitles) U.S. Premiere Nominated, Best First Film – Cinema Tropical Awards The first Peruvian film to ever win the Tiger Award at the Rotterdam Film Festival, Videophilia (and Other Viral Syndromes) follows Luz, a teenage misfit from Lima who meets online Junior, a weird slacker who is obsessed with conspiracy theories, Mayan prophecies of the end of the world, and underground porn. They try to hook up in the real life but supernatural events start to unfold to guide their destinies. Set in Lima, Juan Daniel F. Molero’s exhilarating debut fiction film is a playful mashup of internet cafes, slackers, not-so-innocent schoolgirls, amateur porn, Google Glass, acid trips and guinea pigs as extras in an exorcism.
Q&A with filmmaker
Saturday, February 27, 7:00pm
"Jauja"
(Lisandro Alonso, Argentina/Denmark/France/Mexico, 2014, color, 108 min. In Danish and Spanish with English subtitles) Winner Best Fiction Film – Cinema Tropical Awards An astonishingly beautiful and gripping Western starring Viggo Mortensen, Jauja begins in a remote outpost in Patagonia during the late 1800s. Captain Gunnar Dinesen has come from abroad with his fifteen year-old daughter to take an engineering job with the Argentine army. Being the only female in the area, Ingeborg creates quite a stir among the men. She falls in love with a young soldier, and one night they run away together. When Dinesen realizes what has happened, he decides to venture into enemy territory, against his men’s wishes, to find the young couple. Featuring a superb performance from Mortensen, Jauja (the name suggests a fabled city of riches sought by European explorers) is the story of a man’s desperate search for his daughter, a solitary quest that takes him to a place beyond time, where the past vanishes and the future has no meaning. A Cinema Guild release.
Sunday, February 28, 4:30pm...
- 2/22/2016
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
The Berlin International Film Festival continued to challenge expectations in its 66th edition, landing another auteur heavy competition line-up, albeit a slightly less sensational one than the landmark 2015 program. Although an attempt continues to be made to establish grand motifs between films in competition and the more experimental sidebars, topical issues seemed to be the name of the game across the board, particularly immigration. This culminated with this year’s Golden Bear winner, Gianfranco Rosi’s Fire at Sea, a documentary which was the clear early favorite and remained so up until the awards ceremony. Rosi has now won two major film festivals with his documentary work (previously taking home the top prize at Venice 2013 for Sacro Gra), and further solidifies an argument for the Cannes Film Festival to follow suit and allow documentary titles to play in the main competition. Berlin notably had two documentaries in the main competition this year,...
- 2/22/2016
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
The Berlin International Film Festival has wrapped up for another year with the big awards handed out last night. Meryl Streep led this year's jury which handed over the top award of the Golden Bear to Gianfranco Rosi's refugee documentary "Fire At Sea".
That film explores the journey undertaken by immigrants from Africa, the Middle East and Asia as they risk their lives to reach the Italian island of Lampedusa - with ultimately the hope of making it to mainland Europe. It beat out the likes of Jeff Nichols' "Midnight Special," Vincent Perez's "Alone in Berlin," and Michael Grandage's "Genius".
The Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize went to Danis Tanovic's Bosnian drama "Death in Sarajevo" which follows a staff and guests of a hotel hosting an international diplomatic delegation. The Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize went to Lav Diaz's eight-hour Filipino drama film "A...
That film explores the journey undertaken by immigrants from Africa, the Middle East and Asia as they risk their lives to reach the Italian island of Lampedusa - with ultimately the hope of making it to mainland Europe. It beat out the likes of Jeff Nichols' "Midnight Special," Vincent Perez's "Alone in Berlin," and Michael Grandage's "Genius".
The Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize went to Danis Tanovic's Bosnian drama "Death in Sarajevo" which follows a staff and guests of a hotel hosting an international diplomatic delegation. The Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize went to Lav Diaz's eight-hour Filipino drama film "A...
- 2/21/2016
- by Garth Franklin
- Dark Horizons
International Jury
Silver Bear “Alfred Bauer” Prize
Hele sa Hiwagang Hapis (A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery) by Lav Diaz
Philippines | 2016 – 485 min.
Andrés Bonifacio y de Castro is considered to be one of the most influential proponents in the struggle against Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines during the late nineteenth century. Today, he is still celebrated as the father of the Philippine Revolution. Director Lav Diaz examines this myth and undertakes another expedition into the eventful history of his native land. The film’s various loosely interwoven narrative threads are held together by an exploration of the role of the individual in history and their involvement in political and social developments. Bonifacio’s widow is searching for her husband’s missing dead body; as she and her followers stumble deeper into the jungle, they become entangled in the dense thicket of their own guilt and responsibility. The Spanish governor...
Silver Bear “Alfred Bauer” Prize
Hele sa Hiwagang Hapis (A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery) by Lav Diaz
Philippines | 2016 – 485 min.
Andrés Bonifacio y de Castro is considered to be one of the most influential proponents in the struggle against Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines during the late nineteenth century. Today, he is still celebrated as the father of the Philippine Revolution. Director Lav Diaz examines this myth and undertakes another expedition into the eventful history of his native land. The film’s various loosely interwoven narrative threads are held together by an exploration of the role of the individual in history and their involvement in political and social developments. Bonifacio’s widow is searching for her husband’s missing dead body; as she and her followers stumble deeper into the jungle, they become entangled in the dense thicket of their own guilt and responsibility. The Spanish governor...
- 2/21/2016
- by Sebastian Nadilo
- AsianMoviePulse
'Fire At Sea' Takes Golden Bear At Berlin Film Festival, Mia Hansen-Love Wins Best Director And More
You never know which way the jury is going to swing at any given festival, and while our intrepid Jessica Kiang hit as many of the big titles as possible at the Berlin International Film Festival, two of the big awards winners just didn't make her schedule. But the honors given these pictures means they'll be on our radar as they are likely to make more appearances on the festival schedule this year. Read More: Check Out All Of Our 2016 Berlin International Film Festival Coverage Here The Meryl Streep-led jury awarded the Golden Bear for Best Film to the refugee documentary "Fire At Sea," while the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize went to Danis Tanovic's "Death In Sarajevo." Elsewhere, Lav Diaz's eight-hour "A Lullaby To The Sorrowful Mystery" picked up the Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize for a feature film that opens new perspectives, while other prizes...
- 2/20/2016
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
Gianfranco Rosi’s migrant documentary Fire At Sea (Fuocoammare) took home the Golden Bear for Best Film at the Berlin Film Festival, which handed out its competition awards on Saturday night.Click here for full list of winners
Italian-American Rosi - who won the Golden Lion in Venice for his documentary Sacro Gra in 2013 - spent months on the island of Lampedusa capturing the everyday lives of its 6,000-strong population.
Situated closer to Africa than Europe, the Italian island of Lampedusa is one of the first points of call for hundreds of thousands of African and Middle Eastern refugees and migrants hoping to make a new life in Europe.
The film was a critics favourite during the Berlinale, leading the Screen Jury Grid into the final weekend of the festival, however during an interview with Screen director Rosi admitted a fear that his film might divide viewers.
Fire At Sea proved a hot seller for Doc & Film...
Italian-American Rosi - who won the Golden Lion in Venice for his documentary Sacro Gra in 2013 - spent months on the island of Lampedusa capturing the everyday lives of its 6,000-strong population.
Situated closer to Africa than Europe, the Italian island of Lampedusa is one of the first points of call for hundreds of thousands of African and Middle Eastern refugees and migrants hoping to make a new life in Europe.
The film was a critics favourite during the Berlinale, leading the Screen Jury Grid into the final weekend of the festival, however during an interview with Screen director Rosi admitted a fear that his film might divide viewers.
Fire At Sea proved a hot seller for Doc & Film...
- 2/20/2016
- by andreas.wiseman@screendaily.com (Andreas Wiseman)
- ScreenDaily
Documentary Fire At Sea wins Golden Bear; Death In Sarajevo wins Jury PrizeWinners of 66th Berlin International Film FestivalGolden Bear for Best Film
Fire At Sea (It-Fr), dir. Gianfranco Rosi
Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize
Death In Sarajevo (Fr-Bos), dir. Danis Tanovic
Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize
A Lullaby To The Sorrowful Mystery (Phil-Sing), dir. Lav Diaz
Silver Bear for Best Director
Mia Hansen-Love for Things To Come
Silver Bear for Best Actress
Trine Dyrholm in The Commune
Silver Bear for Best Actor
Majd Mastoura in Hedi
Silver Bear for Best Script
Tomasz Wasilewski for United States Of Love (Pol-Swe), dir. Tomasz Wasilewski
Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution
Mark Lee Ping-bing for cinematography of Crosscurrent (China), dir. Yang Chao
Best First Feature Award (€50,000)
Hedi (Tun-Bel-Fr), Mohamed Ben Attia
Golden Bear for Best Short Film
Batrachian’s Ballad (Balada de um Batráquio), Leonor Teles, Portugal
Berlin Short Film Nominee for the EFAs
A Man Returned, [link...
Fire At Sea (It-Fr), dir. Gianfranco Rosi
Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize
Death In Sarajevo (Fr-Bos), dir. Danis Tanovic
Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize
A Lullaby To The Sorrowful Mystery (Phil-Sing), dir. Lav Diaz
Silver Bear for Best Director
Mia Hansen-Love for Things To Come
Silver Bear for Best Actress
Trine Dyrholm in The Commune
Silver Bear for Best Actor
Majd Mastoura in Hedi
Silver Bear for Best Script
Tomasz Wasilewski for United States Of Love (Pol-Swe), dir. Tomasz Wasilewski
Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution
Mark Lee Ping-bing for cinematography of Crosscurrent (China), dir. Yang Chao
Best First Feature Award (€50,000)
Hedi (Tun-Bel-Fr), Mohamed Ben Attia
Golden Bear for Best Short Film
Batrachian’s Ballad (Balada de um Batráquio), Leonor Teles, Portugal
Berlin Short Film Nominee for the EFAs
A Man Returned, [link...
- 2/20/2016
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
The Golden and Silver Bears are set to be awarded shortly. Keep up with the latest here…
Refresh the page for the latest
Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize
Death In Sarajevo (Fr-Bos), dir. Danis Tanovic
Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize
A Lullaby To The Sorrowful Mystery (Phil-Sing), dir. Lav Diaz
Silver Bear for Best Director
Mia Hansen-Love for Things To Come
Silver Bear for Best Actress
Trine Dyrholm in The Commune
Silver Bear for Best Actor
Majd Mastoura in Hedi
Silver Bear for Best Script
Tomasz Wasilewski for United States Of Love (Pol-Swe), dir. Tomasz Wasilewski
Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution
Mark Lee Ping-bing for cinematography of Crosscurrent (China), dir. Yang Chao
Best First Feature Award (€50,000)
Hedi (Tun-Bel-Fr), Mohamed Ben Attia
Golden Bear for Best Short Film
Batrachian’s Ballad (Balada de um Batráquio), Leonor Teles, Portugal
Berlin Short Film Nominee for the EFAs
A Man Returned, Mahdi Fleifel (UK-Neth-Den)
Audi Short Film Award (€20,000)
Anchorage...
Refresh the page for the latest
Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize
Death In Sarajevo (Fr-Bos), dir. Danis Tanovic
Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize
A Lullaby To The Sorrowful Mystery (Phil-Sing), dir. Lav Diaz
Silver Bear for Best Director
Mia Hansen-Love for Things To Come
Silver Bear for Best Actress
Trine Dyrholm in The Commune
Silver Bear for Best Actor
Majd Mastoura in Hedi
Silver Bear for Best Script
Tomasz Wasilewski for United States Of Love (Pol-Swe), dir. Tomasz Wasilewski
Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution
Mark Lee Ping-bing for cinematography of Crosscurrent (China), dir. Yang Chao
Best First Feature Award (€50,000)
Hedi (Tun-Bel-Fr), Mohamed Ben Attia
Golden Bear for Best Short Film
Batrachian’s Ballad (Balada de um Batráquio), Leonor Teles, Portugal
Berlin Short Film Nominee for the EFAs
A Man Returned, Mahdi Fleifel (UK-Neth-Den)
Audi Short Film Award (€20,000)
Anchorage...
- 2/20/2016
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
Zama
Director: Lucrecia Martel
Writer: Lucrecia Martel
Argentinean director Lucrecia Martel has become one of her country’s most prolific filmmakers with three outstanding titles to her name, beginning with 2001’s La Cienega (where she won the Alfred Bauer film award in Berlin, and the title recently became part of the Criterion selection), 2004’s The Holy Girl, and the coolly received The Headless Woman in 2008, which has been critically recuperated since. Her latest, Zama, is a parody, according to Martel and is based on the highly regarded 1956 novel by Antonio di Benedetto focusing on Diego de Zama, an officer of the Spanish crown. While endlessly waiting for a transfer to Buenos Aires, he joins a party of soldiers hunting down a bandit before absconding to less regulated realms where he is allowed to live freely. The project is one of the most ambitious Us-Latin America-Euro co-productions in the country’s history.
Director: Lucrecia Martel
Writer: Lucrecia Martel
Argentinean director Lucrecia Martel has become one of her country’s most prolific filmmakers with three outstanding titles to her name, beginning with 2001’s La Cienega (where she won the Alfred Bauer film award in Berlin, and the title recently became part of the Criterion selection), 2004’s The Holy Girl, and the coolly received The Headless Woman in 2008, which has been critically recuperated since. Her latest, Zama, is a parody, according to Martel and is based on the highly regarded 1956 novel by Antonio di Benedetto focusing on Diego de Zama, an officer of the Spanish crown. While endlessly waiting for a transfer to Buenos Aires, he joins a party of soldiers hunting down a bandit before absconding to less regulated realms where he is allowed to live freely. The project is one of the most ambitious Us-Latin America-Euro co-productions in the country’s history.
- 1/14/2016
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Boris Sans Beatrice
Director: Denis Côté
Writer: Denis Côté
French Canadian auteur Denis Côté fluctuates steadily between feature films and documentary, tending to win critical acclaim in either category. After winning Best Director at Locarno in 2008 for All That She Wants and again in 2011 for Curling he went to Sundance with the 2012 documentary Bestiaire and then scooped up the Alfred Bauer Award in Berlin for Vic+Flo Saw a Bear (2013). His latest, Boris Sans Beatrice concerns businessman Boris Malinovsky, who falls into a spiritual and moral funk when visited by a mysterious stranger (the enigmatic Denis Lavant).
Cast: James Hyndman, Denis Lavant, Simone-Elise Girard
Production Co./Producers: Metafilms’ Sylvain Corbeil & Nancy Grant (Mommy)
U.S. Distributor: Rights Available. Tbd (domestic). Films Boutique (international).
Release Date: Cote will be competing in competition at the 2016 Berlin Film Festival.
Director: Denis Côté
Writer: Denis Côté
French Canadian auteur Denis Côté fluctuates steadily between feature films and documentary, tending to win critical acclaim in either category. After winning Best Director at Locarno in 2008 for All That She Wants and again in 2011 for Curling he went to Sundance with the 2012 documentary Bestiaire and then scooped up the Alfred Bauer Award in Berlin for Vic+Flo Saw a Bear (2013). His latest, Boris Sans Beatrice concerns businessman Boris Malinovsky, who falls into a spiritual and moral funk when visited by a mysterious stranger (the enigmatic Denis Lavant).
Cast: James Hyndman, Denis Lavant, Simone-Elise Girard
Production Co./Producers: Metafilms’ Sylvain Corbeil & Nancy Grant (Mommy)
U.S. Distributor: Rights Available. Tbd (domestic). Films Boutique (international).
Release Date: Cote will be competing in competition at the 2016 Berlin Film Festival.
- 1/10/2016
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
With visually poetic sensibilities and naturalistic performances, director Jayro Bustamante crafted an authentic coming-of-age story centered on a Mayan Kaqchikel girl in his spellbinding feature debut "Ixcanul." Through the mystical beliefs and humble lifestyle of his homeland's indigenous people, Bustamante tackles larger sociopolitical concerns that leave the Mayan population, in particular women, isolated and perpetuate discrimination. Masterfully intimate and spectacularly shot, "Ixcanul" is the most important Latin American debut of the year and one that American audiences should seek out when it hits theaters stateside in 2016.
Among numerous prizes around the world, the film won the Alfred Bauer Award at this year's Berlinale and was selected as Guatemala's Oscar entry in the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 88th Academy Awards.
"Ixcanul" will have its New York premiere on Friday January 8,2016 as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Neighboring Scenes: New Latin American Cinema festival co-presented with Cinema Tropical.
Kino Lorber is planning a first quarter release for the film.
Read More: 'Ixcanul' Director Jayro Bustamante on the Strength of Mayan Women and Guatemala's Indigenous Majority
Here is the official synopsis:
In this dreamlike fusion of documentary and fable, two young, impoverished Mayan lovers escape from their servitude on a remote Guatemalan coffee plantation and attempt to make their way to the United States.
Maria, a 17-year-old Mayan girl, lives and works with her parents on a coffee plantation in the foothills of an active volcano (which translates to Ixcanul, in the Mayan language) in Guatemala. An arranged marriage awaits her, as she has been promised to the plantation overseer by her parents. But Maria has other plans for her life.
Pepe, an ambitious young coffee cutter who intends to migrate to the Us, becomes the way out of her constrained world.
Maria seduces Pepe in order to run away with him, but after promises and clandestine meetings, Pepe leaves her pregnant, alone and in disgrace. After several attempts to terminate her unwanted pregnancy (using her mother’s ancestral knowledge) fail to work, Maria finds herself with a new set of challenges in her future.
Among numerous prizes around the world, the film won the Alfred Bauer Award at this year's Berlinale and was selected as Guatemala's Oscar entry in the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 88th Academy Awards.
"Ixcanul" will have its New York premiere on Friday January 8,2016 as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Neighboring Scenes: New Latin American Cinema festival co-presented with Cinema Tropical.
Kino Lorber is planning a first quarter release for the film.
Read More: 'Ixcanul' Director Jayro Bustamante on the Strength of Mayan Women and Guatemala's Indigenous Majority
Here is the official synopsis:
In this dreamlike fusion of documentary and fable, two young, impoverished Mayan lovers escape from their servitude on a remote Guatemalan coffee plantation and attempt to make their way to the United States.
Maria, a 17-year-old Mayan girl, lives and works with her parents on a coffee plantation in the foothills of an active volcano (which translates to Ixcanul, in the Mayan language) in Guatemala. An arranged marriage awaits her, as she has been promised to the plantation overseer by her parents. But Maria has other plans for her life.
Pepe, an ambitious young coffee cutter who intends to migrate to the Us, becomes the way out of her constrained world.
Maria seduces Pepe in order to run away with him, but after promises and clandestine meetings, Pepe leaves her pregnant, alone and in disgrace. After several attempts to terminate her unwanted pregnancy (using her mother’s ancestral knowledge) fail to work, Maria finds herself with a new set of challenges in her future.
- 12/22/2015
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Sydney's Buzz
Michael Grandage’s Genius, starring Colin Firth, Jude Law and Nicole Kidman; Jeff Nichols’ Midnight Special; new Alex Gibney doc to world premiere at festival.
The first nine films for the 66th Berlin International Film Festival (Feb 11-21) Competition and Berlinale Special programme have been revealed.
The Competition titles - all world premieres - include Genius, the debut feature of celebrated British theatre director Michael Grandage, which stars Colin Firth, Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, Laura Linney, Guy Pearce and Dominic West.
Adapted by playwright and screenwriter John Logan (Skyfall) from A. Scott Berg’s book, Genius tells the true story of the complex relationship between literary giant Thomas Wolfe (Law) and Scribner’s iconic editor Max Perkins (Firth).
Also in Competition is Midnight Special, the anticipated new feature from Jeff Nichols, director of Mud and Take Shelter. The film centres on a father and son who go on the run after the dad learns his child possesses...
The first nine films for the 66th Berlin International Film Festival (Feb 11-21) Competition and Berlinale Special programme have been revealed.
The Competition titles - all world premieres - include Genius, the debut feature of celebrated British theatre director Michael Grandage, which stars Colin Firth, Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, Laura Linney, Guy Pearce and Dominic West.
Adapted by playwright and screenwriter John Logan (Skyfall) from A. Scott Berg’s book, Genius tells the true story of the complex relationship between literary giant Thomas Wolfe (Law) and Scribner’s iconic editor Max Perkins (Firth).
Also in Competition is Midnight Special, the anticipated new feature from Jeff Nichols, director of Mud and Take Shelter. The film centres on a father and son who go on the run after the dad learns his child possesses...
- 12/11/2015
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
"Ixcanul" is Guatemala's Official Submission in the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 88th Academy Awards. Isa: Film Factory Entertainment. U.S. Distributor: Kino Lorber
Ingrained millenary practices and forbidding modern concerns unfold simultaneously against the backdrop of dark volcanic stone, colorful attires, rural duties, and perpetual mysticism, in a film that’s as aesthetically exquisite as it’s gruelingly bold in its quest to be fueled by unrestrained reality. Jayro Bustamante’s “Ixcanul” is an ethereal masterpiece whose breathtaking beauty is layered with sociopolitical undertones while always honoring the indigenous people at its center and, more specifically, its women's unwavering and restrained strength waiting to be unleashed.
This profoundly affecting story follows Maria (María Mercedes Coroy), a Kaqchikel Mayan young woman, who lives with her parents near in the outskirts of a volcano near a coffee plantation. This land, its scent, its colors, and its people are all she’s ever known and all she’s ever wanted until now. When an arranged marriage threatens to put an end to her apparent freedom, Maria considers the possibility of venturing far from home and seeing what’s beyond the mountains, but her naïve eagerness to escape will place her in the crossfire between romantic betrayal, dangerous rituals, and the unwelcoming urban world.
Bustamante juxtaposes Maria’s unnerving coming of age story with her mother Juana’s (María Telón) efforts to salvage the family’s future by abiding by tradition. Within these two parallel experiences there is an urgency to bring attention to the vulnerability of Guatemala’s Mayan population who are rarely given a voice.“Ixcanul” is a fierce artistic triumph coated with complexity, subtle poetry, and a delicate ability for capturing its characters’ introspective dilemmas through its imagery. Such showcase of attuned sensibilities is expected from a seasoned auteur at the peak of his creative powers, but Jayro Bustamante has accomplished just that with his astonishing debut feature. No wonder “Ixcanul” is Guatemala’s most acclaimed film ever and the winner of numerous international awards including the Alfred Bauer Award at the Berlin International Film festival.
We talked to Bustamante about the his relationship to the Mayan community where the film was shot, the male chauvinist societies that hinder women’s growth, his homeland’s institutionalize discrimination against indigenous people, and the incomparable visual allure of “Ixcanul.”
Kino Lorber will release "Ixcanul" in early 2016.
Carlos Aguilar: The film focuses on these two women who are every strong in distinct ways; however, they are faced with extraordinary circumstances that test that strength. How did the idea to write a story about these two connected characters come about?
Jayro Bustamante: The idea was born from a real story, the story of a real Maria. What’s really inspired in her life is the third act, the problematic situation with the baby. Based on that I started to create this fictional screenplay but always grounded on real things that I had seen in Guatemala. I grew up in that region and I asked myself, “How does one become the perfect victim?” just as Maria is in the film. That’s how I started building this story. I had two very clear themes I wanted to work on: one was loss and the other maternity. In order for the loss and that sort of prohibition to become a mother that is imposed on Maria to feel as powerful as they do in the movie, I needed to construct a kind of maternity that was beautiful, without idealizing it but highlighting it. That’s why I created the relationship between these two women. Throughout the process I always worked with the actresses as if the two characters were one. We always thought that Maria, if she had been given the chance, would have become Juana. She would have been just as strong as her. That’s how we worked on these two characters.
While Juana is the matriarch and often appears to be charge, she still lives in a male-driven society where her needs and desires are secondary to those of the men around. Was it important for you to depict the internal strength of these Mayan women while also being honest about the world they live in?
Jayro Bustamante: From the beginning my intention was to adhere to reality, except for the magical realist touches that I also wanted the film to have because they were very important. Magical realism doesn’t work if the real reality doesn’t exist. There is a great contradiction in male chauvinist societies, and that is that they are usually composed of matriarchal groups. A woman reigns but she always reigns in a small space that the man left for her. She reigns when the man needs someone to be in charge of things that he doesn’t want to take care of. For me that matriarchy is till is part of this male chauvinism or "machismo" and that matriarchy continues to feed it. If I’m against male chauvinism, I should also be against matriarchy because both extremes are bad and one is derived from the other.
What I really wanted to demonstrate was that there is a waste of feminine energy that happens in male chauvinist societies.To get from point A to point B, a woman has to embark on an incredible journey through everything that’s in between these two points and have a great strategy to be able to get there. This journey would be so much easier if we would let her take those steps and then with her own strength she can get wherever she wants to go. I wanted to talk about that strength and that’s why there is that parallel relationship between Maria and the volcano. There is something symbolic about it. For me, Mayan women in Guatemala today are like that volcano that rumbles and resounds but hasn’t yet erupted. Real change will happen when these women erupt and release what they have inside. That’s the metaphor we wanted to convey, the connection between these women and the volcano.
One of the greatest achievements of the film is that it refrains from observing the characters from an ethnographic perspective or with an air of exoticism. These are people. Yes, people with different traditions and experiences from what many consider normal, but they are still as human as anybody else.
Jayro Bustamante: Definitely. I never had that temptation or that perspective because I grew up there, so for me there is no difference between us. I wouldn’t do it with any other culture. That’s something I can’t understand, to think there are people that one can observe like if they were in a zoo. I don’t think that’s right. Rich cultural differences show us the diversity that exists in the world, but if you explore any of these differences you’ll see that we all have the same human feelings. That’s what allowed me to make a story that was very local but that at the same time could have certain international repercussion. I wrote a film about a woman whose problems take us into the problems of a family and that in turn takes us into the larger social problems. That’s what we wanted to do from the beginnings. That can’t be done if the feelings that belong to the universal language are not present.
Indigenous languages are rarely used in modern cinema and because of this indigenous people have in a sense become both faceless and voiceless. How crucial was it for you to make the film in the Mayan language?
Jayro Bustamante: It was very important. Perhaps there is a bit of melancholy because as I said I grew up there. I had a nanny that taught me a lot of things, a lot of traditional stories, and who also taught me that language when I was a young child. Maybe this melancholy is there, but above all this, language is the clearest example to demonstrate how a large portion of the country lives without the tools to grow and evolve in its own country. They are foreigners in their own country, but they are the majority. Today statistics say that these people represent only 40% of the Guatemalan population, but that’s a lie. Discrimination is so strong that if you are Mayan and during the census or on a survey they ask you, “Are you Mayan?” you prefer to say that you are mestizo or mixed because you are ashamed to say who you really are. The social fracture is so big that in Guatemala the worse insult you can tell somebody is calling him or her an “Indian.”
Something similar happens in Mexico, where I'm from. People tend to associate indigenous languages, features, or traditions with negative ideas or as something that's less sophisticated or worthy, which is terrible.
Jayro Bustamante: When you think about it, if the worse insult is to be who you are, even if you are the majority in a country, it means that the majority of the country has a terrible complex regarding their identity. If you are trying to improve yourself or overcome this circumstances, these ideas make very complicated emotionally. There are many themes that we touch on in the film that are derived from discrimination. When I travel abroad I get asked a lot, “Why does Pepe want to go to the Us?” Maybe you and I can understand why this young man wants to leave. The reason why he wants to leave is obvious to those of us who are from countries like Mexico and Guatemala. He earns one dollar a day in Guatemala and in the U.S. he could earn, let’s say, $15 an hour. It’s true that in the U.S. he could be discriminated for being Latino, but he is already being discriminated in Guatemala, his own country, because his Mayan. He has a lot more to win than to lose by leaving. That’s very sad.
Tell me about the process of finding your actors and how challenging this was. You evidently needed people who were Mayan and who spoke the language, but also that could pull off the intricate performances the film required.
Jayro Bustamante: That was the most beautiful part of the process, to work with the actors. I started hosting workshops, more regarding social issues, in the place were I grew up. I grew up in the outskirts of the Atitlán Lake in the highlands, which is a volcanic lake. It’s about two hours away from the location where we were going to shoot. I was accompanied by a social worker. The idea was to open spaces to discuss the problems facing the Mayan community so that the social worker could hear their concerns and follow up. This would help me enrich the screenplay and find the actresses there.
In a way this also reflected the reality of the country, although there were many women that were interested in working with me, there were also many of them that didn’t want to be part of the project. I thought all of them would want to, but I was wrong, a lot of them didn’t. Those that I wanted to work with and that wanted to work with me had another problem. Their husbands, their brother, their sons, or any other male in charge wouldn’t give them permissions to participate. They couldn’t come be part of the project because they had to stay home to serve them.
While this was happening and we were trying to figure things out, I met Maria Telón, who plays Juana. She is part of a street theater group. It’s a militant theater group that advocates for indigenous rights and women rights. They were putting on a play at that time, and I started following her performances from town to town. When we finally got to her community, I discovered that this community is very prosperous and very curious about the arts. I decided to stay there to do the casting. We held auditions at the local market. We set up our own stand among fruits and vegetable stands and we put up a sign that said, “Casting.” We had a camera and a notepad. Nobody came.
The next day we change the sign to, “Help Wanted,” and the entire town came. Thanks to that we were able to meet everyone in town and that’s where we cast the actors. We worked with them for threes months before filming the first scene. It was a very enriching process because besides the fact that they were Kaqchikel Mayans they had nothing in common with the characters. They live in a very prosperous society with all the basic services. Maria Mercedes is a student and Maria Telón is an actress and a saleswoman. She has a very different life form the character of the mother. Manuel Antún, the man who played Maria’s father, is a dentist, and Marvin Coroy, the guy who plays El Pepe, is a poet. We really did a lot of work to characterize this family so they could really look like a family and like they live in this very different situation.
Once you had cast them, what was your approach to eliciting the emotions you wanted from the actors. María Mercedes Coroy's performance in particular is very quiet but marvelously moving.
Jayro Bustamante: We didn’t have a particular technique. We worked a lot on trusting one another. With Maria Mercedes we worked on her confidence as a woman. It wasn’t that she wasn’t a confident woman, but we talked a lot about the strength that she had within herself. She was worried about playing a character that might falsely seem passive. It’s not that the character is passive, but on paper it might seem that way because everything is internalized. I believe this is one of the hardest types of characters to bring to life. We also worked on the power of her gaze. She allowed me to explore her personal life and her past in order to find in her own experiences emotions she could use while we were shooting. One week we decided to kiss tress. We went to a forest and we decided to kiss trees. She started kissing tress on one side of the forest and I did it in the other. In the end we ended up kissing the same one [Laughs]. It was about earning each other trust and losing all shame.
Visually the film is absolutely breathtaking. There is the natural beauty of the locations and a very evocative atmosphere throughout the entire film. How did you and your Dp, Luis Armando Arteaga, approach to the cinematography and minimalist aesthetic of the story, which is definitely a fantastic element of "Ixcanul"?
Jayro Bustamante: We’ve known each other for along time. We worked together on my last short film and we have developed other projects together. He is someone who has a vision of cinema that goes beyond that of a Dp. We did something very interesting, which was to go to a festival that’s sort of like the Cannes Film Festival for short films. It’s called Clermont-Ferrand International Film Festival. We were there for a week watching all the short films. Our interest was to watch as many as possible because filmmakers are more daring when making short films. There are new technologies that they are willing to try on short films and there is less financial risk. You can watch a lot of them in a short period of time. A big part of our job was watching these short films.
After that we talked a lot about the trap that this location could be because it’s a really beautiful location. You can drop your camera by accident and the photo that’s taken is already a postcard. Of course, I’m exaggerating but it’s really that beautiful. We talked about finding that postcard-like image and getting as far away from it as possible. We wanted to stay within the characters’ intimacy. We both really wanted to shoot it on 16mm, and we couldn’t because of financial constraints, so we shot it on a digital camera. Since we shot on digital, we did a lot of work to create that grainy quality that film gives you. We used the volcano’s dust and a lot of smoke. We had someone who would create smoke for every scene. Every single scene you see in the film had smoke, in varying densities, but they all had smoke. Then we were able to do the post-production in France in one of the best studios, which was amazing.
There is a certain mysticism to the story that we see through several rituals and this community's connection to nature, and the volcano in particular. Tell me about including these otherworldly beliefs and spiritual offerings in the narrative. Why did you feel they were an important characteristic of this society?
Jayro Bustamante: All of these elements are things that I’ve seen myself or that still exist. In terms of the mysticism, for me, instead of trying to tell a spiritual story I wanted to tell a purely religious story. There is a Mayan religion today that’s a mix between Catholicism and the Mayan beliefs that remained after the Spanish empire fell. My characters live in a grave situation, one in which the only thing they do is try resolve their multiple problems. That’s why whenever a new problem arrives they act in such a tolerant manner, because they can’t add fuel to the fire. What they have to do is put it out. When you are in situations like these, normally human beings have the tendency to seek answers and hope in something bigger than them. If they were a Catholic family I would have focused on the Catholic religion. I wanted to also talk about the problem with religions. Religions are dogmas and rules represented by a leader that could lead you into the wrong path. This was the message. It was more of a religious message than a spiritual or Mayan message.
Regarding the rituals you see in the film, they are all based on rituals that are still being practiced today. Even us, before shooting we would lit a sacred fire to ask the volcano for permission. When we shot in the coffee plantation we also had a sacred fire there. It’s a very nice thing because you lit a fire and the ceremony lasts till the fire extinguishes by itself. It’s the fire that tells you when the ceremony is over. In the meantime you are sharing energy with the people around you. You tell the earth what you are going to be doing there. It’s about communicating and about the energy flow. When the fire is out you end up way too relaxed, so we started substituting the sacred fires for the yoga exercises. [Laughs]. It’s very interesting and it’s something that’s still done all the time.
In the final act you take your characters out of their community and expose them to urban Guatemala. In that moment these two worlds seem to clash and how little their know about each other.
Jayro Bustamante: The film was constructed in crescendo from the beginning. I was lucky enough to conceive the ending very early on in the process and because of this I started working backwards towards the beginning of the story. Instead of wanting to say, “Oh poor indigenous people” or “Wow these westerners are terrible,” what I wanted to talk about was the lack of social tools they have and how in this country a large segment of the population is left without basic services. Well, in Guatemala today even people who have all the tools and resources can still be left without the basic services because politicians stole all the money and nothing is working. But for indigenous people things are even worse. They are even lower in the list of the government’s priorities. That was the intention behind taking the characters out of their environment and into the city.
Has the film started a conversation or a dialogue regarding about discrimination and other issues currently affecting this segment of the population and Guatemala in general?
Jayro Bustamante: Yes, I’m really amazed about it. When I started speaking to the press in Guatemala about the film, I said that Guatemalans needed to learn how to watch films because it appeared to me that people were unable to analyze films. When “Ixcanul” opened in movie theaters it became a small success considering that it’s an art house film. We were in theaters for 7 weeks, which was great. After that, I found a lot reviews and articles about the film written by Guatemalans. These were profound analyzes and very well written.
Some were very self-critical regarding the country’s situation. I realized that I was wrong, Guatemalans are able to do these analyzes, but they get to see very few films that warrant it. You are not going to write a profound analysis about “Fast and Furious,” there is not much to analyze there. You watch it and you talk about it candidly, but you don’t spend much time thinking about an American blockbuster. That was very surprising and very gratifying for me, to see that people in Guatemala wrote criticism and self-analyze the country through the film. Soon after the film’s premier one of the most important newspapers in Guatemala published an article entitled, Ixcanul is a Slap on Guatemala’s Face. The journalist wrote about the country’s current social situation in relation to the film.
When you are in another country does it surprise you that perhaps your film is the first contact people abroad have with Guatemala as a country and even more so with its cinema? "Ixcanul" is by far the most talked about and the most internationally acclaimed Guatemalan film ever.
Jayro Bustamante: No, it doesn’t surprise me that we are not a very well known country or that we are country only known because of the difficult political situations we are going through. It doesn’t surprise me because we as a country haven’t done anything for this to be different. Everything we’ve done prompted people outside to see us just the way they see us. It’s what we deserve in a sense. We are also a very small country. When it comes to tourism we are very interesting country, but we are very small country that has been in an arm conflict for so long that obviously tourists don’t come. Then there are all the problems with the gangs, cartels, kidnappings, and all the other bad things you can think of.
It’s understandable that we are not well known. At first I believed that the point of entry could be the Mayan civilization because I thought that would be well known abroad, and I’ve realized that not so much. There is still a lot to teach and share about Guatemala with the world, which is good. Something that I still find especially surprising is this idea that the Mayans disappeared or vanished. It’s crazy to me that people still believe that, but I can understand why. It’s very interesting to me that people around world, even in places as far as Japan, connect with the emotions that the film exudes. That’s the nicest compliment. I’ve also had people in other countries tell me, “You are the firs Guatemalan I’ve ever seen.” I tell them, “Touch me! I’m real” [Laughs].
Kino Lorber will release "Ixcanul" in early 2016.
Ingrained millenary practices and forbidding modern concerns unfold simultaneously against the backdrop of dark volcanic stone, colorful attires, rural duties, and perpetual mysticism, in a film that’s as aesthetically exquisite as it’s gruelingly bold in its quest to be fueled by unrestrained reality. Jayro Bustamante’s “Ixcanul” is an ethereal masterpiece whose breathtaking beauty is layered with sociopolitical undertones while always honoring the indigenous people at its center and, more specifically, its women's unwavering and restrained strength waiting to be unleashed.
This profoundly affecting story follows Maria (María Mercedes Coroy), a Kaqchikel Mayan young woman, who lives with her parents near in the outskirts of a volcano near a coffee plantation. This land, its scent, its colors, and its people are all she’s ever known and all she’s ever wanted until now. When an arranged marriage threatens to put an end to her apparent freedom, Maria considers the possibility of venturing far from home and seeing what’s beyond the mountains, but her naïve eagerness to escape will place her in the crossfire between romantic betrayal, dangerous rituals, and the unwelcoming urban world.
Bustamante juxtaposes Maria’s unnerving coming of age story with her mother Juana’s (María Telón) efforts to salvage the family’s future by abiding by tradition. Within these two parallel experiences there is an urgency to bring attention to the vulnerability of Guatemala’s Mayan population who are rarely given a voice.“Ixcanul” is a fierce artistic triumph coated with complexity, subtle poetry, and a delicate ability for capturing its characters’ introspective dilemmas through its imagery. Such showcase of attuned sensibilities is expected from a seasoned auteur at the peak of his creative powers, but Jayro Bustamante has accomplished just that with his astonishing debut feature. No wonder “Ixcanul” is Guatemala’s most acclaimed film ever and the winner of numerous international awards including the Alfred Bauer Award at the Berlin International Film festival.
We talked to Bustamante about the his relationship to the Mayan community where the film was shot, the male chauvinist societies that hinder women’s growth, his homeland’s institutionalize discrimination against indigenous people, and the incomparable visual allure of “Ixcanul.”
Kino Lorber will release "Ixcanul" in early 2016.
Carlos Aguilar: The film focuses on these two women who are every strong in distinct ways; however, they are faced with extraordinary circumstances that test that strength. How did the idea to write a story about these two connected characters come about?
Jayro Bustamante: The idea was born from a real story, the story of a real Maria. What’s really inspired in her life is the third act, the problematic situation with the baby. Based on that I started to create this fictional screenplay but always grounded on real things that I had seen in Guatemala. I grew up in that region and I asked myself, “How does one become the perfect victim?” just as Maria is in the film. That’s how I started building this story. I had two very clear themes I wanted to work on: one was loss and the other maternity. In order for the loss and that sort of prohibition to become a mother that is imposed on Maria to feel as powerful as they do in the movie, I needed to construct a kind of maternity that was beautiful, without idealizing it but highlighting it. That’s why I created the relationship between these two women. Throughout the process I always worked with the actresses as if the two characters were one. We always thought that Maria, if she had been given the chance, would have become Juana. She would have been just as strong as her. That’s how we worked on these two characters.
While Juana is the matriarch and often appears to be charge, she still lives in a male-driven society where her needs and desires are secondary to those of the men around. Was it important for you to depict the internal strength of these Mayan women while also being honest about the world they live in?
Jayro Bustamante: From the beginning my intention was to adhere to reality, except for the magical realist touches that I also wanted the film to have because they were very important. Magical realism doesn’t work if the real reality doesn’t exist. There is a great contradiction in male chauvinist societies, and that is that they are usually composed of matriarchal groups. A woman reigns but she always reigns in a small space that the man left for her. She reigns when the man needs someone to be in charge of things that he doesn’t want to take care of. For me that matriarchy is till is part of this male chauvinism or "machismo" and that matriarchy continues to feed it. If I’m against male chauvinism, I should also be against matriarchy because both extremes are bad and one is derived from the other.
What I really wanted to demonstrate was that there is a waste of feminine energy that happens in male chauvinist societies.To get from point A to point B, a woman has to embark on an incredible journey through everything that’s in between these two points and have a great strategy to be able to get there. This journey would be so much easier if we would let her take those steps and then with her own strength she can get wherever she wants to go. I wanted to talk about that strength and that’s why there is that parallel relationship between Maria and the volcano. There is something symbolic about it. For me, Mayan women in Guatemala today are like that volcano that rumbles and resounds but hasn’t yet erupted. Real change will happen when these women erupt and release what they have inside. That’s the metaphor we wanted to convey, the connection between these women and the volcano.
One of the greatest achievements of the film is that it refrains from observing the characters from an ethnographic perspective or with an air of exoticism. These are people. Yes, people with different traditions and experiences from what many consider normal, but they are still as human as anybody else.
Jayro Bustamante: Definitely. I never had that temptation or that perspective because I grew up there, so for me there is no difference between us. I wouldn’t do it with any other culture. That’s something I can’t understand, to think there are people that one can observe like if they were in a zoo. I don’t think that’s right. Rich cultural differences show us the diversity that exists in the world, but if you explore any of these differences you’ll see that we all have the same human feelings. That’s what allowed me to make a story that was very local but that at the same time could have certain international repercussion. I wrote a film about a woman whose problems take us into the problems of a family and that in turn takes us into the larger social problems. That’s what we wanted to do from the beginnings. That can’t be done if the feelings that belong to the universal language are not present.
Indigenous languages are rarely used in modern cinema and because of this indigenous people have in a sense become both faceless and voiceless. How crucial was it for you to make the film in the Mayan language?
Jayro Bustamante: It was very important. Perhaps there is a bit of melancholy because as I said I grew up there. I had a nanny that taught me a lot of things, a lot of traditional stories, and who also taught me that language when I was a young child. Maybe this melancholy is there, but above all this, language is the clearest example to demonstrate how a large portion of the country lives without the tools to grow and evolve in its own country. They are foreigners in their own country, but they are the majority. Today statistics say that these people represent only 40% of the Guatemalan population, but that’s a lie. Discrimination is so strong that if you are Mayan and during the census or on a survey they ask you, “Are you Mayan?” you prefer to say that you are mestizo or mixed because you are ashamed to say who you really are. The social fracture is so big that in Guatemala the worse insult you can tell somebody is calling him or her an “Indian.”
Something similar happens in Mexico, where I'm from. People tend to associate indigenous languages, features, or traditions with negative ideas or as something that's less sophisticated or worthy, which is terrible.
Jayro Bustamante: When you think about it, if the worse insult is to be who you are, even if you are the majority in a country, it means that the majority of the country has a terrible complex regarding their identity. If you are trying to improve yourself or overcome this circumstances, these ideas make very complicated emotionally. There are many themes that we touch on in the film that are derived from discrimination. When I travel abroad I get asked a lot, “Why does Pepe want to go to the Us?” Maybe you and I can understand why this young man wants to leave. The reason why he wants to leave is obvious to those of us who are from countries like Mexico and Guatemala. He earns one dollar a day in Guatemala and in the U.S. he could earn, let’s say, $15 an hour. It’s true that in the U.S. he could be discriminated for being Latino, but he is already being discriminated in Guatemala, his own country, because his Mayan. He has a lot more to win than to lose by leaving. That’s very sad.
Tell me about the process of finding your actors and how challenging this was. You evidently needed people who were Mayan and who spoke the language, but also that could pull off the intricate performances the film required.
Jayro Bustamante: That was the most beautiful part of the process, to work with the actors. I started hosting workshops, more regarding social issues, in the place were I grew up. I grew up in the outskirts of the Atitlán Lake in the highlands, which is a volcanic lake. It’s about two hours away from the location where we were going to shoot. I was accompanied by a social worker. The idea was to open spaces to discuss the problems facing the Mayan community so that the social worker could hear their concerns and follow up. This would help me enrich the screenplay and find the actresses there.
In a way this also reflected the reality of the country, although there were many women that were interested in working with me, there were also many of them that didn’t want to be part of the project. I thought all of them would want to, but I was wrong, a lot of them didn’t. Those that I wanted to work with and that wanted to work with me had another problem. Their husbands, their brother, their sons, or any other male in charge wouldn’t give them permissions to participate. They couldn’t come be part of the project because they had to stay home to serve them.
While this was happening and we were trying to figure things out, I met Maria Telón, who plays Juana. She is part of a street theater group. It’s a militant theater group that advocates for indigenous rights and women rights. They were putting on a play at that time, and I started following her performances from town to town. When we finally got to her community, I discovered that this community is very prosperous and very curious about the arts. I decided to stay there to do the casting. We held auditions at the local market. We set up our own stand among fruits and vegetable stands and we put up a sign that said, “Casting.” We had a camera and a notepad. Nobody came.
The next day we change the sign to, “Help Wanted,” and the entire town came. Thanks to that we were able to meet everyone in town and that’s where we cast the actors. We worked with them for threes months before filming the first scene. It was a very enriching process because besides the fact that they were Kaqchikel Mayans they had nothing in common with the characters. They live in a very prosperous society with all the basic services. Maria Mercedes is a student and Maria Telón is an actress and a saleswoman. She has a very different life form the character of the mother. Manuel Antún, the man who played Maria’s father, is a dentist, and Marvin Coroy, the guy who plays El Pepe, is a poet. We really did a lot of work to characterize this family so they could really look like a family and like they live in this very different situation.
Once you had cast them, what was your approach to eliciting the emotions you wanted from the actors. María Mercedes Coroy's performance in particular is very quiet but marvelously moving.
Jayro Bustamante: We didn’t have a particular technique. We worked a lot on trusting one another. With Maria Mercedes we worked on her confidence as a woman. It wasn’t that she wasn’t a confident woman, but we talked a lot about the strength that she had within herself. She was worried about playing a character that might falsely seem passive. It’s not that the character is passive, but on paper it might seem that way because everything is internalized. I believe this is one of the hardest types of characters to bring to life. We also worked on the power of her gaze. She allowed me to explore her personal life and her past in order to find in her own experiences emotions she could use while we were shooting. One week we decided to kiss tress. We went to a forest and we decided to kiss trees. She started kissing tress on one side of the forest and I did it in the other. In the end we ended up kissing the same one [Laughs]. It was about earning each other trust and losing all shame.
Visually the film is absolutely breathtaking. There is the natural beauty of the locations and a very evocative atmosphere throughout the entire film. How did you and your Dp, Luis Armando Arteaga, approach to the cinematography and minimalist aesthetic of the story, which is definitely a fantastic element of "Ixcanul"?
Jayro Bustamante: We’ve known each other for along time. We worked together on my last short film and we have developed other projects together. He is someone who has a vision of cinema that goes beyond that of a Dp. We did something very interesting, which was to go to a festival that’s sort of like the Cannes Film Festival for short films. It’s called Clermont-Ferrand International Film Festival. We were there for a week watching all the short films. Our interest was to watch as many as possible because filmmakers are more daring when making short films. There are new technologies that they are willing to try on short films and there is less financial risk. You can watch a lot of them in a short period of time. A big part of our job was watching these short films.
After that we talked a lot about the trap that this location could be because it’s a really beautiful location. You can drop your camera by accident and the photo that’s taken is already a postcard. Of course, I’m exaggerating but it’s really that beautiful. We talked about finding that postcard-like image and getting as far away from it as possible. We wanted to stay within the characters’ intimacy. We both really wanted to shoot it on 16mm, and we couldn’t because of financial constraints, so we shot it on a digital camera. Since we shot on digital, we did a lot of work to create that grainy quality that film gives you. We used the volcano’s dust and a lot of smoke. We had someone who would create smoke for every scene. Every single scene you see in the film had smoke, in varying densities, but they all had smoke. Then we were able to do the post-production in France in one of the best studios, which was amazing.
There is a certain mysticism to the story that we see through several rituals and this community's connection to nature, and the volcano in particular. Tell me about including these otherworldly beliefs and spiritual offerings in the narrative. Why did you feel they were an important characteristic of this society?
Jayro Bustamante: All of these elements are things that I’ve seen myself or that still exist. In terms of the mysticism, for me, instead of trying to tell a spiritual story I wanted to tell a purely religious story. There is a Mayan religion today that’s a mix between Catholicism and the Mayan beliefs that remained after the Spanish empire fell. My characters live in a grave situation, one in which the only thing they do is try resolve their multiple problems. That’s why whenever a new problem arrives they act in such a tolerant manner, because they can’t add fuel to the fire. What they have to do is put it out. When you are in situations like these, normally human beings have the tendency to seek answers and hope in something bigger than them. If they were a Catholic family I would have focused on the Catholic religion. I wanted to also talk about the problem with religions. Religions are dogmas and rules represented by a leader that could lead you into the wrong path. This was the message. It was more of a religious message than a spiritual or Mayan message.
Regarding the rituals you see in the film, they are all based on rituals that are still being practiced today. Even us, before shooting we would lit a sacred fire to ask the volcano for permission. When we shot in the coffee plantation we also had a sacred fire there. It’s a very nice thing because you lit a fire and the ceremony lasts till the fire extinguishes by itself. It’s the fire that tells you when the ceremony is over. In the meantime you are sharing energy with the people around you. You tell the earth what you are going to be doing there. It’s about communicating and about the energy flow. When the fire is out you end up way too relaxed, so we started substituting the sacred fires for the yoga exercises. [Laughs]. It’s very interesting and it’s something that’s still done all the time.
In the final act you take your characters out of their community and expose them to urban Guatemala. In that moment these two worlds seem to clash and how little their know about each other.
Jayro Bustamante: The film was constructed in crescendo from the beginning. I was lucky enough to conceive the ending very early on in the process and because of this I started working backwards towards the beginning of the story. Instead of wanting to say, “Oh poor indigenous people” or “Wow these westerners are terrible,” what I wanted to talk about was the lack of social tools they have and how in this country a large segment of the population is left without basic services. Well, in Guatemala today even people who have all the tools and resources can still be left without the basic services because politicians stole all the money and nothing is working. But for indigenous people things are even worse. They are even lower in the list of the government’s priorities. That was the intention behind taking the characters out of their environment and into the city.
Has the film started a conversation or a dialogue regarding about discrimination and other issues currently affecting this segment of the population and Guatemala in general?
Jayro Bustamante: Yes, I’m really amazed about it. When I started speaking to the press in Guatemala about the film, I said that Guatemalans needed to learn how to watch films because it appeared to me that people were unable to analyze films. When “Ixcanul” opened in movie theaters it became a small success considering that it’s an art house film. We were in theaters for 7 weeks, which was great. After that, I found a lot reviews and articles about the film written by Guatemalans. These were profound analyzes and very well written.
Some were very self-critical regarding the country’s situation. I realized that I was wrong, Guatemalans are able to do these analyzes, but they get to see very few films that warrant it. You are not going to write a profound analysis about “Fast and Furious,” there is not much to analyze there. You watch it and you talk about it candidly, but you don’t spend much time thinking about an American blockbuster. That was very surprising and very gratifying for me, to see that people in Guatemala wrote criticism and self-analyze the country through the film. Soon after the film’s premier one of the most important newspapers in Guatemala published an article entitled, Ixcanul is a Slap on Guatemala’s Face. The journalist wrote about the country’s current social situation in relation to the film.
When you are in another country does it surprise you that perhaps your film is the first contact people abroad have with Guatemala as a country and even more so with its cinema? "Ixcanul" is by far the most talked about and the most internationally acclaimed Guatemalan film ever.
Jayro Bustamante: No, it doesn’t surprise me that we are not a very well known country or that we are country only known because of the difficult political situations we are going through. It doesn’t surprise me because we as a country haven’t done anything for this to be different. Everything we’ve done prompted people outside to see us just the way they see us. It’s what we deserve in a sense. We are also a very small country. When it comes to tourism we are very interesting country, but we are very small country that has been in an arm conflict for so long that obviously tourists don’t come. Then there are all the problems with the gangs, cartels, kidnappings, and all the other bad things you can think of.
It’s understandable that we are not well known. At first I believed that the point of entry could be the Mayan civilization because I thought that would be well known abroad, and I’ve realized that not so much. There is still a lot to teach and share about Guatemala with the world, which is good. Something that I still find especially surprising is this idea that the Mayans disappeared or vanished. It’s crazy to me that people still believe that, but I can understand why. It’s very interesting to me that people around world, even in places as far as Japan, connect with the emotions that the film exudes. That’s the nicest compliment. I’ve also had people in other countries tell me, “You are the firs Guatemalan I’ve ever seen.” I tell them, “Touch me! I’m real” [Laughs].
Kino Lorber will release "Ixcanul" in early 2016.
- 12/1/2015
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Sydney's Buzz
Guatemala’s first Oscar submission from Jayro Bustamente premiered in Berlin where it won the Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize and screens in Toronto on Wednesday.
Kino Lorber negotiated the deal with Film Factory Entertainment and will mount a theatrical release in 2016 before VOD and home media release that autumn.
Ixcanul centres on two Mayan lovers who flee their home on a coffee plantation on the foothills of an active volcano and head to the United States.
La Casa de Producción and Tu Vas Voir produced.
Kino Lorber negotiated the deal with Film Factory Entertainment and will mount a theatrical release in 2016 before VOD and home media release that autumn.
Ixcanul centres on two Mayan lovers who flee their home on a coffee plantation on the foothills of an active volcano and head to the United States.
La Casa de Producción and Tu Vas Voir produced.
- 9/11/2015
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
Kino Lorber has acquired North American rights to Berlinale Alfred Bauer prize winner "Ixcanul," Guatemala's first official entry in the Foreign Language Oscar race. Comparisons to Werner Herzog have been attached to the film, previously titled "Ixcanul Volcano." Directed by debut filmmaker Jayro Bustamante, the film follows Mayan teen Maria, who resides with her parents while working on a coffee plantation on an active volcano in Guatemala. Her status as an indigenous woman keeps her big-city dreams in check, until an arranged wedding is set up for her, and a snake-bite thrusts her into the modern world. Kino Lorber plans to open "Ixcanul," which has garnered raves on the circuit, in theaters next year after a VOD and home video release. Kino Lorber also recently snapped up Jewish faith drama "Tikkun," another Telluride entry (but it's skipping Toronto for Fantastic Fest). Read More: Foreign Oscar Entries So Far Herewith some.
- 9/11/2015
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Thompson on Hollywood
113 films from 20 countries were submitted to the Films in Progress 28 initiative at the San Sebastian Film Festival. The final selection includes: "Aquí no ha pasado nada" (Much Ado About Nothing) by Alejandro Fernández Almendras (Chile),whose previous film, "To Kill a Man," won numerous prizes at international festivals and represented Chile at the Oscars last year; "Era o Hotel Cambridge" (The Cambridge Squatter) by Eliane Caffé (Brazil - France), "La Emboscada" (The Ambush) by Daniel Hendler (Uruguay - Argentina), "La Princesita" (The Princess) by Marialy Rivas (Chile - Argentina - Spain), "Rara" by Pepa San Martín (Chile - Argentina) and "Sobrevivientes de Rober Calzadilla" (Venezuela - Colombia).
Films in Progress gains strength as a not-to-be-missed gathering for Latin American production. Four of the films presented last year at San Sebastian, in Films in Progress 26, will be screened at this year’s Festival: Eugenio Canevari’s "Paula" will compete in the New Directors section and Jayro Bustamante’s "Ixcanul,"which has just been announced as Guatemala's Oscar submission, will screen in the Horizontes Latinos section, having won the Silver Bear – Alfred Bauer Award at the Berlin Festival.
Salvador de Solar’s "Magallanes," winner of the Films in Progress Industry Award and Aly Muritiba’s "Para minha amada morta" (To My Beloved), will also compete for the Horizontes Award. And another of the films presented last year, Sergio Castro’s "La mujer de barro" (The Mud Woman), was programmed in the Berlin Festival’s Forum section.
Among the projects revealed at the Toulouse event last March, Pablo Agüero’s "Eva no duerme" (Eva doesn't sleep) is programmed in the official competition; Sebastián Brahm’s "Vida sexual de las plantas" (Sex Life of Plants) is part of the New Directors selection; and Lorenzo Vigas’s "Desde allá" (From afar) will be presented in Horizontes Latinos after having participated in the official competition at the Venice Festival.
"Aquí No Ha Pasado Nada" (Much Ado About Nothing) Alejandro Fernández Almendras (Chile) Young, daring and lonely, Vicente spends his life at his parent’s home by the beach. These are days of relaxation, sea and partying with anyone who’s up for it. But one night of alcohol and flirting will change his life forever; he is accused of a hit-and-run crime in which a fisherman is killed. "I wasn’t driving", he says, but his memories are hazy and he says the boy at the wheel was the son of an influential politician. Power, manipulation and guilt will send his sweet summer holidays careering towards a bitter end. This is the third time the director has participated in Films in Progress. His previous film, "Matar a un hombre" (To Kill a Man), landed the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Festival.
"Era o Hotel Cambridge" (The Cambridge Squatter)
Eliane Caffé (Brazil - France) The Cambridge Squatter shows us the unusual situation of the Brazilian homeless and refugees who squat together in an abandoned building in downtown Sao Paulo. The daily tension caused by the threat of eviction reveals the dramas, the joys and the different points of view of the squatters.
"La Emboscada" (The Ambush) Daniel Hendler (Uruguay - Argentina) Martin Marchand throws himself into the political contest. As a result of his work in the social media, a traditional political structure invites him to join their list. Martin calls in technicians and advisors to create his campaign image. Over a weekend, immersed in the bucolic setting of a country house, they get down to designing the leader’s image. But an infiltrator seeking to obtain information on the coming electoral alliance creates an atmosphere of mistrust. The film, with the working title of "El Palomar," participated in the I Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum.
"La Princesita" (The Princess) Marialy Rivas (Chile - Argentina - Spain) A film inspired by true events in Southern Chile. A family sect only has one purpose and belief: a new order is necessary. Tamara, 11, is responsible for procreating the leaders of the new world. Disgruntled with her "lot”, Tamara’s sexual exploration with a boy in her year at school will have unexpected consequences, marking her violent transition from childhood to womanhood. Tamara will gain her freedom in a way she had never imagined. Marialy Rivas’s previous film, "Joven y alocada," participated in Films in Progress and landed awards at Sundance and Bafici, among other festivals.
"Rara" Pepa San Martín (Chile - Argentina) A story inspired by the case of a Chilean judge who lost the custody of her children for being a lesbian, told from the point of view of her eldest daughter Sara, aged 13. The screenplay is based on true events that could be related as a tale of lawyers and courthouses, lawsuits, claimants, defenders and victims, but instead, it will be the story of a family.
"Sobrevivientes" Rober Calzadilla (Venezuela - Colombia) 1988. The town of El Amparo. Border with Colombia. Chumba and Pinilla survive an armed assault in the channels of the Arauca River in which fourteen of their companions are killed in the act. The Venezuelan Army accuses them of being guerrilla fighters and tries to seize them from the cell where they are being watched over by a policeman and a group of locals to prevent them from being taken away. They say they are simple fishermen, but pressure to yield to the official version is eye-watering.
Awards:
Films in Progress Industry Award : The companies Daniel Goldstein, Deluxe Spain, Dolby Iberia, Laserfilm Cine y Video, Nephilim producciones, No Problem Sonido and Wanda Visión will assume the post-production of a film until obtaining a Dcp subtitled in English and its distribution in Spain...
Films in Progress gains strength as a not-to-be-missed gathering for Latin American production. Four of the films presented last year at San Sebastian, in Films in Progress 26, will be screened at this year’s Festival: Eugenio Canevari’s "Paula" will compete in the New Directors section and Jayro Bustamante’s "Ixcanul,"which has just been announced as Guatemala's Oscar submission, will screen in the Horizontes Latinos section, having won the Silver Bear – Alfred Bauer Award at the Berlin Festival.
Salvador de Solar’s "Magallanes," winner of the Films in Progress Industry Award and Aly Muritiba’s "Para minha amada morta" (To My Beloved), will also compete for the Horizontes Award. And another of the films presented last year, Sergio Castro’s "La mujer de barro" (The Mud Woman), was programmed in the Berlin Festival’s Forum section.
Among the projects revealed at the Toulouse event last March, Pablo Agüero’s "Eva no duerme" (Eva doesn't sleep) is programmed in the official competition; Sebastián Brahm’s "Vida sexual de las plantas" (Sex Life of Plants) is part of the New Directors selection; and Lorenzo Vigas’s "Desde allá" (From afar) will be presented in Horizontes Latinos after having participated in the official competition at the Venice Festival.
"Aquí No Ha Pasado Nada" (Much Ado About Nothing) Alejandro Fernández Almendras (Chile) Young, daring and lonely, Vicente spends his life at his parent’s home by the beach. These are days of relaxation, sea and partying with anyone who’s up for it. But one night of alcohol and flirting will change his life forever; he is accused of a hit-and-run crime in which a fisherman is killed. "I wasn’t driving", he says, but his memories are hazy and he says the boy at the wheel was the son of an influential politician. Power, manipulation and guilt will send his sweet summer holidays careering towards a bitter end. This is the third time the director has participated in Films in Progress. His previous film, "Matar a un hombre" (To Kill a Man), landed the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Festival.
"Era o Hotel Cambridge" (The Cambridge Squatter)
Eliane Caffé (Brazil - France) The Cambridge Squatter shows us the unusual situation of the Brazilian homeless and refugees who squat together in an abandoned building in downtown Sao Paulo. The daily tension caused by the threat of eviction reveals the dramas, the joys and the different points of view of the squatters.
"La Emboscada" (The Ambush) Daniel Hendler (Uruguay - Argentina) Martin Marchand throws himself into the political contest. As a result of his work in the social media, a traditional political structure invites him to join their list. Martin calls in technicians and advisors to create his campaign image. Over a weekend, immersed in the bucolic setting of a country house, they get down to designing the leader’s image. But an infiltrator seeking to obtain information on the coming electoral alliance creates an atmosphere of mistrust. The film, with the working title of "El Palomar," participated in the I Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum.
"La Princesita" (The Princess) Marialy Rivas (Chile - Argentina - Spain) A film inspired by true events in Southern Chile. A family sect only has one purpose and belief: a new order is necessary. Tamara, 11, is responsible for procreating the leaders of the new world. Disgruntled with her "lot”, Tamara’s sexual exploration with a boy in her year at school will have unexpected consequences, marking her violent transition from childhood to womanhood. Tamara will gain her freedom in a way she had never imagined. Marialy Rivas’s previous film, "Joven y alocada," participated in Films in Progress and landed awards at Sundance and Bafici, among other festivals.
"Rara" Pepa San Martín (Chile - Argentina) A story inspired by the case of a Chilean judge who lost the custody of her children for being a lesbian, told from the point of view of her eldest daughter Sara, aged 13. The screenplay is based on true events that could be related as a tale of lawyers and courthouses, lawsuits, claimants, defenders and victims, but instead, it will be the story of a family.
"Sobrevivientes" Rober Calzadilla (Venezuela - Colombia) 1988. The town of El Amparo. Border with Colombia. Chumba and Pinilla survive an armed assault in the channels of the Arauca River in which fourteen of their companions are killed in the act. The Venezuelan Army accuses them of being guerrilla fighters and tries to seize them from the cell where they are being watched over by a policeman and a group of locals to prevent them from being taken away. They say they are simple fishermen, but pressure to yield to the official version is eye-watering.
Awards:
Films in Progress Industry Award : The companies Daniel Goldstein, Deluxe Spain, Dolby Iberia, Laserfilm Cine y Video, Nephilim producciones, No Problem Sonido and Wanda Visión will assume the post-production of a film until obtaining a Dcp subtitled in English and its distribution in Spain...
- 8/28/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
As of this article's publication only five countries have announced their official Oscar entries for the 88th Academy Awards: Hungary ("Son of Saul"), Romania ("Aferim!"), Bosnia & Herzegovina ("Our Everyday Life"), Luxembourg ("Baby(A)lone"), and Kazakhstan ("Stranger"). Taking into account last year's record number of submissions, 83 in total, there are certainly a lot more coming in the next few weeks. Several national film organization have already narrowed the field down to a shortlist of films that qualify to be considered, other countries skip the shortlist and simply announce their participant title without revealing what was being considered.
Trying to predict what a particular nation will enter is a tall order because of the numerous factors that weight in, especially when dealing with countries with a large film industry. In other cases, however, there are usually just a couple standouts that meet the standards to be submitted. Whatever the case, even with the most obvious choices there could be surprises such as Indian choosing not to submitting "The Lunchbox" or Chile choosing another film over Silva's "The Maid."
While there is no sure-fie formula to predict what films will be competing for the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award, by looking at festivals, release dates, national awards, previous submissions, and with a hefty dose of educated speculation, I've put together a list of 35 titles that, at this point, seem like excellent choices.
Update 08/28: Several countries have announced their official submissions: Croatia ("The High Sun"), Germany ("Labyrinth of Lies"), Guatemala ("Ixcanul"), Switzerland ("Iraqi Odyssey"), and Palestine ("The Wanted 18").
Argentina
"The Clan" (El Clan)
Dir. Pablo Trapero
Isa: Film Factory Entertainment
U.S. Distribution: None Yet
Argentine Release Date: August 13th, 2015
Coming off the success of this year’s nominee “Wild Tales,” which also did very well at the U.S. box-office for Sony Pictures Classics and became a spectacular hit back home, Argentina seems to have another strong contender this year with Pablo Trapero’s latest work “The Clan” (El Clan). Two of the director’s previous films have been submitted before (“Lion’s Den” and “Carrancho”), and this one about the Puccio family, which was criminal organization that kidnapped and murdered wealthy people, looks more than promising. “The Clan” is also produced by Almodovar’s El Deso, just as Damian Szifron’s “Tales” was. There are several other films that have enough merits to be considered, but might prove insufficient when faced with Trapero’s film. “Refugiado,” “El Patron,” “Two Shots” and, even “Jauaja,” starring Viggo Mortensen, qualify
Brazil
"The Second Mother"
Dir. Anna Muylaert
Isa: The Match Factory
U.S. Distribution: Oscilloscope Pictures
Brazilian Release Date: August 27, 2015
Undoubtedly the most awarded Brazilian film of the year is also their best bet at the Oscars. Anna Muylaert's “The Second Mother” premiered at Sundance where it won a Special Jury Prize for both of its leading actresses Regina Casé and Camila Márdila. It went on to screen in the Panorama section of the Berlinale and took home the C.I.C.A.E. Award and the Audience Award. The film tells the story of a live-in housekeeper and his daughter as they navigate the class divisions prevalent in Brazilian society. Another factor in its favor is the fact that the film has secured U.S. distribution thanks to Oscilloscope. “The Second Mother” opens in Brazil on August 27 and, in a strange turn of events, on August 28 in the U.S. While there are plenty of other great Brazilian works that qualify to be submitted, it’s unlikely that the selection committee will look elsewhere. Other films that could have a shot at being chosen are “August Winds,” “Casa Grande.” “Blue Blood,” and “White Out, Black In”
Bulgaria
"The Judgement"
Dir. Stephan Komandarev
Isa: Premium Film
U.S. Distribution: None Yet
Bulgarian Release Date: October 16, 2014
Following last year’s scandalous selection of “Bulgarian Rhapsody” over the more deserving “Viktoria,” the Eastern European country has a two-way race in which both candidates have almost equal chances at being chosen. Stephan Komandarev’s drama “The Judgement” is the larger production of the two and revolves around a desperate father trying to amend his relationship with his estrange son. At the same time the protagonist is also trying to make ends meet and decides to take on the dangerous job of smuggling illegal immigrant from Syria through a remote area of the Turkish-Greek-Bulgarian border. The other film is Kristina Grozeva & Petar Valchanov's “The Lesson,” about a devoted teacher who is faced with corrupt bureaucracy after her classroom is burglarized. Winning awards at the Sofia International Film Festival, San Sebastian, Thessaloniki, and screening at Tiff and Rotterdam, “The Lesson” should be the frontrunner. However, “The Judgement” might have the edge not only because it sports a larger budget and wider appeal, but because Komandarev is the filmmaker behind “The World is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner,” which is the one Bulgarian film that has gotten the closest to Oscar glory when it was shortlisted by the Academy in 2010. Less likely to be selected but still viable possibilities are “Adultery,”"Buffer Zone," and "The Petrov File."
Canada
"Felix & Meira"
Dir. Maxime Giroux
Isa: Urban Distribution International
U.S. Distribution: Oscilloscope Laboratories
Canadian Release Date: January 30th, 2015
As of now Canada’s ideal representative would be the small, but touching, “Felix & Meir,” about a married woman from the Orthodox Jewish community who falls in love with a secular man, as way to know life beyond the restrictions of her faith. This tiny gem won the Best Canadian Feature award at last year’s Tiff and received four awards at the Whistler Film Festival including Best Film and Best Director. “Felix & Meira” was acquired by Oscilloscope for U.S. distribution and was released last April. To date it has grossed nearly $500,00, which, for a subtle and niche film like this, is a great feat. Giroux’ film should take this easily, unless the new film by Oscar-nominated director Philippe Falardeau decides to push for the opportunity. Falardeau newest film “Guibord Goes to War” (Guibord s’en va-t-en guerre) is a political dark comedy that premiered at Locarno and is scheduled to open in Canada on October 2- just two days after AMPAS’ deadline. If the distributor decides to have a one-week qualifying run ahead of the release, then it would become the new frontrunner to represent Canada. However, it’s still unknown if that is being considered or if the film will just wait till next year. Falardeau was nominated in the category for “Monsieur Lazhar” in 2012. “Chorus,” which premiered at Sundance, Berlin’s “Corbo,” Tiff’s “In Her Place,” and the “Les Loups” also qualify.
Chile
"The Club" (El Club)
Dir. Pablo Larraín
Isa: Funny Balloons
U.S. Distribution: Music Box Films
Chilean Release Date: May 28, 2015
With Pablo Larraín’s Silver Bear-winner film, Chile has an easy choice to make. “The Club,” which was recently picked up for U.S. distribution by Music Box Films, has received universal critical acclaimed and has cemented its director as one of the most important figures in Latin American cinema. Larraín’s latest centers on a group of priests and nuns sent to a beach town to purify their sinful pasts involving everything from pedophilia to kidnapping. The only other film that truly stands a chance is Matias Lira's “El Bosque de Karadima,” which deals with similar themes regarding secrecy and crimes against children within the Catholic Church. But even if this film has been well-received at home, “The Club” has had more much more international visibility and it has the distinction of being the newest work from the director behind “No,” Chile’s only Oscar-nominated film to date. Other notable works that will be part of the conversation include historical drama “Allende en su Laberinto” by veteran director Miguel Littin, Rodrigo Sepúlveda’s touching “Aurora," and indie flick “La Voz en Off.”
China
"Mountains May Depart" (山河故人)
Dir. Zhangke Jia
Isa: MK2
U.S. Distribution: Kino Lorber
Chinese Release Date: Unknown
Censorship has always played a role in China’s decision-making process when it comes to their Oscar submissions. Some of the best Chinese films in recent years are never considered given their controversial topics or because they were made outside of the state-run system. Under this circumstances patriotic epics or lavish period dramas are often selected even when their quality is subpar. The country’s big production this year is “The Lady of the Dynasty,” which was a box-office disappointment and garnered mostly negative reviews locally. With this in mind, the hope is that they will finally look at more compelling films with greater international exposure, such as Jia Zhangke’s “Mountains May Depart.” Premiering at Cannes to mostly positive responses, the film looks at Chinese society from three perspectives scattered over three decades. The film has passed the censors' revisions and will be allowed to screen in mainland Chine, which means it’s possible one of Zhangke’s film might finally represent his homeland. His previous effort, “A Touch of Sin,” was ignored because of its thematic elements. Jean-Jacques Annaud’s stunning “Wolf Totem” is a close second choice, but given the fact that China submitted a film by a French director last, they might want to highlight a homegrown talent this time. There is also “Red Amnesia,” a thriller about a widow that compulsively needs to take careof those around her until strange incidents shake her life. Er Cheng’s “The Wasted Times,” which appears to be a delirious visual treat, but it opens just a few days after the September 30th deadline. A qualifying run prior to that date is possible, but not likely. “Mountains May Depart” is definitely the strongest candidate.
Colombia
"Embrace of the Serpent" (El Abrazo de la Serpiente)
Dir. Ciro Guerra
Isa: Films Boutique
U.S. Distribution: Oscilloscope Laboratories
Colombian Release Date: May 25th, 2015
The Colombian film industry has had an outstanding year and that has produced an impressive lineup of films from which their strongest Oscar entry to date will emerge. Three films that screened at the Cannes Film Festival - two of which earned prizes – are at the top of the list. Winning the Art Cinema Award at the Directors’ Fortnight Ciro Guerra’s black-and-white “Embrace of the Serpent” is the one to beat among these trio of art house wonders. Guerra’s film is a period piece about the clash between the native people of the Amazon and a European explorer, which has received stellar reviews and was picked up for U.S. distribution by Oscilloscope. Two of Guerra’s previous films, “Wandering Shadows” and “The Wind Journey,” also represented Colombia at the Academy Awards. Nevertheless, the other films that screen at the Croisette, Golden Camera-winner “Land and Shade” and war drama “Alias Maria,” shouldn’t be completely counted out of the running. Films like Franco Lolli's “Gente de Bien” (Cannes 2014), Josef Wladyka's “Manos Sucias,” "Todos Se Van," and “Ruido Rosa” qualify and testify of the great moment Colombian filmmaking is experiencing, but they will have a difficult time pulling off an upset.
Croatia
"The High Sun" (Zvizdan)
Dir. Dalibor Matanic
Isa: Cercamon
U.S. Distribution: None Yet
Croatian Release Date: Septemeber 2015
It’s not often that a Croatian feature manage to grab Cannes’ attention and take home a prestigious award like the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize. “The High Sun” achieved such feat and should be almost a lock to become the country’s Oscar entry. This intense drama, that expands over three decades and explores the Balkan region’s turbulent history, also won 7 awards at the Pula Film Festival including Best Film, Director, Leading Actress, Supporting Actor, and Supporting Actress. If there’s another film with a reasonable shot, it would be Ognjen Svilicic's “These Are the Rules” about a family questioning their moral compass after a violent incident, which did well in the festival circuit winning awards in Venice, Warsaw, Stockholm, and Pula. Svilicic’s 2007 feature “Armin” represented the country at the 80th Academy Awards. “The Bridge at the End of the World,” “Ungiven,” “The Reaper,” “Number 55” are other noteworthy Croatian films released during the past year, but Matanic’s highly praised wok should have no trouble becoming the official entry.
Dominican Republic
"Sand Dollar" (Dólares de Arena)
Dir. Israel Cárdenas & Laura Amelia Guzmán
Isa: FIGa Films
U.S. Distribution: Breaking Glass Pictures
Dominican Release Date: November 13th, 2014
Thanks to a growing film industry, Dominican films have participated every year starting in 2011 after being absent from the race since 1995. Their submissions have included romantic comedies and low-budget crime dramas that weren’t successful at getting AMPAS’ attention. Fortunately, this year they might have their strongest candidate yet with “Sand Dollars.” In Israel Cárdenas & Laura Amelia Guzmán's film starring Geraldine Chaplin, a local girl becomes the object of desire for an older French woman visiting the Caribbean country, influenced by her boyfriend the Dominican beauty decides to take advantage of the foreigner’s interest. “Sand Dollars” has screened at countless festivals around the world winning a handful of awards and has secured U.S. distribution. Guillermo Zouain's road-trip comedy “Algún Lugar” has also been well-received at a couple of international festivals, but is less likely to be picked. “Pueto Pa’ Mí,” a drama about urban music, documentary “Tu y Yo," and biopic “Maria Montez,” might be out of luck. It’s unclear if Agliberto Meléndez political film “Del Color de La Noche,” has premiered yet, so that could a contender next year given that the director was behind the country’s first ever Oscar submission.
Ethiopia
"Lamb"
Dir. Yared Zeleke
Isa: Films Distribution
U.S. Distribution: None Yet
Ethiopian Release Date: Unknown
The East African nation has only sent two films for consideration. Last year it was the Angeline Jolie-supported “Difret,” which was part of the World Cinema competition at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. This year only two films seem to qualify. “Lamb” is the first-ever Ethiopian film to screen at Cannes, which makes it the unquestionable favorite. It’s a rural story about a boy and his beloved sheep moving in with relatives as his mother goes to work in the city. Reviews were positive praising the film’s cinematography and layered storytelling. The other film that could possibly be selected is Hermon Hailay’s “Prince of Love” about a prostitute and a cab driver struggling to get by in the capital city of Addis Ababa. “Prince of Love” represented the country at Fespaco, one of Africa’s most renowned festivals, and will screen at Tiff in September. Ethiopia might choose to send “Lamb” this time around and save Hailay’s feature for next year depending on release date.
Finland
"The Fencer" (Miekkailija)
Dir. Klaus Härö
Isa: The Little Film Company
U.S. Distribution: None Yet
Finnish Release Date: March 13th, 2015
Peculiar teen drama “They Have Escaped” won four Jussi Awards from the Finnish Academy earlier this year including Best Film and Best Director; however, it will probably face an uphill battle to become Finland’s Oscar entry. Instead, Estonian-language period piece, “The Fencer,” looks like a more feasible alternative because of its classic story, elegant cinematography, and the director behind it: Klaus Härö. The film tells the story of a young Estonian fencer who leaves his homeland to become a Pe teacher and escape persecution by the Russian authorities in the 1950s. Some critics have gone as far as to call it “the best Finnish film in a decade.” Three of Härö’s previous films (“Elina: As If I Wasn’t There,””Mother of Mine, “ and Letter to Father Jacob) were selected as Oscar entries. The only obstacle in its path is the fact that this is an Estonian story with mostly Estonian dialogue. If the selection committee can overlook that, this will be their pick. Antti Jokinen's “Wildeye,” a visually arresting war drama that opens in September is another strong option, particularly because Jokinen’s previous film, “Purge,” represent the country in 2013. “Absolution,” “Head First,” ”Homecoming,” and “Tsamo” are proof a strong year in Finnish cinema but won’t make the cut.
France
"Dheepan"
Dir. Jacques Audiard
Isa: Wild Bunch
U.S. Distribution: Sundance Selects
French Release Date: August 26th, 2015
Given the amount of films produced in France each year, this is the most difficult country to narrow down. However, this year there is a heavyweight contender among the scores of worthy productions. Surprise Palme d’Or-winner “Deephan” by the Academy Award-nominated director of “A Prophet," Jacques Audiard, is a clear favorite. Audiard is a legend and it’s hard to think France won’t support the film that took home one of cinema’s most coveted prizes. Following the relevant immigrant story of a Sri Lankan warrior in France, “Dheepan” is almost a safe bet. If for some unimaginable reason Audiard’s latest is not chosen, the most likely alternative would be well-received “My Golden Days” by Arnaud Desplechin, which has been picked up for U.S. distribution by Magnolia Pictures. While there are dozens of films that could be considered, here are some other important French films that qualify based on their release dates: “Girlhood,” “Standing Tall,” “The Measure of Man,” “The New Girlfriend,” “Valley of Love,” “Eden,”"The Connection."
Germany
"Labyrinth of Lies" (Im Labyrinth des Schweigens)
Dir. Giulio Ricciarelli
Isa: Beta Cinema
U.S. Distribution: Sony Pictures Classics
German Release Date: November 6th, 2014
After an 8-film shortlist was released, - which sadly doesn’t include “Phoenix” because it opened late last September – things look pretty clear for the German selection committee. It’s really a 3-film race between “13 Minutes,” Labyrinth of Lies,” and “Victoria.” Unfortunately, and despite incredibly positive reviews, Sebastian Schipper's “Victoria” might be considered a risky choice because a big part of it is in English. That leaves Oliver Hirschbiegel’s “13 Minutes,” about a man who tried to assassinate Hitler in 1939. On the surface this looks like the prime title to send to AMPAS since Hirschbiegel’s “Downfall” earned him a nomination and he has worked in Hollywood for several years now. Yet, reception wasn’t as warm for his first German film in a decade. On the other “Labyrinth of Lies,” which deals with Post-World War II Germany and how the government tried to cover up its recent Nazi past, had better luck. Critical reception has been better for this film and it was a financial success in Germany and France, which gives the edge. Both “13 Minutes” and “Labyrinth of Lies” were acquired by Sony Pictures Classics for U.S. distribution. The complete list of shortlisted films can be found Here
Greece
"Xenia" (Ξενία)
Dir. Panos H. Koutras
Isa: Pyramide International
U.S. Distribution: Strand Releasing
Greek Release Date: October 2nd, 2014
Although it’s not an official rule, Greece almost-automatically selects the winner of the Best Film Prize at the Hellenic Film Awards as their Oscar submissions. This year’s winner was the Lgbt dramedy “Xenia,” which follows two Albanian brothers searching for their Greek father after their mother’s death. The film was nominated for 15 Hellenic Film Awards and won a total of six. “Xenia” premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival and will be released in the U.S. in October by Strand Releasing. I can’t see any other film being selected other than Koutras’ Almodovar-infused film, but if that were the case the other Best Film nominees – that meet AMPAS requirements- would be the ones to look to: “Electra,” “A Blast,” and “Forever.”
Guatemala
"Ixcanul"
Dir. Jayro Bustamante
Isa: Film Factory Entertainment
U.S. Distribution: None Yet
Guatemalan Release Date: August 27th, 2015
This is a no-brainer. Guatemala has only sent a film once back in 1994, but this year director Jayro Bustamante delivered the most awarded Guatemalan film in history. That should be a good enough reason to enter the race once again. “Ixcanul” won the Alfred Bauer Award at the Berlinale and has screened across the world to great success. Bustamante’s film centers on a Mayan girl who wants to escape the arrange marriage that awaits her to see what’s beyond her village. Another Guatemalan film, which also screened in Berlin, Edgar Sajcabún's “La Casa Más Grande del Mundo,” will probably not open theatrically in time and should be considered next year.
Iceland
"Rams" (Hrútar)
Dir. Grímur Hákonarson
Isa: New Europe Film Sales
U.S. Distribution: Cohen Media Group
Icelandic Release Date: May 28th, 2015
Two middle-aged brothers in an Icelandic rural town leave their differences behind and come together to save their beloved farm animals in the Un Certain Regard Award-winner “Rams.” With such recognition under its belt and having just been picked for U.S. distribution by Cohen Media Group, Grímur Hákonarson's film is certainly the handsomest choice. Still, “Rams” is not without a strong rival. Crowd-pleaser “Virgin Mountain,” about a lonely man whose life changes when he meets a new friend, had its U.S. premiere at the Tribecca Film Festival where it won three awards: Best Narrative Feature, Best Actor, and Best Screenplay. It could go either way, but the Cannes prestige and having found a U.S. distributor give “Rams” the upper hand. Iceland produced several qualifying features this year including “Brave Men’s Blood,” “East of the Mountain, “ and “The Homecoming.”
Iran
"Muhammad: The Messenger of God"
Dir. Majid Majidi
PC: Nourtaban Film Industry
U.S. Distribution: None Yet
Iranian Release Date: August 26, 2015
Iran will have to make an incredibly difficult decision that unfortunately may have political repercussions. Majid Majidi’s latest film “Muhammad: The Messenger of God” is the most expense Iranian feature ever made. The historical epic brings to life the early years of the prophet's life with impressive locations, costumes, and cinematography courtesy of Three-time Oscar-winner Vittorio Storaro. Majidi himself is no stranger to the Academy having earned Iran’s first-ever Academy Award nomination with “Children of Heaven.” Taking these facts into consideration, “Muhammad” seems to be the obvious selection, but there are many religious and political concerns that could get in its way. Islam prohibits the depiction of the prophet and other sacred figures in any artistic work. Knowing this, Majidi shot the entire film - which is the first part in what’s to become a trilogy – without ever showing the prophet’s face by shooting most scenes from his point of view or showing him with his back to the camera. This was acceptable for Iran’s censors, as the film will open this week in theaters across the Middle Eastern country. However, other Muslim countries, particularly Sunni Muslims, have been outspoken about their discontent with the film. Whether Iran will still choose to submit the film to AMPAS is a mystery, but it will certainly have more to do with outside influences rather than artistic merit. “Muhammad” will have its North American premiere at the Montreal World Film Festival.
“Nahid” by Ida Panahandeh, about a woman’s journey from divorce to remarrying, won the Avenir Prize in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes, but - although censors have said the film will be allowed the screen in Iran - it might not open theatrically in time. It also deals with a controversial subject and that might limit it chances. A third, and much safer option, is romantic drama “What’s the Time in Your World?” starring Leila Hatami (“A Speration”) and Ali Mosaffa (“The Past”). Directed by Safi Yazdanian, the film looks beautifully done and sports two of the most talented Iranian actors working today. It could definitely be a good alternative. Other films include “Borderless,” “Track 143,” "Tales” and “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.” Perhaps Iran will ignore the risk and submit their most lavish film to date by one of their most celebrated filmmakers who still works within the state’s parameters.
Israel
"The Kind Words" (Ha'milim ha'tovot )
Dir. Shemi Zarhin
Isa: Beta Cinema
U.S. Distribution: None Yet
Israeli Release Date: May 28, 2015
With 12 nominations to Israel’s Ophir Awards, “The Kind Words” including Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, and Best Actress Shem Zarhin’s film is the one to beat. Since the winner of the Ophir Award for Best Film automatically becomes Israel’s Oscar submission, “The Kind Words” has a strong shot at both honors. The film follows a group of siblings as they travel abroad to uncover a secret. By default the other contenders are the rest of the films nominated for Best Film: “Wounded Land,” ”Afterthought,” “Wedding Doll,” and “Baba Joon.” Of this Elad Keidan's “Afterthought,” which premiered at Cannes to positive reviews, and Erez Tadmor's intense drama “Wounded Land” appear to be the strongest alternatives. Despite being nominated several times Israel has never won the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award.
Italy
"My Mother" (Mia Madre)
Dir. Nanni Moretti
Isa: Films Distribution
U.S. Distribution: Alchemy
Italian Release Date: April 16th, 2015
Nanni Moretti is back with “Mia Madre,” a new family drama that screened in competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and won a few awards at the Italian David di Donatello Awards. Since the big winner at the national awards, “Black Souls,” was considered last year, Moretti’s film is the frontrunner. However, there is a wild card that could change things. Veteran filmmaker Marco Bellocchio will release his newest work “Blood of My Blood,” a historical drama about a 17th century woman accused of being a witch, on September 9 - just in time to qualify. It’s likely that Moretti will have enough support to pull it off, but there is still a chance that might not be set in stone. Besides these two films there is Mario Martone’s “Leopardi,” a biopic about poet Giacomo Leopardi, which won several David di Donatello Awards and was also recognized in Venice. With even less possibilities are Sundance’s “Cloro,” “Greenery Will Bloom Again,” and Albanian-language “Sworn Virgin,”
Ivory Coast
"Run"
Dir. Philippe Lacôte
PC: Banshee Films
U.S. Distribution: None Yet
Ivorian Release Date: December 17th, 2014
The first and only time a film represent Ivory Coast at the Oscars was back in 1977. That film, “Black and White in Color,” won the first and only Academy Award attributed to a Sub-Saharan African country. Nevertheless, that landmark work was directed by a Frenchmen, Jean-Jacques Annaud, and had mostly French talent in the leading roles. Now, almost 40 years later, an actual Ivorian film looks presents a fantastic opportunity for the country to return to the race. Philippe Lacote’s political drama “Run” screened in the Un Certain Regard section in Cannes 2014, Tiff, and AFI Fest, and later opened commercially in Abidjan, the Ivorian Capital, and Paris. Ivory Coast has only one eligible film to submit as their Oscar entry, and fortunately it’s a good one.
Japan
"Our Little Sister" (海街 diary)
Dir. Hirokazu Koreeda
Isa: Wild Bunch
U.S. Distribution: Sony Pictures Classics
Japanese Release Date: June 13th, 2015
Japan hasn’t had a successful entry since unexpectedly winning the award in 2009 with “Departures.” Their selections are often baffling because they tend to ignore festival winners and critically acclaimed films to pick obscure titles that rarely connect with voters. In recent years outstanding films such as “Like Father, Like Son” have been overlooked. Having said this, one can only hope that this time around they will chose more wisely. This year another film by Hirokazu Koreeda, “Our Little Sister,” debuted at Cannes and has been picked up for U.S. distribution by Sony Pictures Classic – a powerhouse distributor in the Best Foreign Language Film race. Based on a manga series, the film revolves around a group of young women who decide to adopt their stepsister after their father dies. “Our Little Sister” was also a financial success in its homeland. Even with all these positive qualities on its side, Japan might refuse to submit Koreeda’s film and look elsewhere. Other options from the festival circuit include Naomi Kawase's “An- Sweet Red Bean Paste,” which less positive reviews; “Journey to the Shore,” though it opens on October 1; “Kabukicho Love Hotel,” which screened at Tiff last year, and “Cape Nostalgia.”
Jordan
"Theeb" (ذيب)
Dir. Naji Abu Nowar
Isa: Fortissimo Films
U.S. Distribution: Film Movement
Jordanian Release Date: March 19th, 2015
In 2008 Jordan submitted their first-ever Oscar submission, and the first feature film made in the country in half a century. That film, “Captain Abu Raed,” did very well in festivals like Sundance and Dubai. Since then, Jordanian cinema has been scarce forcing the country to be absent from the race. That could change this year with “Theeb” by UK-born filmmaker Naji Abu Nowar. His period piece about a Bedouin boy during World War I has played at numerous festivals and will have a U.S. theatrical release via Film Movement.
Lithuania
"The Summer of Sangailé" (Sangaile)
Dir. Alanté Kavaïté
Isa: Films Distribution
U.S. Distribution: Strand Releasing
Lithuanian Release Date: August 21st, 2015
The Sundance Film Festival screened its first-ever Lithuanian feature this past January, “The Summer of Sangailé” by Alanté Kavaïté. This Lgbt coming-of-age story showcases captivating cinematography and nuanced performances. “Sangailé” went on to win the Directing Award in the World Cinema Competition at the Park City festival. It will also become one of the very few Lithuanian films to have been distributed in the U.S. when Strand Releasing schedules its theatrical release. Being the most awarded narrative film from the Baltic nation, it should be a shoo-in. "Sangailé" also won three Silver Crane Awards (Lithuanian Oscars): Best Film, Best Actress for Julija Steponaityte and best set design for Ramunas Rastauskas. Its only realistic adversary is the documentary “Master and Tatyana,” which won the Best Documentary, Best Director, and Best Cinematography prizes at the Silver Crane. Lithuania has shown to be fond of submitting documentaries, but one could presume that “Sangaile’s” wider international appeal will help it succeed.
Mexico
"The Thin Yellow Line" (La Delgada Línea Amarilla)
Dir. Celso R. García
Isa: Latido Films
U.S. Distribution: None Yet
Mexican Release Date: Unknown
Among the 14 films that the Mexican Academy announced as candidates to become the official Oscar submission, only a handful of them have a real chance at representing Mexico. It’s really a three-way race between “600 Miles,” “La Tirisia,” and “The Thin Yellow Line.” Each of these has distinctive assets as well as factors that could play against them. Gabriel Ripstein's “600 Miles” stars Tim Roth, which could be beneficial because Academy voters would see a familiar face on screen. At the same time Roth’s participation means that there is a considerable amount of English dialogue that could make the film feel less authentic when considered as a “foreign language film” representing a country. Then there is Jorge Pérez Solano's art house marvel, “La Tirisia,” about the role of women in a very traditional Mexican community. This is a film that truly showcases an unseen aspect of Mexican culture and has garnered international recognition, but it might be too small in scope to be selected.
Lastly, “The Yellow Thin Line,” which was awarded at the Guadalajara Film Festival but hasn’t travel much. It will screen at the Chicago International Film Festival in October. “The Thin Yellow Line” tells the story of a group of men working on a deserted road as they are forced to come to terms with their yearnings and failures. The premise seems unique; the cast includes some of Mexico’s most recognizable talents, and it’s partly produced my Guillermo del Toro. That last fact is what could set the film apart from the rest because the general public and Academy voters will be intrigued to see what was it about this story that interested Del Toro, who hasn’t been involved in a Mexican project in several years. It’s a tough race, but having someone like the “Pan’s Labyrinth’s” director supporting the film could be a deal breaker.
Peru
"The Vanished Elephant" (El Elefante Desaparecido)
Dir. Javier Fuentes-León
Isa: Mundial
U.S. Distribution: Oscilloscope Laboratories
Peruvian Release Date: October 9th, 2015
Javier Fuentes-Leon’s “The Vanished Elephant” premiered at last year’s Tiff and was also part of this year’s Los Angeles Film Festival making it the highest profile Peruvian film of the year. At home, the critical response was very positive and the quality of the film, in comparison to other Peruvian works released in the last 12 months, is undeniable. “The Vanished Elephant” tells the cryptic story of a writer whose girlfriend disappears without a trace. After receiving a series of strange photographs, he delves into deceitful conspiracy that defies the lines between reality and fiction. Fuentes-Leon debut feature “Undertow” was submitted to the Academy back in 2010. Enrica Perez’ “Climas” about three Peruvian women from different walks of life and Héctor Gálvez forensic mystery “Nn” have both screened at several international festivals, and though they are much smaller film’s than “The Vanished Elephant,”either of them could be the next best choice to become Peru’s Oscar entry. Less likely titles include “Videophilia,” “Solos,” and historical drama “Gloria del Pacífico.”
The Philippines
"Trap" (Taklub)
Dir. Brillante Mendoza
Isa: Films Distribution
U.S. Distribution: None Yet
Filipino Release Date: Unknown
Brillante Mendoza is one the Philippines most acclaimed auteurs and yet none of his films have ever been selected to represent the Southeast Asian nation at the Oscars. His latest work, “Trap,” won Special Mention from the Ecumenical Jury at Cannes and it’s the prime contender to travel to L.A. this year. “Trap” follows a group of survivors soon after Typhoon Haiyan devastated a great part of the country. The film stars Filipino actress Nora Aunor, who also the lead in Mendoza’s “Thy Womb,” which was the Filipino entry at the Golden Globes a couple years back. Given that Mendoza’s work has never been selected, there is a chance he might miss out once more. If that happens, the film that could benefit is Paul Soriano's Manny Pacquiao biopic titled “Kid Kulafo,” which would evidently ring a bell with Americans. Other films to be considered include “Justice,” also starring Aunor, “Crocodile,” or even lighthearted comedy “English Only, Please.”
Russia
"Sunstroke"
Dir. Nikita Mikhalkov
Isa: Wild Bunch
U.S. Distribution: None Yet
Russian Release Date: October 4th, 2014
Even after winning the Golden Globe and being nominated for an Academy Awards, Andrey Zvyagintsev “Leviathan” couldn’t get the Best Film award from the Russian Academy. Instead, they decided to bestow that honor on veteran filmmaker Nikita Mikhalkov's period piece "Sunstroke.” This is the type of film that Russia loves to submit: patriotic, historical, and epic. Even though last year the Russian selection committee showed they could overlook their political agenda to ensure the best film represented the country, this year they will go back to their old ways. This is not to say “Sunstroke” is a bad film, as hardly anyone outside of Russia has seen, but it does mean that other more daring offers like Yuriy Bykov's festival darling “The Fool” and Aleksey German's “Under Electric Clouds" have little hope at becoming the country’s entry and getting the exposure that comes with it. Mikhalkov won the Oscar in for “Burnt by the Sun” in 1995 and was nominated again for "12" in 2008, which means he will be hard to beat this year. "The Fool" would be a much more interesting selection but its story about a regular citizen fighting the corrupt system might prove too controversial. There is also another war epic titled "Batalion" by Dmitriy Meskhiev, which could pull off a surprise.
Serbia
"Enclave" (Enklava)
Dir. Goran Radovanovic
PC: Nana Filam
U.S. Distribution: None Yet
Serbian Eelease Date: March 19, 2015
Serbia’s 6-film shortlist includes worlds that deal with a variety of subjects, from the recurrent tales of war and its aftermath, triumphant sports stories, and even the peculiar case of a boy who grew up wild in the woods. Of all these possibilities, the film that seems to have the most gravitas is Goran Radovanovic's “Enclave,” a film about the ethnic divide in Kosovo and the atrocities that perpetuates. This is definitely not the film with the most international exposure, but the story might be enough to warrant its submission. Films that deal with similar issues like, “Circles,” have been previous selected. But the Serbian committee wants to stay away from both war and sports dramas, they might go with Vuk Rsumovic “No One’s Child” which did very well at a few festivals including Venice and Palm Springs. It could either way. Original comedy "Monument to Michael Jackson" could also be a more lighthearted choice. The shortlist is completed by "We Will Be the World Champions"," The Man Who Defended Gavrilo Princip," and "The Disobedient" (Sundance 2014).
Spain
"Ma Ma"
Dir. Julio Medem
Isa: Seville International
U.S. Distribution: None Yet
Spanish Release Date: September 11, 2015
For a long time I had hope that Spain would find a loophole and submit their most honored film at this year’s Goya Awards, “Marshland” (La Isla Minima), but that seems like a farfetched hope now. Luckily, another film that looks like a winner will be released just in time. “Ma Ma” directed by Julio Medem and starring Academy Award-winner Penelope Cruz has Oscar written all over it. Cruz plays a mother diagnosed with cancer and whose ferocious battle with the disease will reinvigorate her love for life. The actress also served as a producer in what has become one of the most anticipated films of the year. The only films that could challenge are coming-of-ager “A Cambio de Nada” and Basque-language drama “Loreak.” The former appears to be feel-good story that might seem slight in comparison to both “Ma Ma” and “Loreak,” which deals with a woman who starts receiving flowers from a mysterious sender. “Magical Girl” is a brilliantly twisty film, but being so edgy it will probably be considered to risky for the Oscar race. Penelope Cruz’ star power will decide this race.
Sweden
"A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence" (En duva satt på en gren och funderade på tillvaron)
Dir. Roy Andersson
Isa: Coproduction Office (Paris)
U.S. Distribution: Magnolia Pictures
Swedish Release Date: November 14th, 2014
The two previous chapters sin Andersson’s trilogy about being human were submitted to AMPAS, and even if they didn’t get a nomination, it’s hard to imagine them not submitting “A Pigeon.” The film has been critically acclaimed and it won the Golden Lion at last year’s Venice Film festival. Furthermore, it has already been released in the U.S. by Magnolia, the company that handled last year’s Swedish submission, “Force Majeure.” While I’d love to see Andersson be selected, there are several other films that could prevent that from happening. Kay Pollack, who earned Sweden’s most recent nomination for “As It Is in Heaven,” has a new film opening in early September titled “Heaven on Earth.” Depending on how that film is received the tables may or may not turn. The third strongest option is the romantic costume drama “Gentlemen,” which won several awards from the Swedish Academy and has already been picked up for U.S. distribution by, of course, Magnolia. Smaller, yet worthy candidates, include “My Skinny Sister” and “Flocking,” both of which premiered in Berlin.
Switzerland
"Vanity" (La Vanité)
Dir. Lionel Baier
Isa: Wide
U.S. Distribution: None Yet
Swiss Release Date: September 2, 2015
Out of the 7 films shortlisted by the Swiss, the one that immediately stands out is dark comedy “Vanity.” The film just premiered at Locarno and it stars Spanish actress, and one of Almodovar’s favorites, Carmen Maura, as well as Patrick Lapp. Although the film deals with suicide, the approach seems to be very comedic. In a list of several obscure titles, “Vanity” should come out on top. A second option could be Stina Werenfels' “Dora or the Sexual Neuroses of Our Parents,” which screened in Berlin’s Panorama section and tells the story of a mentally disabled woman discovering her sexuality. “War” by Simon Jaquemet, about a rebellious teenager, had some festival play as well but is less likely to be chosen. The other four titles in the shortlist are: “Pause,” doc “Iraqi Odyssey,” “Chubby,” and “L’oasis des mendiants.”
Taiwan
"The Assassin" (聶隱娘)
Dir. Hsiao-hsien Hou
Isa: Wild Bunch
U.S. Distribution: Well Go USA Entertainment
Taiwanese Release Date: August 28th, 2015
There is really no race here. “The Assassin” will be Taiwan’s entry almost certainly. Winner of the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival and clearly one of the best reviewed films of the year, this martial arts epic, which is said to showcase marvelous imagery, should be consider a strong contender. I can’t see Taiwan not choosing the film, but there are still other films that could be considered. Of those the most viable, but very distant, second choice could be Tso-chi Chang's “Thanatos, Drunk,” which was awarded in Berlin and received six prizes at the Taipei Film Festival. The film revolves around to brothers in Taipei trying to find jobs.
Thailand
"Cemetery of Splendor" (รักที่ขอนแก่น)
Dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Isa: The Match Factory
U.S. Distribution: Strand Releasing
Thai Release Date: Unknown
It was a great year for Thai art house cinema, which means the country has several prominent titles to choose from. Strangely enough, even when there are films with international recognition, Thailand often decides to submit a quirky romantic comedy or a random horror film. The reasons behind their selections are unknown. Still, assuming that they will pay attention to their most respected filmmakers, the number one choice should be "Cemetery of Splendor." However, Apichatpong Weerasethakul's films are not as well liked in his homeland are they are abroad, but it seems irrational for them not consider the film. It might be too abstract for AMPAS’ taste, but it’s still the most prestigious work. Other possibilities include “How to Win at Checkers (Every Time)," which is partially in English, “The Blue Hours” (Berlin’s Panorama), and Rotterdam’s “Vanishing Point.” Of course, there are scores of more commercial titles from which the committee might pick.
Turkey
"Mustang"
Dir. Deniz Gamze Ergüven
Isa: Kinology
U.S. Distribution: Cohen Media Group
Turkish Release Date: Unknown
Last year Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Palme d’Or-winning film “Winter Sleep” failed to receive a nomination, perhaps due to it’s length and cerebral screenplay. This year another title out of Cannes shows more promise. “Mustang” tells the story of five sisters living in a small village and subjected to the sexist prejudices of the townspeople. With extensive festival play and in the hands of Cohen Media Group - the company behind this year’s nominee “Timbuktu" - Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s film is the ideal pick. Sundance’s “Ivy” by Tolga Karaçelik, about a group of men trapped aboard a ship could definitely be a top contender. Kutlug Ataman's “Kuzu,” winner of the C.I.C.A.E. Award in Berlin’s Panorama section would be the third most likely film to represent Turkey at the Oscars. Lastly, “The Miracle,” a romantic period piece, is a large local production that could be considered, but lacks the festival exposure of the other three.
Venezuela
"Gone With the River" (Dauna, Lo que lleva el río)
Dir. Mario Crespo
Isa: Centro Nacional Autonomo de Cinematografía
U.S. Distribution: None Yet
Venezuelan Release Date: March 20, 2015
With Alberto Arvelo’s “The Liberator,” the South American nation got as close as it’s ever been to Oscar glory this year. The biopic about Simón Bolívar starring Edgar Ramírez managed to become one of the 9 shortlisted finalists out of 83 submissions. Venezuela has several options to submit for the 88th Academy Awards, but they are much smaller in magnitude on this occasion. Appearing at the NATIVe sidebar of the Berlinale, “Dauna, lo que lleva el río” or “ Gone with the River” is the most important Venezuelan film of the year and gives voice to the country’s indigenous people by telling story that rarely gets seen on screen. On the other hand, the film “3 Beauties,” about another of Venezuelan’s most well-known obsessions, beauty pageants, has received critical praise at home but it seems to be a lighter satirical comedy. Their Oscar entry could be either one of the two, but I think they will go with the more socially relevant story. A smaller film, “Espejos,” could be part of the conversation but is possibilities are very limited.
Trying to predict what a particular nation will enter is a tall order because of the numerous factors that weight in, especially when dealing with countries with a large film industry. In other cases, however, there are usually just a couple standouts that meet the standards to be submitted. Whatever the case, even with the most obvious choices there could be surprises such as Indian choosing not to submitting "The Lunchbox" or Chile choosing another film over Silva's "The Maid."
While there is no sure-fie formula to predict what films will be competing for the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award, by looking at festivals, release dates, national awards, previous submissions, and with a hefty dose of educated speculation, I've put together a list of 35 titles that, at this point, seem like excellent choices.
Update 08/28: Several countries have announced their official submissions: Croatia ("The High Sun"), Germany ("Labyrinth of Lies"), Guatemala ("Ixcanul"), Switzerland ("Iraqi Odyssey"), and Palestine ("The Wanted 18").
Argentina
"The Clan" (El Clan)
Dir. Pablo Trapero
Isa: Film Factory Entertainment
U.S. Distribution: None Yet
Argentine Release Date: August 13th, 2015
Coming off the success of this year’s nominee “Wild Tales,” which also did very well at the U.S. box-office for Sony Pictures Classics and became a spectacular hit back home, Argentina seems to have another strong contender this year with Pablo Trapero’s latest work “The Clan” (El Clan). Two of the director’s previous films have been submitted before (“Lion’s Den” and “Carrancho”), and this one about the Puccio family, which was criminal organization that kidnapped and murdered wealthy people, looks more than promising. “The Clan” is also produced by Almodovar’s El Deso, just as Damian Szifron’s “Tales” was. There are several other films that have enough merits to be considered, but might prove insufficient when faced with Trapero’s film. “Refugiado,” “El Patron,” “Two Shots” and, even “Jauaja,” starring Viggo Mortensen, qualify
Brazil
"The Second Mother"
Dir. Anna Muylaert
Isa: The Match Factory
U.S. Distribution: Oscilloscope Pictures
Brazilian Release Date: August 27, 2015
Undoubtedly the most awarded Brazilian film of the year is also their best bet at the Oscars. Anna Muylaert's “The Second Mother” premiered at Sundance where it won a Special Jury Prize for both of its leading actresses Regina Casé and Camila Márdila. It went on to screen in the Panorama section of the Berlinale and took home the C.I.C.A.E. Award and the Audience Award. The film tells the story of a live-in housekeeper and his daughter as they navigate the class divisions prevalent in Brazilian society. Another factor in its favor is the fact that the film has secured U.S. distribution thanks to Oscilloscope. “The Second Mother” opens in Brazil on August 27 and, in a strange turn of events, on August 28 in the U.S. While there are plenty of other great Brazilian works that qualify to be submitted, it’s unlikely that the selection committee will look elsewhere. Other films that could have a shot at being chosen are “August Winds,” “Casa Grande.” “Blue Blood,” and “White Out, Black In”
Bulgaria
"The Judgement"
Dir. Stephan Komandarev
Isa: Premium Film
U.S. Distribution: None Yet
Bulgarian Release Date: October 16, 2014
Following last year’s scandalous selection of “Bulgarian Rhapsody” over the more deserving “Viktoria,” the Eastern European country has a two-way race in which both candidates have almost equal chances at being chosen. Stephan Komandarev’s drama “The Judgement” is the larger production of the two and revolves around a desperate father trying to amend his relationship with his estrange son. At the same time the protagonist is also trying to make ends meet and decides to take on the dangerous job of smuggling illegal immigrant from Syria through a remote area of the Turkish-Greek-Bulgarian border. The other film is Kristina Grozeva & Petar Valchanov's “The Lesson,” about a devoted teacher who is faced with corrupt bureaucracy after her classroom is burglarized. Winning awards at the Sofia International Film Festival, San Sebastian, Thessaloniki, and screening at Tiff and Rotterdam, “The Lesson” should be the frontrunner. However, “The Judgement” might have the edge not only because it sports a larger budget and wider appeal, but because Komandarev is the filmmaker behind “The World is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner,” which is the one Bulgarian film that has gotten the closest to Oscar glory when it was shortlisted by the Academy in 2010. Less likely to be selected but still viable possibilities are “Adultery,”"Buffer Zone," and "The Petrov File."
Canada
"Felix & Meira"
Dir. Maxime Giroux
Isa: Urban Distribution International
U.S. Distribution: Oscilloscope Laboratories
Canadian Release Date: January 30th, 2015
As of now Canada’s ideal representative would be the small, but touching, “Felix & Meir,” about a married woman from the Orthodox Jewish community who falls in love with a secular man, as way to know life beyond the restrictions of her faith. This tiny gem won the Best Canadian Feature award at last year’s Tiff and received four awards at the Whistler Film Festival including Best Film and Best Director. “Felix & Meira” was acquired by Oscilloscope for U.S. distribution and was released last April. To date it has grossed nearly $500,00, which, for a subtle and niche film like this, is a great feat. Giroux’ film should take this easily, unless the new film by Oscar-nominated director Philippe Falardeau decides to push for the opportunity. Falardeau newest film “Guibord Goes to War” (Guibord s’en va-t-en guerre) is a political dark comedy that premiered at Locarno and is scheduled to open in Canada on October 2- just two days after AMPAS’ deadline. If the distributor decides to have a one-week qualifying run ahead of the release, then it would become the new frontrunner to represent Canada. However, it’s still unknown if that is being considered or if the film will just wait till next year. Falardeau was nominated in the category for “Monsieur Lazhar” in 2012. “Chorus,” which premiered at Sundance, Berlin’s “Corbo,” Tiff’s “In Her Place,” and the “Les Loups” also qualify.
Chile
"The Club" (El Club)
Dir. Pablo Larraín
Isa: Funny Balloons
U.S. Distribution: Music Box Films
Chilean Release Date: May 28, 2015
With Pablo Larraín’s Silver Bear-winner film, Chile has an easy choice to make. “The Club,” which was recently picked up for U.S. distribution by Music Box Films, has received universal critical acclaimed and has cemented its director as one of the most important figures in Latin American cinema. Larraín’s latest centers on a group of priests and nuns sent to a beach town to purify their sinful pasts involving everything from pedophilia to kidnapping. The only other film that truly stands a chance is Matias Lira's “El Bosque de Karadima,” which deals with similar themes regarding secrecy and crimes against children within the Catholic Church. But even if this film has been well-received at home, “The Club” has had more much more international visibility and it has the distinction of being the newest work from the director behind “No,” Chile’s only Oscar-nominated film to date. Other notable works that will be part of the conversation include historical drama “Allende en su Laberinto” by veteran director Miguel Littin, Rodrigo Sepúlveda’s touching “Aurora," and indie flick “La Voz en Off.”
China
"Mountains May Depart" (山河故人)
Dir. Zhangke Jia
Isa: MK2
U.S. Distribution: Kino Lorber
Chinese Release Date: Unknown
Censorship has always played a role in China’s decision-making process when it comes to their Oscar submissions. Some of the best Chinese films in recent years are never considered given their controversial topics or because they were made outside of the state-run system. Under this circumstances patriotic epics or lavish period dramas are often selected even when their quality is subpar. The country’s big production this year is “The Lady of the Dynasty,” which was a box-office disappointment and garnered mostly negative reviews locally. With this in mind, the hope is that they will finally look at more compelling films with greater international exposure, such as Jia Zhangke’s “Mountains May Depart.” Premiering at Cannes to mostly positive responses, the film looks at Chinese society from three perspectives scattered over three decades. The film has passed the censors' revisions and will be allowed to screen in mainland Chine, which means it’s possible one of Zhangke’s film might finally represent his homeland. His previous effort, “A Touch of Sin,” was ignored because of its thematic elements. Jean-Jacques Annaud’s stunning “Wolf Totem” is a close second choice, but given the fact that China submitted a film by a French director last, they might want to highlight a homegrown talent this time. There is also “Red Amnesia,” a thriller about a widow that compulsively needs to take careof those around her until strange incidents shake her life. Er Cheng’s “The Wasted Times,” which appears to be a delirious visual treat, but it opens just a few days after the September 30th deadline. A qualifying run prior to that date is possible, but not likely. “Mountains May Depart” is definitely the strongest candidate.
Colombia
"Embrace of the Serpent" (El Abrazo de la Serpiente)
Dir. Ciro Guerra
Isa: Films Boutique
U.S. Distribution: Oscilloscope Laboratories
Colombian Release Date: May 25th, 2015
The Colombian film industry has had an outstanding year and that has produced an impressive lineup of films from which their strongest Oscar entry to date will emerge. Three films that screened at the Cannes Film Festival - two of which earned prizes – are at the top of the list. Winning the Art Cinema Award at the Directors’ Fortnight Ciro Guerra’s black-and-white “Embrace of the Serpent” is the one to beat among these trio of art house wonders. Guerra’s film is a period piece about the clash between the native people of the Amazon and a European explorer, which has received stellar reviews and was picked up for U.S. distribution by Oscilloscope. Two of Guerra’s previous films, “Wandering Shadows” and “The Wind Journey,” also represented Colombia at the Academy Awards. Nevertheless, the other films that screen at the Croisette, Golden Camera-winner “Land and Shade” and war drama “Alias Maria,” shouldn’t be completely counted out of the running. Films like Franco Lolli's “Gente de Bien” (Cannes 2014), Josef Wladyka's “Manos Sucias,” "Todos Se Van," and “Ruido Rosa” qualify and testify of the great moment Colombian filmmaking is experiencing, but they will have a difficult time pulling off an upset.
Croatia
"The High Sun" (Zvizdan)
Dir. Dalibor Matanic
Isa: Cercamon
U.S. Distribution: None Yet
Croatian Release Date: Septemeber 2015
It’s not often that a Croatian feature manage to grab Cannes’ attention and take home a prestigious award like the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize. “The High Sun” achieved such feat and should be almost a lock to become the country’s Oscar entry. This intense drama, that expands over three decades and explores the Balkan region’s turbulent history, also won 7 awards at the Pula Film Festival including Best Film, Director, Leading Actress, Supporting Actor, and Supporting Actress. If there’s another film with a reasonable shot, it would be Ognjen Svilicic's “These Are the Rules” about a family questioning their moral compass after a violent incident, which did well in the festival circuit winning awards in Venice, Warsaw, Stockholm, and Pula. Svilicic’s 2007 feature “Armin” represented the country at the 80th Academy Awards. “The Bridge at the End of the World,” “Ungiven,” “The Reaper,” “Number 55” are other noteworthy Croatian films released during the past year, but Matanic’s highly praised wok should have no trouble becoming the official entry.
Dominican Republic
"Sand Dollar" (Dólares de Arena)
Dir. Israel Cárdenas & Laura Amelia Guzmán
Isa: FIGa Films
U.S. Distribution: Breaking Glass Pictures
Dominican Release Date: November 13th, 2014
Thanks to a growing film industry, Dominican films have participated every year starting in 2011 after being absent from the race since 1995. Their submissions have included romantic comedies and low-budget crime dramas that weren’t successful at getting AMPAS’ attention. Fortunately, this year they might have their strongest candidate yet with “Sand Dollars.” In Israel Cárdenas & Laura Amelia Guzmán's film starring Geraldine Chaplin, a local girl becomes the object of desire for an older French woman visiting the Caribbean country, influenced by her boyfriend the Dominican beauty decides to take advantage of the foreigner’s interest. “Sand Dollars” has screened at countless festivals around the world winning a handful of awards and has secured U.S. distribution. Guillermo Zouain's road-trip comedy “Algún Lugar” has also been well-received at a couple of international festivals, but is less likely to be picked. “Pueto Pa’ Mí,” a drama about urban music, documentary “Tu y Yo," and biopic “Maria Montez,” might be out of luck. It’s unclear if Agliberto Meléndez political film “Del Color de La Noche,” has premiered yet, so that could a contender next year given that the director was behind the country’s first ever Oscar submission.
Ethiopia
"Lamb"
Dir. Yared Zeleke
Isa: Films Distribution
U.S. Distribution: None Yet
Ethiopian Release Date: Unknown
The East African nation has only sent two films for consideration. Last year it was the Angeline Jolie-supported “Difret,” which was part of the World Cinema competition at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. This year only two films seem to qualify. “Lamb” is the first-ever Ethiopian film to screen at Cannes, which makes it the unquestionable favorite. It’s a rural story about a boy and his beloved sheep moving in with relatives as his mother goes to work in the city. Reviews were positive praising the film’s cinematography and layered storytelling. The other film that could possibly be selected is Hermon Hailay’s “Prince of Love” about a prostitute and a cab driver struggling to get by in the capital city of Addis Ababa. “Prince of Love” represented the country at Fespaco, one of Africa’s most renowned festivals, and will screen at Tiff in September. Ethiopia might choose to send “Lamb” this time around and save Hailay’s feature for next year depending on release date.
Finland
"The Fencer" (Miekkailija)
Dir. Klaus Härö
Isa: The Little Film Company
U.S. Distribution: None Yet
Finnish Release Date: March 13th, 2015
Peculiar teen drama “They Have Escaped” won four Jussi Awards from the Finnish Academy earlier this year including Best Film and Best Director; however, it will probably face an uphill battle to become Finland’s Oscar entry. Instead, Estonian-language period piece, “The Fencer,” looks like a more feasible alternative because of its classic story, elegant cinematography, and the director behind it: Klaus Härö. The film tells the story of a young Estonian fencer who leaves his homeland to become a Pe teacher and escape persecution by the Russian authorities in the 1950s. Some critics have gone as far as to call it “the best Finnish film in a decade.” Three of Härö’s previous films (“Elina: As If I Wasn’t There,””Mother of Mine, “ and Letter to Father Jacob) were selected as Oscar entries. The only obstacle in its path is the fact that this is an Estonian story with mostly Estonian dialogue. If the selection committee can overlook that, this will be their pick. Antti Jokinen's “Wildeye,” a visually arresting war drama that opens in September is another strong option, particularly because Jokinen’s previous film, “Purge,” represent the country in 2013. “Absolution,” “Head First,” ”Homecoming,” and “Tsamo” are proof a strong year in Finnish cinema but won’t make the cut.
France
"Dheepan"
Dir. Jacques Audiard
Isa: Wild Bunch
U.S. Distribution: Sundance Selects
French Release Date: August 26th, 2015
Given the amount of films produced in France each year, this is the most difficult country to narrow down. However, this year there is a heavyweight contender among the scores of worthy productions. Surprise Palme d’Or-winner “Deephan” by the Academy Award-nominated director of “A Prophet," Jacques Audiard, is a clear favorite. Audiard is a legend and it’s hard to think France won’t support the film that took home one of cinema’s most coveted prizes. Following the relevant immigrant story of a Sri Lankan warrior in France, “Dheepan” is almost a safe bet. If for some unimaginable reason Audiard’s latest is not chosen, the most likely alternative would be well-received “My Golden Days” by Arnaud Desplechin, which has been picked up for U.S. distribution by Magnolia Pictures. While there are dozens of films that could be considered, here are some other important French films that qualify based on their release dates: “Girlhood,” “Standing Tall,” “The Measure of Man,” “The New Girlfriend,” “Valley of Love,” “Eden,”"The Connection."
Germany
"Labyrinth of Lies" (Im Labyrinth des Schweigens)
Dir. Giulio Ricciarelli
Isa: Beta Cinema
U.S. Distribution: Sony Pictures Classics
German Release Date: November 6th, 2014
After an 8-film shortlist was released, - which sadly doesn’t include “Phoenix” because it opened late last September – things look pretty clear for the German selection committee. It’s really a 3-film race between “13 Minutes,” Labyrinth of Lies,” and “Victoria.” Unfortunately, and despite incredibly positive reviews, Sebastian Schipper's “Victoria” might be considered a risky choice because a big part of it is in English. That leaves Oliver Hirschbiegel’s “13 Minutes,” about a man who tried to assassinate Hitler in 1939. On the surface this looks like the prime title to send to AMPAS since Hirschbiegel’s “Downfall” earned him a nomination and he has worked in Hollywood for several years now. Yet, reception wasn’t as warm for his first German film in a decade. On the other “Labyrinth of Lies,” which deals with Post-World War II Germany and how the government tried to cover up its recent Nazi past, had better luck. Critical reception has been better for this film and it was a financial success in Germany and France, which gives the edge. Both “13 Minutes” and “Labyrinth of Lies” were acquired by Sony Pictures Classics for U.S. distribution. The complete list of shortlisted films can be found Here
Greece
"Xenia" (Ξενία)
Dir. Panos H. Koutras
Isa: Pyramide International
U.S. Distribution: Strand Releasing
Greek Release Date: October 2nd, 2014
Although it’s not an official rule, Greece almost-automatically selects the winner of the Best Film Prize at the Hellenic Film Awards as their Oscar submissions. This year’s winner was the Lgbt dramedy “Xenia,” which follows two Albanian brothers searching for their Greek father after their mother’s death. The film was nominated for 15 Hellenic Film Awards and won a total of six. “Xenia” premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival and will be released in the U.S. in October by Strand Releasing. I can’t see any other film being selected other than Koutras’ Almodovar-infused film, but if that were the case the other Best Film nominees – that meet AMPAS requirements- would be the ones to look to: “Electra,” “A Blast,” and “Forever.”
Guatemala
"Ixcanul"
Dir. Jayro Bustamante
Isa: Film Factory Entertainment
U.S. Distribution: None Yet
Guatemalan Release Date: August 27th, 2015
This is a no-brainer. Guatemala has only sent a film once back in 1994, but this year director Jayro Bustamante delivered the most awarded Guatemalan film in history. That should be a good enough reason to enter the race once again. “Ixcanul” won the Alfred Bauer Award at the Berlinale and has screened across the world to great success. Bustamante’s film centers on a Mayan girl who wants to escape the arrange marriage that awaits her to see what’s beyond her village. Another Guatemalan film, which also screened in Berlin, Edgar Sajcabún's “La Casa Más Grande del Mundo,” will probably not open theatrically in time and should be considered next year.
Iceland
"Rams" (Hrútar)
Dir. Grímur Hákonarson
Isa: New Europe Film Sales
U.S. Distribution: Cohen Media Group
Icelandic Release Date: May 28th, 2015
Two middle-aged brothers in an Icelandic rural town leave their differences behind and come together to save their beloved farm animals in the Un Certain Regard Award-winner “Rams.” With such recognition under its belt and having just been picked for U.S. distribution by Cohen Media Group, Grímur Hákonarson's film is certainly the handsomest choice. Still, “Rams” is not without a strong rival. Crowd-pleaser “Virgin Mountain,” about a lonely man whose life changes when he meets a new friend, had its U.S. premiere at the Tribecca Film Festival where it won three awards: Best Narrative Feature, Best Actor, and Best Screenplay. It could go either way, but the Cannes prestige and having found a U.S. distributor give “Rams” the upper hand. Iceland produced several qualifying features this year including “Brave Men’s Blood,” “East of the Mountain, “ and “The Homecoming.”
Iran
"Muhammad: The Messenger of God"
Dir. Majid Majidi
PC: Nourtaban Film Industry
U.S. Distribution: None Yet
Iranian Release Date: August 26, 2015
Iran will have to make an incredibly difficult decision that unfortunately may have political repercussions. Majid Majidi’s latest film “Muhammad: The Messenger of God” is the most expense Iranian feature ever made. The historical epic brings to life the early years of the prophet's life with impressive locations, costumes, and cinematography courtesy of Three-time Oscar-winner Vittorio Storaro. Majidi himself is no stranger to the Academy having earned Iran’s first-ever Academy Award nomination with “Children of Heaven.” Taking these facts into consideration, “Muhammad” seems to be the obvious selection, but there are many religious and political concerns that could get in its way. Islam prohibits the depiction of the prophet and other sacred figures in any artistic work. Knowing this, Majidi shot the entire film - which is the first part in what’s to become a trilogy – without ever showing the prophet’s face by shooting most scenes from his point of view or showing him with his back to the camera. This was acceptable for Iran’s censors, as the film will open this week in theaters across the Middle Eastern country. However, other Muslim countries, particularly Sunni Muslims, have been outspoken about their discontent with the film. Whether Iran will still choose to submit the film to AMPAS is a mystery, but it will certainly have more to do with outside influences rather than artistic merit. “Muhammad” will have its North American premiere at the Montreal World Film Festival.
“Nahid” by Ida Panahandeh, about a woman’s journey from divorce to remarrying, won the Avenir Prize in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes, but - although censors have said the film will be allowed the screen in Iran - it might not open theatrically in time. It also deals with a controversial subject and that might limit it chances. A third, and much safer option, is romantic drama “What’s the Time in Your World?” starring Leila Hatami (“A Speration”) and Ali Mosaffa (“The Past”). Directed by Safi Yazdanian, the film looks beautifully done and sports two of the most talented Iranian actors working today. It could definitely be a good alternative. Other films include “Borderless,” “Track 143,” "Tales” and “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.” Perhaps Iran will ignore the risk and submit their most lavish film to date by one of their most celebrated filmmakers who still works within the state’s parameters.
Israel
"The Kind Words" (Ha'milim ha'tovot )
Dir. Shemi Zarhin
Isa: Beta Cinema
U.S. Distribution: None Yet
Israeli Release Date: May 28, 2015
With 12 nominations to Israel’s Ophir Awards, “The Kind Words” including Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, and Best Actress Shem Zarhin’s film is the one to beat. Since the winner of the Ophir Award for Best Film automatically becomes Israel’s Oscar submission, “The Kind Words” has a strong shot at both honors. The film follows a group of siblings as they travel abroad to uncover a secret. By default the other contenders are the rest of the films nominated for Best Film: “Wounded Land,” ”Afterthought,” “Wedding Doll,” and “Baba Joon.” Of this Elad Keidan's “Afterthought,” which premiered at Cannes to positive reviews, and Erez Tadmor's intense drama “Wounded Land” appear to be the strongest alternatives. Despite being nominated several times Israel has never won the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award.
Italy
"My Mother" (Mia Madre)
Dir. Nanni Moretti
Isa: Films Distribution
U.S. Distribution: Alchemy
Italian Release Date: April 16th, 2015
Nanni Moretti is back with “Mia Madre,” a new family drama that screened in competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and won a few awards at the Italian David di Donatello Awards. Since the big winner at the national awards, “Black Souls,” was considered last year, Moretti’s film is the frontrunner. However, there is a wild card that could change things. Veteran filmmaker Marco Bellocchio will release his newest work “Blood of My Blood,” a historical drama about a 17th century woman accused of being a witch, on September 9 - just in time to qualify. It’s likely that Moretti will have enough support to pull it off, but there is still a chance that might not be set in stone. Besides these two films there is Mario Martone’s “Leopardi,” a biopic about poet Giacomo Leopardi, which won several David di Donatello Awards and was also recognized in Venice. With even less possibilities are Sundance’s “Cloro,” “Greenery Will Bloom Again,” and Albanian-language “Sworn Virgin,”
Ivory Coast
"Run"
Dir. Philippe Lacôte
PC: Banshee Films
U.S. Distribution: None Yet
Ivorian Release Date: December 17th, 2014
The first and only time a film represent Ivory Coast at the Oscars was back in 1977. That film, “Black and White in Color,” won the first and only Academy Award attributed to a Sub-Saharan African country. Nevertheless, that landmark work was directed by a Frenchmen, Jean-Jacques Annaud, and had mostly French talent in the leading roles. Now, almost 40 years later, an actual Ivorian film looks presents a fantastic opportunity for the country to return to the race. Philippe Lacote’s political drama “Run” screened in the Un Certain Regard section in Cannes 2014, Tiff, and AFI Fest, and later opened commercially in Abidjan, the Ivorian Capital, and Paris. Ivory Coast has only one eligible film to submit as their Oscar entry, and fortunately it’s a good one.
Japan
"Our Little Sister" (海街 diary)
Dir. Hirokazu Koreeda
Isa: Wild Bunch
U.S. Distribution: Sony Pictures Classics
Japanese Release Date: June 13th, 2015
Japan hasn’t had a successful entry since unexpectedly winning the award in 2009 with “Departures.” Their selections are often baffling because they tend to ignore festival winners and critically acclaimed films to pick obscure titles that rarely connect with voters. In recent years outstanding films such as “Like Father, Like Son” have been overlooked. Having said this, one can only hope that this time around they will chose more wisely. This year another film by Hirokazu Koreeda, “Our Little Sister,” debuted at Cannes and has been picked up for U.S. distribution by Sony Pictures Classic – a powerhouse distributor in the Best Foreign Language Film race. Based on a manga series, the film revolves around a group of young women who decide to adopt their stepsister after their father dies. “Our Little Sister” was also a financial success in its homeland. Even with all these positive qualities on its side, Japan might refuse to submit Koreeda’s film and look elsewhere. Other options from the festival circuit include Naomi Kawase's “An- Sweet Red Bean Paste,” which less positive reviews; “Journey to the Shore,” though it opens on October 1; “Kabukicho Love Hotel,” which screened at Tiff last year, and “Cape Nostalgia.”
Jordan
"Theeb" (ذيب)
Dir. Naji Abu Nowar
Isa: Fortissimo Films
U.S. Distribution: Film Movement
Jordanian Release Date: March 19th, 2015
In 2008 Jordan submitted their first-ever Oscar submission, and the first feature film made in the country in half a century. That film, “Captain Abu Raed,” did very well in festivals like Sundance and Dubai. Since then, Jordanian cinema has been scarce forcing the country to be absent from the race. That could change this year with “Theeb” by UK-born filmmaker Naji Abu Nowar. His period piece about a Bedouin boy during World War I has played at numerous festivals and will have a U.S. theatrical release via Film Movement.
Lithuania
"The Summer of Sangailé" (Sangaile)
Dir. Alanté Kavaïté
Isa: Films Distribution
U.S. Distribution: Strand Releasing
Lithuanian Release Date: August 21st, 2015
The Sundance Film Festival screened its first-ever Lithuanian feature this past January, “The Summer of Sangailé” by Alanté Kavaïté. This Lgbt coming-of-age story showcases captivating cinematography and nuanced performances. “Sangailé” went on to win the Directing Award in the World Cinema Competition at the Park City festival. It will also become one of the very few Lithuanian films to have been distributed in the U.S. when Strand Releasing schedules its theatrical release. Being the most awarded narrative film from the Baltic nation, it should be a shoo-in. "Sangailé" also won three Silver Crane Awards (Lithuanian Oscars): Best Film, Best Actress for Julija Steponaityte and best set design for Ramunas Rastauskas. Its only realistic adversary is the documentary “Master and Tatyana,” which won the Best Documentary, Best Director, and Best Cinematography prizes at the Silver Crane. Lithuania has shown to be fond of submitting documentaries, but one could presume that “Sangaile’s” wider international appeal will help it succeed.
Mexico
"The Thin Yellow Line" (La Delgada Línea Amarilla)
Dir. Celso R. García
Isa: Latido Films
U.S. Distribution: None Yet
Mexican Release Date: Unknown
Among the 14 films that the Mexican Academy announced as candidates to become the official Oscar submission, only a handful of them have a real chance at representing Mexico. It’s really a three-way race between “600 Miles,” “La Tirisia,” and “The Thin Yellow Line.” Each of these has distinctive assets as well as factors that could play against them. Gabriel Ripstein's “600 Miles” stars Tim Roth, which could be beneficial because Academy voters would see a familiar face on screen. At the same time Roth’s participation means that there is a considerable amount of English dialogue that could make the film feel less authentic when considered as a “foreign language film” representing a country. Then there is Jorge Pérez Solano's art house marvel, “La Tirisia,” about the role of women in a very traditional Mexican community. This is a film that truly showcases an unseen aspect of Mexican culture and has garnered international recognition, but it might be too small in scope to be selected.
Lastly, “The Yellow Thin Line,” which was awarded at the Guadalajara Film Festival but hasn’t travel much. It will screen at the Chicago International Film Festival in October. “The Thin Yellow Line” tells the story of a group of men working on a deserted road as they are forced to come to terms with their yearnings and failures. The premise seems unique; the cast includes some of Mexico’s most recognizable talents, and it’s partly produced my Guillermo del Toro. That last fact is what could set the film apart from the rest because the general public and Academy voters will be intrigued to see what was it about this story that interested Del Toro, who hasn’t been involved in a Mexican project in several years. It’s a tough race, but having someone like the “Pan’s Labyrinth’s” director supporting the film could be a deal breaker.
Peru
"The Vanished Elephant" (El Elefante Desaparecido)
Dir. Javier Fuentes-León
Isa: Mundial
U.S. Distribution: Oscilloscope Laboratories
Peruvian Release Date: October 9th, 2015
Javier Fuentes-Leon’s “The Vanished Elephant” premiered at last year’s Tiff and was also part of this year’s Los Angeles Film Festival making it the highest profile Peruvian film of the year. At home, the critical response was very positive and the quality of the film, in comparison to other Peruvian works released in the last 12 months, is undeniable. “The Vanished Elephant” tells the cryptic story of a writer whose girlfriend disappears without a trace. After receiving a series of strange photographs, he delves into deceitful conspiracy that defies the lines between reality and fiction. Fuentes-Leon debut feature “Undertow” was submitted to the Academy back in 2010. Enrica Perez’ “Climas” about three Peruvian women from different walks of life and Héctor Gálvez forensic mystery “Nn” have both screened at several international festivals, and though they are much smaller film’s than “The Vanished Elephant,”either of them could be the next best choice to become Peru’s Oscar entry. Less likely titles include “Videophilia,” “Solos,” and historical drama “Gloria del Pacífico.”
The Philippines
"Trap" (Taklub)
Dir. Brillante Mendoza
Isa: Films Distribution
U.S. Distribution: None Yet
Filipino Release Date: Unknown
Brillante Mendoza is one the Philippines most acclaimed auteurs and yet none of his films have ever been selected to represent the Southeast Asian nation at the Oscars. His latest work, “Trap,” won Special Mention from the Ecumenical Jury at Cannes and it’s the prime contender to travel to L.A. this year. “Trap” follows a group of survivors soon after Typhoon Haiyan devastated a great part of the country. The film stars Filipino actress Nora Aunor, who also the lead in Mendoza’s “Thy Womb,” which was the Filipino entry at the Golden Globes a couple years back. Given that Mendoza’s work has never been selected, there is a chance he might miss out once more. If that happens, the film that could benefit is Paul Soriano's Manny Pacquiao biopic titled “Kid Kulafo,” which would evidently ring a bell with Americans. Other films to be considered include “Justice,” also starring Aunor, “Crocodile,” or even lighthearted comedy “English Only, Please.”
Russia
"Sunstroke"
Dir. Nikita Mikhalkov
Isa: Wild Bunch
U.S. Distribution: None Yet
Russian Release Date: October 4th, 2014
Even after winning the Golden Globe and being nominated for an Academy Awards, Andrey Zvyagintsev “Leviathan” couldn’t get the Best Film award from the Russian Academy. Instead, they decided to bestow that honor on veteran filmmaker Nikita Mikhalkov's period piece "Sunstroke.” This is the type of film that Russia loves to submit: patriotic, historical, and epic. Even though last year the Russian selection committee showed they could overlook their political agenda to ensure the best film represented the country, this year they will go back to their old ways. This is not to say “Sunstroke” is a bad film, as hardly anyone outside of Russia has seen, but it does mean that other more daring offers like Yuriy Bykov's festival darling “The Fool” and Aleksey German's “Under Electric Clouds" have little hope at becoming the country’s entry and getting the exposure that comes with it. Mikhalkov won the Oscar in for “Burnt by the Sun” in 1995 and was nominated again for "12" in 2008, which means he will be hard to beat this year. "The Fool" would be a much more interesting selection but its story about a regular citizen fighting the corrupt system might prove too controversial. There is also another war epic titled "Batalion" by Dmitriy Meskhiev, which could pull off a surprise.
Serbia
"Enclave" (Enklava)
Dir. Goran Radovanovic
PC: Nana Filam
U.S. Distribution: None Yet
Serbian Eelease Date: March 19, 2015
Serbia’s 6-film shortlist includes worlds that deal with a variety of subjects, from the recurrent tales of war and its aftermath, triumphant sports stories, and even the peculiar case of a boy who grew up wild in the woods. Of all these possibilities, the film that seems to have the most gravitas is Goran Radovanovic's “Enclave,” a film about the ethnic divide in Kosovo and the atrocities that perpetuates. This is definitely not the film with the most international exposure, but the story might be enough to warrant its submission. Films that deal with similar issues like, “Circles,” have been previous selected. But the Serbian committee wants to stay away from both war and sports dramas, they might go with Vuk Rsumovic “No One’s Child” which did very well at a few festivals including Venice and Palm Springs. It could either way. Original comedy "Monument to Michael Jackson" could also be a more lighthearted choice. The shortlist is completed by "We Will Be the World Champions"," The Man Who Defended Gavrilo Princip," and "The Disobedient" (Sundance 2014).
Spain
"Ma Ma"
Dir. Julio Medem
Isa: Seville International
U.S. Distribution: None Yet
Spanish Release Date: September 11, 2015
For a long time I had hope that Spain would find a loophole and submit their most honored film at this year’s Goya Awards, “Marshland” (La Isla Minima), but that seems like a farfetched hope now. Luckily, another film that looks like a winner will be released just in time. “Ma Ma” directed by Julio Medem and starring Academy Award-winner Penelope Cruz has Oscar written all over it. Cruz plays a mother diagnosed with cancer and whose ferocious battle with the disease will reinvigorate her love for life. The actress also served as a producer in what has become one of the most anticipated films of the year. The only films that could challenge are coming-of-ager “A Cambio de Nada” and Basque-language drama “Loreak.” The former appears to be feel-good story that might seem slight in comparison to both “Ma Ma” and “Loreak,” which deals with a woman who starts receiving flowers from a mysterious sender. “Magical Girl” is a brilliantly twisty film, but being so edgy it will probably be considered to risky for the Oscar race. Penelope Cruz’ star power will decide this race.
Sweden
"A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence" (En duva satt på en gren och funderade på tillvaron)
Dir. Roy Andersson
Isa: Coproduction Office (Paris)
U.S. Distribution: Magnolia Pictures
Swedish Release Date: November 14th, 2014
The two previous chapters sin Andersson’s trilogy about being human were submitted to AMPAS, and even if they didn’t get a nomination, it’s hard to imagine them not submitting “A Pigeon.” The film has been critically acclaimed and it won the Golden Lion at last year’s Venice Film festival. Furthermore, it has already been released in the U.S. by Magnolia, the company that handled last year’s Swedish submission, “Force Majeure.” While I’d love to see Andersson be selected, there are several other films that could prevent that from happening. Kay Pollack, who earned Sweden’s most recent nomination for “As It Is in Heaven,” has a new film opening in early September titled “Heaven on Earth.” Depending on how that film is received the tables may or may not turn. The third strongest option is the romantic costume drama “Gentlemen,” which won several awards from the Swedish Academy and has already been picked up for U.S. distribution by, of course, Magnolia. Smaller, yet worthy candidates, include “My Skinny Sister” and “Flocking,” both of which premiered in Berlin.
Switzerland
"Vanity" (La Vanité)
Dir. Lionel Baier
Isa: Wide
U.S. Distribution: None Yet
Swiss Release Date: September 2, 2015
Out of the 7 films shortlisted by the Swiss, the one that immediately stands out is dark comedy “Vanity.” The film just premiered at Locarno and it stars Spanish actress, and one of Almodovar’s favorites, Carmen Maura, as well as Patrick Lapp. Although the film deals with suicide, the approach seems to be very comedic. In a list of several obscure titles, “Vanity” should come out on top. A second option could be Stina Werenfels' “Dora or the Sexual Neuroses of Our Parents,” which screened in Berlin’s Panorama section and tells the story of a mentally disabled woman discovering her sexuality. “War” by Simon Jaquemet, about a rebellious teenager, had some festival play as well but is less likely to be chosen. The other four titles in the shortlist are: “Pause,” doc “Iraqi Odyssey,” “Chubby,” and “L’oasis des mendiants.”
Taiwan
"The Assassin" (聶隱娘)
Dir. Hsiao-hsien Hou
Isa: Wild Bunch
U.S. Distribution: Well Go USA Entertainment
Taiwanese Release Date: August 28th, 2015
There is really no race here. “The Assassin” will be Taiwan’s entry almost certainly. Winner of the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival and clearly one of the best reviewed films of the year, this martial arts epic, which is said to showcase marvelous imagery, should be consider a strong contender. I can’t see Taiwan not choosing the film, but there are still other films that could be considered. Of those the most viable, but very distant, second choice could be Tso-chi Chang's “Thanatos, Drunk,” which was awarded in Berlin and received six prizes at the Taipei Film Festival. The film revolves around to brothers in Taipei trying to find jobs.
Thailand
"Cemetery of Splendor" (รักที่ขอนแก่น)
Dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Isa: The Match Factory
U.S. Distribution: Strand Releasing
Thai Release Date: Unknown
It was a great year for Thai art house cinema, which means the country has several prominent titles to choose from. Strangely enough, even when there are films with international recognition, Thailand often decides to submit a quirky romantic comedy or a random horror film. The reasons behind their selections are unknown. Still, assuming that they will pay attention to their most respected filmmakers, the number one choice should be "Cemetery of Splendor." However, Apichatpong Weerasethakul's films are not as well liked in his homeland are they are abroad, but it seems irrational for them not consider the film. It might be too abstract for AMPAS’ taste, but it’s still the most prestigious work. Other possibilities include “How to Win at Checkers (Every Time)," which is partially in English, “The Blue Hours” (Berlin’s Panorama), and Rotterdam’s “Vanishing Point.” Of course, there are scores of more commercial titles from which the committee might pick.
Turkey
"Mustang"
Dir. Deniz Gamze Ergüven
Isa: Kinology
U.S. Distribution: Cohen Media Group
Turkish Release Date: Unknown
Last year Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Palme d’Or-winning film “Winter Sleep” failed to receive a nomination, perhaps due to it’s length and cerebral screenplay. This year another title out of Cannes shows more promise. “Mustang” tells the story of five sisters living in a small village and subjected to the sexist prejudices of the townspeople. With extensive festival play and in the hands of Cohen Media Group - the company behind this year’s nominee “Timbuktu" - Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s film is the ideal pick. Sundance’s “Ivy” by Tolga Karaçelik, about a group of men trapped aboard a ship could definitely be a top contender. Kutlug Ataman's “Kuzu,” winner of the C.I.C.A.E. Award in Berlin’s Panorama section would be the third most likely film to represent Turkey at the Oscars. Lastly, “The Miracle,” a romantic period piece, is a large local production that could be considered, but lacks the festival exposure of the other three.
Venezuela
"Gone With the River" (Dauna, Lo que lleva el río)
Dir. Mario Crespo
Isa: Centro Nacional Autonomo de Cinematografía
U.S. Distribution: None Yet
Venezuelan Release Date: March 20, 2015
With Alberto Arvelo’s “The Liberator,” the South American nation got as close as it’s ever been to Oscar glory this year. The biopic about Simón Bolívar starring Edgar Ramírez managed to become one of the 9 shortlisted finalists out of 83 submissions. Venezuela has several options to submit for the 88th Academy Awards, but they are much smaller in magnitude on this occasion. Appearing at the NATIVe sidebar of the Berlinale, “Dauna, lo que lleva el río” or “ Gone with the River” is the most important Venezuelan film of the year and gives voice to the country’s indigenous people by telling story that rarely gets seen on screen. On the other hand, the film “3 Beauties,” about another of Venezuelan’s most well-known obsessions, beauty pageants, has received critical praise at home but it seems to be a lighter satirical comedy. Their Oscar entry could be either one of the two, but I think they will go with the more socially relevant story. A smaller film, “Espejos,” could be part of the conversation but is possibilities are very limited.
- 8/26/2015
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Sydney's Buzz
New projects from Alejandro Fernández Almendras, Eliane Caffé and Daniel Hendler are included in this year’s Films in Progress selection.
Films in Progress, the bi-annual initiative run jointly by San Sebastian International Film Festival and the Cinélatino, Rencontres de Toulouse to support Latin American films through post-production, will showcase six projects at this year’s San Sebastian festival (Sept 18-26).
Fernández Almendras, who won the 2014 Sundance world cinema grand jury prize for To Kill A Man, will present his new film Much Ado About Nothing, which was announced in Berlin this year.
The other projects include Eliane Caffé’s new film The Cambridge Squatter and actor Daniel Hendler’s debut feature The Ambush.
Four of the projects that were presented at last year’s San Sebastian Films in Progress will screen at this year’s festival: Paula, by Eugenio Canevari, will compete in the New Directors section, while Jayro Bustamante’s Ixcanul, which won the...
Films in Progress, the bi-annual initiative run jointly by San Sebastian International Film Festival and the Cinélatino, Rencontres de Toulouse to support Latin American films through post-production, will showcase six projects at this year’s San Sebastian festival (Sept 18-26).
Fernández Almendras, who won the 2014 Sundance world cinema grand jury prize for To Kill A Man, will present his new film Much Ado About Nothing, which was announced in Berlin this year.
The other projects include Eliane Caffé’s new film The Cambridge Squatter and actor Daniel Hendler’s debut feature The Ambush.
Four of the projects that were presented at last year’s San Sebastian Films in Progress will screen at this year’s festival: Paula, by Eugenio Canevari, will compete in the New Directors section, while Jayro Bustamante’s Ixcanul, which won the...
- 8/20/2015
- ScreenDaily
The San Sebastian Film Festival will once again present, in its 63rd edition, some of the most outstanding Latin American films of the year. The Horizontes Latinos program will include 14 productions from Argentina, Brazil, Columbia, Cuba, Chile, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela. Films that have competed or premiered at important international festivals, but which have not yet been screened at a Spanish festival or had their commercial release in the country.
The selected films compete for the Horizontes Award, decided by a specific jury and coming with €35,000, of which €10,000 will go to the director of the winning film, and the remaining €25,000 to its distributor in Spain.
The section will open with Pablo Larraín’s "El Club," Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at the last Berlin Festival. The film tells the tale of four men who share a secluded house in a small beach town, sent there to purge the sins they have committed in the past.
Here is the full list of titles screening in this important section:
"El Club" (The Club) Pablo Larraín (Chile) Opening Night Film
Pablo Larraín won the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at the last Berlin Festival with this film. Four men share a secluded house in a small beach town, sent there to purge the sins they have committed in the past.
"600 Millas" (600 Miles) Gabriel Ripstein (Mexico) Arnulfo Rubio, a young gun trafficker between the United States and Mexico, is being followed by Atf agent Hank Harris. After a risky mistake by Harris, Rubio makes a desperate decision: he smuggles the agent to Mexico. Best First Feature Award in the Panorama section of the Berlin Festival.
"El Abrazo de la Serpiente" (Embrace of the Serpent ) Ciro Guerra (Colombia - Argentina - Venezuela) Premiered at the Cannes Festival Directors’ Fortnight, the latest film from Ciro Guerra tells the epic story of the first contact, encounter, approach, betrayal and, eventually, life-transcending friendship, between an Amazonian shaman and two Western explorers.
"El Botón de Nácar (The Pearl Button) Patricio Guzmán (France - Chile - Spain ) Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzmán talks to us in his latest documentary about water, the cosmos and ourselves, human beings. It all begins with the discovery of two mysterious buttons in the depths of the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Chile.
"Chronic" Michel Franco (Mexico - France) David is a nurse who works with terminally ill patients. Efficient and dedicated to his profession, he develops strong and even intimate relationships with each person he cares for. But outside of his work David is ineffectual, awkward, and reserved. Best Screenplay Award-winner at the Cannes Festival.
"Desde Allá" (From Afar) Lorenzo Vigas (Venezuela) Armando, aged 50, looks for young men in the streets of Caracas and pays them to come back to his house with him. He also regularly spies on an older man with whom he seems to have ties from the past. One day he meets Elder, aged 17, leader of a small band of thugs. Competitor in the Official Selection of the Venice Festival.
"Las Elegidas" (The Chosen Ones) David Pablos (Mexico - France) David Pablos’s second film took part at the San Sebastian Co-production Forum in 2014 and premiered in the Un Certain Regard section of Cannes Festival. Sofia, 14 years old, is in love with Ulises. Because of him, in spite of him, she is forced into a prostitution ring in Mexico. To set her free, Ulises will have to find another girl to replace her.
"Ixcanul" Jayro Bustamante (Guatemala - France) María, a 17 year-old Mayan girl, lives and works with her family in a plantation on the Guatemalan plateau. Her days go by uneventfully until her parents arrange her marriage to the estate foreman, Ignacio. A film that landed a special mention at the last edition of Films in Progress and competed at the Berlin Festival, where it won the Alfred Bauer Award.
"Magallanes"
Salvador Del Solar (Peru Argentina- Colombia - Spain) Winner of Films in Progress at last year's Festival. Magallanes recognises a woman getting into a taxi. It's Celina, the young peasant girl he randomly arrested more than twenty years ago, when he was a soldier. They both have unfinished business. And for Magallanes, this is an opportunity to redeem himself. Damián Alcázar, Magaly Solier and Federico Luppi play the leading parts.
"La Obra del Siglo" (The Projcxt of Century) Carlos M. Quintela (Cuba -Argentina- Germany -Switzerland) Amidst a mosquito plague, Leonardo, struggling with the breakdown of his relationship, moves back to live with a grandfather who fights with everyone and everything, and a father living with the melancholy of the unfinished. Tiger Award-winner at the last Rotterdam Festival.
"Pulina" Santiago Mitre (Argentina- Brazil- France) Paulina decides to leave her brilliant law career to teach in a downtrodden Argentinian region. In a hostile atmosphere, she will set about her pedagogical mission, even if it means losing her boyfriend and confrontation with her father. Fipresci Prize-winner at the last Cannes Festival Critics’ Week.
"Para Minha Amada Morta" (To My Beloved) Aly Muritiba (Brazil) Fernando is a good man who takes care of his only child, Daniel, a shy and sensitive boy. Following the death of his wife Ana, every night Fernando recalls their love as he sorts out his beloved dead spouse’s belongings. One day he finds a VHS tape that will change everything. This movie participated in the Films in Progress section at the last Festival. The film took part at the Co-Production Forum in 2014.
"Te Prometo Anarquía" (I Promise You Anarchy) Julio Hernández Cordón (Mexico - Germany) Julio Hernández Cordón’s new film was selected for the Locarno Festival Competition. Miguel and Johnny have known each other since childhood. They spend their time skateboarding and having fun. To make easy money and continue skateboarding, they sell their own blood clandestinely. They turn the ploy into a business, until a major transaction doesn't turn out as they'd expected.
"La Tierra y la Sombra" (Land and Shade) César Augusto Acevedo (Colombia- Chiles - Brazil - Netherlands - France) Winner of the Caméra d’Or at the Cannes Festival, after having participated at the San Sebastian Co-Production Forum in 2013, this film portrays a family as they try to repair the fragile ties that bind them in the face of their imminent disappearance, brought about by the overwhelming power of progress.
The selected films compete for the Horizontes Award, decided by a specific jury and coming with €35,000, of which €10,000 will go to the director of the winning film, and the remaining €25,000 to its distributor in Spain.
The section will open with Pablo Larraín’s "El Club," Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at the last Berlin Festival. The film tells the tale of four men who share a secluded house in a small beach town, sent there to purge the sins they have committed in the past.
Here is the full list of titles screening in this important section:
"El Club" (The Club) Pablo Larraín (Chile) Opening Night Film
Pablo Larraín won the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at the last Berlin Festival with this film. Four men share a secluded house in a small beach town, sent there to purge the sins they have committed in the past.
"600 Millas" (600 Miles) Gabriel Ripstein (Mexico) Arnulfo Rubio, a young gun trafficker between the United States and Mexico, is being followed by Atf agent Hank Harris. After a risky mistake by Harris, Rubio makes a desperate decision: he smuggles the agent to Mexico. Best First Feature Award in the Panorama section of the Berlin Festival.
"El Abrazo de la Serpiente" (Embrace of the Serpent ) Ciro Guerra (Colombia - Argentina - Venezuela) Premiered at the Cannes Festival Directors’ Fortnight, the latest film from Ciro Guerra tells the epic story of the first contact, encounter, approach, betrayal and, eventually, life-transcending friendship, between an Amazonian shaman and two Western explorers.
"El Botón de Nácar (The Pearl Button) Patricio Guzmán (France - Chile - Spain ) Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzmán talks to us in his latest documentary about water, the cosmos and ourselves, human beings. It all begins with the discovery of two mysterious buttons in the depths of the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Chile.
"Chronic" Michel Franco (Mexico - France) David is a nurse who works with terminally ill patients. Efficient and dedicated to his profession, he develops strong and even intimate relationships with each person he cares for. But outside of his work David is ineffectual, awkward, and reserved. Best Screenplay Award-winner at the Cannes Festival.
"Desde Allá" (From Afar) Lorenzo Vigas (Venezuela) Armando, aged 50, looks for young men in the streets of Caracas and pays them to come back to his house with him. He also regularly spies on an older man with whom he seems to have ties from the past. One day he meets Elder, aged 17, leader of a small band of thugs. Competitor in the Official Selection of the Venice Festival.
"Las Elegidas" (The Chosen Ones) David Pablos (Mexico - France) David Pablos’s second film took part at the San Sebastian Co-production Forum in 2014 and premiered in the Un Certain Regard section of Cannes Festival. Sofia, 14 years old, is in love with Ulises. Because of him, in spite of him, she is forced into a prostitution ring in Mexico. To set her free, Ulises will have to find another girl to replace her.
"Ixcanul" Jayro Bustamante (Guatemala - France) María, a 17 year-old Mayan girl, lives and works with her family in a plantation on the Guatemalan plateau. Her days go by uneventfully until her parents arrange her marriage to the estate foreman, Ignacio. A film that landed a special mention at the last edition of Films in Progress and competed at the Berlin Festival, where it won the Alfred Bauer Award.
"Magallanes"
Salvador Del Solar (Peru Argentina- Colombia - Spain) Winner of Films in Progress at last year's Festival. Magallanes recognises a woman getting into a taxi. It's Celina, the young peasant girl he randomly arrested more than twenty years ago, when he was a soldier. They both have unfinished business. And for Magallanes, this is an opportunity to redeem himself. Damián Alcázar, Magaly Solier and Federico Luppi play the leading parts.
"La Obra del Siglo" (The Projcxt of Century) Carlos M. Quintela (Cuba -Argentina- Germany -Switzerland) Amidst a mosquito plague, Leonardo, struggling with the breakdown of his relationship, moves back to live with a grandfather who fights with everyone and everything, and a father living with the melancholy of the unfinished. Tiger Award-winner at the last Rotterdam Festival.
"Pulina" Santiago Mitre (Argentina- Brazil- France) Paulina decides to leave her brilliant law career to teach in a downtrodden Argentinian region. In a hostile atmosphere, she will set about her pedagogical mission, even if it means losing her boyfriend and confrontation with her father. Fipresci Prize-winner at the last Cannes Festival Critics’ Week.
"Para Minha Amada Morta" (To My Beloved) Aly Muritiba (Brazil) Fernando is a good man who takes care of his only child, Daniel, a shy and sensitive boy. Following the death of his wife Ana, every night Fernando recalls their love as he sorts out his beloved dead spouse’s belongings. One day he finds a VHS tape that will change everything. This movie participated in the Films in Progress section at the last Festival. The film took part at the Co-Production Forum in 2014.
"Te Prometo Anarquía" (I Promise You Anarchy) Julio Hernández Cordón (Mexico - Germany) Julio Hernández Cordón’s new film was selected for the Locarno Festival Competition. Miguel and Johnny have known each other since childhood. They spend their time skateboarding and having fun. To make easy money and continue skateboarding, they sell their own blood clandestinely. They turn the ploy into a business, until a major transaction doesn't turn out as they'd expected.
"La Tierra y la Sombra" (Land and Shade) César Augusto Acevedo (Colombia- Chiles - Brazil - Netherlands - France) Winner of the Caméra d’Or at the Cannes Festival, after having participated at the San Sebastian Co-Production Forum in 2013, this film portrays a family as they try to repair the fragile ties that bind them in the face of their imminent disappearance, brought about by the overwhelming power of progress.
- 8/19/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
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