Argentina ‘s Pampa Films and Lungo Films are teaming up with U.S.-based Bravura Media to produce a series based on the novel “Fordlandia, a Dark Paradise” by Argentine scribe, Eduardo Sguiglia.
The series project, titled “Fordlandia,” is among the 10 series pitches to be presented at this week’s Iberseries & Platino Industria’s Co-Production and Financing Forum in Madrid.
The series is based on a little-known event that began in 1928 when automobile tycoon Henry Ford who, fed up with the rubber supply shortage for tires, opted to start producing them in the Amazon, launching a messianic project dubbed “Fordlandia.”
After a year, the company failed to take off as it faced a critical shortage of local labor for its plantations. Buarque, a Brazilian adventurer, was hired to address the various issues. But the jungle, which Ford hoped to tame and colonize became a hotbed of recurring conflicts that only invited madness and violence.
The series project, titled “Fordlandia,” is among the 10 series pitches to be presented at this week’s Iberseries & Platino Industria’s Co-Production and Financing Forum in Madrid.
The series is based on a little-known event that began in 1928 when automobile tycoon Henry Ford who, fed up with the rubber supply shortage for tires, opted to start producing them in the Amazon, launching a messianic project dubbed “Fordlandia.”
After a year, the company failed to take off as it faced a critical shortage of local labor for its plantations. Buarque, a Brazilian adventurer, was hired to address the various issues. But the jungle, which Ford hoped to tame and colonize became a hotbed of recurring conflicts that only invited madness and violence.
- 10/2/2023
- by Anna Marie de la Fuente
- Variety Film + TV
Uruguay-based Agustina Chiarino, one of the drivers of the new Latin American cinema industry and at the forefront of pan-regional co-production, is kicking-off early projects at her recently launched production-distribution company Bocacha Films.
Chiarino attended last week’s Malaga Film Festival edition to present Pablo Solarz’s official section contender comedy “Desperté con un sueño” (“I Woke Up With a Dream”), which she produced at Mutante Cine, the Montevideo-based outfit Chiarino and editor-producer Fernando Epstein co-founded in 2011.
After “I Woke Up With a Dream,” two feature debuts are finishing production stage under the Mutante Cine brand: Vanina Spataro’s “Naufragios,” teaming with Kino Films in Argentina, and Sebastián Peña Escobar’s documentary “The Last” in partnership with Paraguay’s La Babosa Cine.
They will be “the last three movies Mutante Cine will be launching before disbanding,” Chiarino said.
Having produced more than 15 Latin American films, Chiarino is now embarking on a solo project,...
Chiarino attended last week’s Malaga Film Festival edition to present Pablo Solarz’s official section contender comedy “Desperté con un sueño” (“I Woke Up With a Dream”), which she produced at Mutante Cine, the Montevideo-based outfit Chiarino and editor-producer Fernando Epstein co-founded in 2011.
After “I Woke Up With a Dream,” two feature debuts are finishing production stage under the Mutante Cine brand: Vanina Spataro’s “Naufragios,” teaming with Kino Films in Argentina, and Sebastián Peña Escobar’s documentary “The Last” in partnership with Paraguay’s La Babosa Cine.
They will be “the last three movies Mutante Cine will be launching before disbanding,” Chiarino said.
Having produced more than 15 Latin American films, Chiarino is now embarking on a solo project,...
- 3/20/2023
- by Emiliano De Pablos
- Variety Film + TV
Exclusive: Argentinian crime thriller A Singular Crime (Un Crimen Argentino), directed by Lucas Combina, has landed a series of international distribution deals on the third day of the EFM.
The pic was given a local theatrical release by Warner Bros. last year and was brought to the market by FilmSharks. We understand that Koba films have taken all rights for France and French-speaking Europe, IV productions for Russia/Cis, AMC took all digital TV/SVOD rights for East Europe, and Spafax for inflight-Airline rights.
Deals for Korea, Japan, Australia, and Germany are said to be in discussion, with a US deal in motion.
Based on the best-selling novel by Reynaldo Sietecase, published by Penguin Random House, the film follows two jurists who try to solve the case of a wealthy businessman’s disappearance while facing the interference of a police officer.
The film stars Nicolas Francella, Darío Grandinetti, Matias Mayer (Iosi: El Espía Arrepentido), and Luis Luque.
Producers include Juan Pablo Buscarini, Pol Bossi-Cabe Bossi, Tomás Yankelevich, Peter Bevan, and Mariana Sanjurjo. Writers are Jorge Bechara, Matías Bertilotti, and Sebastián Pivotto.
The pic was given a local theatrical release by Warner Bros. last year and was brought to the market by FilmSharks. We understand that Koba films have taken all rights for France and French-speaking Europe, IV productions for Russia/Cis, AMC took all digital TV/SVOD rights for East Europe, and Spafax for inflight-Airline rights.
Deals for Korea, Japan, Australia, and Germany are said to be in discussion, with a US deal in motion.
Based on the best-selling novel by Reynaldo Sietecase, published by Penguin Random House, the film follows two jurists who try to solve the case of a wealthy businessman’s disappearance while facing the interference of a police officer.
The film stars Nicolas Francella, Darío Grandinetti, Matias Mayer (Iosi: El Espía Arrepentido), and Luis Luque.
Producers include Juan Pablo Buscarini, Pol Bossi-Cabe Bossi, Tomás Yankelevich, Peter Bevan, and Mariana Sanjurjo. Writers are Jorge Bechara, Matías Bertilotti, and Sebastián Pivotto.
- 2/18/2023
- by Zac Ntim
- Deadline Film + TV
Exclusive: FilmSharks has picked up world sales rights, excluding Latin America, to the crime thriller A Singular Crime (Un Crimen Argentino), directed by Lucas Combina.
Based on the best-selling novel by Reynaldo Sietecase, the film follows two jurists who will try to solve the case of a wealthy businessman’s disappearance while facing the interference of a police officer. The film was given a local theatrical release by Warner Bros. Pictures earlier this month and will be available exclusively on HBO Max across Latin America.
“We are happy to be chosen by these recognized companies to take care of their international sales,” Guido Rud of FilmSharks said. “We are one of the few Word Sales agencies that have agreements in place to rep their local language films, including Warner; Sony; Disney; Televisa-Videocine; Fox; Antena3; Banijay; Globo; ITV among other players.
The film is produced by Juan Pablo Buscarini, Pol Bossi-Cabe Bossi,...
Based on the best-selling novel by Reynaldo Sietecase, the film follows two jurists who will try to solve the case of a wealthy businessman’s disappearance while facing the interference of a police officer. The film was given a local theatrical release by Warner Bros. Pictures earlier this month and will be available exclusively on HBO Max across Latin America.
“We are happy to be chosen by these recognized companies to take care of their international sales,” Guido Rud of FilmSharks said. “We are one of the few Word Sales agencies that have agreements in place to rep their local language films, including Warner; Sony; Disney; Televisa-Videocine; Fox; Antena3; Banijay; Globo; ITV among other players.
The film is produced by Juan Pablo Buscarini, Pol Bossi-Cabe Bossi,...
- 10/4/2022
- by Zac Ntim
- Deadline Film + TV
Barcelona-based mini-studio Filmax is bringing onto the market “The Roar of the Butterflies,” an ambitious period drama made with Pablo Bossi’s Gloriamundi and Disney Plus in Latin America.
Focusing on the extreme courage of two women who stood up to one of the bloodiest dictators in Latin American history, the drama series is being brought into the open market at this week’s L.A. Virtual Screenings.
Increasing the show’s appeal is an impressive and now expanded cast of Spanish and Caribbean talent including Susana Abaitua, Sandy Hernández (“On the Block”), Guillermo Toledo (“I’m so Excited”) and Alberto Garcia (“Che”).
It was first announced in late 2019 as a Buena Vista Original Productions title produced with Bossi’s Pampa Films (“Chinese Takeaway”). It follows on their highly successful collaboration on “Monzón,” which raised the bar on production standards in Latin America.
“The Roar of the Butterflies” now also marks...
Focusing on the extreme courage of two women who stood up to one of the bloodiest dictators in Latin American history, the drama series is being brought into the open market at this week’s L.A. Virtual Screenings.
Increasing the show’s appeal is an impressive and now expanded cast of Spanish and Caribbean talent including Susana Abaitua, Sandy Hernández (“On the Block”), Guillermo Toledo (“I’m so Excited”) and Alberto Garcia (“Che”).
It was first announced in late 2019 as a Buena Vista Original Productions title produced with Bossi’s Pampa Films (“Chinese Takeaway”). It follows on their highly successful collaboration on “Monzón,” which raised the bar on production standards in Latin America.
“The Roar of the Butterflies” now also marks...
- 5/14/2021
- by Jamie Lang and Pablo Sandoval
- Variety Film + TV
Filmax, one of Spain’s top production-distribution-sales companies, has run up spirited presales on “Turu, the Wacky Hen,” its banner toon title for 2019. It’s a signal that independent animated features are in demand for underserved family audiences,
Based on the character from a famous song for multiple generations in the Latin world, “Turu” has closed pacts with Total Film Content (Cis), Fox Vision (former Yugoslavia), Siyah Beyaz Film (Turkey), Empire Film, Lightning McQueen (Vietnam), Kino Swiat (Poland), Cinemundo (Portugal) and Selim Ramia Co. (Middle East).
A deal for mainland China distribution has been sealed with an undisclosed company, said Ivan Díaz, Filmax Intl. sales head.
Introduced to buyers at the Afm, “Turu” now has a new longer promo, to be shown to distributors at Cannes, said Díaz. The animated feature will be finished by the end of summer. Filmax is planning a large cinematic release in Spain over the Christmas period.
Based on the character from a famous song for multiple generations in the Latin world, “Turu” has closed pacts with Total Film Content (Cis), Fox Vision (former Yugoslavia), Siyah Beyaz Film (Turkey), Empire Film, Lightning McQueen (Vietnam), Kino Swiat (Poland), Cinemundo (Portugal) and Selim Ramia Co. (Middle East).
A deal for mainland China distribution has been sealed with an undisclosed company, said Ivan Díaz, Filmax Intl. sales head.
Introduced to buyers at the Afm, “Turu” now has a new longer promo, to be shown to distributors at Cannes, said Díaz. The animated feature will be finished by the end of summer. Filmax is planning a large cinematic release in Spain over the Christmas period.
- 5/13/2019
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
45 Revolutions
(Atresmedia, Bambú Producciones)
The birth of a new rock record label in Spain’s conservative early ’60s.
Sa: A3Media Sales
Costa Del Sol Brigade
(Mediaset, Warner Bros. Itvp Spain, Netflix)
A MipDrama Buyers’ Summit entry. A facts-inspired cop thriller chronicling an early Spanish anti-narcotics squad.
Sa: Warner Bros. Itvp Spain
Dangerous Moms
(Mediaset, Producciones Mandarina)
A black crime farce in which four mothers are embroiled in accidental murder. Mediaset’s second MipDrama Summit contender.
Sa: Mediterráneo
Garbo, The Spy Who Double-crossed Hitler
(Portocabo, Vaca Films, Fearless Minds, Banijay Studios France)
Historical thriller mini-series inspired by the extraordinary life of WWII double agent Juan Pujol. Development
Hierro
(Movistar +, Arte France, Portocabo, Atlantique Productions)
The first Movistar + international co-production; a murder investigation set against spectacular landscapes of the titular Atlantic isle.
Sa: Banijay Rights.
Instinto
(Movistar +, Bambú Producciones)
An erotic thriller starring Mario Casas (“The 33”). Sold to Amazon in Latin America.
(Atresmedia, Bambú Producciones)
The birth of a new rock record label in Spain’s conservative early ’60s.
Sa: A3Media Sales
Costa Del Sol Brigade
(Mediaset, Warner Bros. Itvp Spain, Netflix)
A MipDrama Buyers’ Summit entry. A facts-inspired cop thriller chronicling an early Spanish anti-narcotics squad.
Sa: Warner Bros. Itvp Spain
Dangerous Moms
(Mediaset, Producciones Mandarina)
A black crime farce in which four mothers are embroiled in accidental murder. Mediaset’s second MipDrama Summit contender.
Sa: Mediterráneo
Garbo, The Spy Who Double-crossed Hitler
(Portocabo, Vaca Films, Fearless Minds, Banijay Studios France)
Historical thriller mini-series inspired by the extraordinary life of WWII double agent Juan Pujol. Development
Hierro
(Movistar +, Arte France, Portocabo, Atlantique Productions)
The first Movistar + international co-production; a murder investigation set against spectacular landscapes of the titular Atlantic isle.
Sa: Banijay Rights.
Instinto
(Movistar +, Bambú Producciones)
An erotic thriller starring Mario Casas (“The 33”). Sold to Amazon in Latin America.
- 4/9/2019
- by Emilio Mayorga
- Variety Film + TV
Spain’s Quirino Awards, Argentina’s Animation! and Mexico’s Pixelatl Festival, three key events in Ibero-American animation, will join forces to create La Liga (The League), as announced Wednesday at an Animation! round table hosted by the Quirino Awards, titled “Iberoamerican Alliance Models.”
Speakers included Quirino Awards promoter José Luis Farias, Mexico’s Pixelatl director José Iñesta, Gonzalo Azpiri at Argentina’s Animar Cluster, Milton Guerrero from Animation Peru, José Navarro from Chile’s national lobby Animach) and Liliana Rincón, of Colombia’s Gema animation trade assn.
The Liga’s logo (pictured) was designed by renowned Argentine animation auteur Juan Pablo Zaramella (“The Tiniest Man in the World”).
La Liga all see one of the selected projects at this year’s Animation! pitching sessions awarded a prize consisting of an invitation to attend Tenerife’s Quirino Awards and Cuernavaca’s Pixelatl, plus travel expenses, lodging and full accreditation to both.
Speakers included Quirino Awards promoter José Luis Farias, Mexico’s Pixelatl director José Iñesta, Gonzalo Azpiri at Argentina’s Animar Cluster, Milton Guerrero from Animation Peru, José Navarro from Chile’s national lobby Animach) and Liliana Rincón, of Colombia’s Gema animation trade assn.
The Liga’s logo (pictured) was designed by renowned Argentine animation auteur Juan Pablo Zaramella (“The Tiniest Man in the World”).
La Liga all see one of the selected projects at this year’s Animation! pitching sessions awarded a prize consisting of an invitation to attend Tenerife’s Quirino Awards and Cuernavaca’s Pixelatl, plus travel expenses, lodging and full accreditation to both.
- 12/12/2018
- by Emilio Mayorga
- Variety Film + TV
Latido Films’ selling spree continues at San Sebastian, where the Spanish sales agent has closed with Beijing-based distributor Lemon Tree Chinese rights to two Argentine high profile titles, Mariano Cohn’s thriller “4X4” and Carlos Sorin’s drama “Joel.”
Both titles head a raft of new deals clinched by Latido in San Sebastian, and come a week after reporting 23 higher-profile deals across seven titles struck from Cannes through Toronto.
Teaming Gaston Duprat and Cohn’s Buenos Aires-based Television Abierta with Spain’s Mediapro, and toplining Peter Lanzani (“The Clan”), “4 x 4” kicks-off with a luxury 4 x 4 stationed in a Buenos Aires district. A petty car thief enters the vehicle. But when he tries to get out, can’t. The doors, windows won’t open. He’s trapped.
The thriller marks Cohn’s follow-up to “The Distinguished Citizen” which won Oscar Martínez a Volpi Cup best actor award at 2016’s Venice Festival,...
Both titles head a raft of new deals clinched by Latido in San Sebastian, and come a week after reporting 23 higher-profile deals across seven titles struck from Cannes through Toronto.
Teaming Gaston Duprat and Cohn’s Buenos Aires-based Television Abierta with Spain’s Mediapro, and toplining Peter Lanzani (“The Clan”), “4 x 4” kicks-off with a luxury 4 x 4 stationed in a Buenos Aires district. A petty car thief enters the vehicle. But when he tries to get out, can’t. The doors, windows won’t open. He’s trapped.
The thriller marks Cohn’s follow-up to “The Distinguished Citizen” which won Oscar Martínez a Volpi Cup best actor award at 2016’s Venice Festival,...
- 9/28/2018
- by Emiliano De Pablos
- Variety Film + TV
Zombillenium announced as opener; China named as guest country, Guillermo del Toro to return.
French animator and illustrator Arthur de Pin’s child-friendly comedy-horror tale Zombillenium (pictured) - set against the backdrop of an amusement-terror park were the staff are a motley crew of vampires, zombies and werewolves - will open this year’s edition of the Annecy International Animated Film Festival, running June 12-17 this year.
It is among nine special event screenings including Pixar’s Cars 3, which will be proceeded by a presentation of footage from Mexico-set, Day of the Dead-inspired drama Coco in the presence of director Lee Unkrich, producer Darla K. Anderson and co-director Adrian Molina; Despicable Me 3 and The Big Bad Fox And Other Animals.
Zombillenium will also compete in the 10-title feature film competition.
Other contenders for Annecy’s Cristal for best feature film include Iranian director Ali Soozandeh’s Tehran Taboo, exploring sexuality...
French animator and illustrator Arthur de Pin’s child-friendly comedy-horror tale Zombillenium (pictured) - set against the backdrop of an amusement-terror park were the staff are a motley crew of vampires, zombies and werewolves - will open this year’s edition of the Annecy International Animated Film Festival, running June 12-17 this year.
It is among nine special event screenings including Pixar’s Cars 3, which will be proceeded by a presentation of footage from Mexico-set, Day of the Dead-inspired drama Coco in the presence of director Lee Unkrich, producer Darla K. Anderson and co-director Adrian Molina; Despicable Me 3 and The Big Bad Fox And Other Animals.
Zombillenium will also compete in the 10-title feature film competition.
Other contenders for Annecy’s Cristal for best feature film include Iranian director Ali Soozandeh’s Tehran Taboo, exploring sexuality...
- 4/25/2017
- ScreenDaily
My experience last November at Los Cabos International Film Festival was fabulous! Set up to promote film coproduction and financing among Mexico, U.S., and Canada, the festival allowed all of us to be very close and connected to our peers in the business – international sales agents, writers of all kinds, programmers and filmmakers. There we met the bright new talent, so idealistic and yet so knowledgeable and educated about film in the world. To be able to see films, concentrate on creating business and still have time to mingle -- this is what makes a festival a happy experience.
Among the many people I met there, was Ben Odell, partner at 3Pas Studios, the newly launched production company that he and Mexico’s most beloved and renowned comic star and director, Eugenio Derbez, founded on the strength and success of the $100 million dollar grossing comedy, "Instructions Not Included".
The success of this film also allowed the film’s producer Monica Lozano to establish Alebrije Distribución a new distribution company which will acquire distribution rights for the Latin and North American markets.
Monica has had her hand in 23 productions since her first film, "Amores Perros". Her most recent success was "Instructions Not Included", the Us$ 5.5 million film that became the highest grossing Spanish language film of all time in the U.S., and the second highest grossing film in any language in Mexico.
But to return to Ben and his new company, the subject of this blog: 3Pas in Spanish means three steps, but is also a play on words, something Mexicans like a lot. Tres Pas sounds like tripas, which in English means guts, or tripe. Personally, I too love tripas. Deliciosas!
I Finally met Ben at Los Cabos Film Festival. I say I "finally" met him, because we have so many friends in common and ever since I have been following Latino films and writing my book on Latin America and the film business, I had often heard of Ben as the head of production for Pantelion, U.S.'s only sustained and successful Latino film distributor.
Last September, when Strategic Partners’ Laura Mackenzie in Halifax invited me to moderate a panel on “The Games Maker”, an Argentinean-Canadian-Italian coproduction, Ben’s name was prominent as the one who made the match between Argentina’s Juan Pablo Buscarini and Canada’s Tina Pehme and Kim Roberts.
I always had him pictured as my other friend whose last name is Odell, a slight and wiry, dark haired type. How surprised I was to see this big, handsome blond who exuded warmth and a good-willed wit and storytelling skill. Love at first sight! And I am sure I am not the only one who is smitten with him.
I wish I could convey his spirit, humor and strength as he recounted his life and career(s) to me in the hour we spent together in his new spacious, airy and bright Santa Monica office where Ben Shalom-Martinez was the third person in the new company, manning a phone system not yet working.
I told Ben I had read his mini bio in IMDb, and it made me want to know how he had gotten into the Latino side of the business. I expected him to reveal that, in fact, and in spite of his name, he was Latino.
One year out of college, Ben said, "I worked in editing with the Maysles Brothers. I was a P.A. on the first film John Turturro directed called “Mac”, and I was a reader for Art Linson. And that was my degree in Liberal Arts in Film. I wanted to be a screenwriter but I didn’t feel I had enough life experience. A family friend offered me a job in commercial production in Colombia. It was 1992 and my dad said: “if you love all things Latino, go learn Spanish and become an expert in the Latino market. It’s going to need people that understand it. No one was really talking about its importance then but that piece of advice changed my life. I moved to Colombia to learn Spanish and start what would be a life long journey in all things Latino, from U.S. Latino to Latin America. It’s not a single market but there is a connectivity between all of it.”
Ben grew up in Pennsylvania and when he was six years old, neighbors, who had old friends from Colombia, did an exchange of one of their children with a Colombian child. “My father ended up basically adopting that child for the year he lived with our neighbors and from that grew a friendship with this Colombian family.”
When he was 12 years old the whole Colombian family moved to Philadelphia. “I wanted them to adopt me. They were crazy, emotional, passionate, loving. It was a warmth and lust for life I hadn’t really experienced in suburban white America. And then I realized there was a whole country full of them.” At 15 he went with a friend to Colombia and loved it.
His father eventually married someone from that family. So Ben's connection to Colombia, if not to all of Latin America was very organic. Colombia is not part of the "U.S. Latino market" per se, but Colombia and the rest of Latin America share certain characteristics and commonalities — views on life and death, family, spirituality -- that end up working their way into storytelling that are shared throughout the U.S. Latino market and Latin America along with a larger emotional scale in the tone of their storytelling.
Odell lived in Colombia from 1992 to 2000. He also worked as a freelance journalist before becoming a Spanish language television writer and screenwriter there.
When he was in Colombia working in commercials, he met Tom Quinn, a journalist Iiving there for 25 years, working for Time Magazine and running an English language rag called The Colombian Post. In his youth ,Tom had run with the likes of Hunter S. Thompson. He had lots of adventures and lots of stories of those days.
Ben asked Tom what was the most compelling story they could make into a movie that wasn’t about narcotrafficking, and Tom said one word: “Emeralds.” Colombia supplies 60% of the world's emeralds. The mines in the Emerald Zone have strong drug laundering connections as well, as one might guess. The land is leased by the government to the three or four mining companies and they control everything with no supervision by the government.
The society is totally feudal. Workers labor for the companies for 28 days of the month and on the last two days they are allowed to keep whatever they find. Victor Carranza ran everything. He was The Don, violent and scary. A small man, about 5'2". He died in prison worth over a billion dollars.
Ben thought this was a great story to develop into a movie, and so he went back to New York to the contacts he had made including an exec at Tribeca Films. “They all said the same thing, great story but you are not a writer. Go write the script and then we’ll talk.” Ben returned to Colombia to do research.
In the meanwhile he began writing for Colombian TV. He had never written a feature film script, nor did he speak Spanish. He had, however, taken a course in feature film screenwriting with Robert McKee. And he had a girlfriend who was bilingual. He knew about Colombian TV and he saw the potential for legitimizing the story first as a TV show and then making it into a feature later.
Tom Quinn was very well known in Colombia as he was the Time News correspondent there at a moment when the magazine had a lot of power; the drug wars were one of its most consistent cover stories. They pitched it to Rti TV, and structured it like "The Fugitive".
There is a drug, called Burandanga, scientifically known as Scopolamine. It comes from a plant that grows wild in Colombia. The drugged one loses control of his or her will. He once heard a story about a man in a bar who wakes up in jail accused of a murder he can’t remember. This became the basis of the story. The lead goes into the Emerald Zone and drugged by burundanga, he kills one on the wrong side in a war going on there. He wakes up with no recollection and a full on civil war going on around him. He can't get out of the Emerald Zone until he finds the man who drugged him. The title of this series that Tom and he pitched and in 1998 created was "Fuego verde", like the 1954 Hollywood movie, “ Green Fire” starring Grace Kelly and Stewart Grainger.
As a television writer, he eventually created and wrote over 300 hours of Spanish-language narrative television including “Fuego Verde” -- the first-ever action series. It was one of the highest rated series on Colombian television. He also co-wrote the Colombian political satire feature film, “ Golpe de estadio”, which was nominated for Spain's Academy Award, the Goya in 1999, and was Colombia's nomination to the Oscar in 2000. It is still one of the highest grossing Colombian films of all time.
In the film, "Golpe de estadio", (Golpe de Estado means “Coup d'état”but it also could mean “Coup d’ Stadium”), an oil company has set up a camp for geological research in a small village in Colombia that has been named New Texas. It becomes the target of the guerrillas who are constantly clashing with police in the area. The confrontation is put on hold however during the TV transmission of the world Cup qualifiers. The two sides declare a sort of truce so that they can all watch the match between Colombia and Argentina on the only working TV in the town. Colombia wins the game, 5 to 0, (a victory, in real life, infamous in the annals of world cup) and of course the Colombian police and guerrilla find themselves cheering for the same team.
"Golpe" was released in theaters in 1999 while the drug wars and war between the guerrillas and the government were moving into peace talks. It came out during the war, and Ben naively believed it could make tangible impact on the country. Instead they received death threats. It was a very volatile time.
He left Colombia and put together a business plan to make movies for Latino audiences. He was too green and he was way ahead of his time so instead he went to film school at Columbia University.
He went to film school thinking it was only to network and realized he knew nothing about film writing or production. "Going to film school's more valuable if a student already has some experience," Ben says.
"Confess", a feature length film he produced in his second year of film school (2005) was one of his thesis projects. It was made for a couple of hundred thousand dollars. Ali Larter and Melissa Leo starred in it (way before she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Role in “The Fighter”). The movie was about a disgruntled computer hacker of mixed race, who struggles to adjust to life after a jaunt in prison. He takes his anger online forcing confessions out of those who slighted him. Eventually his focus becomes political. “It had all the trappings of a first time filmmaker. But conceptually it was scratching the surface of trends that wouldn’t appear online until years later. This was several years before YouTube took hold, which is a lifetime in human years.”
"For my second film, we had Scorsese as an executive producer. When we started preproduction we quickly discovered that one of our two investors really didn’t have the money. He signed a contract to invest while he was still trying to raise the funds“
At this point in our discussion Ben and I went off on a tangent...Money that falls out at the last minute is such a common story. Do these guys think the money will come just because they have "bet" on it, using the film as collateral?... Do they just want to go for the ride, as far as they can go?... are they sociopaths, liars, gamblers, on drugs or what? I remember when I worked at Ifa (until it became ICM); at the Motion Picture Division's meetings that Mike Medavoy held every week, agents would sometimes report on someone wanting to invest in film, and once Mike said "No. Not him. He has a very bad reputation, and his money is not good. We don't want that kind of money." But young producers know very little about vetting financial prospects.
This digression is only to illustrate the fact that that in this person-to-person business it is important to know who you are dealing with.
But Odell’s luck was going to change. Just a few weeks after the implosion of the film, he got an email from Jim McNamara. NBC had bought McNamara's Telemundo for Us$ 3 billion . McNamara had been CEO of New World, a position once held by Harry Sloan and Jon Feltheimer. Feltheimer went off to Sony TV which had a majority stake in Telemundo. McNamara, who had just been president of Universal TV worldwide, was brought in to run Telemundo
After leaving Telemundo, he went back to Feltheimer, in the early days of building Lionsgate, to discuss his new idea. At the time -- this was 2006 -- there were two Spanish language networks, 600 Spanish language radio stations, 2,000 Spanish language newspapers, and no one was making movies in Spanish. Felt liked it and they made a deal. Panamax was born.
McNamara knew of Odell when he was buying TV series for Telemundo. He bought a lot of the TV shows Odell had written.
Panamax’ made a six picture deal with Lionsgate. Odell became President of Production at Panamax Films and produced many feature films and TV movies both in Spanish and in English for the Hispanic market.
On one of their first scouting trips, Odell and McNamara went to see a play called “Latinologues” written by Rick Najera. In it, there was a Mexican actor named Eugenio Derbez. Derbez was known only for Spanish language TV at the time. He wrote, directed, produced and starred in his own shows for Televisa. These shows also played on Univision in the U.S. and were building a huge fan base in both countries as well as much of the Spanish-speaking world.
Latinologues was made up of multiple monologues from different actors playing roles as Latino archetypes. Derbez did three or four different characters. “When he came on stage,” recalls Odell, “He was electrifying, hilarious, magnetic. And then I met him afterwards. He was the humblest man, quiet, and a bit shy. I realized what an amazing talent he was, he had that ‘it factor’ – when he turned it on, it turned on the room.”
At the time Odell and McNamara were packaging a project called "Under the Same Moon" and suggested Derbez for a role. They flew the director, Patricia Riggen, to N.Y. to meet him. While Lionsgate ended up not financing the project, Derbez stayed in the picture. “Looking back, I think a significant part of why that movie did $20 million in box office between U.S. and Mexico, was Eugenio. He was already a mega star. No one really knew it in the general market because they weren’t paying attention to the success of his shows. Hollywood tends to ignore the Spanish speaking market, but the U.S. is the second biggest Spanish speaking country in the world and Eugenio has built a huge following there.”
Ben also made the art house Spanish language thriller, "Padre Nuestro" in 2007 which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. IFC changed the title to “Sangre de mi Sangre” for its U.S. release. It also played at New Directors/ New Films at Museum of Modern Art in New York in the Spring of 2007, received two Independent Spirit Awards nominations, for Best First Feature (for which Odell was nominated) and Best Screenplay. Odell also produced “Un Cuento Chino” aka “Chinese Take-Out” (a Spanish/ Argentinean co-production), starring Argentina’s most popular actor, Ricardo Darin (“El Secreto de los Ojos”), written and directed by Sebastián Borensztein. In Spanish, referring to a story as a cuento chino is equivalent to calling it a tall tale.
“Chino” was the top grossing Argentinean film of 2011 and one of the highest grossing Argentinean films of all times. In its international release it has broken box office records for Latin American films in both Latin America and Europe. It won the Argentinean Academy Award for best feature and the Goya, the Spanish Academy Award, for Best Latin American Film. It won numerous festivals including the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at the Rome Film Festival.
When Odell was developing the script with Borensztein in 2009, he sent the script to Derbez, who immediately expressed interested in remaking it. “I loved the original story and movie,” Derbez said. “There is a heartfelt relationship that develops between these two very different people set around a whimsical, comical and magical world.”
Odell was also an executive producer on the English language 3D family thriller, “ The Games Maker”, starring Joseph Fiennes and Ed Asner. Made as a coproduction with Disney Latin America, the movie was produced in Argentina by Pampa Films and directed by Juan Pablo Buscarini, one of the producers of “Un Cuento Chino”. It was released widely across Latin America in the summer of 2014 and continues its theatrical release around the world.
Several years into Panamax’s deal with Lionsgate, a joint venture was created between Panamax, Televisa and Lionsgate called Pantelion Films. McNamara became chairman of Pantelion and Ben became President of Production.
Under the new deal he produced the 2012 coming of age comedy “Girl in Progress”, directed by “Under the Same Moon” director Patricia Riggen and staring Eva Mendes, Eugenio Derbez, Mathew Modine and Patricia Arquette
His most recent film was the inspirational true story, “Spare Parts”, starring George Lopez, Jamie Lee Curtis and Marisa Tomei which was released in January 2015.
While Eugenio was making his breakout film "Instructions not Included” neither he nor Ben had any idea it would be so big. “Instructions Not Included,” was released in 2013 by Pantelion and grossed $44.5 million, making it the highest-grossing Spanish-language film ever released in the U.S. It grossed another $55 million overseas making it the number one Spanish language movie in the world.
The two realized, this was The One Time In A Career To Capitalize, and they decided to go together, to focus on brand-building, based on Eugenio's popularity and to go beyond his own work, in English and Spanish. Together they formed 3pas Studios which signed a first-look deal with Pantelion in August 2014.
They are in development on many feature films including “Un Cuento Chino”, a remake of the French comedy, “The Valet” and an untitled original script about an aging Latin lover from writers Chris Spain and Jon Zack (“The Perfect Storm”) which Derbez will star in and produce with Ben.
“We are developing multiple projects with an eye to shooting one at the end of 2015,” Odell said.
Meantime, Eugenio Derbez just filmed roles in Warner Brothers’ “Geostorm” with Gerard Butler and Sony Pictures “ Miracles from Heaven” with Jennifer Garner, and Queen Latifah. The latter was directed by Patricia Riggen who directed Derbez in both “Under the Same Moon” and “Girl in Progress”.
Ben is sure that his producing partner will go way beyond his current core Latino market “He is so lovable to watch. He has a magic about him that is undeniable and transcends language and culture.”...
Among the many people I met there, was Ben Odell, partner at 3Pas Studios, the newly launched production company that he and Mexico’s most beloved and renowned comic star and director, Eugenio Derbez, founded on the strength and success of the $100 million dollar grossing comedy, "Instructions Not Included".
The success of this film also allowed the film’s producer Monica Lozano to establish Alebrije Distribución a new distribution company which will acquire distribution rights for the Latin and North American markets.
Monica has had her hand in 23 productions since her first film, "Amores Perros". Her most recent success was "Instructions Not Included", the Us$ 5.5 million film that became the highest grossing Spanish language film of all time in the U.S., and the second highest grossing film in any language in Mexico.
But to return to Ben and his new company, the subject of this blog: 3Pas in Spanish means three steps, but is also a play on words, something Mexicans like a lot. Tres Pas sounds like tripas, which in English means guts, or tripe. Personally, I too love tripas. Deliciosas!
I Finally met Ben at Los Cabos Film Festival. I say I "finally" met him, because we have so many friends in common and ever since I have been following Latino films and writing my book on Latin America and the film business, I had often heard of Ben as the head of production for Pantelion, U.S.'s only sustained and successful Latino film distributor.
Last September, when Strategic Partners’ Laura Mackenzie in Halifax invited me to moderate a panel on “The Games Maker”, an Argentinean-Canadian-Italian coproduction, Ben’s name was prominent as the one who made the match between Argentina’s Juan Pablo Buscarini and Canada’s Tina Pehme and Kim Roberts.
I always had him pictured as my other friend whose last name is Odell, a slight and wiry, dark haired type. How surprised I was to see this big, handsome blond who exuded warmth and a good-willed wit and storytelling skill. Love at first sight! And I am sure I am not the only one who is smitten with him.
I wish I could convey his spirit, humor and strength as he recounted his life and career(s) to me in the hour we spent together in his new spacious, airy and bright Santa Monica office where Ben Shalom-Martinez was the third person in the new company, manning a phone system not yet working.
I told Ben I had read his mini bio in IMDb, and it made me want to know how he had gotten into the Latino side of the business. I expected him to reveal that, in fact, and in spite of his name, he was Latino.
One year out of college, Ben said, "I worked in editing with the Maysles Brothers. I was a P.A. on the first film John Turturro directed called “Mac”, and I was a reader for Art Linson. And that was my degree in Liberal Arts in Film. I wanted to be a screenwriter but I didn’t feel I had enough life experience. A family friend offered me a job in commercial production in Colombia. It was 1992 and my dad said: “if you love all things Latino, go learn Spanish and become an expert in the Latino market. It’s going to need people that understand it. No one was really talking about its importance then but that piece of advice changed my life. I moved to Colombia to learn Spanish and start what would be a life long journey in all things Latino, from U.S. Latino to Latin America. It’s not a single market but there is a connectivity between all of it.”
Ben grew up in Pennsylvania and when he was six years old, neighbors, who had old friends from Colombia, did an exchange of one of their children with a Colombian child. “My father ended up basically adopting that child for the year he lived with our neighbors and from that grew a friendship with this Colombian family.”
When he was 12 years old the whole Colombian family moved to Philadelphia. “I wanted them to adopt me. They were crazy, emotional, passionate, loving. It was a warmth and lust for life I hadn’t really experienced in suburban white America. And then I realized there was a whole country full of them.” At 15 he went with a friend to Colombia and loved it.
His father eventually married someone from that family. So Ben's connection to Colombia, if not to all of Latin America was very organic. Colombia is not part of the "U.S. Latino market" per se, but Colombia and the rest of Latin America share certain characteristics and commonalities — views on life and death, family, spirituality -- that end up working their way into storytelling that are shared throughout the U.S. Latino market and Latin America along with a larger emotional scale in the tone of their storytelling.
Odell lived in Colombia from 1992 to 2000. He also worked as a freelance journalist before becoming a Spanish language television writer and screenwriter there.
When he was in Colombia working in commercials, he met Tom Quinn, a journalist Iiving there for 25 years, working for Time Magazine and running an English language rag called The Colombian Post. In his youth ,Tom had run with the likes of Hunter S. Thompson. He had lots of adventures and lots of stories of those days.
Ben asked Tom what was the most compelling story they could make into a movie that wasn’t about narcotrafficking, and Tom said one word: “Emeralds.” Colombia supplies 60% of the world's emeralds. The mines in the Emerald Zone have strong drug laundering connections as well, as one might guess. The land is leased by the government to the three or four mining companies and they control everything with no supervision by the government.
The society is totally feudal. Workers labor for the companies for 28 days of the month and on the last two days they are allowed to keep whatever they find. Victor Carranza ran everything. He was The Don, violent and scary. A small man, about 5'2". He died in prison worth over a billion dollars.
Ben thought this was a great story to develop into a movie, and so he went back to New York to the contacts he had made including an exec at Tribeca Films. “They all said the same thing, great story but you are not a writer. Go write the script and then we’ll talk.” Ben returned to Colombia to do research.
In the meanwhile he began writing for Colombian TV. He had never written a feature film script, nor did he speak Spanish. He had, however, taken a course in feature film screenwriting with Robert McKee. And he had a girlfriend who was bilingual. He knew about Colombian TV and he saw the potential for legitimizing the story first as a TV show and then making it into a feature later.
Tom Quinn was very well known in Colombia as he was the Time News correspondent there at a moment when the magazine had a lot of power; the drug wars were one of its most consistent cover stories. They pitched it to Rti TV, and structured it like "The Fugitive".
There is a drug, called Burandanga, scientifically known as Scopolamine. It comes from a plant that grows wild in Colombia. The drugged one loses control of his or her will. He once heard a story about a man in a bar who wakes up in jail accused of a murder he can’t remember. This became the basis of the story. The lead goes into the Emerald Zone and drugged by burundanga, he kills one on the wrong side in a war going on there. He wakes up with no recollection and a full on civil war going on around him. He can't get out of the Emerald Zone until he finds the man who drugged him. The title of this series that Tom and he pitched and in 1998 created was "Fuego verde", like the 1954 Hollywood movie, “ Green Fire” starring Grace Kelly and Stewart Grainger.
As a television writer, he eventually created and wrote over 300 hours of Spanish-language narrative television including “Fuego Verde” -- the first-ever action series. It was one of the highest rated series on Colombian television. He also co-wrote the Colombian political satire feature film, “ Golpe de estadio”, which was nominated for Spain's Academy Award, the Goya in 1999, and was Colombia's nomination to the Oscar in 2000. It is still one of the highest grossing Colombian films of all time.
In the film, "Golpe de estadio", (Golpe de Estado means “Coup d'état”but it also could mean “Coup d’ Stadium”), an oil company has set up a camp for geological research in a small village in Colombia that has been named New Texas. It becomes the target of the guerrillas who are constantly clashing with police in the area. The confrontation is put on hold however during the TV transmission of the world Cup qualifiers. The two sides declare a sort of truce so that they can all watch the match between Colombia and Argentina on the only working TV in the town. Colombia wins the game, 5 to 0, (a victory, in real life, infamous in the annals of world cup) and of course the Colombian police and guerrilla find themselves cheering for the same team.
"Golpe" was released in theaters in 1999 while the drug wars and war between the guerrillas and the government were moving into peace talks. It came out during the war, and Ben naively believed it could make tangible impact on the country. Instead they received death threats. It was a very volatile time.
He left Colombia and put together a business plan to make movies for Latino audiences. He was too green and he was way ahead of his time so instead he went to film school at Columbia University.
He went to film school thinking it was only to network and realized he knew nothing about film writing or production. "Going to film school's more valuable if a student already has some experience," Ben says.
"Confess", a feature length film he produced in his second year of film school (2005) was one of his thesis projects. It was made for a couple of hundred thousand dollars. Ali Larter and Melissa Leo starred in it (way before she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Role in “The Fighter”). The movie was about a disgruntled computer hacker of mixed race, who struggles to adjust to life after a jaunt in prison. He takes his anger online forcing confessions out of those who slighted him. Eventually his focus becomes political. “It had all the trappings of a first time filmmaker. But conceptually it was scratching the surface of trends that wouldn’t appear online until years later. This was several years before YouTube took hold, which is a lifetime in human years.”
"For my second film, we had Scorsese as an executive producer. When we started preproduction we quickly discovered that one of our two investors really didn’t have the money. He signed a contract to invest while he was still trying to raise the funds“
At this point in our discussion Ben and I went off on a tangent...Money that falls out at the last minute is such a common story. Do these guys think the money will come just because they have "bet" on it, using the film as collateral?... Do they just want to go for the ride, as far as they can go?... are they sociopaths, liars, gamblers, on drugs or what? I remember when I worked at Ifa (until it became ICM); at the Motion Picture Division's meetings that Mike Medavoy held every week, agents would sometimes report on someone wanting to invest in film, and once Mike said "No. Not him. He has a very bad reputation, and his money is not good. We don't want that kind of money." But young producers know very little about vetting financial prospects.
This digression is only to illustrate the fact that that in this person-to-person business it is important to know who you are dealing with.
But Odell’s luck was going to change. Just a few weeks after the implosion of the film, he got an email from Jim McNamara. NBC had bought McNamara's Telemundo for Us$ 3 billion . McNamara had been CEO of New World, a position once held by Harry Sloan and Jon Feltheimer. Feltheimer went off to Sony TV which had a majority stake in Telemundo. McNamara, who had just been president of Universal TV worldwide, was brought in to run Telemundo
After leaving Telemundo, he went back to Feltheimer, in the early days of building Lionsgate, to discuss his new idea. At the time -- this was 2006 -- there were two Spanish language networks, 600 Spanish language radio stations, 2,000 Spanish language newspapers, and no one was making movies in Spanish. Felt liked it and they made a deal. Panamax was born.
McNamara knew of Odell when he was buying TV series for Telemundo. He bought a lot of the TV shows Odell had written.
Panamax’ made a six picture deal with Lionsgate. Odell became President of Production at Panamax Films and produced many feature films and TV movies both in Spanish and in English for the Hispanic market.
On one of their first scouting trips, Odell and McNamara went to see a play called “Latinologues” written by Rick Najera. In it, there was a Mexican actor named Eugenio Derbez. Derbez was known only for Spanish language TV at the time. He wrote, directed, produced and starred in his own shows for Televisa. These shows also played on Univision in the U.S. and were building a huge fan base in both countries as well as much of the Spanish-speaking world.
Latinologues was made up of multiple monologues from different actors playing roles as Latino archetypes. Derbez did three or four different characters. “When he came on stage,” recalls Odell, “He was electrifying, hilarious, magnetic. And then I met him afterwards. He was the humblest man, quiet, and a bit shy. I realized what an amazing talent he was, he had that ‘it factor’ – when he turned it on, it turned on the room.”
At the time Odell and McNamara were packaging a project called "Under the Same Moon" and suggested Derbez for a role. They flew the director, Patricia Riggen, to N.Y. to meet him. While Lionsgate ended up not financing the project, Derbez stayed in the picture. “Looking back, I think a significant part of why that movie did $20 million in box office between U.S. and Mexico, was Eugenio. He was already a mega star. No one really knew it in the general market because they weren’t paying attention to the success of his shows. Hollywood tends to ignore the Spanish speaking market, but the U.S. is the second biggest Spanish speaking country in the world and Eugenio has built a huge following there.”
Ben also made the art house Spanish language thriller, "Padre Nuestro" in 2007 which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. IFC changed the title to “Sangre de mi Sangre” for its U.S. release. It also played at New Directors/ New Films at Museum of Modern Art in New York in the Spring of 2007, received two Independent Spirit Awards nominations, for Best First Feature (for which Odell was nominated) and Best Screenplay. Odell also produced “Un Cuento Chino” aka “Chinese Take-Out” (a Spanish/ Argentinean co-production), starring Argentina’s most popular actor, Ricardo Darin (“El Secreto de los Ojos”), written and directed by Sebastián Borensztein. In Spanish, referring to a story as a cuento chino is equivalent to calling it a tall tale.
“Chino” was the top grossing Argentinean film of 2011 and one of the highest grossing Argentinean films of all times. In its international release it has broken box office records for Latin American films in both Latin America and Europe. It won the Argentinean Academy Award for best feature and the Goya, the Spanish Academy Award, for Best Latin American Film. It won numerous festivals including the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at the Rome Film Festival.
When Odell was developing the script with Borensztein in 2009, he sent the script to Derbez, who immediately expressed interested in remaking it. “I loved the original story and movie,” Derbez said. “There is a heartfelt relationship that develops between these two very different people set around a whimsical, comical and magical world.”
Odell was also an executive producer on the English language 3D family thriller, “ The Games Maker”, starring Joseph Fiennes and Ed Asner. Made as a coproduction with Disney Latin America, the movie was produced in Argentina by Pampa Films and directed by Juan Pablo Buscarini, one of the producers of “Un Cuento Chino”. It was released widely across Latin America in the summer of 2014 and continues its theatrical release around the world.
Several years into Panamax’s deal with Lionsgate, a joint venture was created between Panamax, Televisa and Lionsgate called Pantelion Films. McNamara became chairman of Pantelion and Ben became President of Production.
Under the new deal he produced the 2012 coming of age comedy “Girl in Progress”, directed by “Under the Same Moon” director Patricia Riggen and staring Eva Mendes, Eugenio Derbez, Mathew Modine and Patricia Arquette
His most recent film was the inspirational true story, “Spare Parts”, starring George Lopez, Jamie Lee Curtis and Marisa Tomei which was released in January 2015.
While Eugenio was making his breakout film "Instructions not Included” neither he nor Ben had any idea it would be so big. “Instructions Not Included,” was released in 2013 by Pantelion and grossed $44.5 million, making it the highest-grossing Spanish-language film ever released in the U.S. It grossed another $55 million overseas making it the number one Spanish language movie in the world.
The two realized, this was The One Time In A Career To Capitalize, and they decided to go together, to focus on brand-building, based on Eugenio's popularity and to go beyond his own work, in English and Spanish. Together they formed 3pas Studios which signed a first-look deal with Pantelion in August 2014.
They are in development on many feature films including “Un Cuento Chino”, a remake of the French comedy, “The Valet” and an untitled original script about an aging Latin lover from writers Chris Spain and Jon Zack (“The Perfect Storm”) which Derbez will star in and produce with Ben.
“We are developing multiple projects with an eye to shooting one at the end of 2015,” Odell said.
Meantime, Eugenio Derbez just filmed roles in Warner Brothers’ “Geostorm” with Gerard Butler and Sony Pictures “ Miracles from Heaven” with Jennifer Garner, and Queen Latifah. The latter was directed by Patricia Riggen who directed Derbez in both “Under the Same Moon” and “Girl in Progress”.
Ben is sure that his producing partner will go way beyond his current core Latino market “He is so lovable to watch. He has a magic about him that is undeniable and transcends language and culture.”...
- 8/5/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Exclusive: Disney has swooped on Latin American and Spanish rights to Kóblic, a thriller that reunites Argentinian idol Ricardo Darin with his Chinese Take-Out director Sebastián Borensztein.
Guido Rud’s Buenos Aires-based FilmSharks closed the early deal on the $3.5m project and has scored a Greek pre-sale with Seven Films.
Production on Kóblic is set to start in Argentina on July 20 with Darin playing a Navy captain in the late 1970s during the country’s ‘Dirty War’ who refuses to take part in the death flights, whereby drugged dissidents are dropped from planes.
The officer takes refuge in a coastal city and flies crop dusters for a family friend. He eventually falls for a local woman and confronts a thuggish police chief as the dictatorship’s agents close in on his whereabouts.
Darin, who appeared in Argentina’s Oscar-nominated Wild Tales as well as Oscar winner The Secret In Their Eyes and Nine Queens, will star alongside...
Guido Rud’s Buenos Aires-based FilmSharks closed the early deal on the $3.5m project and has scored a Greek pre-sale with Seven Films.
Production on Kóblic is set to start in Argentina on July 20 with Darin playing a Navy captain in the late 1970s during the country’s ‘Dirty War’ who refuses to take part in the death flights, whereby drugged dissidents are dropped from planes.
The officer takes refuge in a coastal city and flies crop dusters for a family friend. He eventually falls for a local woman and confronts a thuggish police chief as the dictatorship’s agents close in on his whereabouts.
Darin, who appeared in Argentina’s Oscar-nominated Wild Tales as well as Oscar winner The Secret In Their Eyes and Nine Queens, will star alongside...
- 5/14/2015
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
Title: The Games Maker Director: Juan Pablo Buscarini Starring: David Mazouz, Joseph Fiennes, Ed Asner, Megan Charpentier, Tom Cavanagh, Valentina Lodovini There is a kind of world that can exist in a film marketed specifically to young audiences that possesses equal parts misery and wonder. Such a universe can actually be quite grim in nature, yet the naïve, optimistic outlook of one plucky protagonist can negate the innate negativity and create instead a spirit of adventure. That is certainly the case in The Games Maker, a Sundance Kids selection that tells the tale of a young boy obsessed with making and developing games, which ultimately becomes his saving grace when [ Read More ]
The post The Games Maker Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
The post The Games Maker Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
- 1/28/2015
- by abe
- ShockYa
Representing Latin American, U.S. Latino, and non-Latino artists who explore multicultural relationships from singular perspectives, the films at this year's Sundance Film Festival include an array of stories that showcase the diverse creative voices that exist within the Latino filmmaking community.
This list includes both films that have been created fully or partially by Latin American or U.S. Latino filmmakers, as well as those that deal with themes and ideas relevant to the Latino experience in or outside the Unites States, even if these were not created by Latino artists. The increasing interest in these stories testifies to how rapidly Latinos are becoming constant and strong voices in all areas of the film industry.
In order to highlight as many of these talented creators and films as possible, we’ve created a list that includes all the films at the festival that are helmed by or that incorporate Latino talent and those that focus on a specific aspect pertinent to the Latino community. Some are obvious standouts like Argentina's acclaimed dark comedy "Wild Tales" or Colombia's "Liveforever" from Carlos Moreno.
Then there are those who at first sight might not fit the parameters of what one could think is a Latino film. This is the case of films like Eli Roth's "Knock Knock," which is an English-language horror film whose co-writers, producers, and part of the cast are originally from Chile. There is also " Aloft," a drama in the Spotlight section, which is set between Canada and Minnesota and stars Jennifer Connelly. It was written and directed by Academy Award nominated Peruvian filmmaker Claudia Llosa.
The third case includes those films that deal with subjects that have Latino elements or that explore diversity in the U.S in some way. Examples of these are "The Strongest Man" from Kenny Riches, a film narrated in Spanish by its protagonist "Beef," a charming, yet lost Cuban-American man in Miami; or "Cartel Land" by Matthew Heineman, which focuses on the violence shared between Mexico and U.S due to the drug-fueled chaos that afflicts the region. On a lighter note, there are films like “City of Gold” by Laura Gabbert, in which Los Angeles is seen through its ethnic food and local idiosyncrasies.
In an effort to give exposure to those films in the program that don’t get as much attention, the list below starts with the Shorts Programs and ends with the Dramatic Premieres. Each title is linked to its page on the Sundance website where screening times and locations can be found. Regardless of what films you watch at the festival, it is likely that your eyes will be expose to the work of some amazingly talented Latino filmmaker, writer or actor, or those who appreciate our stories as much as we do.
Shorts
"Spring" (Primavera) - Shorts Program 2
Latino Talent: Dir. Tania Claudia Castillo
Latino Theme: The short was created theough Mexico's renowned Centro de Capacitacion Cinematografica (Ccc), and it focuses on
Elba, an introverted, lonely 14-year-old, who wants to bond with her sister Fernanda before she leaves home.
"Papa Machete" - Shorts Program 3
Latino Theme: Two hundred years ago, Haitian slaves defeated Napoleon's armies with the same tool used to work the land: the machete. "Papa Machete" explores a martial art evolved from this victory through the practice of one of its few remaining masters.
"Making it in America" - Shorts Program 4
Latino Theme: A Salvadoran immigrant who fled to the United States as a teenager is now a single mother striving to build a future for her family in Los Angeles.
"Stop" - Shorts Program 5
Latino Talent: Dir. Reinaldo Marcus Green, Producer Rashaad Ernesto Green, Cinematographer Federico Cesca, Actors J.W. Cortes and Joshua Rivera.
Latino Theme: A young man's livelihood is put to the test when he is stopped by the police on his way home. Although not specific the Latino experience, the subject matter speaks to recent events involving minority groups and the use of excessive force by police
"Palm Rot" - Animation Spotlight
Latino Talent: Dir. Ryan Gillis Lizama
Latino Theme: An old Florida fumigator discovers a mysterious crate in the Everglades that ruins his day.
"The Sun Like a Big Dark Animal" (El Sol Como un Gran Animal Oscuro) - Animation Spotlight
Latino Talent: Directors Ronnie Rivera and Christina Felisgrau, Screenwriter Bernardo Britto, Producer Lucas Leyva
Latino Theme: This is Spanish-language short about a computer and a woman fall in love, only to be torn apart because of their inappropriate feelings for each other.
"{The And} Marcela & Rock" - Documentary Shorts Program 1
Latino Talent: Dir. Topaz Adizes, Assistant Directors Armando Croda and Sebastian Diaz
Latino Theme: Exploring the intimate spaces of modern-day relationships, this is the best couples therapy session you'll ever witness.
Special Events
Sundance Institute Short Film Challenge
Latino Talent: Directors Diego Luna, Gael García Bernal, Marialy Rivas
Latino Theme: Sundance Institute Short Film Challenge presents five winning narrative and documentary short films selected from 1,387 submissions representing 69 different countries.The project was designed to use the transformative power of storytelling to generate discussion, shift perceptions around extreme hunger and poverty, and harness the power of independent film to create a global conversation about these issues.
Sundance Kids
"The Game Maker" (El Inventor de Juegos)
Latino Talent: Dir. Juan Pablo Buscarini
New Frontier
"Liveforever" (Que Viva la Musica)
Latino Talent: Dir. Carlos Moreno, Screenwriters Alberto Ferreras and Alonso Torres, alongside the crew and cast.
Latino Theme: Hovering over the river that segregates Cali, Colombia, into haves and have-nots, a haunting presence identifies a perilous willingness among the populace to do anything that is asked of it. A blonde teenage girl, knowing she must change her life, leaves her well-appointed house and flagrantly gives herself over to this tolerant city, saying "yes" to everything provocative it offers her. Only the music tethers her body and spirit together, even as she reaches for redemption through a bold, delicious, and resplendent self-destruction. Inspired by the 1977 best-selling cult novel by Andres Caicedo.
Park City Midnight
"Knock Knock"
Latino Talent: Screenwriters Guillermo Amoedo & Nicolás López, Producers Miguel Asensio and Nicolás López, Cinematographer Antonio Quercia, Actresses Lorenza Izzo and Ana de Armas
"Reversal"
Latino Talent: Dir. José Manuel Cravioto, Producers Alex Garcia, Rodolfo Marquez and Daniel Posada, Editor Jorge Macaya, Actress Bianca Malinowski
Spotlight
"Aloft"
Latino Talent: Dir. Claudia Llosa
"Wild Tales" (Relatos Salvajes)
Latino Talent: Dir. Damián Szifrón, as well as most of the cast and crew.
Latino Theme: Nominated for the Best Foreign Language Academy Award, this Argentine marvel is conformed of 6 stories about people giving in to their most savage instincts. Forgiveness is out o the question because revenge has never been so deranged and insanely comedic.
Next <=>
"H."
Latino Talent: Dir. Daniel Garcia
"Nasty Baby"
Latino Talent: Dir. Sebastián Silva, Producers David Hinojosa, Juan de Dios Larraín and Pablo Larraín
Latino Theme: Brooklyn artist Freddy (Sebastian Silva) is baby obsessed. His new project centers around newborns, and he and his boyfriend, Mo, have recruited their best friend, Polly (Kristen Wiig), to help them have a baby. On top of dealing with the stress of opening an art installation and the complications of conceiving a child via artificial insemination, the three begin to be harassed by The Bishop, a mentally ill neighborhood man. An escalating series of incidents threaten to derail the comfortable lives these people have built for themselves.
"Tangerine"
Latino Talent: Actress Kiki Kitana Rodriguez
Latino Theme: It's Christmas Eve in Tinseltown, and Sin-Dee is back on the block. Upon hearing that her pimp boyfriend hasn't been faithful during the 28 days she was locked up, the working girl and her best friend, Alexandra, embark on a mission to get to the bottom of the scandalous rumor. Their rip-roaring odyssey leads them through various subcultures of Los Angeles, including an Armenian family dealing with their own repercussions of infidelity.
"The Strongest Man"
Latino Talent: Actor Robert Lorie
Latino Theme: Beef is a beefy Cuban man who believes that he is The Strongest Man in the World. He doesn’t want children, but he wants to tell his grandchildren about his life as The Strongest Man in the World. His best friend is a slight Korean man named Conan. Conan makes him think about things he normally doesn’t think, like the fact that Beef thinks in Spanish, rather than English. Illy, the adopted daughter of a rich art collector, brings out an anxious side in Beef. But it is when his prized possession—a solid gold BMX bicycle—is stolen from him that Beef finds and loses so much more than he thought he could.
World Dramatic Competition
"The Second Mother"
Latino Talent: Dir. Anna Muylaert and her cast and crew
Latino Theme: Val is the kind of live-in housekeeper who takes her work seriously. She wears a crisp maid's uniform while serving perfect canapés; she serves her wealthy São Paulo employers day in and day out while lovingly nannying their teenage son whom she's raised since toddlerhood. Everyone and everything in the elegant house has its place until one day, Val’s ambitious, clever daughter Jessica arrives from Val’s hometown to take the college entrance exams. Jessica’s confident, youthful presence upsets the unspoken yet strict balance of power in the household; Val must decide where her allegiances lie and what she's willing to sacrifice.
U.S. Documentary Competition
"Cartel Land"
Latino Theme: In the Mexican state of Michoacán, Dr. Jose Mireles, a small-town physician known as "El Doctor," shepherds a citizen uprising against the Knights Templar, the violent drug cartel that has wreaked havoc on the region for years. Meanwhile, in Arizona's Altar Valley—a narrow, 52-mile-long desert corridor known as Cocaine Alley—Tim "Nailer" Foley, an American veteran, heads a small paramilitary group called Arizona Border Recon, whose goal is to halt Mexico’s drug wars from seeping across our border.
"City of Gold"
Latino Theme: As the unabashed cradle of Hollywood superficiality and smoggy urban sprawl, Los Angeles has long been condemned as a cultural wasteland. In the richly penetrating documentary odyssey City of Gold, Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic Jonathan Gold shows us another Los Angeles, where ethnic cooking is a kaleidoscopic portal to the mysteries of an unwieldy city and the soul of America.
"Western"
Latino Theme: In his classic novel A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens famously wrote "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." That line sums up the story ofWestern, the latest film from Bill and Turner Ross, a documentary destined to become a classic itself. Eagle Pass, Texas, and Piedras Negras, Mexico, two towns on opposite sides of the border have shared a harmonious history until the specter of cartel violence threatens to divide them.
U.S. Dramatic Competition
"Me and Earl and the Dying Girl"
Latino Talent: Dir. Alfonso Gomez-Rejon
"Dope"
Latino Talent: Actors Tony Revolori, Michael Flores, Allen Maldonado, Lidia Porto, and Sergio Garcia
Latino Theme: Malcolm is a high school geek with a high-top fade, carefully navigating life in The Bottoms, one of the toughest neighborhoods in Inglewood, California. He and his fellow outcasts share a voracious appreciation for all things '90s hip-hop, opting to sport Cross-Colours and Z. Cavariccis at the risk of being clowned at school. He dreams of attending Harvard, but first he has to make it home every day. When a drug dealer takes a shine to Malcolm and invites him to his birthday party, Malcolm’s crew is swirled into a hilarious blender of offbeat characters and bad choices where redemption can only be found in Bitcoin.
"The Stanford Prison Experiment"
Latino Talent: Dir. Kyle Patrick Alvarez, Actors Moises Arias and Armand Vasquez
Documentary Premieres
"Fresh Dressed"
Latino Theme: With funky, fat-laced Adidas, Kangol hats, and Cazal shades, a totally original look was born—Fresh—and it came from the black and brown side of town where another cultural force was revving up in the streets to take the world by storm. Hip-hop, and its aspirational relationship to fashion, would become such a force on the market that Tommy Hilfiger, in an effort to associate their brand with the cultural swell, would drive through the streets and hand out free clothing to kids on the corner.
Dramatic Premieres
"Experimenter"
Latino Talent: Dir. Michael Almereyda and Actor John Leguizamo
"Last Days in the Desert"
Latino Talent: Dir. Rodrigo García and Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki
"Lila & Eve"
Latino Talent: Producers Tanya Lopez and Priscilla Porianda, Actors Jennifer Lopez, Andre Royo, Marisela Zumbado and Rey Hernandez
Latino Theme: When teenage Stephon is killed in a drive-by shooting, his mother, Lila, slips into a paralyzing grief. She joins a support group for women who have lost children to crime and meets Eve, a woman whose little girl was killed the same night as Stephon. Lila and Eve form a friendship, and Lila begins to crawl out of her depression. She develops a burning desire to find justice for her son, and she presses the authorities for answers, but they are slow-moving and ineffective. It’s Eve who has the idea first—join together, find the drug dealers who shot Stephon dead, and bring them to justice themselves.
This list includes both films that have been created fully or partially by Latin American or U.S. Latino filmmakers, as well as those that deal with themes and ideas relevant to the Latino experience in or outside the Unites States, even if these were not created by Latino artists. The increasing interest in these stories testifies to how rapidly Latinos are becoming constant and strong voices in all areas of the film industry.
In order to highlight as many of these talented creators and films as possible, we’ve created a list that includes all the films at the festival that are helmed by or that incorporate Latino talent and those that focus on a specific aspect pertinent to the Latino community. Some are obvious standouts like Argentina's acclaimed dark comedy "Wild Tales" or Colombia's "Liveforever" from Carlos Moreno.
Then there are those who at first sight might not fit the parameters of what one could think is a Latino film. This is the case of films like Eli Roth's "Knock Knock," which is an English-language horror film whose co-writers, producers, and part of the cast are originally from Chile. There is also " Aloft," a drama in the Spotlight section, which is set between Canada and Minnesota and stars Jennifer Connelly. It was written and directed by Academy Award nominated Peruvian filmmaker Claudia Llosa.
The third case includes those films that deal with subjects that have Latino elements or that explore diversity in the U.S in some way. Examples of these are "The Strongest Man" from Kenny Riches, a film narrated in Spanish by its protagonist "Beef," a charming, yet lost Cuban-American man in Miami; or "Cartel Land" by Matthew Heineman, which focuses on the violence shared between Mexico and U.S due to the drug-fueled chaos that afflicts the region. On a lighter note, there are films like “City of Gold” by Laura Gabbert, in which Los Angeles is seen through its ethnic food and local idiosyncrasies.
In an effort to give exposure to those films in the program that don’t get as much attention, the list below starts with the Shorts Programs and ends with the Dramatic Premieres. Each title is linked to its page on the Sundance website where screening times and locations can be found. Regardless of what films you watch at the festival, it is likely that your eyes will be expose to the work of some amazingly talented Latino filmmaker, writer or actor, or those who appreciate our stories as much as we do.
Shorts
"Spring" (Primavera) - Shorts Program 2
Latino Talent: Dir. Tania Claudia Castillo
Latino Theme: The short was created theough Mexico's renowned Centro de Capacitacion Cinematografica (Ccc), and it focuses on
Elba, an introverted, lonely 14-year-old, who wants to bond with her sister Fernanda before she leaves home.
"Papa Machete" - Shorts Program 3
Latino Theme: Two hundred years ago, Haitian slaves defeated Napoleon's armies with the same tool used to work the land: the machete. "Papa Machete" explores a martial art evolved from this victory through the practice of one of its few remaining masters.
"Making it in America" - Shorts Program 4
Latino Theme: A Salvadoran immigrant who fled to the United States as a teenager is now a single mother striving to build a future for her family in Los Angeles.
"Stop" - Shorts Program 5
Latino Talent: Dir. Reinaldo Marcus Green, Producer Rashaad Ernesto Green, Cinematographer Federico Cesca, Actors J.W. Cortes and Joshua Rivera.
Latino Theme: A young man's livelihood is put to the test when he is stopped by the police on his way home. Although not specific the Latino experience, the subject matter speaks to recent events involving minority groups and the use of excessive force by police
"Palm Rot" - Animation Spotlight
Latino Talent: Dir. Ryan Gillis Lizama
Latino Theme: An old Florida fumigator discovers a mysterious crate in the Everglades that ruins his day.
"The Sun Like a Big Dark Animal" (El Sol Como un Gran Animal Oscuro) - Animation Spotlight
Latino Talent: Directors Ronnie Rivera and Christina Felisgrau, Screenwriter Bernardo Britto, Producer Lucas Leyva
Latino Theme: This is Spanish-language short about a computer and a woman fall in love, only to be torn apart because of their inappropriate feelings for each other.
"{The And} Marcela & Rock" - Documentary Shorts Program 1
Latino Talent: Dir. Topaz Adizes, Assistant Directors Armando Croda and Sebastian Diaz
Latino Theme: Exploring the intimate spaces of modern-day relationships, this is the best couples therapy session you'll ever witness.
Special Events
Sundance Institute Short Film Challenge
Latino Talent: Directors Diego Luna, Gael García Bernal, Marialy Rivas
Latino Theme: Sundance Institute Short Film Challenge presents five winning narrative and documentary short films selected from 1,387 submissions representing 69 different countries.The project was designed to use the transformative power of storytelling to generate discussion, shift perceptions around extreme hunger and poverty, and harness the power of independent film to create a global conversation about these issues.
Sundance Kids
"The Game Maker" (El Inventor de Juegos)
Latino Talent: Dir. Juan Pablo Buscarini
New Frontier
"Liveforever" (Que Viva la Musica)
Latino Talent: Dir. Carlos Moreno, Screenwriters Alberto Ferreras and Alonso Torres, alongside the crew and cast.
Latino Theme: Hovering over the river that segregates Cali, Colombia, into haves and have-nots, a haunting presence identifies a perilous willingness among the populace to do anything that is asked of it. A blonde teenage girl, knowing she must change her life, leaves her well-appointed house and flagrantly gives herself over to this tolerant city, saying "yes" to everything provocative it offers her. Only the music tethers her body and spirit together, even as she reaches for redemption through a bold, delicious, and resplendent self-destruction. Inspired by the 1977 best-selling cult novel by Andres Caicedo.
Park City Midnight
"Knock Knock"
Latino Talent: Screenwriters Guillermo Amoedo & Nicolás López, Producers Miguel Asensio and Nicolás López, Cinematographer Antonio Quercia, Actresses Lorenza Izzo and Ana de Armas
"Reversal"
Latino Talent: Dir. José Manuel Cravioto, Producers Alex Garcia, Rodolfo Marquez and Daniel Posada, Editor Jorge Macaya, Actress Bianca Malinowski
Spotlight
"Aloft"
Latino Talent: Dir. Claudia Llosa
"Wild Tales" (Relatos Salvajes)
Latino Talent: Dir. Damián Szifrón, as well as most of the cast and crew.
Latino Theme: Nominated for the Best Foreign Language Academy Award, this Argentine marvel is conformed of 6 stories about people giving in to their most savage instincts. Forgiveness is out o the question because revenge has never been so deranged and insanely comedic.
Next <=>
"H."
Latino Talent: Dir. Daniel Garcia
"Nasty Baby"
Latino Talent: Dir. Sebastián Silva, Producers David Hinojosa, Juan de Dios Larraín and Pablo Larraín
Latino Theme: Brooklyn artist Freddy (Sebastian Silva) is baby obsessed. His new project centers around newborns, and he and his boyfriend, Mo, have recruited their best friend, Polly (Kristen Wiig), to help them have a baby. On top of dealing with the stress of opening an art installation and the complications of conceiving a child via artificial insemination, the three begin to be harassed by The Bishop, a mentally ill neighborhood man. An escalating series of incidents threaten to derail the comfortable lives these people have built for themselves.
"Tangerine"
Latino Talent: Actress Kiki Kitana Rodriguez
Latino Theme: It's Christmas Eve in Tinseltown, and Sin-Dee is back on the block. Upon hearing that her pimp boyfriend hasn't been faithful during the 28 days she was locked up, the working girl and her best friend, Alexandra, embark on a mission to get to the bottom of the scandalous rumor. Their rip-roaring odyssey leads them through various subcultures of Los Angeles, including an Armenian family dealing with their own repercussions of infidelity.
"The Strongest Man"
Latino Talent: Actor Robert Lorie
Latino Theme: Beef is a beefy Cuban man who believes that he is The Strongest Man in the World. He doesn’t want children, but he wants to tell his grandchildren about his life as The Strongest Man in the World. His best friend is a slight Korean man named Conan. Conan makes him think about things he normally doesn’t think, like the fact that Beef thinks in Spanish, rather than English. Illy, the adopted daughter of a rich art collector, brings out an anxious side in Beef. But it is when his prized possession—a solid gold BMX bicycle—is stolen from him that Beef finds and loses so much more than he thought he could.
World Dramatic Competition
"The Second Mother"
Latino Talent: Dir. Anna Muylaert and her cast and crew
Latino Theme: Val is the kind of live-in housekeeper who takes her work seriously. She wears a crisp maid's uniform while serving perfect canapés; she serves her wealthy São Paulo employers day in and day out while lovingly nannying their teenage son whom she's raised since toddlerhood. Everyone and everything in the elegant house has its place until one day, Val’s ambitious, clever daughter Jessica arrives from Val’s hometown to take the college entrance exams. Jessica’s confident, youthful presence upsets the unspoken yet strict balance of power in the household; Val must decide where her allegiances lie and what she's willing to sacrifice.
U.S. Documentary Competition
"Cartel Land"
Latino Theme: In the Mexican state of Michoacán, Dr. Jose Mireles, a small-town physician known as "El Doctor," shepherds a citizen uprising against the Knights Templar, the violent drug cartel that has wreaked havoc on the region for years. Meanwhile, in Arizona's Altar Valley—a narrow, 52-mile-long desert corridor known as Cocaine Alley—Tim "Nailer" Foley, an American veteran, heads a small paramilitary group called Arizona Border Recon, whose goal is to halt Mexico’s drug wars from seeping across our border.
"City of Gold"
Latino Theme: As the unabashed cradle of Hollywood superficiality and smoggy urban sprawl, Los Angeles has long been condemned as a cultural wasteland. In the richly penetrating documentary odyssey City of Gold, Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic Jonathan Gold shows us another Los Angeles, where ethnic cooking is a kaleidoscopic portal to the mysteries of an unwieldy city and the soul of America.
"Western"
Latino Theme: In his classic novel A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens famously wrote "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." That line sums up the story ofWestern, the latest film from Bill and Turner Ross, a documentary destined to become a classic itself. Eagle Pass, Texas, and Piedras Negras, Mexico, two towns on opposite sides of the border have shared a harmonious history until the specter of cartel violence threatens to divide them.
U.S. Dramatic Competition
"Me and Earl and the Dying Girl"
Latino Talent: Dir. Alfonso Gomez-Rejon
"Dope"
Latino Talent: Actors Tony Revolori, Michael Flores, Allen Maldonado, Lidia Porto, and Sergio Garcia
Latino Theme: Malcolm is a high school geek with a high-top fade, carefully navigating life in The Bottoms, one of the toughest neighborhoods in Inglewood, California. He and his fellow outcasts share a voracious appreciation for all things '90s hip-hop, opting to sport Cross-Colours and Z. Cavariccis at the risk of being clowned at school. He dreams of attending Harvard, but first he has to make it home every day. When a drug dealer takes a shine to Malcolm and invites him to his birthday party, Malcolm’s crew is swirled into a hilarious blender of offbeat characters and bad choices where redemption can only be found in Bitcoin.
"The Stanford Prison Experiment"
Latino Talent: Dir. Kyle Patrick Alvarez, Actors Moises Arias and Armand Vasquez
Documentary Premieres
"Fresh Dressed"
Latino Theme: With funky, fat-laced Adidas, Kangol hats, and Cazal shades, a totally original look was born—Fresh—and it came from the black and brown side of town where another cultural force was revving up in the streets to take the world by storm. Hip-hop, and its aspirational relationship to fashion, would become such a force on the market that Tommy Hilfiger, in an effort to associate their brand with the cultural swell, would drive through the streets and hand out free clothing to kids on the corner.
Dramatic Premieres
"Experimenter"
Latino Talent: Dir. Michael Almereyda and Actor John Leguizamo
"Last Days in the Desert"
Latino Talent: Dir. Rodrigo García and Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki
"Lila & Eve"
Latino Talent: Producers Tanya Lopez and Priscilla Porianda, Actors Jennifer Lopez, Andre Royo, Marisela Zumbado and Rey Hernandez
Latino Theme: When teenage Stephon is killed in a drive-by shooting, his mother, Lila, slips into a paralyzing grief. She joins a support group for women who have lost children to crime and meets Eve, a woman whose little girl was killed the same night as Stephon. Lila and Eve form a friendship, and Lila begins to crawl out of her depression. She develops a burning desire to find justice for her son, and she presses the authorities for answers, but they are slow-moving and ineffective. It’s Eve who has the idea first—join together, find the drug dealers who shot Stephon dead, and bring them to justice themselves.
- 1/21/2015
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Sydney's Buzz
Edward Noeltner has come on board to handle international sales excluding Latin America to the children’s fantasy, set to receive its Us premiere in Sundance next week.
The Games Maker has already generated more than $5m at the box office in Latin America, where Disney controls rights.
Joseph Fiennes, David Mazouz and Ed Asner star in the 3D story of a young boy whose love of board games catapaults him into a quest to find his missing parents, save the city of Zyl and overthrow the evil inventor in charge of the mysterious “games maker” competition.
Juan Pablo Buscarini directed The Games Maker from the children’s novel by Pablo De Santis. The film shot in Argentina and completed post-production in Canada. Tom Cavanagh, Valentina Lodovini and Megan Charpentier also star.
The film screens in the Sundance Kids programme on January 25 and 31.
Buscarini produced via his company Pampa Films Argentina alongside Kim C Roberts and [link...
The Games Maker has already generated more than $5m at the box office in Latin America, where Disney controls rights.
Joseph Fiennes, David Mazouz and Ed Asner star in the 3D story of a young boy whose love of board games catapaults him into a quest to find his missing parents, save the city of Zyl and overthrow the evil inventor in charge of the mysterious “games maker” competition.
Juan Pablo Buscarini directed The Games Maker from the children’s novel by Pablo De Santis. The film shot in Argentina and completed post-production in Canada. Tom Cavanagh, Valentina Lodovini and Megan Charpentier also star.
The film screens in the Sundance Kids programme on January 25 and 31.
Buscarini produced via his company Pampa Films Argentina alongside Kim C Roberts and [link...
- 1/20/2015
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
Edward Noeltner has come on board to handle international sales excluding Latin America to the children’s fantasy, set to receive its Us premiere in Sundance next week.
The Games Maker has already generated more than $5m at the box office in Latin America, where Disney controls rights.
Joseph Fiennes, David Mazouz and Ed Asner star in the 3D story of a young boy whose love of board games catapaults him into a quest to find his missing parents, save the city of Zyl and overthrow the evil inventor in charge of the mysterious “games maker” competition.
Juan Pablo Buscarini directed The Games Maker from the children’s novel by Pablo De Santis. The film shot in Argentina and completed post-production in Canada. Tom Cavanagh, Valentina Lodovini and Megan Charpentier also star.
The film screens in the Sundance Kids programme on January 25 and 31.
Buscarini produced via his company Pampa Films Argentina alongside Kim C Roberts and [link...
The Games Maker has already generated more than $5m at the box office in Latin America, where Disney controls rights.
Joseph Fiennes, David Mazouz and Ed Asner star in the 3D story of a young boy whose love of board games catapaults him into a quest to find his missing parents, save the city of Zyl and overthrow the evil inventor in charge of the mysterious “games maker” competition.
Juan Pablo Buscarini directed The Games Maker from the children’s novel by Pablo De Santis. The film shot in Argentina and completed post-production in Canada. Tom Cavanagh, Valentina Lodovini and Megan Charpentier also star.
The film screens in the Sundance Kids programme on January 25 and 31.
Buscarini produced via his company Pampa Films Argentina alongside Kim C Roberts and [link...
- 1/19/2015
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
Announcements for the lineup for the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, taking place between January 22nd and February 1st, are starting to roll out. Watch this page for updates as more films and sections are revealed.
Premieres
Brooklyn (John Crowley, UK)
Digging for Fire (Joe Swanberg, USA)
Don Verdean (Jared Hess, USA)
End of the Tour (James Ponsoldt, USA)
Experimenter (Michael Almereyda, USA)
Grandma (Paul Weitz, USA)
I Am Michael (Justin Kelly, USA)
I'll See You In My Dreams (Brett Haley, USA)
Last Days in the Desert (Rodrigo Garcia, USA)
Lila & Eve (Charles Stone III, USA)
Mississipi Grind (Ryan Fleck & Anna Boden, USA)
Mistress America (Noah Baumbach, USA)
Seoul Searching (Benson Lee, USA/Korea)
Sleeping with Other People (Leslye Headland, USA)
Ten Thousand Saints (Robert Pulcini & Shari Springer Berman, USA)
True Story (Rupert Goold, USA)
A Walk in the Woods (Ken Kwapis, USA)
Zipper (Mora Stephens, USA)
Documentary Premieres
Beaver Trilogy Part IV (Brad Besser,...
Premieres
Brooklyn (John Crowley, UK)
Digging for Fire (Joe Swanberg, USA)
Don Verdean (Jared Hess, USA)
End of the Tour (James Ponsoldt, USA)
Experimenter (Michael Almereyda, USA)
Grandma (Paul Weitz, USA)
I Am Michael (Justin Kelly, USA)
I'll See You In My Dreams (Brett Haley, USA)
Last Days in the Desert (Rodrigo Garcia, USA)
Lila & Eve (Charles Stone III, USA)
Mississipi Grind (Ryan Fleck & Anna Boden, USA)
Mistress America (Noah Baumbach, USA)
Seoul Searching (Benson Lee, USA/Korea)
Sleeping with Other People (Leslye Headland, USA)
Ten Thousand Saints (Robert Pulcini & Shari Springer Berman, USA)
True Story (Rupert Goold, USA)
A Walk in the Woods (Ken Kwapis, USA)
Zipper (Mora Stephens, USA)
Documentary Premieres
Beaver Trilogy Part IV (Brad Besser,...
- 12/16/2014
- by Notebook
- MUBI
Sundance: Robert Redford stars opposite Nick Nolte in Salt Lake City gala
Festival top brass announced on December 15 a volley of 10 additional films and New Frontier installations.
The late arrivals mean the festival will screen 123 features overall from 29 countries culled from 12,166 submissions. A total of 106 of the features will be world premieres and 45 of the total line-up hail from first-time film-makers,
Sundance is set to run from January 22-February 1.
All synopses provided by the festival.
Premieres
A Walk In The Woods (USA)
Ken Kwapis
An aging travel writer sets out to hike the 2,100-mile Appalachian Trail with a long-estranged high school buddy. Along the way, the duo face off with each other, nature, and an eccentric assortment of characters. Together, they learn that some roads are better left untraveled.
Cast: Robert Redford, Nick Nolte, Emma Thompson, Mary Steenburgen, Nick Offerman, Kristen Schaal.
World premiere
Salt Lake City Gala Film
True Story (USA)
Rupert Goold
When disgraced New York...
Festival top brass announced on December 15 a volley of 10 additional films and New Frontier installations.
The late arrivals mean the festival will screen 123 features overall from 29 countries culled from 12,166 submissions. A total of 106 of the features will be world premieres and 45 of the total line-up hail from first-time film-makers,
Sundance is set to run from January 22-February 1.
All synopses provided by the festival.
Premieres
A Walk In The Woods (USA)
Ken Kwapis
An aging travel writer sets out to hike the 2,100-mile Appalachian Trail with a long-estranged high school buddy. Along the way, the duo face off with each other, nature, and an eccentric assortment of characters. Together, they learn that some roads are better left untraveled.
Cast: Robert Redford, Nick Nolte, Emma Thompson, Mary Steenburgen, Nick Offerman, Kristen Schaal.
World premiere
Salt Lake City Gala Film
True Story (USA)
Rupert Goold
When disgraced New York...
- 12/15/2014
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
The leading international film, television and digital co-production market in Canada is less than one month away. Strategic Partners, a presentation of the Atlantic Film Festival, unveils a line-up of cutting-edge panels and esteemed panelists not-to-be missed at this year’s event, September 11 - 14 in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
“We have put together a fantastic itinerary of panel discussions for this year’s program. Some of the world’s top trendsetters will descend upon Halifax to deliver the very latest news on topics such as financing and distribution of digital first content and exploring why producers should consider producing series for the web as part of their business model,” said Strategic Partners Director, Laura Mackenzie. “We are extremely excited to welcome the Argentinean Producers and Director as well as the Canadian Producers of The Games Maker to present a Case Study on this Argentinean/ Canadian/ Italian co-production. We always aim to provide the most progressive and up-to-the-minute information available and I'm very proud to announce this year’s line-up!”
I will be moderating the panel on the film "The Game Maker" on September 12th. See the full line up below.
Strategic Partners has announced the following program and panelists for 2014:
A Case Study of "The Games Maker"
When: September 12th, 1:20 Pm
Where: Imperial Room, Lord Nelson Hotel
A complex Argentinian-Canadian-Italian co-production, "The Games Maker" is a true international success story, from script to screen. Released in early July 2014 in Latin America, this family adventure film with universal appeal has dazzled at the box office.
Moderator Sydney Levine (SydneysBuzz) will lead an in-depth discussion with the stellar team behind the feature film. The discussion will shed light on the project’s origination, the obstacles they overcame during production, how financing was achieved and how distribution and international sales were determined and executed.
Panelists include: Argentinean Director, Juan Pablo Buscarini, Pampa Films ("Chinese Take-Away"); Argentinean Producer, Verónica Cura, Utopica Group ("The Headless Woman"); Canadian Producers, Kim Roberts and Tina Pehme, Sepia Films ("In Their Skin")
Web Series Wizards Weigh In – the magic behind creating successful online content
When: September 13th, 1:45 Pm
Where: Imperial Room, Lord Nelson Hotel
Original web series appeared on the market with such landmark properties as Red vs Blue and The Guild, busting open the belief that short-form web content would be YouTubers on skateboards and kittens in cardboard. Web series have since matured into their own art form and are recognized as a legitimate format of content for mobile and internet audiences. But how are producers financing web hits like Video Game High School or Epic Mealtimeand is it a viable format for independents?
Traditional and new media companies are racing to 'videofy' their internet magazines and newspapers (think Vice, The Guardian, and Conde Nast publications) as are many brands (think Red Bull, Amex and Ge.)
Panel moderator, Catherine Tait, Producer/ Distributor at iThentic, will explore with her panel of web series wizards who the new buyers are now and whether or not this is an avenue for independent producers to explore.
Panelists will include: Matthew Graham, Senior Director, PBS Digital Studios; Chris Skinner, Head of Digital, CTV; Ben Waller, Partner, RocketJump Studios
Beyond Broadcast — original programming in an increasingly digital-first world
When: September 14th, 11:20 Am
Where: Imperial Room, Lord Nelson
Today's media landscape is arguably one of the most innovative periods in media history, and yet one that is fraught with confusion and possibly disillusion, some of the best indicators of large-scale change. Currently, most online platforms are fully committed to commissioning original programming, and many media companies are producing original content for online and mobile platforms. In response, many new and traditional broadcast players are now commissioning original ‘digital first’ series, creating an ever increasingly symbiotic relationship.
How exactly are traditional broadcasters responding and what are the opportunities for their defense? How can broadcasters capitalize off this growing trend and work together with creators to further develop their online offerings?
Panel moderator, Producer Damon D'Oliveira ("What We Have," "The Book of Negroes") will examine how the concept of 'Content Everywhere’ is now imperative for all media companies, and panelists will take an in-depth look at the burgeoning marketplace for ‘digital-first’ original content.
Panelists will include: Stephen Finney, Production Executive, Original Drama Content, Shaw Media; Fay Wells, Distribution Consultant; Sam Harowitz, Director, Television Acquisitions & Development, Global Content, FreemantleMedia International
Each year, top Canadian and international industry players, including producers, investors, sales agents, funding agencies, broadcasters and distributors are selected to attend Strategic Partners. Offering over 1,000 pre-scheduled 1-2-1 meetings, co-production focused roundtable sessions, cutting edge panels, visionary keynote speakers, and screenings and receptions – Strategic Partners is a convergence of talent and innovation, producing tangible results.
For program updates and information on all things co-production, you can now follow Strategic Partners on social media:
Twitter: [At}SPcopromarket #spcopro2014
Facebook: www.facebook.com/atlanticfilmfestivalstrategicpartners
Youtube: www.youtube.com/atlanticfilmdotcom
About Strategic Partners: An International Film, Television and Digital Co-Production Market
The Atlantic Film Festival’s Strategic Partners is one of the world’s preeminent co-production/co-financing markets focusing on feature film, TV and web based fiction. Strategic Partners offers an intimate, organized forum for projects looking for financing as well as those still at an early stage, looking for the right partner.
Over the past 17 years, Strategic Partners has established itself not only as a one of a kind co-production market, but also as a cutting edge, intimate environment that delivers solutions to existing and foreseeable industry challenges. The intelligence and program offered at Strategic Partners is developed over many months of research into current global issues. However, this information is only a complement to Strategic Partners’ primary function – to build, establish and nurture relationships between producers and their partners.
Strategic Partners is a part of the Atlantic Film Festival family of programs. Today’s Atlantic Film Festival is now a year-round celebration, growing beyond our eight-day cornerstone event in September to include: ViewFinders: Atlantic Film Festival for Youth, the Aff Outdoor Film Experience, and Strategic Partners.
Learn more about the Atlantic Film Festival through the links below
Website : atlanticfilm.com , atlanticfilm.com/sp
Facebook pages: /atlanticfilmfestival , /atlanticfilmfestivalstrategicpartners
Youtube channel: youtube.com/atlanticfilmdotcom...
“We have put together a fantastic itinerary of panel discussions for this year’s program. Some of the world’s top trendsetters will descend upon Halifax to deliver the very latest news on topics such as financing and distribution of digital first content and exploring why producers should consider producing series for the web as part of their business model,” said Strategic Partners Director, Laura Mackenzie. “We are extremely excited to welcome the Argentinean Producers and Director as well as the Canadian Producers of The Games Maker to present a Case Study on this Argentinean/ Canadian/ Italian co-production. We always aim to provide the most progressive and up-to-the-minute information available and I'm very proud to announce this year’s line-up!”
I will be moderating the panel on the film "The Game Maker" on September 12th. See the full line up below.
Strategic Partners has announced the following program and panelists for 2014:
A Case Study of "The Games Maker"
When: September 12th, 1:20 Pm
Where: Imperial Room, Lord Nelson Hotel
A complex Argentinian-Canadian-Italian co-production, "The Games Maker" is a true international success story, from script to screen. Released in early July 2014 in Latin America, this family adventure film with universal appeal has dazzled at the box office.
Moderator Sydney Levine (SydneysBuzz) will lead an in-depth discussion with the stellar team behind the feature film. The discussion will shed light on the project’s origination, the obstacles they overcame during production, how financing was achieved and how distribution and international sales were determined and executed.
Panelists include: Argentinean Director, Juan Pablo Buscarini, Pampa Films ("Chinese Take-Away"); Argentinean Producer, Verónica Cura, Utopica Group ("The Headless Woman"); Canadian Producers, Kim Roberts and Tina Pehme, Sepia Films ("In Their Skin")
Web Series Wizards Weigh In – the magic behind creating successful online content
When: September 13th, 1:45 Pm
Where: Imperial Room, Lord Nelson Hotel
Original web series appeared on the market with such landmark properties as Red vs Blue and The Guild, busting open the belief that short-form web content would be YouTubers on skateboards and kittens in cardboard. Web series have since matured into their own art form and are recognized as a legitimate format of content for mobile and internet audiences. But how are producers financing web hits like Video Game High School or Epic Mealtimeand is it a viable format for independents?
Traditional and new media companies are racing to 'videofy' their internet magazines and newspapers (think Vice, The Guardian, and Conde Nast publications) as are many brands (think Red Bull, Amex and Ge.)
Panel moderator, Catherine Tait, Producer/ Distributor at iThentic, will explore with her panel of web series wizards who the new buyers are now and whether or not this is an avenue for independent producers to explore.
Panelists will include: Matthew Graham, Senior Director, PBS Digital Studios; Chris Skinner, Head of Digital, CTV; Ben Waller, Partner, RocketJump Studios
Beyond Broadcast — original programming in an increasingly digital-first world
When: September 14th, 11:20 Am
Where: Imperial Room, Lord Nelson
Today's media landscape is arguably one of the most innovative periods in media history, and yet one that is fraught with confusion and possibly disillusion, some of the best indicators of large-scale change. Currently, most online platforms are fully committed to commissioning original programming, and many media companies are producing original content for online and mobile platforms. In response, many new and traditional broadcast players are now commissioning original ‘digital first’ series, creating an ever increasingly symbiotic relationship.
How exactly are traditional broadcasters responding and what are the opportunities for their defense? How can broadcasters capitalize off this growing trend and work together with creators to further develop their online offerings?
Panel moderator, Producer Damon D'Oliveira ("What We Have," "The Book of Negroes") will examine how the concept of 'Content Everywhere’ is now imperative for all media companies, and panelists will take an in-depth look at the burgeoning marketplace for ‘digital-first’ original content.
Panelists will include: Stephen Finney, Production Executive, Original Drama Content, Shaw Media; Fay Wells, Distribution Consultant; Sam Harowitz, Director, Television Acquisitions & Development, Global Content, FreemantleMedia International
Each year, top Canadian and international industry players, including producers, investors, sales agents, funding agencies, broadcasters and distributors are selected to attend Strategic Partners. Offering over 1,000 pre-scheduled 1-2-1 meetings, co-production focused roundtable sessions, cutting edge panels, visionary keynote speakers, and screenings and receptions – Strategic Partners is a convergence of talent and innovation, producing tangible results.
For program updates and information on all things co-production, you can now follow Strategic Partners on social media:
Twitter: [At}SPcopromarket #spcopro2014
Facebook: www.facebook.com/atlanticfilmfestivalstrategicpartners
Youtube: www.youtube.com/atlanticfilmdotcom
About Strategic Partners: An International Film, Television and Digital Co-Production Market
The Atlantic Film Festival’s Strategic Partners is one of the world’s preeminent co-production/co-financing markets focusing on feature film, TV and web based fiction. Strategic Partners offers an intimate, organized forum for projects looking for financing as well as those still at an early stage, looking for the right partner.
Over the past 17 years, Strategic Partners has established itself not only as a one of a kind co-production market, but also as a cutting edge, intimate environment that delivers solutions to existing and foreseeable industry challenges. The intelligence and program offered at Strategic Partners is developed over many months of research into current global issues. However, this information is only a complement to Strategic Partners’ primary function – to build, establish and nurture relationships between producers and their partners.
Strategic Partners is a part of the Atlantic Film Festival family of programs. Today’s Atlantic Film Festival is now a year-round celebration, growing beyond our eight-day cornerstone event in September to include: ViewFinders: Atlantic Film Festival for Youth, the Aff Outdoor Film Experience, and Strategic Partners.
Learn more about the Atlantic Film Festival through the links below
Website : atlanticfilm.com , atlanticfilm.com/sp
Facebook pages: /atlanticfilmfestival , /atlanticfilmfestivalstrategicpartners
Youtube channel: youtube.com/atlanticfilmdotcom...
- 8/25/2014
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Children’s fantasy movie The Games Maker started shooting this winter in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is based off the eponymous Argentine novel by Pablo de Santis and it’s being directed by Juan Pablo Buscarini, the filmmaker behind the animated family movies The Hairy Tooth Fairy (El ratón Pérez, 2006) and The Ark (El arca, 2007). The film, however, is very much live-action and stars Joseph Fiennes in the villainous role, as well as a mostly American cast in this Argentine-Canadian co-production.
Set in Argentina, the film revolves around Ivan Drago, played by David Mazouz (Kiefer Sutherland’s clairvoyant kid in the TV series Touch). Ivan enters a competition to create a new board game and finds himself enveloped in a fantasy world ruled by Fiennes’ character. The film also features Edward Asner as Ivan’s grandfather, and employs local celebrities in minor roles, such as Alejandro Awada and Vando Villamil. The movie is being distributed by Disney’s Buena Vista and is scheduled for release in 2014.
Please visit Filming in Argentina: The blog of San Telmo Productions...
Set in Argentina, the film revolves around Ivan Drago, played by David Mazouz (Kiefer Sutherland’s clairvoyant kid in the TV series Touch). Ivan enters a competition to create a new board game and finds himself enveloped in a fantasy world ruled by Fiennes’ character. The film also features Edward Asner as Ivan’s grandfather, and employs local celebrities in minor roles, such as Alejandro Awada and Vando Villamil. The movie is being distributed by Disney’s Buena Vista and is scheduled for release in 2014.
Please visit Filming in Argentina: The blog of San Telmo Productions...
- 10/18/2013
- by Benjamín Harguindey
- Sydney's Buzz
After a successful run at the SXSW 2011 Film Festival, we wondered when Cold Sweat (a.k.a. Sudor Frío) was going to get a home. Well, it has found one with the good folks over at Dark Sky Films, and we have all the details and a brand spanking new still for you!
From the Press Release
Mpi Media Group announced it has acquired all North American rights to Cold Sweat, a new horror film featuring a pair of villains who raise the bar in cinematic evil. A sensation at the South By Southwest film festival, the film, directed by Adrián García Bogliano, will receive a theatrical release in fall 2011, to be followed by DVD and Video on Demand availability.
Cold Sweat (Sudor Frío) is a co-production of Pampa Films, a leading studio in Argentina, and indie house Paura Flics. Pampa’s previous productions include the local box-office hits The Signal and The Legend.
From the Press Release
Mpi Media Group announced it has acquired all North American rights to Cold Sweat, a new horror film featuring a pair of villains who raise the bar in cinematic evil. A sensation at the South By Southwest film festival, the film, directed by Adrián García Bogliano, will receive a theatrical release in fall 2011, to be followed by DVD and Video on Demand availability.
Cold Sweat (Sudor Frío) is a co-production of Pampa Films, a leading studio in Argentina, and indie house Paura Flics. Pampa’s previous productions include the local box-office hits The Signal and The Legend.
- 6/9/2011
- by Uncle Creepy
- DreadCentral.com
Sponsors rev up for Argentine feature
BUENOS AIRES -- In a first for cinema in Argentina, an automotive behemoth and an advertising giant are teaming to make a feature film.
The Argentine arms of General Motors and McCann Erickson are joining local production firm Pampa Films to make "La Leyenda" (The Legend), a film set in Argentina's auto racing circuit and featuring a fictional Chevrolet-sponsored racing team.
Producers say the deal represents a perfect convergence of business, advertising and entertainment and that it may signal the future of filmmaking in Argentina and around the globe.
"The production model for this film is totally innovative for Argentine cinema and elsewhere," Juan Pablo Buscarini of Pampa Films said.
Advertising executives from Mc-Cann Erickson Argentina created and developed the script and presented it to Chevrolet as a vehicle to further brand recognition within Argentina's competitive auto racing world. Chevy is currently the defending two-time champion in the TC2000 division, which executives say makes the film's premise more a reflection of reality than a publicity ploy.
The Argentine arms of General Motors and McCann Erickson are joining local production firm Pampa Films to make "La Leyenda" (The Legend), a film set in Argentina's auto racing circuit and featuring a fictional Chevrolet-sponsored racing team.
Producers say the deal represents a perfect convergence of business, advertising and entertainment and that it may signal the future of filmmaking in Argentina and around the globe.
"The production model for this film is totally innovative for Argentine cinema and elsewhere," Juan Pablo Buscarini of Pampa Films said.
Advertising executives from Mc-Cann Erickson Argentina created and developed the script and presented it to Chevrolet as a vehicle to further brand recognition within Argentina's competitive auto racing world. Chevy is currently the defending two-time champion in the TC2000 division, which executives say makes the film's premise more a reflection of reality than a publicity ploy.
- 3/14/2008
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
'Tekkon' takes Grand Prix at Anima
BRUSSELS -- Japanese anime title Tekkon Kinkreet has won the Grand Prix for best feature at Brussels' Anima international cartoon festival.
Directed by Michael Arias, Tekkon Kinkreet was adapted from Black and White, a manga series originally published in 1993 and 1994. The story takes place in the fictional city of Takara Machi and centers on two street kids: the tough, canny Kuro and the childish Shiro.
The film beat out Nocturna by Spanish directors Victor Maldonado and Adrian Garcia, Magnus Carlsson's Swedish film Desmond and the Marsh Monster, French/German/Polish co-production Little King Macius and Italian co-production El Arca, directed by Argentina's Juan Pablo Buscarini.
The festival also premiered out-of-competition title "Fear(s) of the Dark," directed by six different animators, including Charles Burns, Blutch, Marie Caillou and Richard McGuire. Meanwhile, The Tale of How, by South African collective the Blackheart Gang, won the Grand Prize for best short animation.
Nearly 800 films were submitted to Anima this year and more than 100 short movies eventually took part in the international competition.
For the first time, the competition also included prizes for music videos and commercials.
Directed by Michael Arias, Tekkon Kinkreet was adapted from Black and White, a manga series originally published in 1993 and 1994. The story takes place in the fictional city of Takara Machi and centers on two street kids: the tough, canny Kuro and the childish Shiro.
The film beat out Nocturna by Spanish directors Victor Maldonado and Adrian Garcia, Magnus Carlsson's Swedish film Desmond and the Marsh Monster, French/German/Polish co-production Little King Macius and Italian co-production El Arca, directed by Argentina's Juan Pablo Buscarini.
The festival also premiered out-of-competition title "Fear(s) of the Dark," directed by six different animators, including Charles Burns, Blutch, Marie Caillou and Richard McGuire. Meanwhile, The Tale of How, by South African collective the Blackheart Gang, won the Grand Prize for best short animation.
Nearly 800 films were submitted to Anima this year and more than 100 short movies eventually took part in the international competition.
For the first time, the competition also included prizes for music videos and commercials.
- 2/12/2008
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.