News

Paz Lázaro’s Madrid-based Amore Cine and Basque producer Txintxua Films, one driving force behind the Basque Country’s robust growth, have boarded Quijote Films’ wry psychological drama “Morir de Pie” (“To Die on Your Feet”) by María Paz Gonzalez (“Lina de Lima”).

They join Argentina’s Gema Films, which joined the production earlier this year and also co-produced “Lina de Lima” with Santiago and LA-based Quijote Films.

The new pact, announced at Madrid confab Iberseries & Platino Industria, signals the ever-growing collaborative efforts among filmmakers from Spain and Latin America. Spain’s generous incentives and national and regional subsidies have drawn more producers from Latin America and elsewhere to partner with Spanish players. The launch of up-to-70% tax credits in the Basque Country has made it even more enticing to work with such companies as Txintxua Films, known for hit series “Intimacy” which shot to No. 1 on Netflix’s global...

Making good on a recent slew of awards at Venice for Chilean films, Chile will be the Venice Production Bridge’s Focus Country in 2025.

The announcement will be made Thursday from the Venice Film Festival by Carolina Arredondo, Chile’s Minister of Culture, Arts, and Heritage as Chilean director Pablo Larraín’s “María,” starring Angelina Jolie as the legendary opera singer Maria Callas, world premieres on Venice’s Lido.

“This is a significant achievement for our creators, who have found in Venice a crucial platform to internationalize their projects,” Arredondo underscored. “Being the Focus Country will allow us to strengthen Chile’s audiovisual industry and attract new opportunities for co-production and global promotion.”

The honor comes after a decade or more, broadly dating back to Larraín’s 2012 “No,” starring Gael García Bernal, when Chile has punched way above its weight as an international film force. Chilean films’ Academy Award tally...

Based out of Chile and Los Angeles, Quijote Films, behind Cannes 2023 Un Certain Regard Fipresci Prize winner “The Settlers,” and France’s Les Valseurs, behind Oscar-nominated “,” have tied down a powerful alliance of international partners on “The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo,” the first feature of 2018 Cannes Cinéfondation top winner Diego Céspedes.

Quijote Films’ biggest budgeted title to date, said its head Giancarlo Nasi, “The Mysterious Gaze” goes into production on May 20.

An LGBTQ-themed drama, “The Mysterious Gaze” is set in a mining town where a strange illness is said to be transmitted between men who fall in love with each other.

Produced by Quijote Films and France’s Les Valseurs, “The Mysterious Gaze” has now added new partners in Germany’s Weydemann Bros Film and Wrong Men in Belgium. Further partners, Arte France Cinema and Irusoin, have already been announced.

Weydemann Bros has secured French-German mini traité funding to co-produce the film.

The Berlinale has revealed the lineup of its Co-Production Market and we’ve got some projects we’ll be keeping a close eye on. At the top of our interest list, we find Italian filmmaker Andrea Pallaoro, Stonewalling tandem Huang Ji and Ryuji Otsuka and Andreas Fontana who gave us Azor will benefit from the special Rotterdam-Berlinale Express backing for his next project: The Diplomats. 34 film projects from 27 countries will be pitching. Here they are:

Official Selection:

“Antonivka” (director: Kateryna Gornostai), Moon Man, Ukraine & Just a Moment, Lithuania

“Burnings” (director: Jerry Carlsson), Verket Produktion, Sweden

“Divorce During the War” (director: Andrius Blaževičius), M-Films, Lithuania

“Folk Play” (director: Mirjana Karanović), This and That Productions, Serbia

“Fragments of This Beauty” (director: Burak Çevik), Vayka Film, Turkey & Fol Films, Turkey

“The Girl With the Leica” (director: Alina Marazzi), Vivo Film, Italy

“Ich bin Marika” (director: Hajni Kis), Proton Cinema, Hungary

“Idda’s Breath” (director: Irene Dionisio), Kino Produzioni,...

The Berlin Film Festival, which runs Feb. 15-25, has revealed the lineup of its Berlinale Co-Production Market.

Producers of 34 film projects from 27 countries will be pitching to potential financing and co-production partners at the 21st Berlinale Co-Production Market, which runs Feb. 17-21. Seventeen projects are directed by women. There were 318 submissions, a slight increase from last year.

Eighteen of the projects are already partly financed with budgets ranging between Euros 600,000 and Euros 5 million ($5.47 million). Among the directors whose new works are likely to spark interest are Ukrainian filmmakers Kateryna Gornostai, who won a Crystal Bear for “Stop-Zemlia” in 2021, and Antonio Lukich, the director of “Luxembourg, Luxembourg,” which played in Venice in 2022, Italy’s Andrea Pallaoro, Serbian director and actor Mirjana Karanović, and the Chinese-Japanese directing duo Huang Ji and Ryuji Otsuka.

The Berlinale Directors section features three brand-new projects by directors who have had films at the Berlinale in the past: “Alma” from Sally Potter,...

The Berlin Film Festival has unveiled the 34 projects, hailing from 27 countries and selected from 318 submissions, that will be showcased at its Berlinale Co-Production Market, running from February 17 to 21. (scroll down for full list)

The 18 projects in the official selection include upcoming works from Ukrainian directors Kateryna Gornostai (Stop-Zemila) and Antonio Lukich as well as Italian filmmaker Andrea Pallaoro (Monica), Turkey’s Burak Çevik (Hesitation Wound), Serb director and actor Mirjana Karanović (A Good Wife) and Chinese-Japanese directing duo Huang Ji and Ryuji Otsuka (Stonewalling).

The Official Selection projects are already partly financed and have budgets between 600,000 and five million euros.

The Berlinale Directors section showcasing new projects from festival habitués in the early funding stages includes Sally Potter’s upcoming production Alma about a family on an expedition to scatter the ashes of an archaeologist.

Two projects by Andreas Fontana and Fradique have also been selected as part of the Rotterdam-Berlinale Express initiative,...

Chile’s Quijote Films, run by Giancarlo Nasi, has reteamed with former partners El Viaje Films of Spain and Argentina’s Gema Films on two separate projects.

Attending the Berlin Film Festival’s European Film Market, Nasi said: “This market has been very good for us because as one of the outfits selected in the company matching program of the Co-Production Market, we have met with a lot of new firms from different countries. At the same time, we’ve been able to advance and confirm our collaboration with past partners.”

Quijote Films and El Viaje Films, partners on Theo Court’s “White on White,” which garnered the Venice Horizons Best Director and Fipresci awards and was Chile’s entry to the best international feature film Oscar race last year, are reteaming on Court’s latest film, “Tres noches negras” (“Three Dark Nights”).

“Our previous collaboration on Theo’s “White...

The project was presented at the Venice Film Festival’s Gap-Financing Market this year.

Prominent Chilean producer Giancarlo Nasi at Quijote Films has partnered with Mexico’s Varios Lobos, France’s Les Valseurs and Basque Country’s Irusoin to co-produce Diego Céspedes’ feature debut The Mysterious Gaze Of The Flamingo.

The project was presented at the Venice Film Festival’s Gap-Financing Market this year and at the 2021 Sundance Producers Summit.

Céspedes second short The Melting Creatures, produced by Quijote, world premiered at Cannes’ Critics Week and opened the San Sebastian (Ssiff) Zabaltegi strand. His first short El verano del león...

Spanish fest has more Latin American films and projects than ever before.

This year’s San Sebastian InternationaI Film Festival has the highest number of Latin American films across its official selection and marketplaces than ever before, according to festival director José Luis Rebordinos.

The line-up includes three titles in official selection: two from Argentinian directors - Manuel Abramovich’s Pornomelancolia and Diego Lerman’s The Substitute – and The Wonder from Chilean director Sebastian Lelio.

“It’s a very good moment for Latin America cinema for both quantity and the high quality of the proposals,” says Rebordinos.

Argentina in focus...

Festival’s Europe-Latin America forum is set to run from September 19-21.

New projects from Ulises Porra and Beatriz Seigner are among the 14 taking part in this year’s San Sebastian Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum, now in its 11th edition.

Spanish filmmaker Porra returns to San Sebastian after Carajita, co-written and co-directed with Silvina Schnicer, received a special mention from last year’s New Directors jury. Porra’s new project Bajo El Mismo Sol is produced by Dominican Republic’s Wooden Boat Productions, a company founded by Ulla Prida, who also produced Carajita.

The feature is set in 1820, and tells...

Upending arthouse tropes with musical numbers and lashings of sex, this witty debut about a Peruvian domestic worker refuses to see its heroine as a victim

Writer-director María Paz González’s first feature takes a well-worn miserabilist trope out of the arthouse drawer – a domestic worker struggles with homesickness and faces economic inequality – and upcycles it with warmth and wit to make something quite original. It’s even funny and upbeat in its final lap. It’s something of a shock, since so many films about hard-up migrant women who go in search of better lives abroad end up with their protagonists grieving, dead or punished in some other way.

It’s hard to imagine Lina (Magaly Solier) would ever let anything like poverty or despair cramp her natural style. Plucky, hard-working and sexy Af, she’s sometimes down but never out. Originally from Peru, where she has left a...

Sessions will not be geoblocked and run April 15-16.

Seattle International Film Festival (Siff) hierarchy has announced the 2021 filmmakers selected for the New Works-in-Progress Forum on April 15 and 16.

Directors Lisa Leeman and her US documentary Walk By Me aka Trans*Formed, and Kaltrina Krasniqi and her Kosovar narrative feature Vera Dreams Of The Sea have been chosen to take part.

This year the forum has been trimmed from four to two projects after the showcase and Siff were cancelled in 2020 due to the pandemic.

The sessions, which will not be geoblocked, form part of this year’s virtual Siff that...

Chile’s documentary film industry is making a major impact internationally with a raft of projects having recently featured at Germany’s Dok Leipzig festival and another batch headed to Amsterdam’s IDFA next week. While the Pinochet dictatorship proves as unavoidable as ever when compiling a list of Chilean productions, recent works promoted by Chiledoc have proved that the country has far more to offer.

Below, 16 short, feature and virtual reality documentary titles from Chile making an impact abroad:

“Ancacoy,”

Based on the real case of Margarita Ancacoy, this project in development explores the circle of violence that led to her eventual death. It’s a portrait of composition of what lies behind a murder. Uncovering recent history and mixing it with personal stories is a specialty of producers El Espino Films. IDFA bound.

“Arica,”

Five countries contribute to the production about Swedish mining company Boliden, which exported toxic...

Most of us have probably started humming or whistling a tune while performing an ordinary task; and many of us have likely had moments when we've thought about a song, or started listening to a song, either deliberately or accidently, that evoked what we were thinking or feeling at the moment. And some of us still likely have imagined, or maybe actually, burst into a song or thought we were in a musical number in order to process our thoughts and emotions. María Paz González's first fiction feature tells the story of a seemingly ordinary woman, and how her mind turns to old-style musical numbers to understand what she's going through. Lina from Lima is an understanded yet effective film, filled with deceptively complex emotions...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Just a few days ago, The New York Times highlighted English-language television’s failure to attract Latino audiences in an article called “ NetworksStruggle toAppealtoHispanics”. As the fastest growing demographic whose purchasing power exceeds $1 trillion, it’s no surprise that, “...they desperately want to appeal to the more than 50 million Latinos in the United States...” What is hard to believe, though, is that they still haven’t figured out how to do it. It’s really not that difficult. We want to see true-to-life characters that reflect the diverse experience of Latinos, not stereotypes.

In response to the Nyt article Esther Cepeda, NBC Latino Contributor, says it well, “...give the maids, bad boys and victimized immigrants a rest. Yes, those are real-life characters, but there’s no reason why art can’t imitate a diversity of life...How about casting Latinos as up-and-coming-politicians, overachieving college students, folksy-vegan-all-organic environmental activists, or the overscheduled suburban soccer mom-slash-superstar mommy blogger?” I would totally watch that show!

Maybe the execs should take advice from people like Cepeda. Better yet, they should hire people like Cepeda! But, instead of hiring bilingual and bicultural Latinos and Latinas to write, produce, and direct TV shows, American television executives run focus groups, spend money on market research, and scratch their heads--dumbfounded and unable to solve the conundrum. Meanwhile, other organizations have it figured out.

Year after year--the New York International Latino Film Festival packs Manhattan theaters with bilingual, bicultural Latino moviegoers. The very same demographic that TV execs and movie studios are clamoring to attract but fail to. Why is it that the entertainment industry’s most sought after group of consumers attends this festival by the tens of thousands? Because, the stories they see are diverse, complicated, new, different, multilingual, and reflect their own experiences. Television and studio executives might benefit from coming to the festival and taking some notes. These are the true-to-life kind of stories Latinos want to see on their T.V. and movie screens (and on their computer screens too.)

Documentaries at the New York International Latino Film Festival

Buscando A Larisa (Looking for Larisa)

U.S. Premiere/ 79 Minutes/ Mexico

Director: Andrés Pardo

Screening at 4:50 Pm | Wed, Aug 15 | Chelsea Clearview Cinemas

One day filmmaker Andrés Pardo stumbles across 2,000 feet of Super 8 footage at a flea market in Mexico City. Home movies shot during the 1970s, at their center is a lovely young blond-haired girl, Larisa. Teaming up with a photographer friend, Pardo decides to track down Larisa. He takes his search to Facebook, the internet, and the press.

Tickets: http://nylatinoff.festivalgenius.com/2012/films/buscandoalarisalookingforlarisa_andrspardo_nylatinoff2012

El MÉDico: The CubatÓN Story

New York Premiere/ 85 Minutes/ Cuba-Sweden

Director: Daniel Fridell

Screening at 7:00 Pm | Wed, Aug 15 | Chelsea Clearview Cinemas

High up in the Sierra Maestra mountains, where Castro’s revolution began, “El Médico,” a doctor and musician, serves the cause. When a Swedish music producer sees “El Médico” as the next big thing, Communist ideals collide with capitalist dreams. Should “El Médico,” listen to his mother and serve his community as a doctor or take advice from his producer and make “sexy ringtones”?

Tickets: http://nylatinoff.festivalgenius.com/2012/films/elmdicothecubatnstory_danielfridell_nylatinoff2012

Esperando A Los Bitles (Waiting for the Beatles)

New York Premiere/ 92 Minutes/ Mexico

Directors: Diego Graue & Raymundo Marmolejo

Screening at 6:30 Pm | Fri, Aug 17 | Chelsea Clearview Cinemas

Beatlemania is alive and well…in Mexico, where a fervent following pays continuous tribute to the groundbreaking Liverpool quartet. Fans compete in cover band competitions, obsessively collect memorabilia, and bemoan the fact that ‘Los Bitles’ never performed in Mexico. This hilarious and touching documentary shows that the genius of the Beatles transcends decades, continents, language and culture.

Tickets: http://nylatinoff.festivalgenius.com/2012/films/esperandoalosbitleswaitingforthebeatles_diegograue_nylatinoff2012

Hija (Daughter)

U.S. Premiere/ 84 Minutes/ Chile

Director: María Paz González

Screening at 2:30 Pm | Sat, Aug 18 | Chelsea Clearview Cinemas

Filmmaker María Paz González and her mother journey across Chile in a Volkswagen Beetle, searching for long-lost family members. María's mother, who was adopted, knows little of her personal history and goes in search of a sister she has never met. María hopes to connect with her father, a man she knows little about.

Tickets: http://nylatinoff.festivalgenius.com/2012/films/hijadaughter_marapazgonzlez_nylatinoff2012

Closing Night Film + After Party

Lemon

88 Minutes/ U.S.A.

Directors: Laura Brownson, Beth Levison

Screening at 6:30 Pm & 7:00 Pm | Sat, Aug 18 | Chelsea Clearview Cinemas

Three-time felon, one-time Tony Award winner, Lemon Andersen is an acclaimed poet who broke out on Broadway in Russell Simmons’ Def Poetry Jam. But Lemon has landed back in the projects and is desperate for a way out. He turns to the only things he has left, his pen and his story. This beautifully crafted film follows his efforts to stage a comeback at the Public Theater as he battles demons from his past.

Tickets: http://nylatinoff.festivalgenius.com/2012/films/lemon_laurabrownson_nylatinoff2012

The New York International Latino Film Festival runs through August 19th at the Chelsea Clearview Cinemas.

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Written by Juan Caceres and Vanessa Erazo, LatinoBuzz is a weekly feature onSydneysBuzzthat highlights emerging and established Latino indie talent and upcoming trends in Latino film with the specific objective of presenting a broad range of Latino voices. Follow@LatinoBuzzon twitter.