The strand is free of style or length constraints.
Films from Jean-Luc Godard, Delphine Girard and Bas Devos will screen in San Sebastian International Film Festival’s Zabaltegi-Tabakalera, a strand of the festival free of style or length constraints.
Godard’s posthumous short film Trailer Of The Film That Will Never Exist: ‘Phony Wars’, which premiered in Cannes, will open the strand alongside Yui Kiyohara’s debut Remerging Every Night which first screened at Berlinale.
Girard’s debut Through The Night is developed from her Oscar-nominated short A Sister (2020) and will premiere at Venice before heading to San Sebastian.
The...
Films from Jean-Luc Godard, Delphine Girard and Bas Devos will screen in San Sebastian International Film Festival’s Zabaltegi-Tabakalera, a strand of the festival free of style or length constraints.
Godard’s posthumous short film Trailer Of The Film That Will Never Exist: ‘Phony Wars’, which premiered in Cannes, will open the strand alongside Yui Kiyohara’s debut Remerging Every Night which first screened at Berlinale.
Girard’s debut Through The Night is developed from her Oscar-nominated short A Sister (2020) and will premiere at Venice before heading to San Sebastian.
The...
- 8/24/2023
- by Ellie Calnan
- ScreenDaily
Remembering Every Night Photo: Courtesy of San Sebastian Film Festival Víctor Erice Photo: Courtesy of San Sebastian/Sefa Sungur San Sebastian Film Festival has announced the line-up for its Zabaltegi-Tabakalera section. The 71st edition has also announced it will honour Spirit Of The Beehive director Víctor Erice with its lifetime achievement Donostia Award.
Zabaltegi-Tabakalera will open with Remembering Every Night, directed by Yui Kiyohara. It will also include a screening of a posthumous short film from Jean-Luc Godard Trailer of the Film That Will Never Exist: ‘Phony Wars'.)
Documentarian Ulises de la Orden's The Trial, which explores the trial against the military juntas of the Argentinian dictatorship in 1985, will close the section.
The section, which offers flexibility in terms of length and style will also feature world premieres by Ion de Sosa, Andrés Di Tella, Ashmita Guha Neogi, Kohei Igarashi and Rati Oneli and include 15 features, eight shorts and two medium length films.
Zabaltegi-Tabakalera will open with Remembering Every Night, directed by Yui Kiyohara. It will also include a screening of a posthumous short film from Jean-Luc Godard Trailer of the Film That Will Never Exist: ‘Phony Wars'.)
Documentarian Ulises de la Orden's The Trial, which explores the trial against the military juntas of the Argentinian dictatorship in 1985, will close the section.
The section, which offers flexibility in terms of length and style will also feature world premieres by Ion de Sosa, Andrés Di Tella, Ashmita Guha Neogi, Kohei Igarashi and Rati Oneli and include 15 features, eight shorts and two medium length films.
- 8/24/2023
- by Amber Wilkinson
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
The festival runs September 16-24.
Glenn Close has been named president of the official selection jury for the 70th San Sebastian International Film Festival.
Close will be joined by French director and casting director Antoinette Boulat; Danish filmmaker Tea Lindeburg; Argentinian producer Matías Mosteirín; Spanish writer Rosa Montero; Mosotho filmmaker Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese and the Icelandic director and screenwriter Hlynur Pálmason.
Wang Chao’s A Woman has also been added to Ssiff’s official selection, becoming the 16th title eligible for the Golden Shell.
The Chinese film is based on Zhang Xiu Zhen’s autobiography Dream and follows an aspiring...
Glenn Close has been named president of the official selection jury for the 70th San Sebastian International Film Festival.
Close will be joined by French director and casting director Antoinette Boulat; Danish filmmaker Tea Lindeburg; Argentinian producer Matías Mosteirín; Spanish writer Rosa Montero; Mosotho filmmaker Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese and the Icelandic director and screenwriter Hlynur Pálmason.
Wang Chao’s A Woman has also been added to Ssiff’s official selection, becoming the 16th title eligible for the Golden Shell.
The Chinese film is based on Zhang Xiu Zhen’s autobiography Dream and follows an aspiring...
- 9/2/2022
- by Ellie Calnan
- ScreenDaily
Peliculas Nobles, a filmmaker-led VOD platform for Argentine films, is launching Nov. 16. Argentina’s Gema Juarez Allen of Gema Films and Diego Dubcovsky of Bd Cine and Varsovia Cine have kicked off the new initiative in response to the dearth of platforms for homegrown titles.
The idea first arose from observing that a great number of Argentine catalog films couldn’t find spaces or platforms, said Juarez Allen. Classics like the 2003 gem by Albertina Carri, “Los Rubios,” were left in limbo.
“Many filmmakers whose films are not programmed or acquired by platforms — or whose contracts were discontinued — were forced to hire Vimeo on Demand individually or just open their links for free,” she explained.
“We decided to start organizing this platform and offer a very generous deal that would allow them to receive the same amount per transaction as if they, for instance, hired Vimeo on Demand themselves,” she said.
The idea first arose from observing that a great number of Argentine catalog films couldn’t find spaces or platforms, said Juarez Allen. Classics like the 2003 gem by Albertina Carri, “Los Rubios,” were left in limbo.
“Many filmmakers whose films are not programmed or acquired by platforms — or whose contracts were discontinued — were forced to hire Vimeo on Demand individually or just open their links for free,” she explained.
“We decided to start organizing this platform and offer a very generous deal that would allow them to receive the same amount per transaction as if they, for instance, hired Vimeo on Demand themselves,” she said.
- 11/12/2020
- by Anna Marie de la Fuente
- Variety Film + TV
As part of its annual showcase of documentary filmmaking, the Cannes Film Festival has unveiled a full program during this year’s virtual Marché du Film that will offer documentary professionals a dedicated platform to network and a tailored slate of industry events.
From June 22-26, Cannes Docs will recreate the popular Doc Corner strand of previous festivals with an online documentary showcase that includes virtual exhibitors, curated selections of docs-in-progress, workshops, panel discussions, co-production speed meetings, one-on-one consultations and online social get-togethers.
“Now that we are only a few days away from launching the Marché du Film Online, we realize how much creativity, hard work and commitment it takes to transport a film market to the digital sphere,” said Cannes market head Jérôme Paillard. “We are proud to team up with leading partners in the documentary field on this special edition to offer industry professionals around the world a...
From June 22-26, Cannes Docs will recreate the popular Doc Corner strand of previous festivals with an online documentary showcase that includes virtual exhibitors, curated selections of docs-in-progress, workshops, panel discussions, co-production speed meetings, one-on-one consultations and online social get-togethers.
“Now that we are only a few days away from launching the Marché du Film Online, we realize how much creativity, hard work and commitment it takes to transport a film market to the digital sphere,” said Cannes market head Jérôme Paillard. “We are proud to team up with leading partners in the documentary field on this special edition to offer industry professionals around the world a...
- 6/19/2020
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
Alexander Abaturov’s “Paradise,” Lola Arias’ “Reas” and Yosep Anggi Noen’s “Voice of Baceprot” figure among 15 documentary features set to be pitched over April 27-28 at the 51st Pitching du Réel.
A co-production forum for creative documentaries, the Pitching is an industry centerpiece at Visions du Réel, one of Europe’s most prestigious documentary festivals.
These titles are joined by 12 others in a lineup which boasts well-known filmmakers, for example, Egypt’s Mohamed Siam, whose “Amal” opened 2017’s Idfa, Argentina’s Gaston Solnicki, director of Venice Horizons player “Kékszakállú, and Nelson Carlo de lo Santos, a Locarno Golden Leopard winner with “Cocote.”
It also takes in an extraordinary range of countries of origen led by France, with three titles in the section, and Switzerland, Argentina and Lebanon with a couple but including 18 territories, marked by a strong Middle East showing with further productions from Egypt, Syria and Quatar.
Projects...
A co-production forum for creative documentaries, the Pitching is an industry centerpiece at Visions du Réel, one of Europe’s most prestigious documentary festivals.
These titles are joined by 12 others in a lineup which boasts well-known filmmakers, for example, Egypt’s Mohamed Siam, whose “Amal” opened 2017’s Idfa, Argentina’s Gaston Solnicki, director of Venice Horizons player “Kékszakállú, and Nelson Carlo de lo Santos, a Locarno Golden Leopard winner with “Cocote.”
It also takes in an extraordinary range of countries of origen led by France, with three titles in the section, and Switzerland, Argentina and Lebanon with a couple but including 18 territories, marked by a strong Middle East showing with further productions from Egypt, Syria and Quatar.
Projects...
- 4/16/2020
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Above: LemebelIn Joanna Reposi Garibaldi’s documentary, Lemebel—an ardent homage to the Chilean artist, essayist and queer activist Pedro Lemebel that opens Neighboring Scenes festival dedicated to Latin American cinema—Lemebel looks at the black-and-white photograph of his adolescent self and his mother, leaning into each other, and croons repeatedly, “My mommy… my mommy.” It’s a moment so whispery and delicate a filmmaker less attuned to its emotional portent would have probably edited it out. But Garibaldi clearly sees her work as a farewell not just to the artist but also the person, an emphasis on affect that cuts across the various programs. When Garibaldi’s film opens, Lemebel, who passed away in 2015, from laryngeal cancer, is already quite frail. His physical state makes for a poignant contrast to his intellectual vitality, as demonstrated in clips from his lectures, and also to the provocative and often taxing nature of his early performances.
- 2/11/2020
- MUBI
Pictured: Louise Detlefsen and Louise Kjeldsen’s “Fat Front,” about a rebellious movement started by plus-sized women in Scandinavia, world premieres at Idfa.
Danish documentarian Jørgen Leth, whose 1967 short “The Perfect Human” inspired fellow countryman Lars Von Trier as a film student, will be awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award at Idfa this year. The prolific 82-year-old, based in Haiti, is just one of a number of non-fiction heavyweights to be celebrated at the Amsterdam festival, which will also offer posthumous tributes to Agnes Varda and D.A. Pennebaker, who passed away this year.
Under festival director Orwa Nyrabia, in his second year, Idfa continues to focus on directors from emerging territories as well as films dealing with pressing contemporary issues. In the Frontlight section, Claudia Sparrow’s “Maxima” deals with a Peruvian farmer forced to defend her land against the gold-mining industry; Jia Yuchuan’s “The Two Lives of Li Ermao...
Danish documentarian Jørgen Leth, whose 1967 short “The Perfect Human” inspired fellow countryman Lars Von Trier as a film student, will be awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award at Idfa this year. The prolific 82-year-old, based in Haiti, is just one of a number of non-fiction heavyweights to be celebrated at the Amsterdam festival, which will also offer posthumous tributes to Agnes Varda and D.A. Pennebaker, who passed away this year.
Under festival director Orwa Nyrabia, in his second year, Idfa continues to focus on directors from emerging territories as well as films dealing with pressing contemporary issues. In the Frontlight section, Claudia Sparrow’s “Maxima” deals with a Peruvian farmer forced to defend her land against the gold-mining industry; Jia Yuchuan’s “The Two Lives of Li Ermao...
- 10/8/2019
- by Damon Wise
- Variety Film + TV
I caught up with Argentine producer Gema Juarez Allen at the Panama Film Festival. Since seeing (and falling in love with) the Argentine road movie “Road to La Paz”/ “Camino a La Paz in Guadalajara and interviewing its director, Francisco Varone, I was interested in meeting her as well, even more so because her other film, the Colombian drama “Oscuro Animal” which premiered in Rotterdam and won four prizes at Mexico’s Guadalajara International Film Festival in March 2016, for Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress and Best Cinematography and has been sold to seven territories. “Oscuro Animal” is about three women fleeing armed conflict in Colombia. It was directed by Colombia’s Felipe Guerrero, an editor on “La Playa DC,” “Perro come perro” and “El Paramo”. It received funding from the Hubert Bals Fund and World Cinema Fund.
In Panama Gema was quite busy, not only with “Road to La Paz” but participating on the panel, Your Project in Motion: Coproduction and Financing along with Panamanian producers and directors, Delfina Vidal (“Caja 25”), Annie Canavaggio (“Breaking the Wave”) and Abner Benaim (“Invasion”) who also happens to be Gema’s partner.
As one of Latin America’s most active producers, Gema’s extensive experience international coproduction was invaluable and she shared it freely at the panel. Her participation in workshops in Europe, such as the Eave Producers Workshop and Eurodoc, has played a key role in establishing her international connections. While at Eave, she met Greek Boo Productions and Germany’s Ingmar Trost of Sutor Kolonko who came on board to coproduce “Oscuro Animal”.
“Road to La Paz” director, Francisco Varone said,
"In 2012 we submitted the project to Visions Sud Est in Switzerland. I was almost working by myself on the film at this time and then started working with a larger Argentinean production company, Concreto Films, owned by Juan Taratuto, a big film director who was directing TV commercials and said he’d help. They had a tough time finding investors so he introduced me to Gema Juarez Allen (whose recent film “Invasion” is the story of the U.S. invasion of Panama in the 1980s). She is a well-known documentary producer with experience in coproductions who knows how to find money and understands the value of going to festivals. She said she would do it as her first fiction film and went to San Sebastian Film Festival’s Foro de Coproduccion in 2013. There she had lots of one-on-one meetings and met Julius Ponten our Dutch coproducer who got funding from the Netherlands Film Fonds and Gunter Hanfgarn (“Bad Hair”) who applied to Ezef, an Evangelistic Fund for films from the south (one of the backers of “Timbuktu”). “
Read more on “Road to La Paz” here.
Gema continued this story when we spoke:
Juan liked the project but it was not in his domain so he sought me out. I read the script about two men and one car and thought, “This is easy”. But of course it was not. A road movie is the most difficult of all genres, and with animals, and covering two countries! Working with Pancho (Francisco Varone), he is the kind of director I like. I find the shooting is usually more important than the people, but with Pancho, the crew is important and he balanced the people and the shoot, so after all, it was ‘easy’.
The film is being sold internationally by FiGa. It is doing well in Argentina with 35,000 admissions, 20 copies and now in its fourth month in the cinemas. It is a ‘word of mouth’ film.
Sl: What are you working on now?
Gema Juarez Allen: I am now filming “Mapa Mudo”/ “Silent Map”.
A doc project by Felipe Guerrero, Nicolás Rincón and Jorge Caballero, based on video letters of three Colombian filmmakers who left their home country in the late 90s.
And I am developing a new project with the directors of our breakthough film from 2011, “Revenge of the Antipodes”/ “¡Vivan las antípodas!“ which screened in Venice. It’s called “Cro-goo-fant” and is a documentary for children, a funny story about animals. The director, Victor Kossokovsky, did a short doc for kids before.
I am also working with Andres di Tella, the most important documentary filmmaker and founder of Bafici in Argentina. It’s a very personal story about the avant garde art Institute lead by his father, the Instituto Di Tella.
And I am working on “Veterans” about the Falkland Islands War. Bertha Fund is backing it. Lola Arias is directing this documentary feature about the unexpected consequences of war on its protagonists, about the way memory is turned into fiction. I am looking for coproducers now. It is a different look at United Kingdom and Argentina vets that is at the same time both serious and humorous. We are creating a film around a theater play which will open in London this May. It began with the London International Theater Festival along with the Royal Court House Theater. It is not filmic; Lola Arias’ language is so refreshing; she is from the theater.
A winner of the 2015 Berlinale Co-production Market Pitch, Abner Benaim’s “Plaza catedral,” is also in the works. It is a tangled false friendship drama with thriller elements, set against the background of Panama’s social divide.
And I am currently producing Benaim’s doc, “My Name is Not Ruben Blades” with Ruben Blades.
Also in the works: the next film from Manuel Abramovich (“La Reina”), a Mar del Plata 2014 Works in Progress winner for “Solar” – a small but remarkable heart-warming doc-feature whose power struggle between director and subject adds unusually honest depths to a bio-portrait of someone who claims to come from the sun.
Sl: You are so prolific! How did you get started in this?
I studied anthropology at the University of Buenos Aires and the University of Rio de Janeiro but didn’t like academia and so I studied film at the National Film School and thought I would combine the two. In England I studied Visual Anthropology and worked as a P.A. and as a researcher for the BBC for a “Discovery Channel” type of channel and then I returned to Argentina.
Between 2003 to 2008 I worked at Cine Ojo the oldest doc company in Argentina and at Habitación 1520 Producciones (“Imagen Final”, “Criada”, “Los Jóvenes Muertos”, “Dulce Espera”) before creating my own company Gema Films in 2009.
Sl: You were coordinator of DocBuenos Aires until 2003, a training initiative as well.
Gema Juarez Allen: I have produced 17 films with lots of help.
I was a Sundance Documentary Fund grantee on two films. My projects have been supported by Visions Sud Est, Tribeca Film Institute, Hubert Bals Fund, Idfa Fund, Cinereach, Fondo Nacional de las Artes, DocStation Berlin, et al. I received the Arte/Bal Award in 2008 for Upcoming Producers at Bafici.
I coproduce with Wg Film (Sweden), Majade FilmProduktion (Germany), Gebrüder Beetz (Germany), Lemming Film (Netherlands) and Producciones Aplaplac (Chile).
I have received awards at Berlinale, Bafici, Roma, Guadalajara, Silverdocs, among many others. Gema is part of EuroDoc since 2010 and is a member of the Board of Adn, the Argentinean Documentary Filmmakers Network.
Sl: What advice do you have for young filmmakers?
Gema Juarez Allen: First find a good project. It is very competitive and you must have an original perspective on the subject. There are so many ideas everywhere, it must be good.
Producers should be highly-organized. Be sure to fully develop projects before presenting them to partners and funding decision makers. The key elements to present when the project is fully conceived are an overview, a synopsis, a director’s statement, a brief treatment, a financial plan, a budget, a production timetable and bio-filmographies.
Find a producer with experience. I’m always interested in new directors and new voices.
The best opportunities to find partners are at festivals, markets and above all workshops. These are good places to find colleagues and mentors to give you great feedback. Diana Elbaum is my mentor from Eave and she is always looking at what I’m doing. And most of my coproduction partners came from the Eave and Eurodoc workshops.
Beyond Eave and Eurodoc, which are very open to Latin American projects, other good workshops are Docmontevideo, Guadalajara, Typa, Cinergia Lab, Idfa Summer Academy, Chiledoc, Berlin Talent Campus, Documentary Campus, Morelia Lab among others.
Good international funding sources are Ibermedia and also the “Plus” schemes associated to funds such as Creative Europe, World Cinema Fund, Hubert Bals Fund and the Idfa Bertha fund. Other funds are Fonds d’Aide aux Cinémas du Monde, the Sundance documentary fund, Visions Sud Est, the Tribeca Film Institute, the Doha Film Institute and Sorfond, for co-productions with Norway.
In terms of leading international markets, Cannes, Rotterdam’s Cinemart, Berlin’s European Film Market, Ventana Sur and Guadalajara – and for documentaries – starting with Idfa Forum and Hotdocs, followed by Meetmarket Sheffield and Docmontevideo.
It is also important to choose the right festival to premiere a project since it’s virtually impossible to premiere a picture in a small festival and then get a larger fest to screen the film. It’s also important to explore the work-in-progress sidebars that now exist at most Latin American festivals, including Iff Panama’s Primera Mirada competition.
State funding sources in Latin America include Dicine, in Panama, Incaa in Argentina, Proimagenes in Colombia, Brazil’s Fundo Setorial do Audiovisual, the Fondo Audiovisual in Chile, and Imcine in Mexico. The selection criteria used by these national funds varies considerably. Proimagenes in Colombia, which only finances around 14 films per year last year had three pictures at Cannes.
Over the last three or four years many national funds have created specific lines of funding for co-productions, through bilateral agreements, such as that between Brazil’s Ancine and Argentina’s Incaa, which grants $250,000 per pic supported. As a result of such bilateral agreements Brazil, for example, is now a key partner for all of Latin America.
“I’d like to make the second or third films of my directors. They’ve all been such good experience. We’ve grown together,” Juarez Allen told Variety at the Mar del Plata Festival.
In Panama Gema was quite busy, not only with “Road to La Paz” but participating on the panel, Your Project in Motion: Coproduction and Financing along with Panamanian producers and directors, Delfina Vidal (“Caja 25”), Annie Canavaggio (“Breaking the Wave”) and Abner Benaim (“Invasion”) who also happens to be Gema’s partner.
As one of Latin America’s most active producers, Gema’s extensive experience international coproduction was invaluable and she shared it freely at the panel. Her participation in workshops in Europe, such as the Eave Producers Workshop and Eurodoc, has played a key role in establishing her international connections. While at Eave, she met Greek Boo Productions and Germany’s Ingmar Trost of Sutor Kolonko who came on board to coproduce “Oscuro Animal”.
“Road to La Paz” director, Francisco Varone said,
"In 2012 we submitted the project to Visions Sud Est in Switzerland. I was almost working by myself on the film at this time and then started working with a larger Argentinean production company, Concreto Films, owned by Juan Taratuto, a big film director who was directing TV commercials and said he’d help. They had a tough time finding investors so he introduced me to Gema Juarez Allen (whose recent film “Invasion” is the story of the U.S. invasion of Panama in the 1980s). She is a well-known documentary producer with experience in coproductions who knows how to find money and understands the value of going to festivals. She said she would do it as her first fiction film and went to San Sebastian Film Festival’s Foro de Coproduccion in 2013. There she had lots of one-on-one meetings and met Julius Ponten our Dutch coproducer who got funding from the Netherlands Film Fonds and Gunter Hanfgarn (“Bad Hair”) who applied to Ezef, an Evangelistic Fund for films from the south (one of the backers of “Timbuktu”). “
Read more on “Road to La Paz” here.
Gema continued this story when we spoke:
Juan liked the project but it was not in his domain so he sought me out. I read the script about two men and one car and thought, “This is easy”. But of course it was not. A road movie is the most difficult of all genres, and with animals, and covering two countries! Working with Pancho (Francisco Varone), he is the kind of director I like. I find the shooting is usually more important than the people, but with Pancho, the crew is important and he balanced the people and the shoot, so after all, it was ‘easy’.
The film is being sold internationally by FiGa. It is doing well in Argentina with 35,000 admissions, 20 copies and now in its fourth month in the cinemas. It is a ‘word of mouth’ film.
Sl: What are you working on now?
Gema Juarez Allen: I am now filming “Mapa Mudo”/ “Silent Map”.
A doc project by Felipe Guerrero, Nicolás Rincón and Jorge Caballero, based on video letters of three Colombian filmmakers who left their home country in the late 90s.
And I am developing a new project with the directors of our breakthough film from 2011, “Revenge of the Antipodes”/ “¡Vivan las antípodas!“ which screened in Venice. It’s called “Cro-goo-fant” and is a documentary for children, a funny story about animals. The director, Victor Kossokovsky, did a short doc for kids before.
I am also working with Andres di Tella, the most important documentary filmmaker and founder of Bafici in Argentina. It’s a very personal story about the avant garde art Institute lead by his father, the Instituto Di Tella.
And I am working on “Veterans” about the Falkland Islands War. Bertha Fund is backing it. Lola Arias is directing this documentary feature about the unexpected consequences of war on its protagonists, about the way memory is turned into fiction. I am looking for coproducers now. It is a different look at United Kingdom and Argentina vets that is at the same time both serious and humorous. We are creating a film around a theater play which will open in London this May. It began with the London International Theater Festival along with the Royal Court House Theater. It is not filmic; Lola Arias’ language is so refreshing; she is from the theater.
A winner of the 2015 Berlinale Co-production Market Pitch, Abner Benaim’s “Plaza catedral,” is also in the works. It is a tangled false friendship drama with thriller elements, set against the background of Panama’s social divide.
And I am currently producing Benaim’s doc, “My Name is Not Ruben Blades” with Ruben Blades.
Also in the works: the next film from Manuel Abramovich (“La Reina”), a Mar del Plata 2014 Works in Progress winner for “Solar” – a small but remarkable heart-warming doc-feature whose power struggle between director and subject adds unusually honest depths to a bio-portrait of someone who claims to come from the sun.
Sl: You are so prolific! How did you get started in this?
I studied anthropology at the University of Buenos Aires and the University of Rio de Janeiro but didn’t like academia and so I studied film at the National Film School and thought I would combine the two. In England I studied Visual Anthropology and worked as a P.A. and as a researcher for the BBC for a “Discovery Channel” type of channel and then I returned to Argentina.
Between 2003 to 2008 I worked at Cine Ojo the oldest doc company in Argentina and at Habitación 1520 Producciones (“Imagen Final”, “Criada”, “Los Jóvenes Muertos”, “Dulce Espera”) before creating my own company Gema Films in 2009.
Sl: You were coordinator of DocBuenos Aires until 2003, a training initiative as well.
Gema Juarez Allen: I have produced 17 films with lots of help.
I was a Sundance Documentary Fund grantee on two films. My projects have been supported by Visions Sud Est, Tribeca Film Institute, Hubert Bals Fund, Idfa Fund, Cinereach, Fondo Nacional de las Artes, DocStation Berlin, et al. I received the Arte/Bal Award in 2008 for Upcoming Producers at Bafici.
I coproduce with Wg Film (Sweden), Majade FilmProduktion (Germany), Gebrüder Beetz (Germany), Lemming Film (Netherlands) and Producciones Aplaplac (Chile).
I have received awards at Berlinale, Bafici, Roma, Guadalajara, Silverdocs, among many others. Gema is part of EuroDoc since 2010 and is a member of the Board of Adn, the Argentinean Documentary Filmmakers Network.
Sl: What advice do you have for young filmmakers?
Gema Juarez Allen: First find a good project. It is very competitive and you must have an original perspective on the subject. There are so many ideas everywhere, it must be good.
Producers should be highly-organized. Be sure to fully develop projects before presenting them to partners and funding decision makers. The key elements to present when the project is fully conceived are an overview, a synopsis, a director’s statement, a brief treatment, a financial plan, a budget, a production timetable and bio-filmographies.
Find a producer with experience. I’m always interested in new directors and new voices.
The best opportunities to find partners are at festivals, markets and above all workshops. These are good places to find colleagues and mentors to give you great feedback. Diana Elbaum is my mentor from Eave and she is always looking at what I’m doing. And most of my coproduction partners came from the Eave and Eurodoc workshops.
Beyond Eave and Eurodoc, which are very open to Latin American projects, other good workshops are Docmontevideo, Guadalajara, Typa, Cinergia Lab, Idfa Summer Academy, Chiledoc, Berlin Talent Campus, Documentary Campus, Morelia Lab among others.
Good international funding sources are Ibermedia and also the “Plus” schemes associated to funds such as Creative Europe, World Cinema Fund, Hubert Bals Fund and the Idfa Bertha fund. Other funds are Fonds d’Aide aux Cinémas du Monde, the Sundance documentary fund, Visions Sud Est, the Tribeca Film Institute, the Doha Film Institute and Sorfond, for co-productions with Norway.
In terms of leading international markets, Cannes, Rotterdam’s Cinemart, Berlin’s European Film Market, Ventana Sur and Guadalajara – and for documentaries – starting with Idfa Forum and Hotdocs, followed by Meetmarket Sheffield and Docmontevideo.
It is also important to choose the right festival to premiere a project since it’s virtually impossible to premiere a picture in a small festival and then get a larger fest to screen the film. It’s also important to explore the work-in-progress sidebars that now exist at most Latin American festivals, including Iff Panama’s Primera Mirada competition.
State funding sources in Latin America include Dicine, in Panama, Incaa in Argentina, Proimagenes in Colombia, Brazil’s Fundo Setorial do Audiovisual, the Fondo Audiovisual in Chile, and Imcine in Mexico. The selection criteria used by these national funds varies considerably. Proimagenes in Colombia, which only finances around 14 films per year last year had three pictures at Cannes.
Over the last three or four years many national funds have created specific lines of funding for co-productions, through bilateral agreements, such as that between Brazil’s Ancine and Argentina’s Incaa, which grants $250,000 per pic supported. As a result of such bilateral agreements Brazil, for example, is now a key partner for all of Latin America.
“I’d like to make the second or third films of my directors. They’ve all been such good experience. We’ve grown together,” Juarez Allen told Variety at the Mar del Plata Festival.
- 4/26/2016
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Zabaltegi strand of the festival will feature 24 titles.Scroll down for full list
The 63rd San Sebastian Film Festival (Sept 18-26) has unveiled the features that will comprise its Zabaltegi programme, including Spanish premieres of new films from Laurie Anderson, Eric Khoo, Corneliu Porumboiu, Walter Salles and Alexander Sokurov.
The non-competitive strand includes features, documentaries, animation and shorts, and the first screening of all films in the section will run at the Tabakalera centre for contemporary culture and creation, the hub of Zabaltegi activities from this year.
Titles in the section that played at this year’s Cannes include Porumboiu’s black comedy The Treasure, which won the Un Certain Regard Talent Prize; Tambutti documentary Beyond My Grandfather Allende, winner of the L’Oeil d’Or award for best documentary; and Magnus Von Horn’s debut The Here After, which played in Directors’ Fornight.
Films that will first be seen at Venice (Sept 2-12) include Francofonia, from Russian...
The 63rd San Sebastian Film Festival (Sept 18-26) has unveiled the features that will comprise its Zabaltegi programme, including Spanish premieres of new films from Laurie Anderson, Eric Khoo, Corneliu Porumboiu, Walter Salles and Alexander Sokurov.
The non-competitive strand includes features, documentaries, animation and shorts, and the first screening of all films in the section will run at the Tabakalera centre for contemporary culture and creation, the hub of Zabaltegi activities from this year.
Titles in the section that played at this year’s Cannes include Porumboiu’s black comedy The Treasure, which won the Un Certain Regard Talent Prize; Tambutti documentary Beyond My Grandfather Allende, winner of the L’Oeil d’Or award for best documentary; and Magnus Von Horn’s debut The Here After, which played in Directors’ Fornight.
Films that will first be seen at Venice (Sept 2-12) include Francofonia, from Russian...
- 8/10/2015
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
Murky swimming pools, bored adolescents, oblivion drinking and signs of the apocalypse are just some of the issues plaguing two chaotic Argentinean families in La Ciénaga, Lucrecia Martel’s feature debut from 2001. Thanks to a new hi-def pressing from Criterion, Martel’s miraculous domestic capture is available to a younger generation of cineastes who likely missed out the first time around, as well as those – like this reviewer – who saw the film years ago but had its brilliance fade into memory’s mist. La Ciénaga may have ushered in a brave new millennium, but its revelation of life’s quirks and caprices remains true and timeless.
One could make a case the Martel drew inspiration for her first feature from two impeccable sources: Anton Chekov and Eric Rohmer. Like Chekov, La Ciénaga is a story of manners and class struggle set in a rambling country estate and, a la Rohmer,...
One could make a case the Martel drew inspiration for her first feature from two impeccable sources: Anton Chekov and Eric Rohmer. Like Chekov, La Ciénaga is a story of manners and class struggle set in a rambling country estate and, a la Rohmer,...
- 2/3/2015
- by David Anderson
- IONCINEMA.com
Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Jan. 25, 2014
Price: DVD $29.95, Blu-ray $39.95
Studio: Criterion
The release of Lucrecia Martel’s 2008 drama La ciénaga heralded the arrival of an astonishingly vital and original voice in Argentine cinema.
With a radical take on narrative, disturbing yet beautiful cinematography, and a highly sophisticated use of on- and offscreen sound, Martel turns her tale of a decaying bourgeois clan, whiling away the hours of one sweaty, sticky summer, into a cinematic marvel. This visceral take on class, nature, sexuality, and the ways political turmoil and social stagnation can manifest in human relationships is a drama of amazing tactility and one of the great contemporary film debuts.
Criterion’s director-approved special edition Blu-ray and DVD releases contain the following:
• New 4K digital film transfer, approved by director Lucrecia Martel, with 2.0 surround DTS-hd Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• New interview with filmmaker Andrés di Tella about Martel and the...
Price: DVD $29.95, Blu-ray $39.95
Studio: Criterion
The release of Lucrecia Martel’s 2008 drama La ciénaga heralded the arrival of an astonishingly vital and original voice in Argentine cinema.
With a radical take on narrative, disturbing yet beautiful cinematography, and a highly sophisticated use of on- and offscreen sound, Martel turns her tale of a decaying bourgeois clan, whiling away the hours of one sweaty, sticky summer, into a cinematic marvel. This visceral take on class, nature, sexuality, and the ways political turmoil and social stagnation can manifest in human relationships is a drama of amazing tactility and one of the great contemporary film debuts.
Criterion’s director-approved special edition Blu-ray and DVD releases contain the following:
• New 4K digital film transfer, approved by director Lucrecia Martel, with 2.0 surround DTS-hd Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• New interview with filmmaker Andrés di Tella about Martel and the...
- 10/17/2014
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
Perhaps Criterion has been paying attention to my Best Movies posts. Next week sees the release of Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita on Blu-ray, which was the first installment in my Best Movies feature and a title I'll be reviewing later this week, and now my third installment, Kihachi Okamoto's The Sword of Doom will be arriving on January 6 with a new high-definition digital restoration. Unfortunately the Sword of Doom release won't come with any new features, though the film, Hiroshi Murai's cinematography, Masaru Sato's score and an audio commentary from Stephen Prince will do for me as that is a title that simply must be part of my collection. Also coming in January is Rainer Werner Fassbinder's The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant on January 13, Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg on January 20, Preston Sturges's 1942 comedy The Palm Beach Story starring Claudette Colbert...
- 10/15/2014
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
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