Following The Film Stage’s collective top 50 films of 2023, as part of our year-end coverage, our contributors are sharing their personal top 10 lists.
Last year was my first as an official resident of Madrid (where I’m wrapping up my Ma in Cultural Theory and Criticism) and I’m happy to report the most extraordinary thing occurred: I fell in love with going to the movies again. I left New York City before movie theaters reopened in 2021, and the brief, in-between, time I spent in Honduras (one of the most dangerous countries in the world) made me even more of a movie recluse (insert Leo on the couch meme). Just when I felt like a jaded noir detective who’d fully embraced screening links, Madrid’s cinephile offerings slowly seduced me.
I saw 2022 gems like Aftersun inside a repurposed porn theater complete with velvet tapestry and a dog who sat...
Last year was my first as an official resident of Madrid (where I’m wrapping up my Ma in Cultural Theory and Criticism) and I’m happy to report the most extraordinary thing occurred: I fell in love with going to the movies again. I left New York City before movie theaters reopened in 2021, and the brief, in-between, time I spent in Honduras (one of the most dangerous countries in the world) made me even more of a movie recluse (insert Leo on the couch meme). Just when I felt like a jaded noir detective who’d fully embraced screening links, Madrid’s cinephile offerings slowly seduced me.
I saw 2022 gems like Aftersun inside a repurposed porn theater complete with velvet tapestry and a dog who sat...
- 1/4/2024
- by Jose Solís
- The Film Stage
The world took to social media on Wednesday to mourn the death of Argentine soccer player Diego Armando Maradona, among the greatest soccer players of all time, whose career skyrocketed in Italy where he played for A.C. Napoli starting in the mid-1980s.
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte tweeted, “The entire world mourns the loss of Maradona, who with his unequalled talent has written unforgettable pages in soccer history. Goodbye eternal champion.”
Il mondo intero piange la scomparsa di #Maradona, che con il suo talento ineguagliabile ha scritto pagine indimenticabili della storia del calcio. Addio eterno campione. pic.twitter.com/nhNo1ySjdp
— Giuseppe Conte (@GiuseppeConteIT) November 25, 2020
British director Asif Kapadia, who made the high-profile doc “Maradona,” was among the first to respond on Twitter, noting he “can’t quite believe Dm has gone.”
“Hard to process. He always seemed indestructible. I had 10 hours with the man!! I touched his left foot.
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte tweeted, “The entire world mourns the loss of Maradona, who with his unequalled talent has written unforgettable pages in soccer history. Goodbye eternal champion.”
Il mondo intero piange la scomparsa di #Maradona, che con il suo talento ineguagliabile ha scritto pagine indimenticabili della storia del calcio. Addio eterno campione. pic.twitter.com/nhNo1ySjdp
— Giuseppe Conte (@GiuseppeConteIT) November 25, 2020
British director Asif Kapadia, who made the high-profile doc “Maradona,” was among the first to respond on Twitter, noting he “can’t quite believe Dm has gone.”
“Hard to process. He always seemed indestructible. I had 10 hours with the man!! I touched his left foot.
- 11/25/2020
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Today I am writing from Cartagena, Colombia where I attended Ficci, the Festival Internacional de Cine de Cartagena de Indias.
This former colonial jewel in the crown of Spain offers a huge array of delights, film-wise, art-wise, food-wise and people-wise. Gorgeous arts and gorgeous people, sweet, polite and proud. As much as I love Havana, Cartagena is how Havana should look.
And as much as I loved Careyes where I was last week, the art and artisanal scope here is so wide; from the Colombian painter and sculptor, Botero to indigenous palm weaving – décor for homes (not cheap!), bags, designer clothing, linen and rubies.
Aside from films, my big discoveries of the day are Ruby Rumie, a Colombian artist who spends much of her time here in her studio in the Getsemaní section of town and in Chile. Coincidentally (again) Gary Meyer (Telluride Film Festival) and his wife Cathy who are here with Gary on the Documentary Competition Jury (I just left them in Careyas!) also just discovered her as well. The other artist, Olga Amaral, works in indigenous styles of weaving and textile production and now is favoring gold leaf displays of woven wall tapestries. Stunning. Both are available at the Nh Gallery, a place I just happened to wander into as I was walking from the theater to my equally stunning hotel Casa Pestagua.
The courteous and helpful people here are a proud mix of white, brown and black. They say the blacks will never follow the orders of a white. They say the blood of slaves is embedded in the wall fortifications of the city. The Inquisition here was very powerful, and they say the Jews (Conversos) coming in the conquistadors’ ships went to settle Medellín and the Catholics to Bogotá. Cartagena was the last city to be free of the Spanish crown and as such, it was extremely conservative.
It would take days to visit all the museums throughout the city. The Art Biennale is now in many of them (free entry) including the Museum of the Inquisition with its torture machines. The Museum of Gold with pre-Colombian gold artworks is astounding. All the gold of Latin America (and emeralds, diamonds and silver) went from here in the Spanish galleons back to Spain until the city declared its independence in 1811. We in the North know this history but from a different perspective. Eduardo Galeano’s Open Veins of Latin America and Gonzalo Arijon’s documentary Eyes Wide Open, an update of Galeano’s ideas are good starting points for understanding this part of the world. Eye opening indeed!
The beauty of the city and its people is matched by the food. There is great food here here and some very haute cuisine restaurants. Ceviches of many kinds, new sweet fruits like the pitaya and the drink mixing limeade and coconut milk delight the palate. The festival invites enough but not too many industry folks so it can host lunches and dinners in wonderful venues along with cocktail hours where we can all meet and talk. Talk among us is of food and film, film and food…even of food film festivals that are cropping up from Berlin, San Sebastian, here and in Northern California…stay tuned.
The Colombian government is aware of the need for the public to rediscover their own stories and to this end all the festival screenings are free, and all are packed Sro. The government also supports filmmakers with a deliberate, well-planned and well executed strategy to increase production and create an infrastructure.
Colombian films’ biggest challenge is to increase their share of their rapidly growing domestic market, worth $182.3 million in box office in 2012. One way forward is international co-production, where Bam (Bogotá Audiovisual Market) July 14-18, 2014 plays a large role. There is a mini version of this here (Encuentros Cartagena), centering on French and Colombian co-production, but not limited to that, with guests like George Goldenstern from Cinefondation (Cannes), producer/ international sales agent Marie-Pierre Masia and and the ever present Thierry Lenouvel of Cine-Sud whose film Tierra en la lengua aka Dust on the Tongue won the Best Picture Award in Competition. Vincenzo Bugno of World Cinema Fund of the Berlinale is always here too as is Jose Maria Riba on the Jury of the Competition and programmer for San Sebastian and Directors Fortnight. Also on the jury are Wendy Mitchel and Pawel Pawlikowski whose film Ida (Isa: Portobello Film Sales) is playing (outside of the Competition). A look at the winning competition films shows the strength of co-productions today.
Best Picture: Dust on the Tongue of Ruben Mendoza (Colombia) Colombia Film of $15,000. Special Jury Prize: The Third Side of the River (La tercera orilla) which premiered in Competition at the Berlinale, by Celina Murga (Argentina, Netherlands, Germany) (Isa: The Match Factory) Best Director: Alejandro Fernández Almendras for To kill a man (Matar a un hombre) which premiered in Sundance (Chile, France). Film Factory is selling international rights and Film Movement has U.S. It also won the Fipresci or International Critics’ Award. Best Actor: Fernando Bacilio by El Mudo (Peru, Mexico, France), Urban Distribution International is the sales agent.
Cinema in Colombia continues its steep ascent in the international production world. The reasons, according to Bugno, lie in “new political decisions, funding structures, and the developing of a new producing environment that also has to do with new emerging young talent.”
A visit to the festival headquarters proves the point of the extensive government support of film not only for its own sake, but for the sake of all the people, dispossessed, abused, Lgbt, children and women. It is a beautiful sight to see such support, and the people seem to reciprocate; I hear more praise than complaints about the government and everyone seems cautiously optimistic, aware of its current position vis à vis what has thankfully become recent history with the guerillas who had been waging war with the government for the past 40 years and the current elections and competing points of view between the former President Uribe and the current President Juan Manuel Santos.
Aecid , Association Espagnola de Cooperacon Internacional para el Desarrollo (The Spanish Association for International Cooperation for Development), a festival sponsor supports social cohesion, equality of genders, construction of peace, respect for cultural diversity and the reduction of poverty.
Currently in Colombia, national cinema holds a 10% share of the Colombian market and 8% of the box office. In 2012, 213 films were produced in Colombia, a huge increase since 2009 when 19 were produced according to Ocal, the Observotario del Cine f nCl [sic]. In 2012, 23 of the 213 domestic films were released theatrically, a tremendous increase from the 6 Colombian films released in the year 2000. [1],[2] This number surpasses every record in Colombia’s film history
This 10 day spectacular film festival gives free entry to all at 8 theaters and, proving the point that people love the movies, every single screening is packed solid, Sro. More than 135 films come from 27 countries. 48 daily screenings include 14 open air screenings in great locations. There are 40 world premieres and 26 Latin American premieres.
150 invited guests included Abbas Kiarostami, Clive Owen, Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu, Pavel Pawlikowsky with his film Ida, John Sayles with whom I had an interesting talk about U.S. current distribution and of Return of Seacaucus Seven and Sunshine State. The screening of his film Go For Sisters has received an enthusiastic response from the audiences.
Since 2013, coproductions between the U.S. and Colombia with variations on the theme are on the rise. With its 40% cash rebate, Colombia is proving to be a great place to make movies.
Colombians such as Simon Brand are making English language genre films such as this year’s festival debuting Default (Isa: Wild Bunch). For budgets under Us$1 million, action, thrillers and horror genres can cross borders, and can recoup costs and even profit.
The reverse is also notable. Four films screening here are Colombian films made by Americans. The winner to three prizes here for Best Director, Best Documentary and the Audience Prize, Marmato by Marc Grieco was workshopped twice at Sundance where it premiered this January 2014. It is represented internationally by Ro*co and its U.S. representative is Ben Weiss at Paradigm. The other three remarkable debut films are Mambo Cool by Chris Gude,Manos Sucias by Josef Wladyka (a Japanese-Polish American) and Parador Hungaro by Patrick Alexander and Aseneth Suarez Ruiz. Look for upcoming interviews with these four directors who came to Colombia and, because of their experiences here, decided to make these exceptional movies. My next blog will be interviews with each of these films’ directors.
Secundaria , the first film I saw here was not shot here although it too was directed by an American who made 21 trips to Cuba to make it. Documenting the high school ballet training and competitions held by Cuba’s world famous National Ballet School -- Watch the trailer here -- it was not only beautiful but it magically captured the ever-present economic issues of Cuba. I can’t wait to see Primaria about the grade school of the Nbs.
Director and coproducer Mary Jane Doherty has been an Associate Professor of Film at Boston University since 1990. Proud of her lineage as a student of iconic documentarian Ricky Leacock, she developed B.U.’s Narrative Documentary Program: a novel approach to non-fiction storytelling using the building blocks of fiction film. Lyda Kuth , the coproducer, is founding board member and executive director of the Lef Foundation, which supports independent filmmakers through the Lef Moving Image Fund. In 2005, she established Nadita Productions and was producer/director on her first feature documentary, Love and Other Anxieties.
A cocktail party is given daily at the festival where we can all meet up. It was there I met Gail Gendler VP of Acquisitions for AMC/ Sundance Channel Global (international not domestic) and Gus
Dinner one night was with the jury for Nuevos Creadores (New Creators). Cynthia Garcia Calvo, Editor in Chief of LatamCinema.com, a Latino equivalent to Indiewire.com out of Chile and Argentina and I spoke of possible ways to cooperate. The third member of the jury, Javier Mejia, director of Colombia’s best film of 2008 Apocalypsur also has a documentary here, Duni, about a Chilean filmmaker who left Chile during the dictatorship and came to Colombia where he made political films in Medellin but never discussed his reasons for coming or even his Chilean roots. How happy I was that I had seen and enjoyed the films of the third jury member, Daniel Vega, who with his brother Diego made The Mute aka El Mudo (Isa: Urban Media) which played in Toronto and San Sebastian and his earlier film October, both dark comedies or perhaps dramadies dealing with subjective realities in unique environs of Peru we have never seen. He promised to help me with the Peru chapter of my upcoming book. Peru is in the lower middle of countries which support filmmaking. Their film fund is a rather laid back affair administered by the Ministry of Culture who receives money from the Ministry of Finance when they “get around to it”.
Jury for New Creators: Javier Mejía, Cynthia García Calvo and Diego Vega,displaying the winner for the Best Short Film: Alen Natalia Imery (Universidad del Valle) who won a Sony video camera, 2,000, 000 pesos of in kind services from Shock Magazin, and a scholarship for graduate Project Management and Film Production at the Autonomous University of Bucaramanga
Second prize went to The murmur of the earth Alejandro Daza (National University) - Win a Sony camera, and a Fellowship for Graduate Record Audio and Sound Design of the Autonomous University of Bucaramanga.
Other winners are:
Official Colombian Film Competition
Jurors: David Melo - Alissa Simon - Daniela Michel
Best Film: Marmato by Mark Grieco (Colombia, USA) Winner of the I.Sat Award for $30K and the Cinecolor Award for $11k in deliveries
Special Jury Prize: Mateo by María Gamboa
Best Director: Rubén Mendoza for Dust on the Tongue (Tierra en la lengua). Winner of Hangar Films Award for $30K in film equipment to produce his next film.
Additional Awards
Audience Award Colombia: Marmato by Mark Grieco (Colombia, USA). Winner of $15K
Official Documentary Competition
Jurors: Gary Meyer- Luis Ospina - Laurie Collyer
Best Film: Marmato by Mark Grieco (Colombia, USA). Winner of the Cinecolor Award for $13Kin post-production services.
Special Jury Prize: What Now? Remind Me (E Agora? Lembra-me) by Joaquim Pinto (Portugal)
Best Director: Justin Webster for I Will Be Murdered (Seré asesinado) (Spain, Denmark, U.K.)
Official Short Film Competition
JurorsOswaldo Osorio -Pacho Bottia - Denis de la Roca
Best Short Film: Statues (Estatuas) by Roberto Fiesco (Mexico). Winner of a professional Sony camera and $3K from Cinecolor in post-production services for his next project.
Special Jury Prize: About a Month (Pouco Mais de um Mês) by André Novais Oliveira (Brazil)
Best Director: Manuel Camacho Bustillo for Blackout chapter 4 "A Call to Neverland" (Blackout capítulo 4 "Una llamada a Neverland") (Mexico). Winner of a Sony photographic camera.
Gems
Jurors: Mauricio Reina - Manuel Kalmanowitz - Sofia Gomez Gonzalez
Best Film: Like Father, Like Son by Hirokazu Koreeda (Japan). Winner of the Rcn Award for $50 to promote the release of the film in Colombia.
Special Jury Prize: Ilo Ilo by Anthony Chen (Singapore)
[1] http://www.cinelatinoamericano.org/ocal/cifras.aspx
[2] http://www.mincultura.gov.co/areas/cinematografia/estadisticas-del-sector/Documents/Anuario%202012.p...
This former colonial jewel in the crown of Spain offers a huge array of delights, film-wise, art-wise, food-wise and people-wise. Gorgeous arts and gorgeous people, sweet, polite and proud. As much as I love Havana, Cartagena is how Havana should look.
And as much as I loved Careyes where I was last week, the art and artisanal scope here is so wide; from the Colombian painter and sculptor, Botero to indigenous palm weaving – décor for homes (not cheap!), bags, designer clothing, linen and rubies.
Aside from films, my big discoveries of the day are Ruby Rumie, a Colombian artist who spends much of her time here in her studio in the Getsemaní section of town and in Chile. Coincidentally (again) Gary Meyer (Telluride Film Festival) and his wife Cathy who are here with Gary on the Documentary Competition Jury (I just left them in Careyas!) also just discovered her as well. The other artist, Olga Amaral, works in indigenous styles of weaving and textile production and now is favoring gold leaf displays of woven wall tapestries. Stunning. Both are available at the Nh Gallery, a place I just happened to wander into as I was walking from the theater to my equally stunning hotel Casa Pestagua.
The courteous and helpful people here are a proud mix of white, brown and black. They say the blacks will never follow the orders of a white. They say the blood of slaves is embedded in the wall fortifications of the city. The Inquisition here was very powerful, and they say the Jews (Conversos) coming in the conquistadors’ ships went to settle Medellín and the Catholics to Bogotá. Cartagena was the last city to be free of the Spanish crown and as such, it was extremely conservative.
It would take days to visit all the museums throughout the city. The Art Biennale is now in many of them (free entry) including the Museum of the Inquisition with its torture machines. The Museum of Gold with pre-Colombian gold artworks is astounding. All the gold of Latin America (and emeralds, diamonds and silver) went from here in the Spanish galleons back to Spain until the city declared its independence in 1811. We in the North know this history but from a different perspective. Eduardo Galeano’s Open Veins of Latin America and Gonzalo Arijon’s documentary Eyes Wide Open, an update of Galeano’s ideas are good starting points for understanding this part of the world. Eye opening indeed!
The beauty of the city and its people is matched by the food. There is great food here here and some very haute cuisine restaurants. Ceviches of many kinds, new sweet fruits like the pitaya and the drink mixing limeade and coconut milk delight the palate. The festival invites enough but not too many industry folks so it can host lunches and dinners in wonderful venues along with cocktail hours where we can all meet and talk. Talk among us is of food and film, film and food…even of food film festivals that are cropping up from Berlin, San Sebastian, here and in Northern California…stay tuned.
The Colombian government is aware of the need for the public to rediscover their own stories and to this end all the festival screenings are free, and all are packed Sro. The government also supports filmmakers with a deliberate, well-planned and well executed strategy to increase production and create an infrastructure.
Colombian films’ biggest challenge is to increase their share of their rapidly growing domestic market, worth $182.3 million in box office in 2012. One way forward is international co-production, where Bam (Bogotá Audiovisual Market) July 14-18, 2014 plays a large role. There is a mini version of this here (Encuentros Cartagena), centering on French and Colombian co-production, but not limited to that, with guests like George Goldenstern from Cinefondation (Cannes), producer/ international sales agent Marie-Pierre Masia and and the ever present Thierry Lenouvel of Cine-Sud whose film Tierra en la lengua aka Dust on the Tongue won the Best Picture Award in Competition. Vincenzo Bugno of World Cinema Fund of the Berlinale is always here too as is Jose Maria Riba on the Jury of the Competition and programmer for San Sebastian and Directors Fortnight. Also on the jury are Wendy Mitchel and Pawel Pawlikowski whose film Ida (Isa: Portobello Film Sales) is playing (outside of the Competition). A look at the winning competition films shows the strength of co-productions today.
Best Picture: Dust on the Tongue of Ruben Mendoza (Colombia) Colombia Film of $15,000. Special Jury Prize: The Third Side of the River (La tercera orilla) which premiered in Competition at the Berlinale, by Celina Murga (Argentina, Netherlands, Germany) (Isa: The Match Factory) Best Director: Alejandro Fernández Almendras for To kill a man (Matar a un hombre) which premiered in Sundance (Chile, France). Film Factory is selling international rights and Film Movement has U.S. It also won the Fipresci or International Critics’ Award. Best Actor: Fernando Bacilio by El Mudo (Peru, Mexico, France), Urban Distribution International is the sales agent.
Cinema in Colombia continues its steep ascent in the international production world. The reasons, according to Bugno, lie in “new political decisions, funding structures, and the developing of a new producing environment that also has to do with new emerging young talent.”
A visit to the festival headquarters proves the point of the extensive government support of film not only for its own sake, but for the sake of all the people, dispossessed, abused, Lgbt, children and women. It is a beautiful sight to see such support, and the people seem to reciprocate; I hear more praise than complaints about the government and everyone seems cautiously optimistic, aware of its current position vis à vis what has thankfully become recent history with the guerillas who had been waging war with the government for the past 40 years and the current elections and competing points of view between the former President Uribe and the current President Juan Manuel Santos.
Aecid , Association Espagnola de Cooperacon Internacional para el Desarrollo (The Spanish Association for International Cooperation for Development), a festival sponsor supports social cohesion, equality of genders, construction of peace, respect for cultural diversity and the reduction of poverty.
Currently in Colombia, national cinema holds a 10% share of the Colombian market and 8% of the box office. In 2012, 213 films were produced in Colombia, a huge increase since 2009 when 19 were produced according to Ocal, the Observotario del Cine f nCl [sic]. In 2012, 23 of the 213 domestic films were released theatrically, a tremendous increase from the 6 Colombian films released in the year 2000. [1],[2] This number surpasses every record in Colombia’s film history
This 10 day spectacular film festival gives free entry to all at 8 theaters and, proving the point that people love the movies, every single screening is packed solid, Sro. More than 135 films come from 27 countries. 48 daily screenings include 14 open air screenings in great locations. There are 40 world premieres and 26 Latin American premieres.
150 invited guests included Abbas Kiarostami, Clive Owen, Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu, Pavel Pawlikowsky with his film Ida, John Sayles with whom I had an interesting talk about U.S. current distribution and of Return of Seacaucus Seven and Sunshine State. The screening of his film Go For Sisters has received an enthusiastic response from the audiences.
Since 2013, coproductions between the U.S. and Colombia with variations on the theme are on the rise. With its 40% cash rebate, Colombia is proving to be a great place to make movies.
Colombians such as Simon Brand are making English language genre films such as this year’s festival debuting Default (Isa: Wild Bunch). For budgets under Us$1 million, action, thrillers and horror genres can cross borders, and can recoup costs and even profit.
The reverse is also notable. Four films screening here are Colombian films made by Americans. The winner to three prizes here for Best Director, Best Documentary and the Audience Prize, Marmato by Marc Grieco was workshopped twice at Sundance where it premiered this January 2014. It is represented internationally by Ro*co and its U.S. representative is Ben Weiss at Paradigm. The other three remarkable debut films are Mambo Cool by Chris Gude,Manos Sucias by Josef Wladyka (a Japanese-Polish American) and Parador Hungaro by Patrick Alexander and Aseneth Suarez Ruiz. Look for upcoming interviews with these four directors who came to Colombia and, because of their experiences here, decided to make these exceptional movies. My next blog will be interviews with each of these films’ directors.
Secundaria , the first film I saw here was not shot here although it too was directed by an American who made 21 trips to Cuba to make it. Documenting the high school ballet training and competitions held by Cuba’s world famous National Ballet School -- Watch the trailer here -- it was not only beautiful but it magically captured the ever-present economic issues of Cuba. I can’t wait to see Primaria about the grade school of the Nbs.
Director and coproducer Mary Jane Doherty has been an Associate Professor of Film at Boston University since 1990. Proud of her lineage as a student of iconic documentarian Ricky Leacock, she developed B.U.’s Narrative Documentary Program: a novel approach to non-fiction storytelling using the building blocks of fiction film. Lyda Kuth , the coproducer, is founding board member and executive director of the Lef Foundation, which supports independent filmmakers through the Lef Moving Image Fund. In 2005, she established Nadita Productions and was producer/director on her first feature documentary, Love and Other Anxieties.
A cocktail party is given daily at the festival where we can all meet up. It was there I met Gail Gendler VP of Acquisitions for AMC/ Sundance Channel Global (international not domestic) and Gus
Dinner one night was with the jury for Nuevos Creadores (New Creators). Cynthia Garcia Calvo, Editor in Chief of LatamCinema.com, a Latino equivalent to Indiewire.com out of Chile and Argentina and I spoke of possible ways to cooperate. The third member of the jury, Javier Mejia, director of Colombia’s best film of 2008 Apocalypsur also has a documentary here, Duni, about a Chilean filmmaker who left Chile during the dictatorship and came to Colombia where he made political films in Medellin but never discussed his reasons for coming or even his Chilean roots. How happy I was that I had seen and enjoyed the films of the third jury member, Daniel Vega, who with his brother Diego made The Mute aka El Mudo (Isa: Urban Media) which played in Toronto and San Sebastian and his earlier film October, both dark comedies or perhaps dramadies dealing with subjective realities in unique environs of Peru we have never seen. He promised to help me with the Peru chapter of my upcoming book. Peru is in the lower middle of countries which support filmmaking. Their film fund is a rather laid back affair administered by the Ministry of Culture who receives money from the Ministry of Finance when they “get around to it”.
Jury for New Creators: Javier Mejía, Cynthia García Calvo and Diego Vega,displaying the winner for the Best Short Film: Alen Natalia Imery (Universidad del Valle) who won a Sony video camera, 2,000, 000 pesos of in kind services from Shock Magazin, and a scholarship for graduate Project Management and Film Production at the Autonomous University of Bucaramanga
Second prize went to The murmur of the earth Alejandro Daza (National University) - Win a Sony camera, and a Fellowship for Graduate Record Audio and Sound Design of the Autonomous University of Bucaramanga.
Other winners are:
Official Colombian Film Competition
Jurors: David Melo - Alissa Simon - Daniela Michel
Best Film: Marmato by Mark Grieco (Colombia, USA) Winner of the I.Sat Award for $30K and the Cinecolor Award for $11k in deliveries
Special Jury Prize: Mateo by María Gamboa
Best Director: Rubén Mendoza for Dust on the Tongue (Tierra en la lengua). Winner of Hangar Films Award for $30K in film equipment to produce his next film.
Additional Awards
Audience Award Colombia: Marmato by Mark Grieco (Colombia, USA). Winner of $15K
Official Documentary Competition
Jurors: Gary Meyer- Luis Ospina - Laurie Collyer
Best Film: Marmato by Mark Grieco (Colombia, USA). Winner of the Cinecolor Award for $13Kin post-production services.
Special Jury Prize: What Now? Remind Me (E Agora? Lembra-me) by Joaquim Pinto (Portugal)
Best Director: Justin Webster for I Will Be Murdered (Seré asesinado) (Spain, Denmark, U.K.)
Official Short Film Competition
JurorsOswaldo Osorio -Pacho Bottia - Denis de la Roca
Best Short Film: Statues (Estatuas) by Roberto Fiesco (Mexico). Winner of a professional Sony camera and $3K from Cinecolor in post-production services for his next project.
Special Jury Prize: About a Month (Pouco Mais de um Mês) by André Novais Oliveira (Brazil)
Best Director: Manuel Camacho Bustillo for Blackout chapter 4 "A Call to Neverland" (Blackout capítulo 4 "Una llamada a Neverland") (Mexico). Winner of a Sony photographic camera.
Gems
Jurors: Mauricio Reina - Manuel Kalmanowitz - Sofia Gomez Gonzalez
Best Film: Like Father, Like Son by Hirokazu Koreeda (Japan). Winner of the Rcn Award for $50 to promote the release of the film in Colombia.
Special Jury Prize: Ilo Ilo by Anthony Chen (Singapore)
[1] http://www.cinelatinoamericano.org/ocal/cifras.aspx
[2] http://www.mincultura.gov.co/areas/cinematografia/estadisticas-del-sector/Documents/Anuario%202012.p...
- 3/26/2014
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
For years the essay film has been a neglected form, but now its unorthodox approach to constructing reality is winning over a younger, tech-savvy crowd
For a brief, almost unreal couple of hours last July, in amid the kittens and One Direction-mania trending on Twitter, there appeared a very surprising name – that of semi-reclusive French film-maker Chris Marker, whose innovative short feature La Jetée (1962) was remade in 1995 as Twelve Monkeys by Terry Gilliam. A few months earlier, art journal e-flux staged The Desperate Edge of Now, a retrospective of Adam Curtis's TV films, to large audiences on New York's Lower East Side. The previous summer, Handsworth Songs (1986), an experimental feature by the Black Audio Film Collective Salman Rushdie had once attacked as obscurantist and politically irrelevant, attracted a huge crowd at Tate Modern when it was screened shortly after the London riots.
Marker, Curtis, Black Audio: all have...
For a brief, almost unreal couple of hours last July, in amid the kittens and One Direction-mania trending on Twitter, there appeared a very surprising name – that of semi-reclusive French film-maker Chris Marker, whose innovative short feature La Jetée (1962) was remade in 1995 as Twelve Monkeys by Terry Gilliam. A few months earlier, art journal e-flux staged The Desperate Edge of Now, a retrospective of Adam Curtis's TV films, to large audiences on New York's Lower East Side. The previous summer, Handsworth Songs (1986), an experimental feature by the Black Audio Film Collective Salman Rushdie had once attacked as obscurantist and politically irrelevant, attracted a huge crowd at Tate Modern when it was screened shortly after the London riots.
Marker, Curtis, Black Audio: all have...
- 8/3/2013
- by Sukhdev Sandhu
- The Guardian - Film News
My readers know how important literacy is to me since I started The Literacy Project at El Centro del Pueblo two years ago. So when I met Catherine Murphy at a Laliff reception, I was extremely interested in her 33 minute documentary Maestra which will screen at La Femme Film Festival on Saturday, October 13th at 12:00 p.m. in Hollywood at the Davidson/Valentini Theatre, 1125 N McCadden Place, L.A. 90038. The screening will be followed by a Question & Answer session.
Maestra pays tribute to the thousands of young, teenage girls in Cuba in the1960s who volunteered to combat illiteracy across their country, with astonishing results. “This is not just a story about literacy; it is a story about everyday heroes and heroines, about hopes and dreams. It is about the empowerment of 50,000 young women, who threw themselves into an impossible task, and helped change history in their country at the early ages of 16 and 17”, says Murphy, who has spent close to a decade researching archives, tracking down volunteer teachers and recording oral histories of their experience.
Endorsed by such luminaries as Dolores Huerta, Co-founder of the United Farm Workers, President of the Dolores Huerta Foundation; Howard Zinn, Historian and Author of "The Peoples History of the United States", Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan Writer and Journalist, Author of "The Open Veins of Latin America" and Alice Walker, Writer and Peacemaker Pulitzer Prize Winner Author of "The Color Purple who said, "This film brought tears to my eyes. Thank you. It is beautiful", you can see why my interest is not unfounded.
La Femme International Film Festival is the biggest women’s festival inthe United States with a star studded Awards Ceremony highlighting films from all over the world. The 4 day fest will screen over 100 films -- independent features, shorts, documentaries, commercials and music videos. Renowned actors such as Susan Sarandon and Daryl Hannah are part of this year’s films.
The screening and event schedule for the festival is available online at http://www.lafemme.org/. Tickets can Now be purchased online or at the door. Tickets for individualfilms are $10.
Maestra was produced by The Literacy Project (www.theliteracyproject.org) in collaboration with Icaic (Cuban Institute for Cinematic Arts and Industry. See trailer and download press kit at www.maestrathefilm.org.
Maestra pays tribute to the thousands of young, teenage girls in Cuba in the1960s who volunteered to combat illiteracy across their country, with astonishing results. “This is not just a story about literacy; it is a story about everyday heroes and heroines, about hopes and dreams. It is about the empowerment of 50,000 young women, who threw themselves into an impossible task, and helped change history in their country at the early ages of 16 and 17”, says Murphy, who has spent close to a decade researching archives, tracking down volunteer teachers and recording oral histories of their experience.
Endorsed by such luminaries as Dolores Huerta, Co-founder of the United Farm Workers, President of the Dolores Huerta Foundation; Howard Zinn, Historian and Author of "The Peoples History of the United States", Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan Writer and Journalist, Author of "The Open Veins of Latin America" and Alice Walker, Writer and Peacemaker Pulitzer Prize Winner Author of "The Color Purple who said, "This film brought tears to my eyes. Thank you. It is beautiful", you can see why my interest is not unfounded.
La Femme International Film Festival is the biggest women’s festival inthe United States with a star studded Awards Ceremony highlighting films from all over the world. The 4 day fest will screen over 100 films -- independent features, shorts, documentaries, commercials and music videos. Renowned actors such as Susan Sarandon and Daryl Hannah are part of this year’s films.
The screening and event schedule for the festival is available online at http://www.lafemme.org/. Tickets can Now be purchased online or at the door. Tickets for individualfilms are $10.
Maestra was produced by The Literacy Project (www.theliteracyproject.org) in collaboration with Icaic (Cuban Institute for Cinematic Arts and Industry. See trailer and download press kit at www.maestrathefilm.org.
- 10/10/2012
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Is there any book more evocative of “the beautiful game” than Eduardo Galeano’s slim but buoyant paean to the players, goals, joys, and heartbreaks of a lifetime of soccer fandom? If you only know Galeano from his masterworks of radical, idiosyncratic montage—his Memory of Fire trilogy is the history of the Americas in searing anecdotes; his Open Veins of Latin America was Hugo Chavez’s gift to Obama—you’ll be wowed by Soccer in Sun and Shadow. (The title refers to the different sections of the stadium—the cheap seats under the sun’s glare, the more expensive in shadow.) In this exclusive reading for Fair Play, one of literature’s true giants guides us through the highs and lows of his beloved game, from the back-alleys of Buenos Aires to the boardrooms of the world’s richest clubs. • Part Six. In the sixth and final excerpt for Fair Play,...
- 7/9/2010
- Vanity Fair
Is there any book more evocative of “the beautiful game” than Eduardo Galeano’s slim but buoyant paean to the players, goals, joys, and heartbreaks of a lifetime of soccer fandom? If you only know Galeano from his masterworks of radical, idiosyncratic montage—his Memory of Fire trilogy is the history of the Americas in searing anecdotes; his Open Veins of Latin America was Hugo Chavez’s gift to Obama—you’ll be wowed by Soccer in Sun and Shadow. (The title refers to the different sections of the stadium—the cheap seats under the sun’s glare, the more expensive in shadow.) In this exclusive reading for Fair Play, one of literature’s true giants guides us through the highs and lows of his beloved game, from the back-alleys of Buenos Aires to the boardrooms of the world’s richest clubs. • Part Five. In the fifth of six excerpts for Fair Play,...
- 7/8/2010
- Vanity Fair
Is there any book more evocative of “the beautiful game” than Eduardo Galeano’s slim but buoyant paean to the players, goals, joys, and heartbreaks of a lifetime of soccer fandom? If you only know Galeano from his masterworks of radical, idiosyncratic montage—his Memory of Fire trilogy is the history of the Americas in searing anecdotes; his Open Veins of Latin America was Hugo Chavez’s gift to Obama—you’ll be wowed by Soccer in Sun and Shadow. (The title refers to the different sections of the stadium—the cheap seats under the sun’s glare, the more expensive in shadow.) In this exclusive reading for Fair Play, one of literature’s true giants guides us through the highs and lows of his beloved game, from the back-alleys of Buenos Aires to the boardrooms of the world’s richest clubs. • Part Four. In the fourth of six excerpts for Fair Play,...
- 6/29/2010
- Vanity Fair
Bob Thomas/Getty Images Winners: 1978, 1986 Finalists: 1930, 1990 Excerpted from The Espn World Cup Companion, by David Hirshey and Roger Bennett. If you’re partial to A Clockwork Orange, the movies of John Woo, Jack Tatum, or the Broad Street Bullies, the violent beauty of the Argentinian National Team is for you. Artful brutality is a natural part of its game. (Even the Paralympic soccer team had a brawl live on national television in 2004.) Like its rivals, the Brazilians, Argentina’s passion for soccer is born of poverty, but whereas Brazil fuses the South American and the African, Argentinian football looks to Europe. The working classes inherited the game directly from British sailors, and it spread quickly from the ports to the factories and slums, where workers mastered the slaloming style of dribbling that Argentinians idolize. In the words of Eduardo Galeano, they strum “the ball as if it was a guitar,...
- 6/12/2010
- Vanity Fair
Artwork courtesy of Espn and the Am I Collective. Poor Uruguay. Imagine what it must feel like to be a small country wedged between South America’s two soccer giants, Brazil and Argentina. (To be caught forever in the crossfire of the Pelé/Maradona debate alone must be hellish.) But it wasn’t always so—in the early years of the World Cup, Uruguay was the powerhouse and Montevideo, more than Buenos Aires, was the soccer hotbed of the Mar de Plata region. Uruguay won the Cup in 1930 and again—to Brazil’s everlasting sorrow—in 1950 at the new Maracanã Stadium in Rio, silencing Brazil 2-1. But it has been a long dry spell since then, one in which Uruguay has become known more for brutal tackling than anything worth cheering about. Alas, they also have a way of putting their fans through the ringer: they failed to qualify for the 2006 World Cup,...
- 5/27/2010
- Vanity Fair
Is there any book more evocative of “the beautiful game” than Eduardo Galeano’s slim but buoyant paean to the players, goals, joys, and heartbreaks of a lifetime of soccer fandom? If you only know Galeano from his masterworks of radical, idiosyncratic montage—his Memory of Fire trilogy is the history of the Americas in searing anecdotes; his Open Veins of Latin America was Hugo Chavez’s gift to Obama—you’ll be wowed by Soccer in Sun and Shadow. (The title refers to the different sections of the stadium—the cheap seats under the sun’s glare, the more expensive in shadow.) In this exclusive reading for Fair Play, one of literature’s true giants guides us through the highs and lows of his beloved game, from the back-alleys of Buenos Aires to the boardrooms of the world’s richest clubs. • Part Three. In the third of six excerpts for Fair Play,...
- 5/7/2010
- Vanity Fair
Is there any book more evocative of “the beautiful game” than Eduardo Galeano’s slim but buoyant paean to the players, goals, joys, and heartbreaks of a lifetime of soccer fandom? If you only know Galeano from his masterworks of radical, idiosyncratic montage—his Memory of Fire trilogy is the history of the Americas in searing anecdotes; his Open Veins of Latin America was Hugo Chavez’s gift to Obama—you’ll be wowed by Soccer in Sun and Shadow. (The title refers to the different sections of the stadium—the cheap seats under the sun’s glare, the more expensive in shadow.) In this exclusive reading for Fair Play, one of literature’s true giants guides us through the highs and lows of his beloved game, from the back-alleys of Buenos Aires to the boardrooms of the world’s richest clubs. • Part Two. In the second of six excerpts for Fair Play,...
- 3/18/2010
- Vanity Fair
Is there any book more evocative of “the beautiful game” than Eduardo Galeano’s slim but buoyant paean to the players, goals, joys, and heartbreaks of a lifetime of soccer fandom? If you only know Galeano from his masterworks of radical, idiosyncratic montage—his Memory of Fire trilogy is the history of the Americas in searing anecdotes; his Open Veins of Latin America was Hugo Chavez’s gift to Obama—you’ll be wowed by Soccer in Sun and Shadow. (The title refers to the different sections of the stadium—the cheap seats under the sun’s glare, the more expensive in shadow.) In this exclusive reading for Fair Play, one of literature’s true giants guides us through the highs and lows of his beloved game, from the back-alleys of Buenos Aires to the boardrooms of the world’s richest clubs. • Part One. In the first of six excerpts for Fair Play,...
- 3/16/2010
- Vanity Fair
There is more here than meets the eye, mainly because the festival organization is so loose that events are not announced, nor are films announced until the day before they show and nobody goes out of his or her way to be especially helpful. It helps somewhat to speak Spanish, but even the Cubans are at sea when it comes to knowing what is going on.
Winners were announced today. The Coral Award for best picture went to Peru's submission for Best Foreign Language Oscar Nomination, La Teta Asustada aka The Milk of Sorrow which premiered in Berlin, special mention and best of Caribean animation went to stop-motion 20 Anos. Association of Cuban cinematographers' prize went to El Secreto de sus Ojos Argentina's submission to the Academy and a Sony Pictures Classics pickup. The prize for the best of revolutionary culture went to La Perdida a Spanish Argentian documentary which premiered in San Sebastian,...
Winners were announced today. The Coral Award for best picture went to Peru's submission for Best Foreign Language Oscar Nomination, La Teta Asustada aka The Milk of Sorrow which premiered in Berlin, special mention and best of Caribean animation went to stop-motion 20 Anos. Association of Cuban cinematographers' prize went to El Secreto de sus Ojos Argentina's submission to the Academy and a Sony Pictures Classics pickup. The prize for the best of revolutionary culture went to La Perdida a Spanish Argentian documentary which premiered in San Sebastian,...
- 12/14/2009
- by Sydney
- Sydney's Buzz
Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival
In this brief, affecting docu, director John Smihula lays out a trenchant case against the School of the Americas, a U.S. military academy whose critics have dubbed it the School of the Assassins. There's screen time for SOA supporters, but the argument's balance falls heavily on the opposing side, whose numbers here include American politicians, human rights advocates, well-known gadflies Noam Chomsky and Christopher Hitchens and individuals who have been victimized by U.S.-trained death squads. "Hidden in Plain Sight" is a worthy title for cable nets scheduling hard-hitting documentary fare.
The centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy in Central and South America, the SOA has trained 60,000 soldiers from the region -- Manuel Noriega among them -- since its opening in 1946. Closed by an act of Congress in December 2000, it promptly reopened as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, a mouthful of a name that critics, including a former instructor, consider a euphemism for the same old program in combat and counterinsurgency tactics. 1% of the school's graduates have been convicted of human rights abuses, a figure that is either significant or minuscule, depending on the speaker's point of view.
The institute drew fire when its infamous manual on torture came to light, and it has been the object of some of the largest domestic antiwar demonstrations since Vietnam, under the aegis of the Rev. Roy Bourgeois' SOA Watch. Among those seen marching on the Fort Benning, Ga., campus is Martin Sheen, who narrates the film's opening sequences. There's harrowing testimony from Sister Dianna Ortiz, who while a schoolteacher in Guatemala was captured, tortured and repeatedly raped, and from Ana Chavez Fisher, who found her missing husband among the victims of a massacre in El Salvador.
The film takes its title from writer Hitchens' observation that SOA/WHISC is something of an open secret, a stance he attributes to its methods of terror and intimidation. Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano offers stinging commentary on the relationship between the United States and its southern neighbors, and what emerges is a portrait of policy-dictated atrocities designed to protect corporate interests and exploit natural resources and cheap labor. With anguished compassion for the indigent people of Latin America, "Hidden" ends with a plaintive cry for government accountability.
In this brief, affecting docu, director John Smihula lays out a trenchant case against the School of the Americas, a U.S. military academy whose critics have dubbed it the School of the Assassins. There's screen time for SOA supporters, but the argument's balance falls heavily on the opposing side, whose numbers here include American politicians, human rights advocates, well-known gadflies Noam Chomsky and Christopher Hitchens and individuals who have been victimized by U.S.-trained death squads. "Hidden in Plain Sight" is a worthy title for cable nets scheduling hard-hitting documentary fare.
The centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy in Central and South America, the SOA has trained 60,000 soldiers from the region -- Manuel Noriega among them -- since its opening in 1946. Closed by an act of Congress in December 2000, it promptly reopened as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, a mouthful of a name that critics, including a former instructor, consider a euphemism for the same old program in combat and counterinsurgency tactics. 1% of the school's graduates have been convicted of human rights abuses, a figure that is either significant or minuscule, depending on the speaker's point of view.
The institute drew fire when its infamous manual on torture came to light, and it has been the object of some of the largest domestic antiwar demonstrations since Vietnam, under the aegis of the Rev. Roy Bourgeois' SOA Watch. Among those seen marching on the Fort Benning, Ga., campus is Martin Sheen, who narrates the film's opening sequences. There's harrowing testimony from Sister Dianna Ortiz, who while a schoolteacher in Guatemala was captured, tortured and repeatedly raped, and from Ana Chavez Fisher, who found her missing husband among the victims of a massacre in El Salvador.
The film takes its title from writer Hitchens' observation that SOA/WHISC is something of an open secret, a stance he attributes to its methods of terror and intimidation. Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano offers stinging commentary on the relationship between the United States and its southern neighbors, and what emerges is a portrait of policy-dictated atrocities designed to protect corporate interests and exploit natural resources and cheap labor. With anguished compassion for the indigent people of Latin America, "Hidden" ends with a plaintive cry for government accountability.
Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival
In this brief, affecting docu, director John Smihula lays out a trenchant case against the School of the Americas, a U.S. military academy whose critics have dubbed it the School of the Assassins. There's screen time for SOA supporters, but the argument's balance falls heavily on the opposing side, whose numbers here include American politicians, human rights advocates, well-known gadflies Noam Chomsky and Christopher Hitchens and individuals who have been victimized by U.S.-trained death squads. "Hidden in Plain Sight" is a worthy title for cable nets scheduling hard-hitting documentary fare.
The centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy in Central and South America, the SOA has trained 60,000 soldiers from the region -- Manuel Noriega among them -- since its opening in 1946. Closed by an act of Congress in December 2000, it promptly reopened as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, a mouthful of a name that critics, including a former instructor, consider a euphemism for the same old program in combat and counterinsurgency tactics. 1% of the school's graduates have been convicted of human rights abuses, a figure that is either significant or minuscule, depending on the speaker's point of view.
The institute drew fire when its infamous manual on torture came to light, and it has been the object of some of the largest domestic antiwar demonstrations since Vietnam, under the aegis of the Rev. Roy Bourgeois' SOA Watch. Among those seen marching on the Fort Benning, Ga., campus is Martin Sheen, who narrates the film's opening sequences. There's harrowing testimony from Sister Dianna Ortiz, who while a schoolteacher in Guatemala was captured, tortured and repeatedly raped, and from Ana Chavez Fisher, who found her missing husband among the victims of a massacre in El Salvador.
The film takes its title from writer Hitchens' observation that SOA/WHISC is something of an open secret, a stance he attributes to its methods of terror and intimidation. Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano offers stinging commentary on the relationship between the United States and its southern neighbors, and what emerges is a portrait of policy-dictated atrocities designed to protect corporate interests and exploit natural resources and cheap labor. With anguished compassion for the indigent people of Latin America, "Hidden" ends with a plaintive cry for government accountability.
In this brief, affecting docu, director John Smihula lays out a trenchant case against the School of the Americas, a U.S. military academy whose critics have dubbed it the School of the Assassins. There's screen time for SOA supporters, but the argument's balance falls heavily on the opposing side, whose numbers here include American politicians, human rights advocates, well-known gadflies Noam Chomsky and Christopher Hitchens and individuals who have been victimized by U.S.-trained death squads. "Hidden in Plain Sight" is a worthy title for cable nets scheduling hard-hitting documentary fare.
The centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy in Central and South America, the SOA has trained 60,000 soldiers from the region -- Manuel Noriega among them -- since its opening in 1946. Closed by an act of Congress in December 2000, it promptly reopened as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, a mouthful of a name that critics, including a former instructor, consider a euphemism for the same old program in combat and counterinsurgency tactics. 1% of the school's graduates have been convicted of human rights abuses, a figure that is either significant or minuscule, depending on the speaker's point of view.
The institute drew fire when its infamous manual on torture came to light, and it has been the object of some of the largest domestic antiwar demonstrations since Vietnam, under the aegis of the Rev. Roy Bourgeois' SOA Watch. Among those seen marching on the Fort Benning, Ga., campus is Martin Sheen, who narrates the film's opening sequences. There's harrowing testimony from Sister Dianna Ortiz, who while a schoolteacher in Guatemala was captured, tortured and repeatedly raped, and from Ana Chavez Fisher, who found her missing husband among the victims of a massacre in El Salvador.
The film takes its title from writer Hitchens' observation that SOA/WHISC is something of an open secret, a stance he attributes to its methods of terror and intimidation. Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano offers stinging commentary on the relationship between the United States and its southern neighbors, and what emerges is a portrait of policy-dictated atrocities designed to protect corporate interests and exploit natural resources and cheap labor. With anguished compassion for the indigent people of Latin America, "Hidden" ends with a plaintive cry for government accountability.
- 8/12/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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