“Liborio” invites viewers to the birth of a religion and asks them if they would believe. Based on a historical figure, albeit one with the dimensions of a folk hero, “Liborio” is set in the countryside of the Dominican Republic in the early 20th century. After being lost in a torrential storm and thought dead, a man (Vicente Santos) is found alive days later. He informs his community he has been to heaven and returned with a message to save the people. He is reborn as Liborio.
Summer 2021 Preview: Over 50 Movies To Watch
While his resurrection occurs earlier in his story, Liborio is a remarkably Christ-like figure whose profile in his community grows with a series of miracles, such as saving a child. Liborio preaches a simple and positive creed—out with the evil and in with the good—to his rural followers. He is a benevolent leader, never trying to fight,...
Summer 2021 Preview: Over 50 Movies To Watch
While his resurrection occurs earlier in his story, Liborio is a remarkably Christ-like figure whose profile in his community grows with a series of miracles, such as saving a child. Liborio preaches a simple and positive creed—out with the evil and in with the good—to his rural followers. He is a benevolent leader, never trying to fight,...
- 5/14/2021
- by Joe Blessing
- The Playlist
Depending on the storyteller, the early 20th century folk hero Olivorio Mateo (the Papá Liborio of the title), was a Creole saint or a dangerous cult leader. His origins are inauspicious: a farmer thought to be dead after a hurricane in San Juan de la Maguana in the Dominican Republic. After a Novena, he miraculously returns, claiming that he was in heaven and sent back to Earth by God.
Nino Martínez Sosa’s lush, beguiling Nd/Nf selection Liborio recounts his influence––but not with the focused purpose or literary density of a biopic. Despite an otherworldly and ominous prologue of his origins, Sosa’s filmmaking approach largely sidesteps a version of his truth, favoring both over the shoulder angles in its visual language and a historically informed, but cryptic structure.
After his return, Liborio’s reputation bloomed and he became the center of attention for his home village––a...
Nino Martínez Sosa’s lush, beguiling Nd/Nf selection Liborio recounts his influence––but not with the focused purpose or literary density of a biopic. Despite an otherworldly and ominous prologue of his origins, Sosa’s filmmaking approach largely sidesteps a version of his truth, favoring both over the shoulder angles in its visual language and a historically informed, but cryptic structure.
After his return, Liborio’s reputation bloomed and he became the center of attention for his home village––a...
- 5/6/2021
- by Michael Snydel
- The Film Stage
Set in turn-of-the-century Dominican Republic, “Liborio” received its world premiere at International Film Festival Rotterdam this week in the Tiger Competition.
The directorial feature debut of Madrid-based Dominican-born film editor Nino Martínez Sosa, the Spanish-language film tells the true story of Olivorio Mateo, a peasant who disappears into a hurricane and returns, it is claimed, with the power to cure the sick and take away evil.
The film takes place as the Caribbean Island was attempting to solidify its independence as well as fighting occupation by the U.S. Marines. During this time Mateo, known to his worshipers as “Papá Liborio” became a symbol of hope and freedom.
The feature, which is being repped by sales agent Pluto Film, is also produced by Sosa and producing partner Fernando Santos Diaz, whose credits include the acclaimed Dominican film “Cocote” – another tale of religious conflict in the Dominican Republic, which also shares many of the same cast,...
The directorial feature debut of Madrid-based Dominican-born film editor Nino Martínez Sosa, the Spanish-language film tells the true story of Olivorio Mateo, a peasant who disappears into a hurricane and returns, it is claimed, with the power to cure the sick and take away evil.
The film takes place as the Caribbean Island was attempting to solidify its independence as well as fighting occupation by the U.S. Marines. During this time Mateo, known to his worshipers as “Papá Liborio” became a symbol of hope and freedom.
The feature, which is being repped by sales agent Pluto Film, is also produced by Sosa and producing partner Fernando Santos Diaz, whose credits include the acclaimed Dominican film “Cocote” – another tale of religious conflict in the Dominican Republic, which also shares many of the same cast,...
- 2/3/2021
- by Ann-Marie Corvin
- Variety Film + TV
The Dominican Republic's film commission, Dgcine, has chosen Nelson Carlo de Los Santos' Cocote to represent the country in both the Oscars' foreign-language category and Spain's Goya awards.
Cocote follows Alberto (Vicente Santos), a kindhearted young gardener returning home to attend his father’s funeral. When he discovers that a powerful local figure is responsible for his father’s death, Alberto realizes that he’s been summoned by his family to avenge the murder.
Premiering in Toronto in 2017, the second film by de Los Santos won the best film award in Locarno's Signs of Life section, as ...
Cocote follows Alberto (Vicente Santos), a kindhearted young gardener returning home to attend his father’s funeral. When he discovers that a powerful local figure is responsible for his father’s death, Alberto realizes that he’s been summoned by his family to avenge the murder.
Premiering in Toronto in 2017, the second film by de Los Santos won the best film award in Locarno's Signs of Life section, as ...
- 9/14/2018
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The Dominican Republic's film commission, Dgcine, has chosen Nelson Carlo de Los Santos' Cocote to represent the country in both the Oscars' foreign-language category and Spain's Goya awards.
Cocote follows Alberto (Vicente Santos), a kindhearted young gardener returning home to attend his father’s funeral. When he discovers that a powerful local figure is responsible for his father’s death, Alberto realizes that he’s been summoned by his family to avenge the murder.
Premiering in Toronto in 2017, the second film by de Los Santos won the best film award in Locarno's Signs of Life section, as ...
Cocote follows Alberto (Vicente Santos), a kindhearted young gardener returning home to attend his father’s funeral. When he discovers that a powerful local figure is responsible for his father’s death, Alberto realizes that he’s been summoned by his family to avenge the murder.
Premiering in Toronto in 2017, the second film by de Los Santos won the best film award in Locarno's Signs of Life section, as ...
- 9/14/2018
- The Hollywood Reporter - Film + TV
Dramas of revenge always make it look so easy. The hero, at the outset, may be a civilized, too-polite-for-his-own-good sort (even Charles Bronson in “Death Wish” started off that way — though who could really buy him as a mild-mannered urbane architect?). Yet once he’s transitioned into becoming a killer with a vendetta, that blood-oath identity starts to seem as natural as a second skin. The movies have conditioned us; they’ve spent more than a century reveling in violence that carries a righteous edge.
In real life, however, if you’re planning to take revenge on someone, the actions — and emotions — tend to be a lot less clear-cut. There’s fear and doubt and dread and, just maybe, the moral queasiness that greets you in the aftermath: What am I doing? Can I live with myself? Did that bloodbath I just carried out actually do any good?
Those are...
In real life, however, if you’re planning to take revenge on someone, the actions — and emotions — tend to be a lot less clear-cut. There’s fear and doubt and dread and, just maybe, the moral queasiness that greets you in the aftermath: What am I doing? Can I live with myself? Did that bloodbath I just carried out actually do any good?
Those are...
- 8/3/2018
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
"Your father owed him money but couldn't pay back." Grasshopper Film has released an official Us trailer for an acclaimed crime drama titled Cocote, set in the Dominican Republic and made by a talented up-and-coming Dominican filmmaker named Nelson Carlo De Los Santos Arias. The film first premiered at the Locarno and Toronto Film Festivals last year, and played at a few other festivals before its upcoming release in limited Us theaters later this July. Cocote is about an Evangelical Christian man who attends the funeral services for his father in his small hometown, where he has to participate in religious rites that clash with his beliefs and he finds himself pressured to take revenge on the murderer. Cocote stars Vicente Santos, Judth Rodríguez, and Yuberbi de la Rosa. This looks like a very authentic, riveting film about a man struggling to come to grips with his own reality after the death of his father.
- 7/15/2018
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
On the face of it, the plot of “Miriam Lies” is not the stuff of high drama, or indeed drama of any altitude: Held back by her natural shyness and a mounting combination of peer and parental pressure, a 14-year-old girl dithers over whether or not to meet the cute-seeming guy she’s met online, and invite him to her upcoming birthday party. But what in other cultural contexts might play as an episode arc for a Disney Channel sitcom takes on acute tenderness and resonance in Natalia Cabral and Oriol Estrada’s lovely, pensive coming-of-ager: In taking as its subject a biracial teen (played with glowing delicacy by newcomer Dulce Rodríguez) in the Dominican Republic, the film weaves a complex, sensitively examined array of identity crises into the tangle already faced by the average teen-movie protagonist.
Perhaps the most modestly proportioned highlight of this year’s Karlovy Vary competition,...
Perhaps the most modestly proportioned highlight of this year’s Karlovy Vary competition,...
- 7/11/2018
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
After making the festival rounds at Locarno, Toronto, and New Directors/New Films, “Cocote” finally gets a theatrical release. Nelson Carlo De Los Santos’ crime drama won the top prize in Locarno’s experimental Signs of Life program and has won acclaim everywhere else it’s screened, leading to a pickup by arthouse favorite Grasshopper Film. Watch the new trailer below.
Read More: Locarno in Los Angeles 2018 Announces an Award-Winning Second Edition Led by ‘Mrs. Fang,’ ‘Cocote,’ and More
Offering glimpses of a few key scenes, the trailer sets up the film’s mix of revenge, religion, and ritual: A man’s father has died, and no one who knew him has received closure, and unresolved feelings lead to bad situations.
Here’s the synopsis: “A rapturous crime fable set in the Dominican Republic, Nelson Carlo De Los Santos Arias’ ‘Cocote’ follows Alberto, a kind-hearted gardener returning home to attend his father’s funeral.
Read More: Locarno in Los Angeles 2018 Announces an Award-Winning Second Edition Led by ‘Mrs. Fang,’ ‘Cocote,’ and More
Offering glimpses of a few key scenes, the trailer sets up the film’s mix of revenge, religion, and ritual: A man’s father has died, and no one who knew him has received closure, and unresolved feelings lead to bad situations.
Here’s the synopsis: “A rapturous crime fable set in the Dominican Republic, Nelson Carlo De Los Santos Arias’ ‘Cocote’ follows Alberto, a kind-hearted gardener returning home to attend his father’s funeral.
- 6/17/2018
- by Michael Nordine
- Indiewire
In the beautifully vivid film Cocote, Dominican filmmaker Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias builds on some weighty ideas surrounding Dominican identity. The story is straightforward: Alberto (played by Vicente Santos), a hefty young gardener who works at an upper-class home in Santo Domingo, is called back to his home village after learning his father has been murdered. Once back home, Alberto, who is a devout Evangelical Christian, is confronted by his family’s religion which mixes old African and Taino rites with Catholic traditions. His family—mostly matriarchs—urge him to “solve” the murder of his father but Alberto clashes with his relatives’ religion and struggles with his own internal moral conflicts.But what makes Cocote so unique is not just its portrayal of the often-forgotten communities of Dominican Republic, but its radical use of cinematic language. Skillfully employing a variety of film formats from celluloid to digital, black and white to color,...
- 4/3/2018
- MUBI
For its second edition, Locarno in Los Angeles is doing things a little differently: This year’s festival, which runs April 5—8 at the Downtown Independent, will focus on award-winning titles from the vaunted Swiss fest. That includes Wang Bing’s “Mrs. Fang” (International Competition Golden Leopard), Metev’s “3/4,” (Filmmakers of the Present Golden Leopard), and Nelson Carlo De Los Santos Arias’ “Cocote” (Signs of Life Award).
“Locarno Festival has always paid great attention to U.S. cinema, bringing to Europe some of the best examples of a truly independent cinematic spirit; now having the opportunity to showcase our selection in the city of cinema is a great counterpoint to that,” said Locarno Festival artistic director Carlo Chatrian in a statement. “Therefore I’m happy that, after a successful first edition, Locarno in Los Angeles is back with an expanded program, including last edition’s major winners. I salute the work...
“Locarno Festival has always paid great attention to U.S. cinema, bringing to Europe some of the best examples of a truly independent cinematic spirit; now having the opportunity to showcase our selection in the city of cinema is a great counterpoint to that,” said Locarno Festival artistic director Carlo Chatrian in a statement. “Therefore I’m happy that, after a successful first edition, Locarno in Los Angeles is back with an expanded program, including last edition’s major winners. I salute the work...
- 2/8/2018
- by Michael Nordine
- Indiewire
Fans of fierce, challenging indigenous cinema rejoice. It’s not every day that you see a film from and depicting the life in the Dominican Republic, let alone one as intriguing as Cocote. Writer/director De Los Santos Arias’ feature debut shines a light on an underrepresented part of the world and casts a truly outlandish spell that confounds and overwhelms. Fair warning: sheer cultural divide would most likely prevent a deeper appreciation of the film, but the authenticity and intensity of its voice alone proves excitingly – if also gruelingly – memorable.
The protagonist Alberto (a brooding, charismatic Vicente Santos) works as a gardener at an über-affluent family in the island state’s capital. This key bit of background information is communicated efficiently through two static shots of a giant, shockingly beautiful swimming pool that more or less bracket the movie. Though seen from afar to take in the royal height...
The protagonist Alberto (a brooding, charismatic Vicente Santos) works as a gardener at an über-affluent family in the island state’s capital. This key bit of background information is communicated efficiently through two static shots of a giant, shockingly beautiful swimming pool that more or less bracket the movie. Though seen from afar to take in the royal height...
- 10/16/2017
- by Zhuo-Ning Su
- The Film Stage
After winning the top prize at this year’s Locarno International Film Festival’s Signs of Life sidebar section (a program dedicated to “investigating experimental forms of narration and innovations in film language”), Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias’ “Cocote” will next hit Tiff’s similarly ambitious Wavelengths section later this month. Bundled up in a surprisingly staid plot — a man returns home to help bury his father, and family dramas come to a head — is a bold and unnerving drama about personal choice and religious power.
Per the film’s official synopsis, it “is the story of Alberto, an evangelical gardener, returns to his hometown to attend his father’s funeral, killed by an influential man. To mourn the deceased, he is forced to participate in religion celebrations that are contrary to his will and beliefs.”
In our exclusive new trailer, that story is at the fore, but so...
Per the film’s official synopsis, it “is the story of Alberto, an evangelical gardener, returns to his hometown to attend his father’s funeral, killed by an influential man. To mourn the deceased, he is forced to participate in religion celebrations that are contrary to his will and beliefs.”
In our exclusive new trailer, that story is at the fore, but so...
- 8/31/2017
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
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