News

The pioneering French-Iranian producer and sales agent leaves behind a long-lasting legacy

Pioneering producer and celebrated Celluloid Dreams founder Hengameh Panahi died on November 5 following a long illness, sending shockwaves of sadness throughout the international film community and leaving a long-lasting legacy of both championing auteur cinema and shaking up the status quo in her wake.

The revered French-Iranian industry executive was known for finding and following emerging directors and accompanying their films to festival glory and international acclaim. Her career spanned four decades and more than 800 films.

She worked alongside iconic directors from across the globe including Jacques Audiard,...

Hengameh Panahi, the celebrated French-Iranian producer who founded Celluloid Dreams and forged long-standing bonds with auteurs around the world, has died. She was 67.

Panahi, who worked with the likes of Jafar Panahi, Jacques Audiard, Hirokazu Kore-eda and Jia Zhangke, died on Nov. 5 after battling a long illness, according to a statement sent by a film publicist who worked with Panahi for many years.

Panahi was born in Iran and lived in Belgium from the age of 12 before moving to France in 1993. That’s where she founded the sales company Celluloid Dreams and played a major role in co-producing, co-financing and selling international rights to a number of politically minded films, such as Panahi’s Berlinale Golden Bear-winning “Taxi Tehran”; Audiard’s “A Prophet” and his Palme d’Or winning “Dheepan”; Ramin Mohseni’s ”From Afar”; Marjane Satrapi’s “Persepolis” and “Chicken With Plums”; and Iranian master Abbas Kiarostami’s “Where...

Groundbreaking French-Iranian sales agent and producer Hengameh Panahi, who represented a myriad of renowned Cannes and Venice prize-winning auteur directors, has died at the age of 67.

Paris-based press attaché Viviana Andriani, who handled press campaigns for a number of Panahi’s films, announced the news in a short communiqué.

She said Panahi had died on November 5 after bravely battling a long illness.

Panahi was a force to be reckoned with on the international film industry circuit, who launched dozens of renowned arthouse directors at the beginning of their careers and accompanied them as they won awards and fame.

Born in Iran, Panahi was sent to Belgium to complete her education as teenager.

She got her first big break in the film industry as head of international at Brussels-based animation studio Graphoui.

In an early sign of her flare for scouting promising talent, Panahi connected with John Lasseter and Tim Burton...

“Icelandic pianist brings magic and spontaneity to Bach”

The Guardian

“A remarkable Bach recital that filled me with hope”

The I Paper

6 October 2023 — Celebrated for his visionary interpretations of J.S. Bach, Víkingur Ólafsson, one of the greatest pianists and musical minds of today, now embraces Bach’s monumental Goldberg Variations. Ólafsson is devoting his entire 2023-24 season to touring the work globally across six continents, and the album is out now on Deutsche Grammophon/Universal Music Canada. “I have dreamed of recording this work for 25 years,” says the Icelandic pianist.

“Víkingur Ólafsson breathes new life into every note of the Goldberg Variations,” says Dr Clemens Trautmann, President Deutsche Grammophon. “His subtle sensitivity of touch makes this complex composition seem light and effortless. Víkingur’s take on this pinnacle of Baroque musical art offers an almost paradoxical combination of the playful and the profound. This is how music composed ‘to refresh...

Paula Hernández’s “A Ravaging Wind” (“El viento que arrasa”) has debuted a poster and trailer ahead of its premieres at Toronto and San Sebastian.

Based on the novel by Selva Almada – and written by Hernández and Leonel D’Agostino – “A Ravishing Wind” will play Toronto’s Centrepiece program, before opening San Sebastian’s Horizontes Latinos, a showcase of many of the best Latin American movies of the last year. It sees Alfredo Castro as Reverend Pearson, an evangelical pastor who travels Argentina by car in the 1990s with his daughter Leni. When it breaks down, they end up at the auto repair shop run by Gringo (Sergi López) and his son (Joaquín Acebo).

Hernán Musaluppi, Santiago López Rodríguez, Diego Robino, Lilia Scenna, Natacha Cervi and Sandino Saravia Vinay produce for Cimarron, Rizoma and Cinevinay, while Film Factory Entertainment handles sales.

“When I was offered to adapt Selva Almada’s book,...

Chile’s Latente Films is teaming with Argentine outfit HD Argentina and Germany’s Orinokia to produce Chilean writer-director Sergio Castro San Martin’s project “Mil pedazos” (“A Thousand Pieces”), selected for the San Sebastian Festival’s Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum this September.

A creator and co-director of TV series such as Amazon Original “La Jauria” and Disney+’s “Llévame al cielo” – both produced by Pablo and Juan de Dios Larraín’s Fábula – Castro San Martín’s feature debut, “The Mud Woman,” had its world premiere at the 2015 Berlinale.

“A Thousand Pieces” marks Castro San Martín’s return to the San Sebastian co-production forum after attending in the 2017 edition with “The Saddest Goal.”

In development, and scheduled to shoot first half 2024 in the Chilean region of Coquimbo, “A Thousand Pieces” is produced from Chile by Eduardo Pizarro at Latente, a company based in La Serena, Coquimbo’s capital city, alongside...

Alfredo Castro, an absolute lead or co-star in seven Pablo Larraín films and one of the highest-regarded of actors in Latin America, is set to head the choral cast of “Three Dark Nights” (“Tres noches negras”), the third feature from Spanish-Chilean Theo Court.

“Three Dark Nights” follows up Court’s “White on White,” also starring Castro, an actor described by Variety as “reliably superb,” which won a best director and Fipresci Prize at 2019’s Venice Horizons. It went on to become Chile’s submission for the international feature Oscar, establishing Court as a talent to track.

In further news, Samuel M. Delgado, co-writer and co-director of “They Carry Death” and a writer with Court of “White on White,” has been brought on board as script consultant.

“Three Dark Nights” is one of the highest-profile of 15 projects which will be brought to market at September’s Europe-Latin American Co-Production Forum.

Like “White on White,...

Mexico’s Yalitza Aparicio, Oscar nominated for her career-launching turn in Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma,” and Infinity Hill, producers of the Oscar-nominated Argentine drama “Argentina 1985,” have boarded sweatshop thriller “City of Dreams” (previously titled “Dreamer”) as executive producers.

The drama features a stellar cast that includes Golden Globe nominee Diego Calva (“Babylon”), Chile’s Alfredo Castro (“From Afar”), Mexico’s Paulina Gaitán (“Narcos”) and Jason Patric (“The Lost Boys”).

The directorial feature debut of helmer-scribe Mohit Ramchandani, “City of Dreams” is produced by Mexican filmmaker Luis Mandoki (“Innocent Voices), Jon Graham (“The Vault”) and Kyle Stroud (“In Full Bloom”).

Drama will have its world premiere at the Mammoth Film Festival where it closes the event on Sunday, March 5.

Inspired by the 1995 El Monte California sweatshop raid, “…Dreams” follows a young Mexican boy who aspires to become a soccer star. His dreams are upended when he’s smuggled across the...

“A Cielo Abierto,” the latest film from Oscar-nominated Mexican screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga (“Babel”), is being brought onto Berlin’s European Film Market by Film Factory Entertainment.

Produced by Argentina’s K&s Films, whose credits include “Wild Tales,” “The Clan” and “The Summit” — the last by “Argentina, 1985” director Santiago Mitre — “A Cielo Abierto” is directed by Mariana Arriaga and Santiago Arriaga, Guillermo Arriaga’s daughter and son, making their feature film debut.

“A Cielo Abierto” turns on two teen brothers who take a road trip to the Mexico-u.S. border to track down the man responsible for the car accident that caused their father’s death.

Joined by their beautiful newly-met stepsister, their trip becomes a “tense revenge journey to adulthood,” the synopsis runs.

During the journey, the trio, from Mexico’s upper-middle class, will also encounter “violence, tenderness, a wild inclement landscape, instinct, animals and seriousness,” Guillermo Arriaga said.

“A...

26 January 2023 – On its release last autumn, Víkingur Ólafsson’s most recent album, From Afar, was greeted with widespread critical and public acclaim. Its most successful track to date is the pianist’s own transcription of his compatriot Sigvaldi Kaldalóns’ Ave María, which has already been streamed over 11 million times. Now Ólafsson has made a beautiful music video for the track, filmed on the isolated island of Engey, just off the coast of Reykjavík. The video debuted Deutsche Grammophon YouTube channel at on Thursday 26 January. A complementary making-of video will be available to watch on Ólafsson’s YouTube channel from Thursday 2 February.

“It’s a song very often played at the darkest moments in our lives,

to give hope and to bring light … I’m so happy to see that the message

of this Ave María is universal”

Víkingur Ólafsson

Kaldalóns (1881-1946) was a doctor, as well as a composer, and...

by Nathaniel R

The Hole In The Fence

Mexico has chosen their Oscar submission finalist list. We'd do a whole huge post on it but we suspect by the time we did they'd have named their winner and despite divisive reviews thus far we suspect they won't be able to resist sending Iñarritu again. As it stands now they're looking at three films we've already reviewed here at Tfe: Alejandro G Iñarritu's Bardo (False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths), Lorenz Vigas' very dark father/son drama The Box, and Joaquin del Paso's allegorical summer camp drama The Hole in the Fence. The other two they're looking at are the sexual drama Nudo Mixteco by Angeles Cruz and the thriller Presencias by Luis Mandoki. Among those filmmakers Inarritu and Mandoki (Innocent Voices) have represented Mexico before while Vigas's debut film, the gay drama From Afar, was sent to represent Venezuela in its year.

Paris-based Urban Sales has boarded Diego Lerman’s “The Substitute” (“El Suplente”) which will have its world premiere at Toronto followed by San Sebastian.

“The Substitute” tells the story of Lucio (Minujín), a prestigious university professor who starts working as a substitute teacher at a high school in the suburbs of Buenos Aires, where he grew up. Through tales, novels and poetry, he tries to distract his class from the harsh reality of their everyday lives. But soon, he must step out of his professional duties when Dylan, one of his students, is threatened by a local drug kingpin.

One of Argentina’s leading filmmakers, Lerman won this year’s Locarno’s Silver Leopard award for “Suddenly.” He’s best known for directing “A Sort of Family” which played at Toronto, won best screenplay at San Sebastian and was acquired by Netflix; as well as “Refugiado” and “Invisible” which played...

The theme of fathers and sons runs through the films of Venezuela-born writer-director Lorenzo Vigas, whose 2015 debut drama “From Afar,” which focuses on a troubled middle-aged man and young hustler in Caracas, won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. In Vigas’ latest film “El Caja” (“The Box”), which screened Thursday at the 39th annual Miami Film Festival, this motif continues to resonate — and on a global scale.

“El Caja,” which revolves around a young boy in Mexico City longing for a father figure — a desperate search with deadly consequences — could be the prototype of how a dictator such as Vladimir Putin rises to power, Vigas pointed out.

“We are always trapped in our obsessions,” Vigas told fest attendees during a Q&a that followed the screening. “I had a very good relationship with my father, a very close and warm and good relationship. But I connected with that...

Starring Pablo Larraín regular Alfredo Castro, Chilean-Spanish writer-director Theo Court’s “White on White” (“Blanco en Blanco”) has been acquired for distribution in North America by Outsider Pictures.

The deal follows on the film’s world premiere this September at the Venice Film Festival’s Horizons sidebar, where Court won a Silver Lion for the section’s best director and a film writers’ Fipresci Prize. “White on White” was selected earlier this month as Chile’s submission for 2022’s Academy Awards in the international best feature film category.

Starring in Pablo Larrain’s 2008 breakthrough, “Tony Manero,” as well as his 2015 Berlin Grand Jury Prize winner “The Club,” Castro also headed Lorenzo Vigas’ 2015 Venice Golden Lion laureate “From Afar.”

It takes an actor of his stature to tease out the contradictions of his character, Pedro, in “White and White.” Set in the late 19th century, it begins with a portrait photographer,...

Greece’s Thessaloniki International Film Festival (TIFF) took place as a hybrid event from November 4-14.

French director Samuel Theis’ Softie has won the Golden Alexander-Theo Angelopoulos for best film at Greece’s Thessaloniki International Film Festival (TIFF) which took place as a hybrid event from November 4-14. The award is a cash prize of €10,000.

The French production, which premiered in Cannes’ Critics Week, follows Johnny, a sensitive and intelligent 10-year-old boy living with his single mother, as he searches for a father figure in his new school teacher.

The international competition jury headed by Belgian film maker Nanouk Leopold...

Another World (Venice)

Cannes best actor laureate Vincent Lindon reteams with The Measure of a Man director Stéphane Brizé for another exploration of the demise of France’s working class. In this nerve-racking look at a factory boss obliged to make layoffs, Lindon channels the tremendous strain faced by a solicitous man who’s been backed into a corner beneath the crushing weight of global capitalism. — Jordan Mintzer

The Box (Venice, Toronto)

This quietly devastating drama from Lorenzo Vigas (From Afar) recounts the reckoning of an orphaned teenager (Hatzín Navarrete) with a man he’s convinced is his father (Hernán Mendoza). Set against the badlands ...

Back in 2015, in what already feels like a slightly different era of the Venice Film Festival — currently on a roll of crowning big-name Oscar players — Venezuelan filmmaker Lorenzo Vigas won the Golden Lion for his debut feature “From Afar.” A small, subtle queer relationship study, riddled with ambiguity, it never made quite the impression it deserved to on the post-festival art-house circuit. (Its total U.S. box office was in the low five figures.) That was our loss more than his, and for his superb second narrative feature, Vigas shows no inclination to compromise: “The Box” may see him relocating to Mexico, but it’s otherwise wholly of a piece with his debut in its terse, cut-to-the-quick refinement, its loaded, exquisitely composed images, and its fixation on shifting, complex man-versus-boy dynamics.

Though it’s ultimately no easier a sell than “From Afar,” there’s more of a heated genre thrust...

The final instalment in Venezuelan director Lorenzo Vigas’s trilogy about fathers and sons takes on social issues as well as emotional ones

Teenage Hatzin is on his way home with his father’s remains in a box when he looks out the window and sees a familiar face on the street. He jumps off the bus and the man turns around. If the box contains Esteban, then who’s this guy, Mario? And if Mario is his father, then who the hell’s in the box?

Rest assured that these questions will be addressed and responded to during the course of La Caja, the closing part of Venezuelan writer-director Lorenzo Vigas’s acclaimed trilogy about the fraught, shifting relationship between fathers and sons. Vigas’s last instalment, From Afar, took the top prize here in Venice back in 2015, although since then the jury has swung towards bigger and splashier fare.

Six years after becoming the first Latin American to win the Venice Film Festival’s top award with his searing debut, From Afar, Lorenzo Vigas returns to the competition with another stealth gut punch. In The Box, the director leaves his native Venezuela for the vast empty landscapes of northwestern Mexico, though his thematic interest in absent fathers and the corresponding hunger to fill that void remains. An acutely observed chamber piece played out by two exceptionally well-cast actors who keep you guessing about the subtle shifts in their characters’ relationship, this is an unflinching account of human lives rendered disposable by greed and ...

Six years after becoming the first Latin American to win the Venice Film Festival’s top award with his searing debut, From Afar, Lorenzo Vigas returns to the competition with another stealth gut punch. In The Box, the director leaves his native Venezuela for the vast empty landscapes of northwestern Mexico, though his thematic interest in absent fathers and the corresponding hunger to fill that void remains. An acutely observed chamber piece played out by two exceptionally well-cast actors who keep you guessing about the subtle shifts in their characters’ relationship, this is an unflinching account of human lives rendered disposable by greed and ...

Lorenzo Vigas, who made film festival history by being the first Venezuelan-born filmmaker to snag the Venice Golden Lion in 2015, is back on the Lido with “The Box” (“La Caja”), the final part of a trilogy that began with his Cannes Critics’ Week short “Elephants Never Forget” and continued with his Venice-winning feature debut, “From Afar.”

A resident of Mexico since 2001, Vigas was watching the news on TV about people recovering the bodies of their lost relatives from mass graves when the idea for “The Box” came to him. “I sat down to write and, in an hour, wrote the entire plot, practically in tears,” he tells Variety, adding: “This had never happened to me before.” He then set it aside to make “From Afar.” “The heart of the story is really about a boy in search of his father.” That’s the overriding theme in all three stories: What...

Mexico’s Michel Franco is back in Venice after his triumphant Silver Lion win last year for his dystopian thriller “New Order.” His new film “Sundown” is in competition at the Lido where it world premieres on Sunday. Variety spoke to the director and the film’s star Tim Roth.

While “New Order” used thousands of extras and was shot on a larger, more ambitious scale than any of Franco’s previous films, “Sundown” is a return to a more intimate, personal drama with Franco’s long-time collaborator and friend Roth leading the cast.

In it, Roth plays a wealthy man going through an existential crisis while vacationing in Acapulco with his family. Not much more can be said of the plot without revealing its twists.

This is the second time Roth stars in a Franco-directed film. Their relationship sparked nearly 10 years ago when Roth, as Cannes’ 2012 Un Certain Regard jury president,...

The first trailer for Venice competition title “La Caja” (The Box) has landed. The film is by Lorenzo Vigas, who won the Venice Golden Lion in 2015 for “Desde allá” (From Afar).

The film follows Hatzin, a young teenager from Mexico City who travels to collect the remains of his father, which have been found in a communal grave amid the huge skies and empty landscape of Northern Mexico. But a casual encounter with a man who shares a physical resemblance with his father fills him with doubts and hope about his parent’s true whereabouts.

Vigas’ 2004 short film “Los elefantes nunca olvidan” (Elephants Never Forget), which premiered at the Cannes Critics’ Week, was the first part of of a fiction trilogy that builds on the theme of the father figure. The second part was “Desde allá.” “La Caja” completes the trilogy.

In 2016, at the Venice Film Festival, Vigas presented a feature documentary about his father,...

Ivan Fund’s “Dusk Stone” (“Piedra Noche”) is bowing its trailer in Variety on the eve of its world premiere at the Venice Lido where it participates in the Venice Days (Giornate degli Autori ) sidebar.

The Elle Driver international sales pick-up will also participate in the San Sebastián Film Festival’s Horizontes Latinos and at Biarritz where it opens the French festival.

“Dusk Stone” turns on the mysterious disappearance of a young boy near his family’s beach house. His parents return nearly a year later to sell the house but as they’re packing up to move out, the father claims to have seen and encountered a strange creature that local fishermen have been talking about for years. He thinks it resembles the Kaiju, the mythical creature that his son created on his videogame console before he vanished.

Shot on a couple of Argentine beaches, the trailer opens on the grief-stricken parents,...

Screen profiles the Venice Competition section, which includes new titles from Pedro Almodovar, Paolo Sorrentino, Jane Campion and Pablo Larrain.

Following a physical 2020 edition that triumphantly braved the pandemic, Venice Film Festival (September 1-11) is back on the Lido with a line‑up showcasing major filmmakers including Pedro Almodovar, Paolo Sorrentino, Jane Campion and Pablo Larrain.

America Latina (It-Fr)

Dirs. Damiano D’Innocenzo, Fabio D’Innocenzo

Widely seen as Italian film’s next big things, the 33-year-old twin brothers have so far — among other feats — opened their 2018 debut feature Boys Cry in Berlin’s Panorama section, co-scripted Matteo Garrone’s Dogman, picked...

Leading arthouse sales agency The Match Factory has acquired “The Box” (La Caja), the second feature of Mexican filmmaker Lorenzo Vigas, winner of Venice Film Festival’s Golden Lion with “From Afar.” “The Box” is likely to find a berth at Cannes or Venice.

The film follows Hatzin, a teenager from Mexico City, who travels to collect the remains of his father, which have been found in a communal grave in the northern part of Mexico. But a casual encounter with a man who shares a physical resemblance with his father fills Hatzin with both doubts and hope about his parent’s true whereabouts.

Vigas says that in the film he reflects on “the theme of identity from various points of view.” He adds: “Latin American history is very young. Until a relatively short time ago, we were still European colonies; as a continent, we are trying to understand who...

Mexico-us co-production is the latest feature from the Venezuelan director of ‘From Afar’.

Leading German sales firm The Match Factory has secured world sales rights to Lorenzo Vigas’ anticipated drama The Box.

The Mexico-us co-production marks the second narrative feature from the Venezuelan writer/director, whose romantic drama From Afar won the Golden Lion at Venice Film Festival in 2015, making him the first Latin American filmmaker to win the coveted award.

Vigas’ latest centres on a teenager named Hatzin from Mexico City, who travels to collect the remains of his father, which have been found in a communal grave in the northern part of Mexico.

With a much different than usual Venice Film Festival now come to a close, it’s time for the annual awards ceremony that marks the beginning of the awards season, whatever that means in this strange year. The festival’s top prize, the Golden Lion, was just awarded to Chloé Zhao‘s “Nomadland.” The film received a very positive reception out of TIFF earlier this week, and also charmed our own Jessica Kiang who wrote: “a wise, beautiful film summoned up entirely from things authentically seen, felt, and thought.”

Read More: Chloé Zhao’s ‘Nomadland’ Is As Vast As The American Landscape It Travels [Venice Review]

“Nomadland” now joins the prestigious, and at times strange group of films that have won the Golden Lion, which includes last year’s winner, “Joker,” as well as “Roma,” “The Shape of Water” and “From Afar.”

‘Pieces of a Woman’: A Stunningly Complete Portrait of...

In Venice, the French sales will be betting on Susanna Nicchiarelli’s Miss Marx and Majid Majidi’s Sun Children, and in Toronto on the Cannes Label recipient Memory House. The Lido will be, as it often is, a launchpad of choice for French international sales company Celluloid Dreams, whose line-up includes two films competing for the Golden Lion at the 77th Venice Film Festival (2-12 September): Miss Marx from Italian director Susanna Nicchiarelli, and Sun Children by Majid Majidi. A duo of films selected in competition similar to those of 2019 (Milla and The Painted Bird) and 2017 (Custody and Lean on Pete), Venice having often been a profitable festival for the Parisian company (in particular with the victory of From Afar in 2015). Following Nico, 1988 which won in the Orizzonti section of the 2017 edition, Celluloid Dreams once again teams up with Italian director Susanna Nicchiarelli and with Roma-based...

Director Michel Hazanavicius and actress Bérénice Bejo, Oscar winner and Oscar nominee respectively for “The Artist,” will present individual Masterclasses at the 26th Sarajevo Film Festival this year. Also delivering Masterclasses are directors Michel Franco and Rithy Panh.

The Masterclasses, which like the rest of the festival are running online via ondemand.sff.ban, are organized in cooperation with Variety, and will be available worldwide via the Variety Streaming Room.

Hazanavicius shot his first feature-length film, “Mes Amis,” in 1999. In 2006, he directed his second feature, “Oss 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies,” and then, three years later, “Oss 17: Lost in Rio.”

In 2011, he made “The Artist,” the silent, black-and-white film starring Bejo and Jean Dujardin, which won five Academy Awards in 2012, including best film, director and actor for Dujardin, while Bejo was an Oscar nominee for supporting actress.

The film premiered at Cannes, as did Hazanavicius’ “The Players” and “Redoubtable.

When Pablo Larraín started out, he arrived at the Berlinale in 2008 with extracts from his second feature, “Tony Manero,” starring Chilean actor, playwright and theater director Alfredo Castro as an off-the-rails, impoverished, over-the-hill imitator of John Travolta’s character in “Saturday Night Fever.”

A symbol of cultural alienation, Castro’s character practices his disco moves as Augusto Pinochet’s tanks rumble through the streets of Santiago de Chile, clamping down on any opposition.

For the next near decade from that breakthrough through to 2015’s “The Club,” Larraín’s passport to English-language filmmaking – Natalie Portman watched it, accepted “Jackie” – the filmmaker pinned his colors to Castro’s mast, casting him in leading role in “Post Mortem,” and a co-star in “No” and “The Club.”

As an actor, Castro’s transformative powers are evident, from his turn as a coroner’s assistant in “Post Mortem” to Gael Garcia Bernal’s casual chic...

La caja

Venezuelan director Lorenzo Vigas became an immediate international director of note after winning the Golden Lion at the 2015 Venice Film Festival for his debut, From Afar (read review). His latest project, The Box, which was originally announced in the month following his win on the Lido, should logically be ready for presentation in 2020. The film is meant to conclude his paternity-themed trilogy which began with his 2004 short film “Elephants Never Forget” and continued with From Afar. Meanwhile, Vigas also presented the 2016 documentary The Orchid Seller in Venice, as well. Vigas is producing alongside Lucia Film’s Michel Franco and Jorge Hernandez Aldana.…...

In what marks the company’s first Latin American project, Alec Baldwin’s El Dorado Pictures has boarded Chilean filmmaker Francisca Alegria’s debut feature, “The Cow Who Sang a Song About the Future.” The multi-Emmy-winning actor and his El Dorado partner Casey Bader will serve as executive producers of the film, slated to start principal photography in Valdivia, Chile by April next year.

Alegria’s first feature is based on her acclaimed short “The Whole Sky Fit in the Dead Cow’s Eye,” winner of the best international fiction short award at the Sundance Film Festival in 2017.

“Francisca Alegria is creating a unique and engaging story set in a world of magical realism and stunning art. We are excited to join her in this process,” said Baldwin.

He added: “Her filmmaking style is original and powerful­­­­­­ and she certainly has a dynamic and promising career ahead.”

For El Dorado,...

“Joker” from director Todd Phillips won the Golden Lion, and “J’Accuse,” or “An Officer and a Spy,” from director Roman Polanski has won the Grand Jury Prize, the festival’s runner up prize, at the 76th edition of the Venice Film Festival.

The comic book film starring Joaquin Phoenix in an origin story of the iconic Batman villain beat out a lineup that also included films such as James Gray’s “Ad Astra” and Steven Soderbergh’s “The Laundromat” for the top prize.

“I want to thank Warner Bros. and DC for stepping out of their comfort zone and taking a big swing on me,” director Todd Phillips said as he accepted the Golden Lion.

Polanski’s “An Officer and a Spy” stars Jean Dujardin in a film about the Dreyfus Affair. His presence at the festival generated some backlash, as it’s his first film since the director...

Santiago, Chile — The much anticipated feature debut of Chilean Francisca Alegria, renowned for her magical short “And the Whole Sky Fit in the Dead Cow’s Eye,” has firmed up its cast and shooting dates.

Argentine thesp Mia Maestro (“The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn”), Chile’s Leonor Varela, Alfredo Castro and rising talent Lucas Balmaceda (“The Prince”) lead the cast.

Inspired by her short, a Sundance sensation where it snagged the Short Film Jury Award in 2017, Alegria’s upcoming feature, “The Cow that Sang a Song About the Future” adapts a similar magical realist tone in a family drama set in the verdant countryside of Valdivia, southern Chile.

Varela plays a single mother, Cecilia, who returns to her childhood home with her 19-year-old son (Balmaceda) where she faces a series of surreal events, including the deaths of hundreds of cows and the reappearance of her long dead mother (Maestro), whose suicide profoundly marked the family.

Santiago, Chile – In the run-up to the upcoming 76th Venice Int’l Film Festival, Paris-based Stray Dogs has closed international sales rights on Chilean drama “Blanco en Blanco,” which holds its world premiere in the festival’s Horizons sidebar.

Filmed last year in the frigid tundra of Chile’s Tierra de Fuego and Spain’s tropical Canary Islands, the anticipated second feature by helmer-scribe Theo Court (“Ocaso”) features Chile’s Alfredo Castro, who starred in 72nd Venice Golden Lion winner “Desde Alla” (“From Afar”) by Lorenzo Vigas. Castro leads an international cast that includes Germany’s Lars Rudolph and Spanish thesp, Lola Rubio.

Set in the early 20th century, the drama centers on a photographer, played by Castro, who heads to Tierra de Fuego where he has been commissioned by a wealthy landowner to cover his wedding.

The photographer discovers that the bride is a mere child and begins to obsessively photograph her in secret.

“Rare Beasts,” the directorial debut of British stage and screen actress Billie Piper is set to premiere at the Venice Film Festival’s Critics’ Week, which has unveiled its lineup of nine first works, four of them from female filmmakers.

Produced by Vaughan Sivell of Western Edge Pictures in association with Moffen Media Limited, “Rare Beasts” is “a completely unhinged comedy,” section chief Giona Nazzaro said.

Piper plays Mandy, a struggling young writer and mother who comes from a dysfunctional family and falls upon a troubled man played by Leo Bill (“Peterloo”). The high-caliber cast of Brits also includes Lily James (“Downton Abbey”) and David Thewlis, best known as Remus Lupin in the Harry Potter film series.

The out-of-competition opener for Critics’ Week will be Indian animation film “Bombay Rose” by Gitanjali Rao, which Nazzaro described as a love story between a Hindu girl and a Muslim boy and also...

Pamplona, Spain – Chilean production company Manufactura de Películas pitched its unconventional Pinochet-era drama “The Saddest Goal” today at Spain’s Conecta Fiction TV co-production and networking TV event, held in Pamplona.

Set during qualification for the 1974 FIFA World Cup, a period of great political instability in Chile, “The Saddest Goal” kicks off as the Chilean national team is set to leave for their match against the Soviet Union in the Ussr. On the same day, Pinochet’s coup d’etat kicks off in earnest, the team’s German trainer disappears, and the players resist leaving their families behind amongst the turmoil, although few understand how bad things will get in the coming days.

Soccer and fascism have an unfortunate relationship in Chile, as the country’s national stadium in Santiago was used as Pinochet’s torture and detention center. A fiercely nationalistic and proud man, Pinochet viewed the match against...

Guadalajara, Mexico — New Mexican production shingle Zafiro Cinema, launched by Machete Prods. founder Edher Campos and Bolivian producer Gabriela Maire late last year, is gearing up to make its first film, “Perros” (“Dogs”), written and to be directed by Chilean director Vinko Tomičić.

Chilean thesp Alfredo Castro, who broke out internationally in Pablo Larraín’s films and then Lorenzo Vigas’ Venice Golden Lion winner “From Afar” (“Desde Alla”), will play opposite a yet-to-be discovered non-pro from La Paz, Bolivia.

This will be Tomičić’s sophomore feature. His debut film “Cockroach” (“Fumigador”), co-directed with Francisco Hevia, won the best film at the 2016 Santiago International Film Festival (Sanfic) among others.

Tomičić is currently polishing his script at the Cannes Festival’s Cinefondation Residence program in Paris, one of two Chilean filmmakers selected for its 38th session.

Set to begin shooting later this year in La Paz on an estimated $450,000 budget, “Perros” turns...

The Box

Lorenzo Vigas should finally be ready with his long-gestating sophomore feature The Box, which is meant to conclude his paternity-themed trilogy which began with his 2004 short film “Elephants Never Forget” and continued with 2014’s From Afar (read ★★★★ review). Vigas is producing alongside Lucia Film’s Michel Franco and Jorge Hernandez Aldana. The title is being executive produced by Los Angeles based Ivanhoe Pictures. The film stars Hernan Mendoza of Franco’s 2012 title After Lucia alongside newcomer Hatzin Oscar Navarrete. Lorenzo’s debut From Afar took home the Golden Lion from the 2014 Venice Film Festival, making him the first Venezuelan director to hold this distinction.…...

Madrid — Vicente Canales’ Film Factory Entertainment has acquired world sales rights to “The Consequences” (“Las consecuencias”), writer-director Claudia Pinto Emperador’s follow-up to her 2013 feature debut, “The Longest Distance,” which marked out the Spanish-Venezuelan writer-director as a talent to track.

A Spain-Netherlands-Belgium co-production, “The Consequences” won a €330,000 conditionally repayable non-interest loan for co-production from the Council of Europe’s Eurimages Fund in its latest allocation, announced Oct. 22. That followed on a Eurimages Co-production Development Award at last year’s San Sebastian Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum.

Described by Variety as an “accomplished debut,” thanks to its “well-drawn characters, engaging performances and a convincingly rooted storyline,” “The Longest Distance” won the Glauber Rocha Award for best Latin American film at 2013’s Montreal World Film Festival.

“The Longest Distance” used stunning landscape – Venezuela’s Gran Sabana region – and genre – a road movie – to frame a story of bedrock family relations – a young boy...

A new international thriller toplined by Colombian star Carolina Gaitan (“Celia”) opposite Chile’s Alfredo Castro (“From Afar”) is slated to shoot on location in New York, Malta and Slovakia in October.

Titled “Perfidious,” and with an estimated $13 million budget, the feature debut of Dominican Republic-born Ileana Vasquez boasts an international cast that includes American thesp of Cuban, Mexican and Spanish descent Omar Chagall (“Frida”), Greek “Bond” girl Tonia Sotiropoulou (“Skyfall”), Greek star Alexis Georgoulis, Spain’s Peter Vives (“Velvet”) and British Mma Champion Lee Shone. Dutch actor Rutger Hauer (“Blade Runner”) is circling the project.

The English-language thriller turns on a U.S. Latina political writer whose wealthy Czech fiancé (Vives) is assassinated. In her efforts to investigate the truth behind her beau’s murder, she is caught up in a high-profile political scandal. Castro plays the concierge in her apartment building.

“She is somewhat a cross between Nancy Drew and Jason Bourne,...

In today’s film news roundup, California legislators have started working on an extension of the production tax credit, Golden Lion winner Lorenzo Vigas is working on his next film and Tribeca zombie thriller “The Night Eats the World” gets sold.

Tax Credits

California legislators have begun the process of extending the California Film and Television production tax credit for five years beyond its 2020 expiration with bills introduced in the State Senate and Assembly.

The Senate Governance and Finance Committee approved Senate Bill 832 this week. The bill would maintain the annual allocation of credits at its current level of $330 million. The program, which allocates as much as 25% of the budget to credits, was expanded in 2015 to compete effectively with incentives in New York and Georgia.

The program is overseen by the California Film Commission, which selects the TV and movie projects to qualify partly based on the number of jobs created.

Mexico shoot underway on From Afar director’s second feature.

Los Angeles-based Ivanhoe Pictures has partnered with Mexico City-based Lucia Films to finance and produce drama The Box (La Caja), the second film from Venice Golden Lion winner Lorenzo Vigas.

The Box marks Vigas’ follow-up to Venice 2015 winner From Afar and is based on a screenplay by Vigas and Argentinian filmmaker Paula Markovitch (El Premio).

The Spanish-language project is currently shooting in Chihuahua, Mexico, in 35 mm in association with film services group Labodigital and the support of Panavision Mexico.

Mexico’s Hernán Mendoza (After Lucia) stars alongside newcomer Hatzín Oscar...

Bayona’s film scoops 12 nods, followed closely by ‘Smoke And Mirrors’ and ‘The Fury Of A Patient Man’.

The 2017 Goya award nominations were announced in Madrid today (December 14) by actors Natalia de Molina and Javier Cámara, Goya winners last year with Food And Shelter and Truman respectively. The ceremony for the 31st edition of the awards will be held on February 4.

J.A. Bayona’s A Monster Calls, which tops the box office so far in Spain this year with $27.6m (€25.9m), leads the nominations with 12 nods including best film, best director for Bayona, best adapted screenplay (for Patrick Ness who wrote the adaptation of his own novel), best supporting actress for Sigourney Weaver, best music, best cinematography, best production design and art direction. Bayona is currently in Hawaii preparing Jurassic World 2.

Two thrillers, a popular genre in Spanish cinema, scored 11 each. Smoke And Mirrors, by Alberto Rodríguez, big winner at the 2015 edition of the Goyas with Marshland...

“From Afar”

On Monday, December 12th, the last two films from the 85 qualified submissions in the Best Foreign Language Film race were screen for voters, which means the 9-film shortlist, comprised of six popular choices and three executive votes, will soon be announced. Unlike previous years in which a clear frontrunner had been established early on in the season, this year the competition feels wide open even if there are so unquestionable favorites.

Europe’s dominance continues with films such as the acclaimed “Toni Erdmann,” which is the closest to a frontrunner there is, Almodovar’s “Julieta,” France’s “Elle,” and Denmark’s “Land of Mine.” Latin America put forward a weaker pack of films than in year’s prior while still having a couple marvels in competition. Asia, including the Middle East, and Africa, each have a handful of films that could surprise and shake the Eurocentric category for a change.

The director of Spectre and American Beauty will preside over the jury of the 73rd Venice Film Festival.

Sam Mendes is to head a nine-strong competition jury at the Venice Film Festival (Aug 31-Sept 10), it has been announced.

The British filmmaker took his second feature, Road To Perdition, to the Lido in 2002 where it competed for the coveted Golden Lion.

“I’m very honoured to have been asked by Alberto to lead the International Jury for Venezia 73,” said Mendes of the festival’s artistic director, Alberto Barbera.

“I’ve always had a strong personal connection with Venice; as a student I worked for three months at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection way back in 1984, and my happiest film festival memory is launching Road To Perdition at Venice in 2002.

“I am thoroughly delighted to be coming back to the Lido this year and welcoming a wealth of international filmmaking talent.”

Barbera said: “Sam Mendes’ work is a particularly effective...

The International Film Festival of Panama offers audiences the chance to vote for their favorite films.

The audience at the Panama Film Festival is very engaged, interested and enthusiastic. The questions during the Q&A are unique. Not once did I hear that old chestnut, ”What was the budget of the film?” They care about the subject, the characters and the filmmakers themselves and often add to-the-point personal comments rather than simply ask questions.

The multiplex Cineopolis is in the largest, most upscale mall I have ever seen. The four screening rooms given over to the festival all week long were frequently sold out. Lines went around the corner at the stand-alone 1,000-seat Teatro Balboa where the red carpet events were held. Built by the Panama Canal Company in 1950 to provide entertainment to the residents of so-called Canal Zone of Panama City (only Americans, no Panamanians), this theater is proof that Panama’s movie culture is not old. In fact, Panama as a nation is not old. With the backing of the United States, Panama seceded from Colombia in 1903, allowing the Panama Canal to be built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers between 1904 and 1914. In 1977, the Torrijos-Carter Treaty was signed for the total transfer of the Canal from the United States to Panama by the end of the 20th century, which culminated on 31 December 31, 2000.

People here definitely have the movie going bug and they supported the grand total of six Panamanian films in the festival, two of which won the Audience Award, one for Best Central American Film and the other for Best Documentary.

It is not surprising that the winner of the People's Choice Copa Airlines Award for Best Latin American Fiction Film was the debuting Venezuelan feature, “From Afar”/ “Desde Allá” from Venezuelan writer-director Lorenzo Vigas. Set in Caracas’ chaotic lower class communities. Vigas’ turbulent story reveals the complex bond between two men worlds apart.

This Venezuelan-Mexican coproduction premiered at the Venice Film Festival 2015 where it won the Golden Lion for Best Film. It went on to play at Tiff 2015. Celluloid Dreams has sold it extensively to U.S. (Strand), Austria (Filmladen), Brazil (Imovision), Czech Republic (Film Europe), Denmark (Reel Pictures), Germany (Weltkino), Greece (Seven Films), Mexico (Canibal), Spain (Caramel), Switzerland (Filmcoopi) and Taiwan (Cineplex).

More interesting is the fact that the two other Peoples Choice Awards went to Panamanian films.

The People's Choice MasterCard Award for Best Film from Central America and the Caribbean went to the 100% Panamanian fiction feature, ”Salsipuedes”, about a young boy who is sent to the United States to be kept away from the bad influence of his father, a boxer. When he returns ten years later for his beloved grandfather’s funeral, he meets his criminal father and becomes ensnared in his troubled legacy.

This was the feature directorial debut of Ricardo Aguilar Navarro and Manolito Rodríguez and of the producer Sixta Diaz C. whom I interviewed here:

Sl: What were you doing before you made this debut feature?

Sixta: My husband Ricardo and Manolito are not inexperienced in the audiovisual world. Ricardo Aguilar Navarro is a Panamanian filmmaker who used to work as Production Manager for one of the principal TV stations in Panama, Medcom. During that time he also produced major events in Panama and produced the television series “Vivimos un secreto” and the Teleplay ¨Marea Roja”.

Nowadays he runs the Audio Visual Department of the Panama Canal Authority producing videos, documentaries and educational movies for different publics and for the TV channel of the Panama Canal.

On the other side, my production expertise comes from my Industrial Engineering background and from a diversity of projects in which I´ve participated and sometimes led during my career at the Panama Canal. But what helped me the most to understand what I was supposed to do as the “Salsipuedes” Executive Producer was my experience as Electrical Supervisor at one of the Locks of the Panama Canal. It was there where I learned to work well and quickly, under pressure, making good use of the resources and to understand the importance of planning and teamwork. There, I learned to work with passion and to give myself completely to achieve the objectives. Everything I learned through my career in the Panama Canal I put into practice with the film and at the end I am very proud of my contribution.

Manolito (Manuel Rodríguez): I am a Cuban filmmaker. I studied theater at the Instituto Superior de Arte de la Habana (Isa) and film at the International School of Film and Television in San Antonio de los Baños (Eictv).

I have written many screenplays. Many were coproductions with other countries.I wrote “Viva Cuba”, “Calle de la Muerte” in Brazil, “El Ultimo Comandante” and “Panama Canal Stories”. .Director and writer of short fiction “Ah, la Primavera”. Best Film Award of the V Festival of Young Cinema of Havana, 1991. -Prize best unpublished script in the Xvii Festival of New Latin American Cinema, Havana, for “Cerrado por Reformas”, 1994.

Writer of “Madagascar”, Fernando Perez. Fiction. 1994. Best Latin American film at the Sundance Film Festival. Caligari Award Berlin International Film Festival. Grand Prix Film Festival, Fribourg, Switzerland. Grand Prix Film Festival Troia, Portugal. Special Jury Prize at the XVI Festival of New Latin American Cinema, Havana .. Award of the Union of Film Circles. Special Mention of the Fipresci and mention (ex aequo) of the Ocic. Caracol screenwriting award from Uneac.

Co-screenwriter ”Killing Cat”, screenwriting finalist at the Sundance Institute, 1996.

Writer of “Nada”, feature film by Juan Carlos Cremata. 2001. Selected for the Directors' Fortnight, International Cannes Film Festival, France. Nominated for Goya Award of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, Spain. Opera Prima Coral Prize (ex aequo), Film Critics Award and Award of the Cultural Circle of the Cuban Press, in 23 Latin American Film Festival. Caracol screenwriting award from Uneac. Tatu Opera Prima Award Iberoamerican Film Festival, Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Awards Vesuvius, Naples, Italy. Award Prison Key Award, Huelva, Spain. Best Film, Festival of San Juan, Puerto Rico.

“Nights of Constantinople”, feature film by Orlando Rojas. 2001 Audience Award, Latino Film Festival New York, United States.

Read more about “Panama Canal Stories”.

Manolito explained that his connection with Ricardo is extremely open and good. They are more than friends, they are brothers, like the Taviani Brothers. Their ideas are intertwined and each of them respects the other`s decision. They imposed a method of realization wherein Ricardo cared more about the image display and Manolito about the performance with alternate interventions from one and other in complete harmony.

Sl: What was the origin of “Salsipuedes”?

It started as a TV series idea when Ricardo was the Production Manager at the TV station. We spoke with the Panamanian actor Rubén Blades to make a tv series in 30 episodes about "Maestra Vida", the song he is known for singing.

Time went by and then we changed the idea to a story of three generations in the barrio which is like the one Blades also lived in and sings about.

Sl: How did you fund the film?

Sixta: Panama became a member of Ibermedia in 2007-2008 and this movie was submitted and won the project development funds. It was also a winner in the first contest held for funds from the newly established Panama Film Fund.

We are very happy to be among the pioneers of the Panama film industry and have made the movie for Panamanians to identify with as there have never been role models in films for them previously.

Ricardo: Panama has a theater culture. It does not have a culture of cinema. It was not easy to find a lot of trained movie crew members in Panama, like set designers, costumers, DPs, casting directors, etc. But we were fortunate to find them and work with a very good crew that did their best to make "Salsipuedes" a great movie.

Sl: How did you find your cast?

Casting was big for Panama. We looked at more than 400 people.

We used Alina Rodriguez, a Cuban actress, to assist in casting and to coach the actors. She worked with the children and also acted as the neighbor of the grandfather who was played by the internationally known Panamanian actor Lucho Gotti.

Alina liked the father, Jaime Newball.

When looking for the main character Andrés, Elmis Castillo, we hired a young actor that has been working as a tv comedian and is just beginning his acting career. He had the look we were seeking, not black or white, but a real Panamanian mix. This is his first important role.

Sixta and Alina went to some schools in the neighborhood and found three of the boys that performed like experienced actors. Also cast the little girl and the drummer who cried…he even cried in the audition.

Other actors were selected because we had seen them in roles before.

Sl: Was this a big production for Panama?

Casting was big.

And we shot in more than 40 locations, also a lot for Panama.

It was a five week shoot, going from 5 am to 7 or 8 pm every day. We were lucky it did not rain much. In pre-production we had lots of storyboarding and planning of scenes with the Dp, in order to accomplish our plans.

Sl: What about distribution?

We have distribution in Panama. The film will go out in 20 theaters.

Sl: And international sales?

We have been speaking with one sales agent and were approached by another. We’ll be in Cannes screening the film for international sales in May 17th, Gray 3 room at 12:00.

Sl: What other plans do you have for future films?

We plan to make a documentary stemming from our involvement with the Danilo Pérez Foundation and the children this foundation is working with. Danilo Pérez, the Panamanian Grammy Award winning pianist is currently Artistic Director at the Berklee Global Jazz Institute and founded the Danilo Pérez Foundation’s to give young musicians opportunities and future, and also to train youth from the impacted and underserved barrios of Panama. His goal is that most of these musicians attend the Berklee School of Music. The students then return to Panama and teach the next generation.

We can show you the Foundation as it is just across the Plaza Herrera from the Festival HQ at the American Trade Hall where we are interviewing now and where many guests were staying.

The soundtrack will be by Billy Herron of Berklee School who wrote the score for “Salsipuedes”.

We hope this doc about children and music will be ready by the next festival.

After that we will do a fiction feature again. Of course we have to find the money.

Until then, we will continue to work with the Panama Canal, writing and directing for Canal TV Channel 126 an educational station.

People's Choice Revista K Award for Best Documentary went to ”Time to Love. A Backstage Tale”.

“Time to Love, A Backstage Tale”/ "Es la hora de enamorarse", a documentary directed by Guido Bilbao, is the true story of a group of young actors with Down Syndrome who courageously mount the classic Panamanian play “La Cucarachita Mandinga”, without any previous experience on stage. Many thought it unlikely that they would manage to memorize lines, learn choreography or capture the attention of the public. The artistic process is unveiled as Bilbao shows the intimate world of these young aspiring actors, along with their fears, hopes, and daily struggles.

The red carpet event was a loving and lively event and the audience applauded and laughed and even cried while watching the film. The pride everyone felt truly filled the room.

Sydney's State Theatre.

The 63rd Sydney Film Festival has unveiled 26 new films to be featured in this year.s June.8-19.event.

They include Demolition, from Dallas Buyers Club director Jean-Marc Vallée, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Naomi Watts; Maggie.s Plan, starring Ethan Hawke, Julianne Moore, Greta Gerwig and Vikings star Travis Fimmel; and Alexander Sokurov.s Francofonia.

Other features coming to Sydney are Irish comedy Sing Street, starring Game of Thrones' Aidan Gillen and directed by Once's John Carney, and Richard Linklater.s Everybody Wants Some!!, a "spiritual sequel" to his 1993 film Dazed and Confused.

Also in the line-up is Sundance 2016 Grand Jury Prize for Us Documentary winner Weiner, about former congressman Anthony Weiner, the subject of two sexting scandals, and his wife Huma Abedin; A Journey of a Thousand Miles: Peacekeepers, by festival guest Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and co-director Geeta Gandbhir, following 160 predominantly Muslim Bangladeshi policewomen on...

(Press Release) AFI Fest 2015 presented by Audi announces today the feature and short films receiving this year’s Jury and Audience Awards. The New Auteurs Grand Jury Award was presented to Land And Shade,...