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The Red Sea International Film Festival (Rsiff) has announced its full industry programme. Running from December 7th to 11th, 2024, in Jeddah’s vibrant Al Balad district, this year’s expanded five-day program offers an exceptional line-up of activities bringing together new talent, emerging filmmakers and established regional and international industry leaders for a series of events, talks and networking opportunities. The Red Sea Souk activities will take place alongside the growing marketplace which features 142 exhibitors from 32 countries this year.

Shivani Pandya Malhotra, Rsiff’s Managing Director, said: “The Souk is a vital part of the Rsiff experience, serving as a hub for collaboration, innovation, and opportunity. This year, we are more committed than ever to creating an environment where filmmakers, producers, and industry professionals can come together to share knowledge, forge meaningful connections, and shape the future of cinema. We are excited to present this year’s events and thankful...

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Dark Winds is a crime thriller series created by Graham Roland. The AMC series is based on a Leaphorn & Chee novel series written by Tony Hillerman. Dark Winds is set in the 1970s Southwest and it follows the story of two Navajo police officers Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon) and Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon) as they go up against their dark past and evil forces to maintain peace in their community. So if you loved the dangerous crimes, thrilling mysteries, and compelling lead characters in Dark Winds here are some similar shows you should check out next.

Longmire Credit – A&e

Longmire is a neo-Western crime drama series developed by John Coveny and Hunt Baldwin. Based on the Walt Longmire Mysteries book series by author Craig Johnson, the Netflix series follows the story of the sheriff of Absaroka County in Wyoming,...

Gabriel García Márquez’s famed novel “One Hundred Years of Solitude” is finally landing an adaptation courtesy of Netflix.

A sprawling 16-episode series is set to debut later this year, bringing Márquez’s beloved 1967 bestseller to the screen. “One Hundred Years of Solitude” is one of the most ambitious film projects in Latin America to date, brought to life by the most talented artists from Colombia and Latam, filmed entirely in Spanish and shot in Colombia with the support of author Márquez’s family.

The series is produced by independent Colombian entertainment company Dynamo, which has been behind more than 47 feature films and 25 television series. Previous Dynamo releases include fellow Netflix series “Wild District,” “Crime Diaries,” and “Green Frontier,” as well as providing location services to “Narcos,” “El Chapo,” and “Gemini Man.”

“One Hundred Years of Solitude” was filmed in the regions of La Guajira, Magdalena, Cesar, Cundinamarca, and Tolima in Colombia.

In perhaps one of her meatiest roles since Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma,” Oscar-nominated thesp Yalitza Aparicio stars in Prime Video’s upcoming series “Cometierra,” created by its showrunner Daniel Burman, The Mediapro Studio’s head of content for the U.S., Mexico and Central America.

Principal photography is underway, predominantly in Mexico, with some scenes shot in Uruguay.

Inspired by the bestselling debut novel of Argentine writer-activist Dolores Reyes, “Cometierra,” meaning Eartheater in English, is a supernatural drama steeped in magical realism that follows Aylín, a young girl from the rough outskirts of Mexico City.

She unexpectedly gains the extraordinary ability to commune with the earth beneath her feet, a gift that propels her into a world of crime-solving and clashes with malevolent forces lurking in her past. With the help of her fellow misfits, Aylín finds her true identity while navigating a community plagued by violence and grappling with...

“Kings of the World” (“Los Reyes del Mundo”), by Colombia’s Laura Mora has shared its trailer exclusively with Variety in advance of its world premiere in Spain’s San Sebastian festival and its Oct. 6 theatrical release in Colombia.

Said Mora: “We are very happy to finally be able to release the film! It has been a very long and demanding process…. And to premiere in the official competition of a festival like San Sebastián, surrounded by directors that we deeply admire, is an honor.”

Film Factory Entertainment handles international sales.

Played by non-pros, “Kings of the World” follows five teens ranging from ages 12 to 19 who roam aimlessly through the streets of Medellin, Colombia. When Rá, the oldest in the gang, receives a letter from the government about the restitution of land that was seized from his grandmother by the paramilitary, he and his friends decide to make the trip...

Netflix is celebrating Earth Month with a brand new collection on its platform.

Titled “One World, Infinite Wonder,” the new collection features over 170 titles that focus on the environment or climate change, from stand-up sets, nature documentaries and television dramas. The collection also features artwork from California-based illustrator Leonardo Santamaria.

The launch of the collection coincides with the release of “Our Great National Parks,” a new five-part documentary series executive produced and narrated by former U.S. president Barack Obama. The series explores national parks and wildlife across many different countries and continents, from Kenya’s Tsavo National Park to Gunung Leuser National Park in Indonesia. Other documentaries in the collection include “Our Planet,” “Animal” and “David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet.”

Other prominent titles featured in the collection include the Oscar-nominated comedy “Don’t Look Up,” which uses a meteor striking planet earth as a metaphor for climate change.

M-Appeal has closed deals for two of its Ventana Sur titles: Marcela Lordy’s “The Book of Delights” to Pigeon Co. in Taiwan and “The Night of the Beast” from Mauricio Leiva Cock to HBO in Eastern Europe.

“The Book of Delights” is an Argentina-Brazil co-production between Cinematográfica Marcela and bigBonsai which had already sold in the U.S. and Japan before the Taiwan announcement was made. M-Appeal will be looking to secure deals in more territories during Ventana Sur.

Adapted from Clarice Lispector’s Brazilian novel “Uma Aprendizagem ou Livro dos Prazeres,” “The Book of Delights” is the erotic story of Lóri, a woman on the lookout for sexual satisfaction, unwilling to compromise her own agency. An attractive young teacher by day, Lóri engages in a string of casula affairs catering to her desires and needs while purposefully avoiding emotional attachments.

Eventually, she crosses paths with renowned philosophy teacher,...

Celebrated up-and-coming Colombian filmmaker Laura Mora has wrapped shooting on her third feature “Kings of the World,” backed by Cristina Gallego, producer-director of 2018 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight hit “Birds of Passage,” and Mirlanda Torres.

“Kings” is set up at Gallego’s Bogota-based Ciudad Lunar, the label behind Oscar-nominated “Embrace of the Serpent” and Torres’ La Selva Producciones. It is backed by a powerful alliance of international production partners, often a sign these days of a major Latin American art film: Mer Films (Norway), Iris Prods. (Luxembourg), Talipot Studio (Mexico), Tu Vas Voir (France) and made in association with Caracol Televisión.

Written by Mora and María Camila Arias, a co-writer on “Birds of Passage,” “Kings of the World” is among the titles that sales agent Film Factory Entertainment is presenting at the Toronto Festival’s market.

The feature follows Rape, Culebro, Sere, Winny and Nano, five Medellín young men of and from the streets.

Initiating one of Amazon’s most ambitious titles ever in Latin America, production has begun on “La cabeza de Joaquín Murrieta,” the region’s first Western Amazon Original series, Amazon Prime Video announced Tuesday.

An “action-packed” series made in Mexico, it added, “La cabeza de Joaquín Murrieta” stars top Mexican actor Juan Manuel Bernal and Alejandro Speitzer, a fast-rising star after prominent roles in Mexican hits in “Dark Desire” and “Someone Has to Die.”

Backed by a powerful creative combo, the Amazon Original series is produced by Dynamo, who handled the physical production of “Narcos” in Colombia and produced Amazon’s “Falco” and Netflix’s first-anounced Colombian Original series, “Green Frontier.”

The series is created by Dynamo’s Diego Ramírez Schrempp and Fidelio’s Mauricio Leiva-Cock.

Series episodes will be directed by Humberto Hinojosa Ozcariz and David Pablos, fresh of his success with “Dance of the 41,” and director of “The Chosen Ones,...

Madrid-based Zeta Studios, producer of Netflix phenomenon “Elite,” is set to co-produce “Picadero,” a neo-noir six-part detective series already set up at Colombia’s Fidelio Films, one of the highest-flying companies in Latin America, and fast-emerging Barcelona-based Amor y Lujo, whose co-founder Almudena Monzú created “Picadero.”

Isabel Coixet, one of Spain’s greatest modern filmmakers is attached to direct episodes of the series. Her movies take in “My Life Without Me,” with Sarah Polley, “The Secret Life of Words,” starring Polley and Tim Robbins, and “The Bookshop,” toplining Emily Mortimer.

Monzu and Amor y Lujo co-founder and producer Andrea H. Catalá will pitch the series at next week’s Series Mania Forum on Aug. 30.

Drawing inspiration from Spanish film director Iciar Bollaín’s “Mataharis” and great detective classics, “Picadero” turns on Llanos who sets up in Barcelona to escape a dark family past and makes a living as a private...

“Our our story in Colombia is only starting,” streamer says.

Netflix will open an office in Bogota, Colombia, this year and unveil more than 30 new projects through 2022 as part of a $175m investment the streamer revealed it committed to in 2014.

Since launching in the Latin American country 10 years ago, Netflix has made local series such as Siempre Bruja, Distrito Salvaje, Chichipatos, Frontera Verde and El Robo del Siglo, and films like Lavaperros.

“ut our story in Colombia is only starting,” the streamer said in a blog.

The new hub will, it said, “allow us to be even closer to the creative community and our members,...

Netflix is to open an office in Bogota, Colombia, this year, the streamer has announced.

The studio said today that through 2022, it will have more than 30 new projects which include the already announced Ritmo Salvaje, Locombianos, Juanpis, Nada Es Igual, a comedy show starring Alejandra Azcárate, Goles en Contra, Pálpito, Perfil Falso, Diomedes and Chichipatos Season 2.

Netflix also stated today that it has invested more than $175M dollars in local content since 2014 through this year.

Previous Colombian projects backed by Netflix include Siempre Bruja, Distrito Salvaje, Chichipatos, Frontera Verde and El Robo del Siglo; comedy specials such as those of Liss Pereira, Ricardo Quevedo, Antonio Sanint, Julian Arango and Alejandro Riaño, and movies such as Lavaperros.

The news was announced in a blog post by Netflix’s Vice President of Content for Latin America, Francisco Ramos.

Berlin film sales agent M-Appeal has struck deals with leading German distributors for rock music drama “The Night of the Beast” and family adventure film “Sisters: The Summer We Found Our Superpowers.”

Alamode, the distributor of specialty titles such as “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” and “Les Misérables,” has acquired “The Night of the Beast,” which centers on two fans of the British heavy metal band Iron Maiden. Alamode is planning to release the title in June, when Iron Maiden plan to start their next European tour.

The Colombian-Mexican film’s title refers to the band’s 1982 album, “The Number of the Beast,” which has sold more than 14 million copies, and its subsequent tour, “The Beast on the Road.” The film, directed by Mauricio Leiva Cock, revolves around the band’s first concert in Colombia, and includes some of Iron Maiden’s tracks, such as “Aces High” and “The Trooper.

Night Of The Beast screens as part of this year’s St. Louis International Film Festival November 5th – 22nd.Ticket information for the virtual screening can be found Here

Using some of Iron Maiden’s most famous tracks, including “Aces High” and “The Trooper,” first-time director Mauricio Leiva-Cock — co-creator and showrunner for Netflix’s “Green Frontier” — tells the story of two young metalheads coasting aimlessly through Bogota’s alleys on the day of the band’s first-ever appearance in Colombia. While biding their time before Iron Maiden’s concert — their day is wrecked and friendship sorely tested when hoodlums steal their most valued possession: the tickets to see their favorite band perform live.

Review of Night Of The Beast

Remember the days of music concerts. Especially the big rock and roll

and heavy metal extravaganzas which packed stadiums, arenas, and all

manner of massive outdoor venues. Seems so long ago,...

Bursting onto the Latin American film-tv scene in the second half of last decade, Colombia’s Fidelio Films has struck a development and co-production deal with Stories, the burgeoning film-tv arm of Spain-based publishing giant Editorial Planeta.

The news comes as Fidelio prepares to present at Spain’s Conecta Fiction, a Europe-Latin America TV production forum, the supernatural drama series “Tenebris,” which won an Our Local is Global grant from the Tribeca Film Institute.

First title up in Fidelio-Editorial Planeta deal is Fidelio partner Mauricio Leiva Cock’s movie adaptation of cult Colombian writer Andrés Caicedo’s unfinished novel “Noche sin Fortuna.” Also in the mix is a small screen makeover of “Persona Normal,” a Mexican and Latin American bestseller written by Mexico’s Benito Taibo.

Fidelio’s deal sees it parlaying the extraordinary recent writing and directing record of partners Leiva Cock and David Figueroa García into strategic alliances...

Latin America’s Movistar, a label of telecom giant Telefonica, has closed a worldwide sales deal with Madrid-based Onza Distribution on the first four Movistar original series.

The deal excludes Latin America where Movistar has aired the series on Movistar Play, the burgeoning Ott services of pay TV unit Movistar TV, from September 2019. Onza Distribution will present the series virtually at MipChina, which runs July 28-31.

Representing the latest work of some of Latin America’s best-regarded film directors, who have won prizes at the Cannes, Sundance, Locarno and San Sebastian film festivals, the series take in comedies “Adulting,” “Capital Roar” and “Survival Guide,” and melodrama “My Lucky Day.”

The deal represents a major new fiction addition to the sales slate of Onza Distribution, a producer on Amazon Prime Video-aired “Little Coincidences” and a producer and co-sales agent on Spanish pubcaster Rtve’s “The Department of Time.”

Addressing different age groups,...

Director Ciro Guerra has denied allegations of sexual misconduct leveled by eight women against one of Colombia’s most prominent filmmakers.

Accusations of harassment and abuse were raised in a June 24 report by Volcanicas, a Latin American feminist journal. The publication does not name the women but says it conducted direct interviews with each accuser and viewed text message exchanges and recordings that detail the alleged harassment and one instance of alleged assault.

None of the women intend to press charges, the Volcanicas article said. Their goal is to call attention to “the normalization of sexual violence in Colombia’s audiovisual industry, which hinders the professional growth of women and affects them physically and emotionally,” wrote Volcanicas editors Catalina Ruiz-Navarro and Matilde de los Milagros Londoño. The article included a transcription of their call with Guerra where they asked him to respond to the charges, which he denied.

The incidents...

Ciro Guerra, the Colombian film director behind “Embrace of the Serpent” and “Birds of Passage,” is denying allegations of sexual harassment and abuse made against him in a June 24 report published by the feminist journal Volcánicas. The filmmaker said in a video posted online, “I want to state that the publication today of grave accusations in the online magazine Volcanicas against me are completely false. I committed none of the falsehoods I am accused of.”

“In view of the nature and gravity of those accusations, I don’t have any other option but to pursue legal avenues to clear my name,” he continued. “I ask that you wait before passing judgment for justice to reveal the truth in this case.”

In the report published this week by Volcánicas, seven women accused Guerra of sexual harassment and one woman claimed the director sexually abused her at his home. The alleged incidents...

Ciro Guerra, the Colombian film director behind “Embrace of the Serpent” and “Birds of Passage,” is denying allegations of sexual harassment and abuse made against him in a June 24 report published by the feminist journal Volcánicas. The filmmaker said in a video posted online, “I want to state that the publication today of grave accusations in the online magazine Volcanicas against me are completely false. I committed none of the falsehoods I am accused of.”

“In view of the nature and gravity of those accusations, I don’t have any other option but to pursue legal avenues to clear my name,” he continued. “I ask that you wait before passing judgment for justice to reveal the truth in this case.”

In the report published this week by Volcánicas, seven women accused Guerra of sexual harassment and one woman claimed the director sexually abused her at his home. The alleged incidents...

Filmmaker has been working on Hernan Cortez mini-series for Amazon Prime, Amblin Television.

Colombian auteur Ciro Guerra, whose first English-language film Waiting For The Barbarians has been in the Cannes virtual market, has denied sexual misconduct allegations.

Online feminist magzine Volcánicas published this week claims by a number of unnamed women alleging misconduct over a number of recent years.

Guerro said in a video posted online that the allegations were “completely false” and said he had no alternative but to pursue legal channels to clear his name.

The filmmaker captured the attention with 2009 Cannes selection The Wind Journeys and followed...

Berlin-based sales outfit M-Appeal has acquired Colombian film “Night of the Beast,” produced by Fidelio Films and directed by Mauricio Leiva-Cock — the emerging showrunner behind Netflix’s “Green Frontier” and Movistar’s “Capital Noise.”

Leiva-Cock’s debut feature, “Night of the Beast,” is an urban road trip that follows two Bogota teenagers trying to get into the first Iron Maiden concert in Colombia, a historic event that had been awaited for three decades by fans of the metal band which eventually came to pass in 2008 in the Colombian capital. Metalheads of all ages pawned their instruments and saved for months to get the tickets.

Still in post-production, the film features a soundtrack of songs from Iron Maiden such as “Aces High” and “The Trooper” alongside Colombian metal bands like Vein, Agony, Masacre, Darkness, La Pestilencia and others.

Vargas and Chuki, the lead characters, cross the city in what comes across...

”Antonio was not only our dear friend and honourary grandfather, but he was a teacher and master to us all.”

The filmmakers behind Colombian Oscar nominee Embrace Of The Serpent have highlighted the threat to indigenous Amazonian communities as it emerged that Antonio Bolívar, who played a shaman in the drama, has died after he was admitted to hospital with coronavirus symptoms. He was 72.

Bolívar died on Friday (May 1) in Leticia, a southern Colombian town on the border with Brazil and Peru near the Amazon River, according to a report in The City Paper Bogota. He is survived by his wife Celina and son Pedro.

“Today the legacy of indigenous groups is more urgent than ever.”

The filmmakers behind Colombian Oscar nominee Embrace Of The Serpent have called for protection of indigenous people as it emerged that Antonio Bolívar, who played a shaman in the film, has died after he was admitted to hospital with coronavirus symptoms. He was 72.

Bolívar died on Friday (May 1) in Leticia, a southern Colombian town on the border with Brazil and Peru near the Amazon River, according to a report in The City Paper Bogota. He is survived by his wife Celina and son Pedro.

The virus has reached the...

Antonio Bolívar, who played the shaman Karamakate in Ciro Guerra’s Oscar nominated feature Embrace Of The Serpent, has died at the age of 72 after being hospitalized with coronavirus.

Bolívar was a member of the Huitoto indigenous people and was one of the last of his tribe. Reps for Ciro Guerra, who directed the film, confirmed Bolívar’s death to Deadline.

According to a report on The City Paper Bogota, the actor was admitted to hospital in Leticia, Colombia, last week with Covid-19 symptoms and passed away on Friday.

Bolívar was also a translator of indigenous languages, including Tikuna and Cubeo, which are spoken among the inhabitants of the Orinoco and Amazon region. On the acting side, he also appeared in Guerra’s Netflix series Green Frontier.

Embrace Of The Serpent premiered in Cannes Director’s Fortnight in 2015 and went on to be Oscar nominated in the foreign-language film category.

Berlin — Slowly but surely, Madrid-based Telefonica’s original production drive is building on the other side of the Atlantic. The first Latin American series to be seen in Europe is “Ruido capital,” a Colombian six-episode series, a coming of age story that follows a group of misfit teenagers as they battle to form a rock band during the fraught period of 1990s Bogota. A show that lightheartedly manages to explore those strange years of adolescence as they unspool against a very real, very tough historical background.

The series is produced with Fidelio, an Colombian production company who has Mauricio Leiva Cock as its inhouse showrunner, a filmmaker who before his debut feature premieres has already worked as co creator of “Green Frontier” for Netflix, head writer on “Falco” for Amazon, TNT and Telemundo, and a writer on “Wild District,” again for Netflix, among others. Co directing with Argentina’s Ana Katz...

Mexico City — Mexico’s Cinepolis, one of the biggest movie theater chains in the world, has acquired rights for Latin America to Matías Meyer’s “Amores Modernos” (Modern Loves), which world premieres at this week’s Los Cabos Film Festival, playing in main competition.

In the U..S., “Modern Loves” has been taken by premium Latinx-content streaming platform, Pantaya, via the output deal Cinepolis has with Pantalion.

Moving ever more into distribution and sales for Latin America, as well as Mexican movie production, Cinepolis has also dropped a first trailer.Cinepolis will release “Modern Loves” directly in Mexico, licensing it in the rest of the region. A Mexican opening is scheduled for March 27, 2020.

“Modern Love is a project that we followed since its development,” said Leonardo Cordero, who runs Cinepolis Distribución.

He went on: “Matias’ willingness and bravery to work with actors after his previous work seems to reflect the...

With only four features under his belt, Ciro Guerra has already established himself as one of Colombia’s most important filmmakers and earned the country’s first-ever Oscar nod for 2015’s “Embrace of the Serpent.”

Guerra’s latest feature, and the first in English, is the cinematic adaptation of the same-named J.M. Coetzee novel “Waiting for Barbarians,” which world premiered on Friday at the 67th Venice Film Festival.

In the film, Oscar-winning actor Mark Rylance plays an imperial magistrate in the throes of a crisis of conscious after witnessing the inhumane torture of an indigenous woman (Gana Bayarsaikhan) on the frontier he is meant to be protecting.

After helping the woman escape, the magistrate is captured and replaced by a younger officer, played by Robert Pattinson, and charged with treason. Johnny Depp plays a colonel tasked with leading a special forces unit dedicated to the capture and often public torture of the “barbarians.

When “Embrace of the Serpent,” a psychedelic exploration of Colombian tribes in the Amazon, was released in 2015 to great acclaim and was shortlisted for the foreign-language Oscar, it instantly launched director Ciro Guerra onto the international film stage. The Colombian filmmaker, along with his ex-wife and producer Cristina Gallego, then had enough industry support to make their long-gestating passion project, “Birds of Passage.” The film, which became Colombia’s Oscar submission in 2018, uncovers the roots of Colombia’s drug war in the rise of illegal trading within the remote Wayyu tribes.

Working with a new set of collaborators, Guerra’s newest project is a mystery thriller for Netflix, which follows a disturbing string of femicides in the Amazon. “Green Frontier,” which also bears the Spanish-language title “Frontera Verde,” was shot on location in Colombia and filmed entirely in Spanish. The newly released first trailer promises stunning cinematography, gorgeous landscapes and...

The Green Inferno meets True Detective in a new miniseries, Green Frontier arriving on Netflix later this month (August 16th). Meet a strange tribe known as “The Eternals” in the trailer embedded at the top of the article. Synopsis:Deep in the Amazon, on the border between Brazil and Colombia, a series of bizarre deaths are […]

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