Ahead of its world premiere at this year’s San Sebastian Horizontes Latinos strand, Buenos Aires-based production house Historias Cinematográficas has shared an exclusive first look at the trailer for Lucía Puenza’s energetic new film “Los Impactados,” with Variety.
The film is produced by Pepe Puenzo at Historias Cinematográficas, the Puenzo family production house led by Academy Award winner Luis Puenzo, Academy and Emmy award-winning producer Mark Johnson and Paula Manzanedo in association with Exile Content Studio and Non Stop Studios. Co-produced by Juan de Dios and Pablo Larraín’s indie outfit Fábula, the narrative turns on a study of rebirth after severe trauma.
Written by Puenzo and Lorena Ventimiglia, the singular narrative follows Ada, played by Mariana Di Girolamo who starred opposite Gael Garcia Bernal in Pablo Larraín’s “Ema,” after she’s struck by lightning and on through to her intriguing metamorphosis alongside an enigmatic and experimental doctor,...
The film is produced by Pepe Puenzo at Historias Cinematográficas, the Puenzo family production house led by Academy Award winner Luis Puenzo, Academy and Emmy award-winning producer Mark Johnson and Paula Manzanedo in association with Exile Content Studio and Non Stop Studios. Co-produced by Juan de Dios and Pablo Larraín’s indie outfit Fábula, the narrative turns on a study of rebirth after severe trauma.
Written by Puenzo and Lorena Ventimiglia, the singular narrative follows Ada, played by Mariana Di Girolamo who starred opposite Gael Garcia Bernal in Pablo Larraín’s “Ema,” after she’s struck by lightning and on through to her intriguing metamorphosis alongside an enigmatic and experimental doctor,...
- 9/7/2023
- by Holly Jones
- Variety Film + TV
Gaumont’s previous drama hits include Lupin, Narcos, Barbarian and Stillwater.
Paramount+, the global streaming service of Paramount Global, have struck a drama slate partnership with Gaumont, France’s historic film and TV company which has made its mark on the global high-end series scene with shows like Lupin, Narcos, Barbarian and Stillwater.
Under the deal, Gaumont will produce several originals in association with Paramount’s international studio, Vis, as part of Paramount+’s plan to greenlight 50 new international scripted originals in 2022.
“This long-term partnership with the storied and esteemed production company Gaumont is another example of our commitment to...
Paramount+, the global streaming service of Paramount Global, have struck a drama slate partnership with Gaumont, France’s historic film and TV company which has made its mark on the global high-end series scene with shows like Lupin, Narcos, Barbarian and Stillwater.
Under the deal, Gaumont will produce several originals in association with Paramount’s international studio, Vis, as part of Paramount+’s plan to greenlight 50 new international scripted originals in 2022.
“This long-term partnership with the storied and esteemed production company Gaumont is another example of our commitment to...
- 3/24/2022
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- ScreenDaily
Paramount Plus, which is the global streaming service of recently rebranded Paramount — formerly ViacomCBS — has forged a three-year partnership with Gaumont, the storied French studio behind Netflix’s “Lupin” and “Narcos,” to jointly produce a slate of high-end original shows for its growing subscribers around the world.
Under the partnership Gaumont will produce these series in association with Paramount’s international studio, Vis.
The shows will be part of Paramount Plus’s stated plans to green light 50 new non-u.S. scripted originals in 2022, as it expands its reach from Latin America, Australia, Canada and the Nordics –– where the service has already launched –– to the U.K., South Korea, France, Germany, Switzerland and Italy where it will launch this year.
Vis will gain access to Gaumont’s vast network of top talent and creatives in key Paramount Plus markets, including Latin America and Europe, the two companies said in a joint statement.
Under the partnership Gaumont will produce these series in association with Paramount’s international studio, Vis.
The shows will be part of Paramount Plus’s stated plans to green light 50 new non-u.S. scripted originals in 2022, as it expands its reach from Latin America, Australia, Canada and the Nordics –– where the service has already launched –– to the U.K., South Korea, France, Germany, Switzerland and Italy where it will launch this year.
Vis will gain access to Gaumont’s vast network of top talent and creatives in key Paramount Plus markets, including Latin America and Europe, the two companies said in a joint statement.
- 3/24/2022
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Jeff Barry is heading to Range Media Partners as partner and will lead the company’s international TV efforts, as well as building out their lit department, scripted studio and verticals.
Barry has been working as an agent for ICM Partners since 2008, repping writers, directors, and actors with a specialty in the international space, where he’s identified and transitioned talent from abroad to Hollywood.
His clients at ICM included Ed Berger, Joe Barton (upcoming Cloverfield sequel; Giri Haji; upcoming Half Bad), David Nicholls, Guy Bolton (Untitled Bad Robot/DC Dark Universe TV Series), Matthew Carnahan, Julie Andem (Skam), Lusia Puenzo, Quoc Dang Tran, Stephen Schiff (The Americans), Paul & Michael Clarkson, Andrew Cividino...
Barry has been working as an agent for ICM Partners since 2008, repping writers, directors, and actors with a specialty in the international space, where he’s identified and transitioned talent from abroad to Hollywood.
His clients at ICM included Ed Berger, Joe Barton (upcoming Cloverfield sequel; Giri Haji; upcoming Half Bad), David Nicholls, Guy Bolton (Untitled Bad Robot/DC Dark Universe TV Series), Matthew Carnahan, Julie Andem (Skam), Lusia Puenzo, Quoc Dang Tran, Stephen Schiff (The Americans), Paul & Michael Clarkson, Andrew Cividino...
- 2/7/2022
- by Anthony D'Alessandro
- Deadline Film + TV
Exclusive: Award-winning filmmaker Fatih Akin has signed with Sentient Entertainment for management across all areas.
The German-Turkish creative is perhaps best known for his thriller In the Fade, which claimed the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film in 2017 and brought star Diane Kruger the Cannes Film Festival’s award for Best Actress. The film was selected to compete there for the Palme D’Or and was Germany’s official entry for the Academy Awards.
Akin is currently in production on his next film, Rheingold, based on the real-life story of Turkish gangster rapper Xatar. He also recently acquired the rights to Buddha, the graphic novel from acclaimed Japanese illustrator Osamu Tezuka, and will adapt it as a TV series, which Sentient is currently packaging.
Sentient’s signing of Akin was announced on Monday by the company’s founder and CEO Renee Tab and producer Christopher Tuffin. “I am so...
The German-Turkish creative is perhaps best known for his thriller In the Fade, which claimed the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film in 2017 and brought star Diane Kruger the Cannes Film Festival’s award for Best Actress. The film was selected to compete there for the Palme D’Or and was Germany’s official entry for the Academy Awards.
Akin is currently in production on his next film, Rheingold, based on the real-life story of Turkish gangster rapper Xatar. He also recently acquired the rights to Buddha, the graphic novel from acclaimed Japanese illustrator Osamu Tezuka, and will adapt it as a TV series, which Sentient is currently packaging.
Sentient’s signing of Akin was announced on Monday by the company’s founder and CEO Renee Tab and producer Christopher Tuffin. “I am so...
- 10/18/2021
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
Argentina’s preeminent writer-director Lucia Puenzo, who has proven her showrunner chops with “La Jauria” for Amazon Prime and eco-thriller series “Cromo,” has partnered with Gaumont, the producers of Netflix mega-hit “Narcos,” in a multi-project development deal.
Among the projects in the pact is “Futuro Desierto,” a near-future, dystopian thriller that turns on a robotics engineer who moves with his family to an isolated town in Patagonia where he is ordered to test the first humanoid robots in secret. Puenzo, whose notable film credits include the Cannes-selected “Xxy” and “The German Doctor,” will co-showrun and direct multiple episodes with her brother, Nicolas Puenzo, co-director of “Cromo” and “La Jauría.”
Another project, tentatively titled “This is Not a Love Song,” follows the extraordinary life of Tina Modotti, the eccentric Italian feminist photographer, model, actress and revolutionary political activist who was among the leading lights of cosmopolitan Mexico City in the early 1920s,...
Among the projects in the pact is “Futuro Desierto,” a near-future, dystopian thriller that turns on a robotics engineer who moves with his family to an isolated town in Patagonia where he is ordered to test the first humanoid robots in secret. Puenzo, whose notable film credits include the Cannes-selected “Xxy” and “The German Doctor,” will co-showrun and direct multiple episodes with her brother, Nicolas Puenzo, co-director of “Cromo” and “La Jauría.”
Another project, tentatively titled “This is Not a Love Song,” follows the extraordinary life of Tina Modotti, the eccentric Italian feminist photographer, model, actress and revolutionary political activist who was among the leading lights of cosmopolitan Mexico City in the early 1920s,...
- 10/22/2020
- by Anna Marie de la Fuente
- Variety Film + TV
Showrun by Lucía Puenzo and produced by Fremantle and Fabula, “Señorita México” (“Miss Mexico”) has added two writers, María Renée Prudencio and Tatiana Merenuk, as it advances towards production, which is scheduled for the first half of 2021.
The new series will be produced for Starzplay and Pantaya in Latin America and Spain, in a deal brokered by Fremantle’s international distribution arm, Fremantle and Fabula confirmed Tuesday, as they also unveiled more details of one of Latin America’s banner productions for 2021, which will be the first at Fabula’s new Mexican production beach-head.
Star of Fernando Eimbke’s “Club Sandwich,” actress-writer Mexico-based Prudencio scooped a Mexican Academy Ariel for co-adapting ensemble comedy “Last Call,” which also won its female cast a collective prize at the Guadalajara Festival. Her second major movie screenplay, for Natalia Beristain’s “The Eternal Feminine,” exhibited a distinctive female sensibility in its portrait of Mexican writer Rosario Castellanos.
The new series will be produced for Starzplay and Pantaya in Latin America and Spain, in a deal brokered by Fremantle’s international distribution arm, Fremantle and Fabula confirmed Tuesday, as they also unveiled more details of one of Latin America’s banner productions for 2021, which will be the first at Fabula’s new Mexican production beach-head.
Star of Fernando Eimbke’s “Club Sandwich,” actress-writer Mexico-based Prudencio scooped a Mexican Academy Ariel for co-adapting ensemble comedy “Last Call,” which also won its female cast a collective prize at the Guadalajara Festival. Her second major movie screenplay, for Natalia Beristain’s “The Eternal Feminine,” exhibited a distinctive female sensibility in its portrait of Mexican writer Rosario Castellanos.
- 9/1/2020
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Global SVOD Amazon Prime Video has signed up for a second season of Spanish-language psychological thriller “La Jauria.” The show is the streamer’s first local Original series from Chile, produced by Fremantle and Fabula, run by writer-director Pablo Larraín (“Jacky”) and brother Juan de Díos Larraín (“Gloria Bell”).
Starring breakout superstar Daniela Vega (“A Fantasic Woman”), “La Jauria” is showrun by award-winning filmmaker Lucia Puenzo (“Xxy”).
“For Fabula it is important to tell our stories from Chile to the rest of the world. A second season of ‘La Jauria’ is also a recognition of the talent of our actors and actresses, our technicians, writers, directors and all the professionals involved in the process,” said Angela Poblete, regional head of TV at Fabula.
Set at a private Catholic school in Santiago de Chile, “La Jauría” follows the case of a Catholic school student who stages a protest and becomes the...
Starring breakout superstar Daniela Vega (“A Fantasic Woman”), “La Jauria” is showrun by award-winning filmmaker Lucia Puenzo (“Xxy”).
“For Fabula it is important to tell our stories from Chile to the rest of the world. A second season of ‘La Jauria’ is also a recognition of the talent of our actors and actresses, our technicians, writers, directors and all the professionals involved in the process,” said Angela Poblete, regional head of TV at Fabula.
Set at a private Catholic school in Santiago de Chile, “La Jauría” follows the case of a Catholic school student who stages a protest and becomes the...
- 7/23/2020
- by Jamie Lang
- Variety Film + TV
Danish writer Karen Blixen, whose memoir “Out of Africa” and short story “Babette’s Feast” were both turned into Academy Award-winning films, is now the subject of another big-screen makeover with an adaptation of her short story “The Immortal Story” set to be penned by Argentina’s Daniel Rosenfeld and Lucía Puenzo.
Argentine-French actor Nahuel Pérez Biscayart (“Bpm (Beats per Minute)”) and Leonardo Sbaraglia have signed letters of intent to head up the cast, along with an international actor and actress, which have yet to be confirmed, Rosenfeld told Variety.
Director-producer of Idfa player “Piazzola, the Years of the Shark,” which won best documentary at Argentina’s 2018 Academy Awards, Rosenfeld has purchased rights to the story, which was adapted by Orson Welles in 1968.
Rosenfeld is currently writing the screenplay adaptation with Puenzo, one of Latin America’s most courted film directors and showrunner on Amazon’s “La Jauría,” produced by Fabula and Fremantle.
Argentine-French actor Nahuel Pérez Biscayart (“Bpm (Beats per Minute)”) and Leonardo Sbaraglia have signed letters of intent to head up the cast, along with an international actor and actress, which have yet to be confirmed, Rosenfeld told Variety.
Director-producer of Idfa player “Piazzola, the Years of the Shark,” which won best documentary at Argentina’s 2018 Academy Awards, Rosenfeld has purchased rights to the story, which was adapted by Orson Welles in 1968.
Rosenfeld is currently writing the screenplay adaptation with Puenzo, one of Latin America’s most courted film directors and showrunner on Amazon’s “La Jauría,” produced by Fabula and Fremantle.
- 7/6/2020
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Fremantle and Fabula have dropped the first trailer of eight-part series “La Jauría” (“The Pack”), showrun by Lucía Puenzo (“The German Doctor”), one of Latin America’s most prominent film and TV writer-directors, and starring Daniela Vega, the lead in the Academy Award winning “A Fantastic Woman.”
Set up at Chile’s Fabula, run by writer-director Pablo Larraín (“Jacky”) and brother Juan de Díos Larraín, “Gloria Bell”), “La Jauría”
Amazon’s first-ever locally-produced Amazon Original in Chile will be available to stream exclusively on Prime Video in Latin America, Caribbean and Spain.
It also marks the first international series from Fabula.
Brought onto the market at February’s Fremantle Screenings in London and now the Series Mania-MipTV virtual marketplace, “La Jauría” is also first fruit of a Fabula-Fremantle multi-year first-look production-distribution alliance. Fremantle is its global distributor.
Co-written by Puenzo, and set at a posh private Catholic school in Santiago de Chile,...
Set up at Chile’s Fabula, run by writer-director Pablo Larraín (“Jacky”) and brother Juan de Díos Larraín, “Gloria Bell”), “La Jauría”
Amazon’s first-ever locally-produced Amazon Original in Chile will be available to stream exclusively on Prime Video in Latin America, Caribbean and Spain.
It also marks the first international series from Fabula.
Brought onto the market at February’s Fremantle Screenings in London and now the Series Mania-MipTV virtual marketplace, “La Jauría” is also first fruit of a Fabula-Fremantle multi-year first-look production-distribution alliance. Fremantle is its global distributor.
Co-written by Puenzo, and set at a posh private Catholic school in Santiago de Chile,...
- 3/30/2020
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
“The only absolute in history is change,” said the Victorian historian Lord Acton. He might have been talking about the streaming platforms’ current international strategies. Since they launched internationally, Netflix and Amazon’s focus and priorities have been in constant evolution. Current pressures – evolving demographies, new regulation, new competition, still untapped growth – mean that re-engineering won’t stop any time soon.
On Jan. 23, as the Natpe Miami conference wound down, Amazon Prime Video announced out of Miami four new Latin American Amazon Original series: Lucía Puenzo’s “La Jauría” (“The Pack”), “Colonia Dignidad,” produced by Diego Guebel; Daniel Burman and Sebastián Borensztein’s “Iosi, The Repentant Spy”; and Andrés Wood’s “News of a Kidnapping.”
The announcement says much about Amazon Prime Video’s priorities, and the state of the streamer business in Latin America. Five takeaways:
1.Amazon Expands Production Reach
Also on Jan. 23, Amazon announced its first two forays...
On Jan. 23, as the Natpe Miami conference wound down, Amazon Prime Video announced out of Miami four new Latin American Amazon Original series: Lucía Puenzo’s “La Jauría” (“The Pack”), “Colonia Dignidad,” produced by Diego Guebel; Daniel Burman and Sebastián Borensztein’s “Iosi, The Repentant Spy”; and Andrés Wood’s “News of a Kidnapping.”
The announcement says much about Amazon Prime Video’s priorities, and the state of the streamer business in Latin America. Five takeaways:
1.Amazon Expands Production Reach
Also on Jan. 23, Amazon announced its first two forays...
- 1/28/2020
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Amazon Prime Video in Latin America has added four new Amazon Original Series to their catalog from Argentina, Chile and Colombia, the first Originals from the territories. The series will be available on the platform in more than 200 countries and territories.
Chile’s “La Jauría” (“The Pack”) already broadcast on domestic network Tvn, will be joined by three series set to begin production in 2020: “Iosi, El Espía Arrepentido,” “Colonia Dignidad” and “Noticia de un Secuestro.”
From Chile, “La Jauría” is directed by award-winner filmmaker Lucía Puenzo, whose 2007 feature “Xxy” won four prizes at the Cannes Festival. The series stars Chilean Oscar-nominated “A Fantastic Woman” lead actress Daniela Vega in a story of a Catholic school girl who starts a protest against a deadly online game in which men are recruited to commit acts of violence towards women. The girl disappears and her story goes viral when a video of...
Chile’s “La Jauría” (“The Pack”) already broadcast on domestic network Tvn, will be joined by three series set to begin production in 2020: “Iosi, El Espía Arrepentido,” “Colonia Dignidad” and “Noticia de un Secuestro.”
From Chile, “La Jauría” is directed by award-winner filmmaker Lucía Puenzo, whose 2007 feature “Xxy” won four prizes at the Cannes Festival. The series stars Chilean Oscar-nominated “A Fantastic Woman” lead actress Daniela Vega in a story of a Catholic school girl who starts a protest against a deadly online game in which men are recruited to commit acts of violence towards women. The girl disappears and her story goes viral when a video of...
- 1/24/2020
- by Jamie Lang
- Variety Film + TV
Madrid — Underscoring its ambitions to grow its Latin America business, Fremantle has named Manuel Martí, one of Latin America’s most cultured and respected TV executives, to the newly-created position of head of scripted development, Latin America.
Martí will report to Coty Cagliolo, Fremantle head of production, Latin America, He will be responsible for developing Fremantle’s drama slate in the region, securing and delivering commissions and ultimately building Fremantle’s scripted business in Latin America, Fremantle said in a statement Monday.
Both Martí and Cogliolo will attend Natpe:Miami next week with Fremantle.
The hire will bolster significantly Fremantle’s scripted series clout in the region where Martí, formerly head of development and international business at Buenos Aires-based Pol-ka helped turn the Argentine production house, into a name player on the international TV scene, where it evolved from a long-format producer for Argentina to a premium producer for global...
Martí will report to Coty Cagliolo, Fremantle head of production, Latin America, He will be responsible for developing Fremantle’s drama slate in the region, securing and delivering commissions and ultimately building Fremantle’s scripted business in Latin America, Fremantle said in a statement Monday.
Both Martí and Cogliolo will attend Natpe:Miami next week with Fremantle.
The hire will bolster significantly Fremantle’s scripted series clout in the region where Martí, formerly head of development and international business at Buenos Aires-based Pol-ka helped turn the Argentine production house, into a name player on the international TV scene, where it evolved from a long-format producer for Argentina to a premium producer for global...
- 1/13/2020
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Buenos Aires — Argentina’s Lucía Puenzo, one of Latin America’s most sought-after writer-directors, is in talks with Mariana di Girolamo, star of Pablo Larraín’s “Ema,” and Marcelo Alonso for both to star in feature “Impactados.”
Both actors have expressed their interest in appearing in the film, said Puenzo, which she will pitch to potential co-producers at Ventana Sur Proyecta Forum on Dec. 4.
There, it bids fare to be one of the pitching session’s highlights given its pedigree production – Argentina’s Historias Cinematográficas, the Puenzo family production house led by Academy Award-winning Luis Puenzo, Juan de Dios Larraín at Chile’s Fabula and Stéphane Parthenay at France’s Pyramide Productions – and Puenzo’s own caché as one of Latin America’s very few film directors whose films can open theatrically to significant box office outside Latin America.
Di Girolamo and Alonso played in the acclaimed Fabula-Fremantle-produced and Puenzo showrun TV series “La Jauría.
Both actors have expressed their interest in appearing in the film, said Puenzo, which she will pitch to potential co-producers at Ventana Sur Proyecta Forum on Dec. 4.
There, it bids fare to be one of the pitching session’s highlights given its pedigree production – Argentina’s Historias Cinematográficas, the Puenzo family production house led by Academy Award-winning Luis Puenzo, Juan de Dios Larraín at Chile’s Fabula and Stéphane Parthenay at France’s Pyramide Productions – and Puenzo’s own caché as one of Latin America’s very few film directors whose films can open theatrically to significant box office outside Latin America.
Di Girolamo and Alonso played in the acclaimed Fabula-Fremantle-produced and Puenzo showrun TV series “La Jauría.
- 12/4/2019
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Lucia Puenzo to direct from screenplay by Ann Cherkis (Better Call Saul).
Jessica Chastain will star in the comedic drama Losing Clementine that Argentinian filmmaker Lucia Puenzo will direct and Sierra/Affinity will introduce to international buyers at Afm this week.
Better Call Saul screenwriter Ann Cherkis adapted the story from the novel of the same name by Ashley Ream about a celebrated artist who ditches her medications and has one month to tie up loose ends, only to uncover tragic secrets about her family.
Italia Film-based Sentient’s Renee Tab acquired the book last year, developed the script,...
Jessica Chastain will star in the comedic drama Losing Clementine that Argentinian filmmaker Lucia Puenzo will direct and Sierra/Affinity will introduce to international buyers at Afm this week.
Better Call Saul screenwriter Ann Cherkis adapted the story from the novel of the same name by Ashley Ream about a celebrated artist who ditches her medications and has one month to tie up loose ends, only to uncover tragic secrets about her family.
Italia Film-based Sentient’s Renee Tab acquired the book last year, developed the script,...
- 11/5/2019
- by 36¦Jeremy Kay¦54¦
- ScreenDaily
Another hot American Film Market package being unveiled today: Jessica Chastain will play a troubled artist in comedy-drama Losing Clementine. Argentine filmmaker Lucía Puenzo has been enlisted to helm the feature, which Sierra/Affinity will be shopping at the Santa Monica market this week.
As we revealed last year, Sentient Entertainment’s Renee Tab picked up feature rights to Ashley Ream’s debut novel of the same name and brought Better Call Saul writer and producer Ann Cherkis onboard to adapt the screenplay.
Pic follows world-renowned and sharp-tongued artist Clementine Pritchard (Chastain) who has decided she’s done. After flushing away her meds, she gives herself 31 days to tie up loose ends. While checking off her bucket list she uncovers secrets about her family and the tragedy that befell her mother and sister.
Sentient president Tab, who recently exec produced the Jennifer Garner thriller Peppermint, developed, packaged, raised finance and...
As we revealed last year, Sentient Entertainment’s Renee Tab picked up feature rights to Ashley Ream’s debut novel of the same name and brought Better Call Saul writer and producer Ann Cherkis onboard to adapt the screenplay.
Pic follows world-renowned and sharp-tongued artist Clementine Pritchard (Chastain) who has decided she’s done. After flushing away her meds, she gives herself 31 days to tie up loose ends. While checking off her bucket list she uncovers secrets about her family and the tragedy that befell her mother and sister.
Sentient president Tab, who recently exec produced the Jennifer Garner thriller Peppermint, developed, packaged, raised finance and...
- 11/4/2019
- by Tom Grater
- Deadline Film + TV
Filming has begun on Lucía Puenzo’s psychological gender thriller series “La Jauría,” a co-production by Fremantle with Pablo and Juan de Dios Larraín’s Chile-u.S.-based Fabula.
The eight-episode Spanish-language drama series, shooting in Santiago, Chile, features Daniela Vega, the lead in Fabula’s Academy Award-winning “A Fantastic Woman.”
Lucía Puenzo, one of Latin America’s most renowned women writers-directors directs the series alongside Sergio Castro (“La mujer de barro”), Marialy Rivas (“Young & Wild”) and Nicolás Puenzo (“Los Invisibles”).
“La Jauría” also stars Antonia Zegers and María Gracia Omegna, who alongside Vega play a police force specialized in gender-related crimes that investigates the strange disappearance of a young woman.
It opens at Santa Inés School, whose students stage a take-over in protest for an alleged case of abuse between a teacher and a student. Blanca Ibarra, a student leading the take-over, suddenly goes missing.
Hours later, a recording...
The eight-episode Spanish-language drama series, shooting in Santiago, Chile, features Daniela Vega, the lead in Fabula’s Academy Award-winning “A Fantastic Woman.”
Lucía Puenzo, one of Latin America’s most renowned women writers-directors directs the series alongside Sergio Castro (“La mujer de barro”), Marialy Rivas (“Young & Wild”) and Nicolás Puenzo (“Los Invisibles”).
“La Jauría” also stars Antonia Zegers and María Gracia Omegna, who alongside Vega play a police force specialized in gender-related crimes that investigates the strange disappearance of a young woman.
It opens at Santa Inés School, whose students stage a take-over in protest for an alleged case of abuse between a teacher and a student. Blanca Ibarra, a student leading the take-over, suddenly goes missing.
Hours later, a recording...
- 2/1/2019
- by Emiliano De Pablos
- Variety Film + TV
Ryan Kampe will introduce films to Efm buyers in Berlin next month.
Source: Visit Films
New York-based Visit Films has acquired rights to two Sundance premieres, taking the world excluding Latin America and Scandinavia to The Queen Of Fear and the world excluding North America, Mexico, and Benelux to Time Share.
After their world premieres in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition section, Visit president Ryan Kampe and his team will present the films to Efm buyers in Berlin.
Argentine actress Valeria Bertuccelli (Xxy, A Boyfriend for My Wife) and Fabiana Tiscornia directed The Queen Of Fear (Argentina-Denmark), which premieres on Sunday.
Bertuccelli wrote the screenplay and stars in the Rei Cine and Patagonik production as a neurotic actress who attempts to distract herself from the fast-approaching opening night of her one-woman show. Diego Velázquez, Sary López, Gabriel Goity, and Dario Grandinetti round out the key cast.
Santiago Gallelli, Benjamin Domenech, and Matias Roveda produced...
Source: Visit Films
New York-based Visit Films has acquired rights to two Sundance premieres, taking the world excluding Latin America and Scandinavia to The Queen Of Fear and the world excluding North America, Mexico, and Benelux to Time Share.
After their world premieres in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition section, Visit president Ryan Kampe and his team will present the films to Efm buyers in Berlin.
Argentine actress Valeria Bertuccelli (Xxy, A Boyfriend for My Wife) and Fabiana Tiscornia directed The Queen Of Fear (Argentina-Denmark), which premieres on Sunday.
Bertuccelli wrote the screenplay and stars in the Rei Cine and Patagonik production as a neurotic actress who attempts to distract herself from the fast-approaching opening night of her one-woman show. Diego Velázquez, Sary López, Gabriel Goity, and Dario Grandinetti round out the key cast.
Santiago Gallelli, Benjamin Domenech, and Matias Roveda produced...
- 1/19/2018
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
Ryan Kampe will introduce films to Efm buyers in Berlin next month.
Source: Visit Films
New York-based Visit Films has acquired rights to two Sundance premieres, taking the world excluding Latin America and Scandinavia to The Queen Of Fear and the world excluding North America, Mexico, and Benelux to Time Share.
After their world premieres in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition section, Visit president Ryan Kampe and his team will present the films to Efm buyers in Berlin.
Argentine actress Valeria Bertuccelli (Xxy, A Boyfriend for My Wife) and Fabiana Tiscornia directed The Queen Of Fear (Argentina-Denmark), which premieres on Sunday.
Bertuccelli wrote the screenplay and stars in the Rei Cine and Patagonik production as a neurotic actress who attempts to distract herself from the fast-approaching opening night of her one-woman show. Diego Velázquez, Sary López, Gabriel Goity, and Dario Grandinetti round out the key cast.
Santiago Gallelli, Benjamin Domenech, and Matias Roveda produced...
Source: Visit Films
New York-based Visit Films has acquired rights to two Sundance premieres, taking the world excluding Latin America and Scandinavia to The Queen Of Fear and the world excluding North America, Mexico, and Benelux to Time Share.
After their world premieres in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition section, Visit president Ryan Kampe and his team will present the films to Efm buyers in Berlin.
Argentine actress Valeria Bertuccelli (Xxy, A Boyfriend for My Wife) and Fabiana Tiscornia directed The Queen Of Fear (Argentina-Denmark), which premieres on Sunday.
Bertuccelli wrote the screenplay and stars in the Rei Cine and Patagonik production as a neurotic actress who attempts to distract herself from the fast-approaching opening night of her one-woman show. Diego Velázquez, Sary López, Gabriel Goity, and Dario Grandinetti round out the key cast.
Santiago Gallelli, Benjamin Domenech, and Matias Roveda produced...
- 1/19/2018
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
The Neon Demon
Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Writers: Mary Laws, Nicolas Winding Refn
Danish auteur Nicolas Winding Refn, who has since attained cult status thanks to the success of 2011’s Drive (which snagged a Best Director award at Cannes), struck divisive chords with his 2013 follow-up Only God Forgives, which was booed at Cannes and resulted in a documentary about the experience the following year from Refn’s wife, Liv Corfixen (My Life Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn). In a response to critiques of misogyny in his narratives, Refn returns with the Los Angeles set The Neon Demon, a femme centric horror film written by Mary Laws and co-financed by Wild Bunch and Gaumont (explaining its eligibility for our foreign films list). Starring a notable cast consisting of Elle Fanning, Jena Malone, Keanu Reeves and Refn favorite Christina Hendricks, the director describes it as a ‘horror film about vicious beauty,’ concerning...
Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Writers: Mary Laws, Nicolas Winding Refn
Danish auteur Nicolas Winding Refn, who has since attained cult status thanks to the success of 2011’s Drive (which snagged a Best Director award at Cannes), struck divisive chords with his 2013 follow-up Only God Forgives, which was booed at Cannes and resulted in a documentary about the experience the following year from Refn’s wife, Liv Corfixen (My Life Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn). In a response to critiques of misogyny in his narratives, Refn returns with the Los Angeles set The Neon Demon, a femme centric horror film written by Mary Laws and co-financed by Wild Bunch and Gaumont (explaining its eligibility for our foreign films list). Starring a notable cast consisting of Elle Fanning, Jena Malone, Keanu Reeves and Refn favorite Christina Hendricks, the director describes it as a ‘horror film about vicious beauty,’ concerning...
- 1/13/2016
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Era el Cielo
Director: Marco Dutra
Writers: Lucia Puenzo, Caetano Gotardo, Sergio Bizzio
Brazilian director Marco Dutra‘s first feature (review), 2011’s Hard Labor (co-directed by Juliana Rojas) premiered in Un Certain Regard at Cannes and finally reached theatrical release in the Us several months ago courtesy of Kino Lorber. Since then, he directed the solo feature Era el Cielo (When I Was Alive), and will be ready with his third film, It Was Heaven in 2016. Dutra directs from a script co-authored by Hard Labor writer Caetano Gotardo and the team behind Xxy (2007), Sergio Bizzio and Argentinean director Lucia Puenzo. His first Spanish language production concerns “questioning masculinity roles, sexuality, and barriers of intimacy,” in a narrative about a man who comes home to see his wife violated by two strangers. Paralyzed, he doesn’t come to her rescue and she doesn’t realize he’s witnessed the attack. She...
Director: Marco Dutra
Writers: Lucia Puenzo, Caetano Gotardo, Sergio Bizzio
Brazilian director Marco Dutra‘s first feature (review), 2011’s Hard Labor (co-directed by Juliana Rojas) premiered in Un Certain Regard at Cannes and finally reached theatrical release in the Us several months ago courtesy of Kino Lorber. Since then, he directed the solo feature Era el Cielo (When I Was Alive), and will be ready with his third film, It Was Heaven in 2016. Dutra directs from a script co-authored by Hard Labor writer Caetano Gotardo and the team behind Xxy (2007), Sergio Bizzio and Argentinean director Lucia Puenzo. His first Spanish language production concerns “questioning masculinity roles, sexuality, and barriers of intimacy,” in a narrative about a man who comes home to see his wife violated by two strangers. Paralyzed, he doesn’t come to her rescue and she doesn’t realize he’s witnessed the attack. She...
- 1/8/2016
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Exclusive: Argentinean TV drama Cromo, playing in Toronto’s first TV strand, is being developed into a feature film after Pyramide International acquired the sales rights.
The eco-thriller, produced by Xxy filmmaker Lucía Puenzo, was originally produced as a 12-part series – three of which are showing at the Toronto International Film Festival (Sept 10-20) in its new Primetime strand.
But Puenzo and her brother Nicolás Puenzo are now in talks to adapt it into a feature film after securing a deal with the Paris-based production and distribution house, which will also sell the TV series to international broadcasters.
The drama, directed by Pablo Fendrik (El Ardor), is based on the real stories of a team of scientists that set out to expose environmental crimes in northern Argentina.
It stars Emilia Attia as idealistic scientist Valentina, who travels to the swamp town of Corrientes in northern Argentina to test the local water supply in a bid to expose...
The eco-thriller, produced by Xxy filmmaker Lucía Puenzo, was originally produced as a 12-part series – three of which are showing at the Toronto International Film Festival (Sept 10-20) in its new Primetime strand.
But Puenzo and her brother Nicolás Puenzo are now in talks to adapt it into a feature film after securing a deal with the Paris-based production and distribution house, which will also sell the TV series to international broadcasters.
The drama, directed by Pablo Fendrik (El Ardor), is based on the real stories of a team of scientists that set out to expose environmental crimes in northern Argentina.
It stars Emilia Attia as idealistic scientist Valentina, who travels to the swamp town of Corrientes in northern Argentina to test the local water supply in a bid to expose...
- 9/15/2015
- ScreenDaily
Argentine miniseries from the director of Wakolda screening at Toronto.
Pyramide International has picked up sales on Argentine Lucia Puenzo’s eco-thriller miniseries Cromo ahead of its world premiere in Toronto International Film Festival’s new TV strand Primetime tomorrow (Sept 11).
“We signed it last week after seeing the episodes which will be shown at Toronto. We thought it looked fabulous,” Pyramide chief Eric Lagesse told ScreenDaily.
Episodes one, two and eight will premiere in Tiff’s new Primetime section aimed at cutting-edge projects blurring the boundaries between film and TV.
It is the first time the Paris-based auteur film specialist Pyramide has handled sales on a TV series.
“The wall between cinema and TV is no longer as impermeable as it was in the past,” said Lagesse. “There is still a strong cinematic quality to the look and feel of the series.
“You can tell that it’s made by people with a cinema background who are...
Pyramide International has picked up sales on Argentine Lucia Puenzo’s eco-thriller miniseries Cromo ahead of its world premiere in Toronto International Film Festival’s new TV strand Primetime tomorrow (Sept 11).
“We signed it last week after seeing the episodes which will be shown at Toronto. We thought it looked fabulous,” Pyramide chief Eric Lagesse told ScreenDaily.
Episodes one, two and eight will premiere in Tiff’s new Primetime section aimed at cutting-edge projects blurring the boundaries between film and TV.
It is the first time the Paris-based auteur film specialist Pyramide has handled sales on a TV series.
“The wall between cinema and TV is no longer as impermeable as it was in the past,” said Lagesse. “There is still a strong cinematic quality to the look and feel of the series.
“You can tell that it’s made by people with a cinema background who are...
- 9/10/2015
- ScreenDaily
The rise in critical acclaim for television shows over the years has been well-documented, with a corresponding rise in interest among viewers to discuss and analyse television the way films are at festivals. While festivals dedicated to television shows, such as Atx and PaleyFest, are on the rise, film festivals still outweigh them.
For its 2015 incarnation, however, the Toronto International Film Festival will be doing something unique, beginning a programme dedicated to television. Titled the Primetime Programme, the section of the festival will conduct screenings and Q&A sessions just like the films that play at Tiff, focusing on specific episodes of shows instead. The lineup for the inagural Primetime programme has now been announced, and can be seen below.
Casual Season 1, Episodes 1 and 2, created by Zander Lehmann and directed by Jason Reitman, making its World Premiere
Festival favourite Jason Reitman (Juno, Up in the Air) directs this wonderfully endearing...
For its 2015 incarnation, however, the Toronto International Film Festival will be doing something unique, beginning a programme dedicated to television. Titled the Primetime Programme, the section of the festival will conduct screenings and Q&A sessions just like the films that play at Tiff, focusing on specific episodes of shows instead. The lineup for the inagural Primetime programme has now been announced, and can be seen below.
Casual Season 1, Episodes 1 and 2, created by Zander Lehmann and directed by Jason Reitman, making its World Premiere
Festival favourite Jason Reitman (Juno, Up in the Air) directs this wonderfully endearing...
- 8/14/2015
- by Deepayan Sengupta
- SoundOnSight
Toronto brass on Thursday paid homage to arguably the most dynamic and provocative content format in entertainment, announcing the festival’s inaugural slate of six TV projects from the likes of Baltasar Kormákur, Jason Reitman and Lucía Puenzo.
The selections highlight what Tiff director and CEO Piers Handling called a “cross-pollination” of the film and TV worlds from international storytellers, broadcasters and streaming services.
The six selections appear below. All are world premieres except The Returned, which is an international premiere.
Casual (Us), created by Zander Lehmann and directed by Jason Reitman.
Episodes 1 and 2 of the comedy from Hulu and Lionsgate that follows a dating site entrepreneur and his therapist sister who move in together after the latter’s recent divorce.
Starring Tommy Dewey, Michaela Watkins and Tara Lynne Barr.
Cromo (Argentina), created by Lucía Puenzo and Nicolás Puenzo.
Episodes 1, 2 and 8 of the eco-thriller from directors Lucía Puenzo (Xxy, Wakolda), Pablo Fendrik (Blood Appears, El Ardor) and Nicolás Puenzo...
The selections highlight what Tiff director and CEO Piers Handling called a “cross-pollination” of the film and TV worlds from international storytellers, broadcasters and streaming services.
The six selections appear below. All are world premieres except The Returned, which is an international premiere.
Casual (Us), created by Zander Lehmann and directed by Jason Reitman.
Episodes 1 and 2 of the comedy from Hulu and Lionsgate that follows a dating site entrepreneur and his therapist sister who move in together after the latter’s recent divorce.
Starring Tommy Dewey, Michaela Watkins and Tara Lynne Barr.
Cromo (Argentina), created by Lucía Puenzo and Nicolás Puenzo.
Episodes 1, 2 and 8 of the eco-thriller from directors Lucía Puenzo (Xxy, Wakolda), Pablo Fendrik (Blood Appears, El Ardor) and Nicolás Puenzo...
- 8/13/2015
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
Toronto brass on Thursday paid homage to arguably the most dynamic and provocative content format in entertainment, announcing the festival’s inaugural slate of six TV projects from the likes of Baltasar Kormákur, Jason Reitman and Lucía Puenzo.
The selections highlight what Tiff director and CEO Piers Handling called a “cross-pollination” of the film and TV worlds from international storytellers, broadcasters and streaming services.
The six selections appear below. All are world premieres except The Returned, which is an international premiere.
Casual (Us), created by Zander Lehmann and directed by Jason Reitman.
Episodes 1 and 2 of the comedy from Hulu and Lionsgate that follows a dating site entrepreneur and his therapist sister who move in together after the latter’s recent divorce.
Starring Tommy Dewey, Michaela Watkins and Tara Lynne Barr.
Cromo (Argentina), created by Lucía Puenzo and Nicolás Puenzo.
Episodes 1, 2 and 8 of the eco-thriller from directors Lucía Puenzo (Xxy, Wakolda), Pablo Fendrik (Blood Appears, El Ardor) and Nicolás Puenzo...
The selections highlight what Tiff director and CEO Piers Handling called a “cross-pollination” of the film and TV worlds from international storytellers, broadcasters and streaming services.
The six selections appear below. All are world premieres except The Returned, which is an international premiere.
Casual (Us), created by Zander Lehmann and directed by Jason Reitman.
Episodes 1 and 2 of the comedy from Hulu and Lionsgate that follows a dating site entrepreneur and his therapist sister who move in together after the latter’s recent divorce.
Starring Tommy Dewey, Michaela Watkins and Tara Lynne Barr.
Cromo (Argentina), created by Lucía Puenzo and Nicolás Puenzo.
Episodes 1, 2 and 8 of the eco-thriller from directors Lucía Puenzo (Xxy, Wakolda), Pablo Fendrik (Blood Appears, El Ardor) and Nicolás Puenzo...
- 8/13/2015
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
Tangerine
Directed by Sean Baker
Written by Sean Baker and Chris Bergoch
USA, 2015
Director Sean Baker (Starlet, Prince of Broadway, Take Out) was reportedly inspired to make Tangerine, after observing the customers of a donut shop in Hollywood’s red-light district. Tangerine’s stars are a pair of first-time actresses, Kitana Kiki Rodriguez and Mya Taylor. They play two trans sex workers – Sin-Dee, who’s just been released from a 28-day stint in prison for drug possession – and her best friend Alexandra who prepares for a gig singing at a local nightclub. The film follows the duo over the course of a day – opening on a donut shop which serves as one of the key locations the two transitioning male-to-female call girls hang out. It’s the morning of Christmas Eve at the sketchy intersection of Santa Monica and Highland in Los Angeles and Alexandra and Sin-Dee are sharing a red-and-green sprinkled donut.
Directed by Sean Baker
Written by Sean Baker and Chris Bergoch
USA, 2015
Director Sean Baker (Starlet, Prince of Broadway, Take Out) was reportedly inspired to make Tangerine, after observing the customers of a donut shop in Hollywood’s red-light district. Tangerine’s stars are a pair of first-time actresses, Kitana Kiki Rodriguez and Mya Taylor. They play two trans sex workers – Sin-Dee, who’s just been released from a 28-day stint in prison for drug possession – and her best friend Alexandra who prepares for a gig singing at a local nightclub. The film follows the duo over the course of a day – opening on a donut shop which serves as one of the key locations the two transitioning male-to-female call girls hang out. It’s the morning of Christmas Eve at the sketchy intersection of Santa Monica and Highland in Los Angeles and Alexandra and Sin-Dee are sharing a red-and-green sprinkled donut.
- 7/16/2015
- by Ricky
- SoundOnSight
In many territories, Lucía Puenzo’s third feature film – to follow the critically acclaimed Xxy and The Fish Child – actually goes by the name of ‘The German Doctor’. Here, in the UK, it’s called Wakolda, which represents a more fitting, symbolic title to truly capture the essence of this moving, disquieting drama. Wakolda is the name of our 12 year old protagonist’s doll, and is therefore emblematic of her innocence, which is far more poignant. After all, this picture is not about the doctor, as such, but his relationship with the young Lilith, finding a strand of intimacy amidst an otherwise comprehensive, implicative narrative.
Lilith is played by the newcomer Florencia Bado, who is remarkably small for her age, and is often the victim of much teasing at school as a result. However there appears to be a cure for her lack of growth, as a local German doctor...
Lilith is played by the newcomer Florencia Bado, who is remarkably small for her age, and is often the victim of much teasing at school as a result. However there appears to be a cure for her lack of growth, as a local German doctor...
- 8/7/2014
- by Stefan Pape
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
"The Rover," the Australian dystopian crime drama from director David Michod ("Animal Kingdom") is a fascinating cross between a western and neo-noir. And the pairing of Guy Pearce and Robert Pattinson is an intense psychological study of abuser and enabler. For Argentinian cinematographer Natasha Braier ("The Milk of Sorrow," "Xxy"), this is a breakthrough movie. Shot on film in the hot outback, she helps convey a hostile environment where survival has put humanity on hold. "There's something really interesting in this world -- a clear sense of atmosphere and mood," explains Braier, whose 2012 Olympics short, "Swimmer," caught the director's eye. "The purpose of every scene is not always apparent. David and I had a lot of interesting conversations about his whole creative process. Why everything is there and what he wants to say. I tried this game of trying to have David define a scene with a sentence or a paragraph and sometimes he didn't.
- 6/13/2014
- by Bill Desowitz
- Thompson on Hollywood
Of the films I have seen thus far of the submissions for Academy Award Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, the German film Two Lives and the Argentinean Wakolda whose English title is The German Doctor are the most complex. They are both cross cultural and multilayered.
The Samuel Goldwyn Company was very brave to take U.S. rights to The German Doctor, which deals with Argentinean complicity with the Nazis in a way no one has ever shown before as was the film’s director Lucia Puenzo. The literal ambiguity of director Lucia Puenzo’s earlier debut feature, Xxy, is in this case taken up a notch to a level of moral ambiguity. In this new film the child and her mother are both enchanted by the German Doctor until they understand his complete obsession with something more evil than good.
As in Two Lives, the moral ambiguity that life forces its characters to live is a difficult philosophical subject to convey to the audience. It is discomfiting even as the audience wants to find out what will happen next. Why I mention both of them is that one, they both concern Germany which still today bears witness to a complex and ambiguous state of affairs as it pursues economic policies which are being weighed with two sets of moral measurement and two, they are both submissions of their countries for the AMPAS Oscar race for Best Foreign Language Film Nomination.
But more about Two Lives later.
Firstly, now we will discuss Wakolda, or as it is called in English, The German Doctor which is screening here in Havana where I am writing this.
Lucia Puenzo has directed three films and written five books. Her debut feature, Xxy, which premiered in Cannes Critic’s Week in 2007 was also sold by Pyramide. The Fish Child (2009) premiered at the Berlin Film Festival. Wakolda (2013), is based on her own novel and is her third feature. It continues the themes of sexual identity and duality of the previous two films, exacerbated this time in the relationship of mutual fascination maintained by its protagonists: a girl and German doctor who in 1960 makes her the subject of one of his experiments.
Patagonia, 1960. A German physician meets an Argentinean family and follows them on the long desert road to Bariloche where Eva, Enzo and their three children are going to open a lodge by the Nahuel Huapi Lake. Eva grew up in this German populated town in Argentina with her German family who ran the lodge as a sort of bed and breakfast and she and her husband Enzo are considering making it into a B&B again. This model family reawakens his obsession with purity and perfection, in particular Lilith, a 12 year-old with a body too small for her age.
Unaware of his true identity, they accept the German physician as their first guest. They are all gradually won over by this charismatic man, by his elegant manners, his scientific knowledge and his money, until they discover they are living with one of history’s most abominable criminals.
The film was based on the fifth novel of Lucia Puenza and was written about a year and a half after the novel. Lucia is quoted in Fandor as saying,
“Wakolda fue primero una novela, mi última novela, que escribí un año y medio antes de empezar el guión, y no estaba destinada a ser una película. !Se trataba de un alemán que se escapaba de algo, y mientras escribía se fue transformando en Mengele y en todo ese universo del Angel de la Muerte que trae encima. Yo escucho hablar de él y de muchas otras historias de tantos jerarcas nazis que se evaporaron en nuestro país desde que tengo 15 años, ese tema me horrorizó y me fascinó al mismo tiempo.”
“Wakolda was first a novel, my last novel, which I wrote a year and a half before starting the script, and it was not meant to be a movie. It was about a German who was running away from something. While I was writing, the German became transformed into Mengele and all that is encompassed in the universe of The Angel of Death. I had heard about him and many many other stories of the disappeared Nazis in our country since I was 15 years, I was appalled by the subject and I was fascinated at the same time.”
Historias Cinematographica, the production company of director-producer, Luis Puenzo (Official Story) and the father of Lucia Puenzo is one of Latin America’s busiest film production forces with a slate of five films per year. Here are The German Doctor’s links on IMDbPro and on Cinando.
Historias Cinematographica structured Wakolda as a Spain-France-Norwegian co-production with Argentina. Shot in Spanish and German, Wakolda is Lucia Puenzo’s biggest film to date, given its period setting and her interests as an increasingly mature director. The cinematography is by family member Nicolas Puenzo.
The film was supported by Incaa, Icaa, Aide aux Cinémas du monde, Centre National du Cinéma et de L´image animée, Ministère des Affaires Étrangères (France), Institut Français, Sørfond Norwegian South Film Fund, Programa Ibermedia, and Tve.
Its French coproducer, Pyramide of France, is also the international sales agent. Wanda Vision of Spain is also its Spanish distributor, and Hummelfilm (Gudney Hummelvoll) of Norway came on board as part of the Sorfond Norwegian South Film Fund’s €100,000 grant’s requisite; Stan Jakubowicz, a Venezuelan producer, came in early. Televisión Federal (Telefe) is a co-producer as are Moviecity/ Laptv - Latin American Pay Television, Distribution Company Sudamericana who is the Argentinean distributor as well. It was made in association with P&P Endemol Argentina and Cine.Ar. As a footnote, the ad budget invested by Telefe in its TV campaign was exceptionally large: 893 TV spots broadcast in ten markets in a five weeks span.
When the script was ready, Luis and Lucia Puenzo went to the Berlinale Co-Production Market in February 2011 looking for co-producers and financing.
The eighth Berlinale Co-Production Market (February 13 - 15, 2011) successfully brought the producers and directors of 38 selected film projects from 25 countries together with 450 potential co-production and financial partners. For each of these projects, the Berlinale Co-Production Market’s team arranged numerous thirty-minute one-on-one meetings with interested potential partners. Over 1000 meetings in two days were scheduled based on the needs of the projects and the individual requests of the participants. Meetings were in high demand, and some projects received up to about 80 meeting requests by participants looking for projects.
Among the Official Project Selection were projects by well-known, award-winning directors such as Lucía Puenzo (Xxy and recently The Fish Child- Panorama 2009), Eran Riklis (The Syrian Bride, Lemon Tree), Urszula Antoniak (Nothing Personal) and Seyfi Teoman, whose film Bizim Büyük Çaresizliğimiz (Our Grand Despair) screened in this year’s (2013) Competition.
They applied for Sørfond Norwegian South Film Fund 2012, the Norwegian Film Fund for developing countries where such production is limited by political or economic causes which brought them to their coproducer, Himmelfilm of Norway.
They also received financing from Aide aux Cinemas du Monde 2012, and Programa Ibermedia 2012.
Pyramide of France and Wanda Vision of Spain came on board after Cannes announced its inclusion in Un Certain Regard. Stan Jakubowicz, a Venezuelan producer had been on board earlier.
5 March 2011- Pre-production 12 July 2012 - Filming 17 August 2012 - Post-production 28 April 2013 - Completed 21 May 2013 - Premiered in Cannes Film Festival.
Wakolda rights sold
The film premiered at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard section in May of 2013. It won the Audience Award at St. Peterberg Film Festival and at 2nd Unasur Cine International Film Festival it won awards for Best Feature, Best Director, Best Actress and Best New Actress. It went on to play September 2013 at San Sebastian Film Festival’s Horizontos Latinos section and amid growing speculation that the title would be Argentina’s submission for the foreign language Oscar this year (and it has been so submitted!). Its Isa (international sales agent) and coproducer, Pyramide International continued to make sales to Samuel Goldwyn Films for U.S., in Central and Southern America including to: Argentina (Distribution Company), Australia (Madman Entertainment), Brazil (Imovision and Reserva Nacional Distribuidora De Filmes), Bolivia and Chile (Los filmes De La Arcadia), Colombia (Cine Colombia), the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico (Wiesner Distribution), France - Pyramide Distribution, Greece - Videorama Films, Hungary – Vertigo, , Italy – Academy Two, Peru (Pucp) and Panama and Costa Rica (Palmera International). Spain sold to Nirvana, Switzerland Xenix Filmdistribution Gmbh, Taiwan Swallow Wings Films, Turkey – Medyavizyon, U.K. Peccadillo Pictures, U.S. – Samuel Goldwyn Films. Sarajevo’s Obala Art Centar - Sarajevo Film Festival has acquired the picture for multiple territories including Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia and Montenegro. The film has also sold to Poland (Hagi), Israel (Nachshon Films Ltd) and South Korea (Company L) since Cannes. Laptv has Latin American TV rights.
It will continue to play the festival circuit worldwide until its theatrical and commercial release in 30 + countries.
You can read a review in Screen International: The German Doctor (Wakolda)
Update information as of November 1, 2013:
Wakolda will reach 400,000 spectators by its fifth week on screen, and still has 75 screens. It has maintained an average of almost 100,000 spectators per week. It has been selected by over 50% of the Academy members as the Argentinean submission for both the Oscar and the Goya Awards.
It is important to consider its release was much smaller (72 screens) than films like Séptimo, Corazón de León and Metegol (which released with Disney with 250 screens aprox). Septimo was released by 20th Century Fox, Corazon de León was released by Disney, Metegol by Universal. Wakolda´s average of spectators per copy was higher than all these other films, which allowed distribution to add screens the 2nd week, reaching 85 screens.
It has been sold by Pyramide Films to over 20 territories. In the last weeks, it has been released in Spain (with 40 copies, excellent reviews and an average of over 1,500 euros per copy) and will be released in France with 60 copies, 8 in Paris, on the 6th of November. And in Russia with 40 copies. Until the end of the year it will be released in 15 countries (we can send you detailed territories and companies who bought the rights if needed).
In the U.S., the rights were acquired in Cannes by Samuel Goldwyn Films.
The novel upon which Wakolda is based has also been translated to over fifteen languages. In Germany the novel has been edited by Wagenbach and reedited due to its good sales.
In the last weeks the films was won Awards in Argentina, St. Petersburg, República Dominicana and Tokyo.
It is worth noting that Wakolda was distributed in Argentina by an independent (Bernardo Zupnick’s Distribution Company) while every other successful local film has been distributed by a studio
The German Doctor (Wakolda) Opens in L.A. and N.Y. on April 25th...
The Samuel Goldwyn Company was very brave to take U.S. rights to The German Doctor, which deals with Argentinean complicity with the Nazis in a way no one has ever shown before as was the film’s director Lucia Puenzo. The literal ambiguity of director Lucia Puenzo’s earlier debut feature, Xxy, is in this case taken up a notch to a level of moral ambiguity. In this new film the child and her mother are both enchanted by the German Doctor until they understand his complete obsession with something more evil than good.
As in Two Lives, the moral ambiguity that life forces its characters to live is a difficult philosophical subject to convey to the audience. It is discomfiting even as the audience wants to find out what will happen next. Why I mention both of them is that one, they both concern Germany which still today bears witness to a complex and ambiguous state of affairs as it pursues economic policies which are being weighed with two sets of moral measurement and two, they are both submissions of their countries for the AMPAS Oscar race for Best Foreign Language Film Nomination.
But more about Two Lives later.
Firstly, now we will discuss Wakolda, or as it is called in English, The German Doctor which is screening here in Havana where I am writing this.
Lucia Puenzo has directed three films and written five books. Her debut feature, Xxy, which premiered in Cannes Critic’s Week in 2007 was also sold by Pyramide. The Fish Child (2009) premiered at the Berlin Film Festival. Wakolda (2013), is based on her own novel and is her third feature. It continues the themes of sexual identity and duality of the previous two films, exacerbated this time in the relationship of mutual fascination maintained by its protagonists: a girl and German doctor who in 1960 makes her the subject of one of his experiments.
Patagonia, 1960. A German physician meets an Argentinean family and follows them on the long desert road to Bariloche where Eva, Enzo and their three children are going to open a lodge by the Nahuel Huapi Lake. Eva grew up in this German populated town in Argentina with her German family who ran the lodge as a sort of bed and breakfast and she and her husband Enzo are considering making it into a B&B again. This model family reawakens his obsession with purity and perfection, in particular Lilith, a 12 year-old with a body too small for her age.
Unaware of his true identity, they accept the German physician as their first guest. They are all gradually won over by this charismatic man, by his elegant manners, his scientific knowledge and his money, until they discover they are living with one of history’s most abominable criminals.
The film was based on the fifth novel of Lucia Puenza and was written about a year and a half after the novel. Lucia is quoted in Fandor as saying,
“Wakolda fue primero una novela, mi última novela, que escribí un año y medio antes de empezar el guión, y no estaba destinada a ser una película. !Se trataba de un alemán que se escapaba de algo, y mientras escribía se fue transformando en Mengele y en todo ese universo del Angel de la Muerte que trae encima. Yo escucho hablar de él y de muchas otras historias de tantos jerarcas nazis que se evaporaron en nuestro país desde que tengo 15 años, ese tema me horrorizó y me fascinó al mismo tiempo.”
“Wakolda was first a novel, my last novel, which I wrote a year and a half before starting the script, and it was not meant to be a movie. It was about a German who was running away from something. While I was writing, the German became transformed into Mengele and all that is encompassed in the universe of The Angel of Death. I had heard about him and many many other stories of the disappeared Nazis in our country since I was 15 years, I was appalled by the subject and I was fascinated at the same time.”
Historias Cinematographica, the production company of director-producer, Luis Puenzo (Official Story) and the father of Lucia Puenzo is one of Latin America’s busiest film production forces with a slate of five films per year. Here are The German Doctor’s links on IMDbPro and on Cinando.
Historias Cinematographica structured Wakolda as a Spain-France-Norwegian co-production with Argentina. Shot in Spanish and German, Wakolda is Lucia Puenzo’s biggest film to date, given its period setting and her interests as an increasingly mature director. The cinematography is by family member Nicolas Puenzo.
The film was supported by Incaa, Icaa, Aide aux Cinémas du monde, Centre National du Cinéma et de L´image animée, Ministère des Affaires Étrangères (France), Institut Français, Sørfond Norwegian South Film Fund, Programa Ibermedia, and Tve.
Its French coproducer, Pyramide of France, is also the international sales agent. Wanda Vision of Spain is also its Spanish distributor, and Hummelfilm (Gudney Hummelvoll) of Norway came on board as part of the Sorfond Norwegian South Film Fund’s €100,000 grant’s requisite; Stan Jakubowicz, a Venezuelan producer, came in early. Televisión Federal (Telefe) is a co-producer as are Moviecity/ Laptv - Latin American Pay Television, Distribution Company Sudamericana who is the Argentinean distributor as well. It was made in association with P&P Endemol Argentina and Cine.Ar. As a footnote, the ad budget invested by Telefe in its TV campaign was exceptionally large: 893 TV spots broadcast in ten markets in a five weeks span.
When the script was ready, Luis and Lucia Puenzo went to the Berlinale Co-Production Market in February 2011 looking for co-producers and financing.
The eighth Berlinale Co-Production Market (February 13 - 15, 2011) successfully brought the producers and directors of 38 selected film projects from 25 countries together with 450 potential co-production and financial partners. For each of these projects, the Berlinale Co-Production Market’s team arranged numerous thirty-minute one-on-one meetings with interested potential partners. Over 1000 meetings in two days were scheduled based on the needs of the projects and the individual requests of the participants. Meetings were in high demand, and some projects received up to about 80 meeting requests by participants looking for projects.
Among the Official Project Selection were projects by well-known, award-winning directors such as Lucía Puenzo (Xxy and recently The Fish Child- Panorama 2009), Eran Riklis (The Syrian Bride, Lemon Tree), Urszula Antoniak (Nothing Personal) and Seyfi Teoman, whose film Bizim Büyük Çaresizliğimiz (Our Grand Despair) screened in this year’s (2013) Competition.
They applied for Sørfond Norwegian South Film Fund 2012, the Norwegian Film Fund for developing countries where such production is limited by political or economic causes which brought them to their coproducer, Himmelfilm of Norway.
They also received financing from Aide aux Cinemas du Monde 2012, and Programa Ibermedia 2012.
Pyramide of France and Wanda Vision of Spain came on board after Cannes announced its inclusion in Un Certain Regard. Stan Jakubowicz, a Venezuelan producer had been on board earlier.
5 March 2011- Pre-production 12 July 2012 - Filming 17 August 2012 - Post-production 28 April 2013 - Completed 21 May 2013 - Premiered in Cannes Film Festival.
Wakolda rights sold
The film premiered at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard section in May of 2013. It won the Audience Award at St. Peterberg Film Festival and at 2nd Unasur Cine International Film Festival it won awards for Best Feature, Best Director, Best Actress and Best New Actress. It went on to play September 2013 at San Sebastian Film Festival’s Horizontos Latinos section and amid growing speculation that the title would be Argentina’s submission for the foreign language Oscar this year (and it has been so submitted!). Its Isa (international sales agent) and coproducer, Pyramide International continued to make sales to Samuel Goldwyn Films for U.S., in Central and Southern America including to: Argentina (Distribution Company), Australia (Madman Entertainment), Brazil (Imovision and Reserva Nacional Distribuidora De Filmes), Bolivia and Chile (Los filmes De La Arcadia), Colombia (Cine Colombia), the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico (Wiesner Distribution), France - Pyramide Distribution, Greece - Videorama Films, Hungary – Vertigo, , Italy – Academy Two, Peru (Pucp) and Panama and Costa Rica (Palmera International). Spain sold to Nirvana, Switzerland Xenix Filmdistribution Gmbh, Taiwan Swallow Wings Films, Turkey – Medyavizyon, U.K. Peccadillo Pictures, U.S. – Samuel Goldwyn Films. Sarajevo’s Obala Art Centar - Sarajevo Film Festival has acquired the picture for multiple territories including Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia and Montenegro. The film has also sold to Poland (Hagi), Israel (Nachshon Films Ltd) and South Korea (Company L) since Cannes. Laptv has Latin American TV rights.
It will continue to play the festival circuit worldwide until its theatrical and commercial release in 30 + countries.
You can read a review in Screen International: The German Doctor (Wakolda)
Update information as of November 1, 2013:
Wakolda will reach 400,000 spectators by its fifth week on screen, and still has 75 screens. It has maintained an average of almost 100,000 spectators per week. It has been selected by over 50% of the Academy members as the Argentinean submission for both the Oscar and the Goya Awards.
It is important to consider its release was much smaller (72 screens) than films like Séptimo, Corazón de León and Metegol (which released with Disney with 250 screens aprox). Septimo was released by 20th Century Fox, Corazon de León was released by Disney, Metegol by Universal. Wakolda´s average of spectators per copy was higher than all these other films, which allowed distribution to add screens the 2nd week, reaching 85 screens.
It has been sold by Pyramide Films to over 20 territories. In the last weeks, it has been released in Spain (with 40 copies, excellent reviews and an average of over 1,500 euros per copy) and will be released in France with 60 copies, 8 in Paris, on the 6th of November. And in Russia with 40 copies. Until the end of the year it will be released in 15 countries (we can send you detailed territories and companies who bought the rights if needed).
In the U.S., the rights were acquired in Cannes by Samuel Goldwyn Films.
The novel upon which Wakolda is based has also been translated to over fifteen languages. In Germany the novel has been edited by Wagenbach and reedited due to its good sales.
In the last weeks the films was won Awards in Argentina, St. Petersburg, República Dominicana and Tokyo.
It is worth noting that Wakolda was distributed in Argentina by an independent (Bernardo Zupnick’s Distribution Company) while every other successful local film has been distributed by a studio
The German Doctor (Wakolda) Opens in L.A. and N.Y. on April 25th...
- 4/25/2014
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Fictionalized history in any artistic expression differs from the theories created by revisionists to carve out a narrative that fits their beliefs. Cinematic reinterpretations often, as they should, focus on the characters’ human condition, those emotions or personal plights that never make it to the history books. Audiences and artists are fascinated with the intrigues, romances, and other dramatic situations involving important figures. Despite their unique lives, they are humans beings subjected to the same fears and hopes that everyone else, the historical background just adds to the allure. In these terms is how Argentine director Lucía Puenzo approached her story about a real-life villain and his interactions with the world. Based on the myths and speculation surrounding notorious Nazi physician Josef Mengele, The German Doctor aims to put a face to his evil not in a simplistic manner but with all the complexities that form part of a multifaceted identity. Puenzo shared with us her motivation to write the novel that would turn into this film, the role history played in her creative process, and her opinion on why the myth of a disturbed Nazi doctor is still powerful today.
Read the review Here
Read the Case Study on the film by Sydney Levine
Carlos Aguilar: This story, The German Doctor, existed first as a novel you wrote, and not it is your film. What was the central idea that interested you?
Lucia Puenzo: The novel emerged first as a tale of a family that crossed paths in the desert route with this German man. From the beginning, what interested me this family and the protagonist, the teenage girl, more than Mengele. He is such a powerful character historically, as powerful as Nazism itself, so these subjects always tend to be the protagonists. What I think is that despite this historical references, Wakolda or The German Doctor is a very intimate story. It is the story of a teenage girl and the way she falls in love with a monster. It is the story of a hunt and of a seduction.
Aguilar: What kind of research was involved to develop this novel that needs great historical context?
Lucia: There was a lot of research, years even. It took a year and a half to write the novel, but the research wasn’t the initial thing that occurred to me. In general, even if I’m dealing with a historical subject, I begin with invention rather than investigation, because I need to understand what is going to be the voice or the tone of the story. Whose point of view is it? Who is telling it?“ How is this character telling it? Therefore, I started writing before doing any research to understand the tone of the novel. It was a novel that needed all this information that I started gathering. While I was writing I was reading books on the subjects, meeting with documentarians and historians, all of who provided me with an immense amount of facts that ended up in the novel and eventually the film. An example is the inclusion of Nora Eldoc, the volunteer for the Mossad.
Aguilar: Did you know you wanted to turn this story into a film from the moment you started writing the novel?
Puenzo: At first I didn’t think about it at all, I didn’t write the novel thinking it would become a film. In the case of my second film The Fish Child (El Niño Pez), I had written the novel about 5 years before I made into a film. In the case of The German Doctor I had published the novel a year before I started writing the script, I even had another project to shoot. But I had this idea of the powerful cinematic language from the novel that I couldn’t let go of. When I started writing the script I thought that maybe someone else would direct it, but then I started to fall for it so much that I left the other project and I put all my time on The German Doctor.
Aguilar: It seems as if the chapter in history about the Nazis escaping to South America is often forgotten, or not amply discussed. Were you trying to revisit these events after the war?
Puenzo: Much more than trying to focus on the battlefield of the war, it was the central place that German doctors occupied within Nazism, the omnipotent and insane idea of wanting to generically modify an entire nation. This idea was not on the outskirts of Nazi ideology, it was the heart of movement, that’s what intrigued me. Mengele is the most extreme expression of this idea.
Aguilar: There is a fantastic analogy your film makes between the mass production f porcelain dolls and Mengele’s deranged plans. Did this come from any historical material or was it completely fictional?
Puenzo: That was one of those facts that emerged while I was doing my research. I was reading books about the Nazi presence not only in Argentina, but all over Latin America, and time and after time this information would come up. Mengele had something to do with these types of dolls, the stories say that he made them and gave them away to his friends as symbols of Nazism in exile. They also say this maybe was because he worked at a toy store. There were many of these stories. When I would ask different historians about these, all of them said that it is all part of a myth. There was a myth circulating among many historians that assured them this really happened. However, this is just a myth, no one will ever know for certain, no one ever saw those dolls with certainty, there are no photographs. For me, just the fact that this story exists is such a vicious and poisonous idea. To think he kept on trying to manipulate other bodies is disturbing, so much that I included in the novel and then in the film.
Aguilar: You seem to be attacked to stories about human physiology, not only here, but also with your previous film Xxy, about a hermaphrodite finding her physical and emotional identity.
Puenzo: Evidently this does attract me, if I said no it would be incongruent with the films I’m making [Laughs]. But it is not something I decide consciously. When I wrote Wakolda at first I wasn’t conscious that I was writing about something so close to or that had so many similar elements with Xxy. It was just after I was done writing that I noticed it. I think both teenagers in each film have many similarities, and Mengele is the extreme version of the plastic surgeon in Xxy. Both stories definitely have several ideas connecting them.
Aguilar: You mention that one the ideas that intrigued the most was the family’s vulnerability in particular the parents. Why is that?
Puenzo: The parents intrigued me in a very special way. They remind me of films like Sophie's Choice, how does someone react while having to make such a terrible decision: having a monster in front of you proposing something revolting, but that at the same time it could save your child. The parents in my film had very different perspectives. The mother comes from German parents, and although she doesn’t have an openly Nazi ideology, she was raised in that environment and she ends up trusting this man [Mengele], more than her husband. He is suspicious of the doctor’s motives because he belongs to a different world.
Aguilar: How difficult was it to find the perfect actor to bring Mengele to life and to an extent humanize him?
Puenzo: The casting process was extremely difficult. It was a character that needed the actor to speak Spanish and German, look alike physically, be able to act the part, and it had to be someone we could pay for. Our film required someone that would support the project fully and beyond the financial aspects. Àlex Brendemühl did it with much excitement. I sent him a picture of Mengele, then I called him and I told him they really looked alike and that he had to play this character. He immediately agreed. It was clear from the novel, and now in the film, that we didn’t want to fall in the stereotype of a “simply evil” character. We didn’t want a villain that you can see coming from miles away because he has written on his forehead how bad he is. It wasn’t the case here, because these men were very complex. They were psychopaths that camouflaged and penetrated our societies like in The Plague by Albert Camus, they were in every corner but no one noticed them.
Aguilar: Despite being a film set against the backdrop of important historical events, it still feels very engaging in an intimate way. How has the film been received by audiences?
Puenzo: Absolutely, I think that even though The German Doctor (Wakolda) is placed in a historical context like this, it is a very intimate story. It is basically four characters inside a hotel. That’s how the story is resolved, that’s how the story was conceived, and that was what grabbed me, more than the historical context. The film has been extremely well received around the world. It keeps on going around, opening in different markets, and connecting with the audience. In Argentina it was seen by over 450, 000 spectators, which is way more than anything we could have imagined. It also connected with very young audiences as well, teenagers and people in their 20s, which we also didn’t expect.
Aguilar: When we published our review for the film back when it was in contention for the Academy Award nomination, we received a couple of comments by people claiming that Mengele was still alive hiding somewhere, their claims seems very vivid, but of course surreal. Why do you think these fantastical stories exist?
Puenzo: This is a character that lived 30 years running away from the Mossad, which was always hot on his heels in Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil. They never captured him, and he probably died without ever being found, this lends itself for these kinds of conspiracy theories and myths. We can only hope that he died in a prison like many other Nazis that were extradited, and not at the beach in Brazil. He is a character that lends itself to these intriguing stories because they never found him.
Aguilar: The original title of the film is Wakolda, which if I’m not mistaken comes from the indigenous people of the region, how does it relate to the story?
Puenzo. Yes, it’s a Mapuche name. The Mapuche are our indigenous people from the south, the Patagonia. They are a vey wise and luminous ancient cavitation, which is completely opposite to where Nazism was headed. In the novel, the theme of racial purity and the Nazi obsession with it was much more developed.
Aguilar: How did you work with you young actress, Florencia Bado, who played Lilith, given that this is a rather dark tale in which a strange bond between her and the doctor is formed?
Puenzo: We took very good care of her. She was 12 years old when we shot the film, this is her first movie, and she had never even taken an acting class. María Laura Berch, our casting director, and I, we understood that she needed to be taken care of. She didn’t read the script, her parents read it and agreed for her to be in the film. We told her little by little what the story was about. We made sure that she was comfortable and reassure her that we would take care of her. It was a very happy shoot; we went to film on location in Bariloche. We all stayed together in the same hotel where we filmed.
Aguilar: Luis Puenzo, your father, who won the Academy Award for his film The Official Story, how has he influenced your career as a filmmaker?
Puenzo: I’m completely surrounded, not only my father, but also my three brothers, and Sergio, my husband, all four of them work in film. Some are writers, or directors, or cinematographers, all of them. I’m surrounded by men that make films, so much that at some point I felt there was no more room in the family for another filmmaker. For many years I was only working as novelist or writing screenplays for others to direct. In terms of my father, if you have 4 children that work in film, then there certainly was a happy, positive influence from him because none us became an accountant. [Laughs].
The German Doctor opens in L.A. and New York on April 25th, 2014...
Read the review Here
Read the Case Study on the film by Sydney Levine
Carlos Aguilar: This story, The German Doctor, existed first as a novel you wrote, and not it is your film. What was the central idea that interested you?
Lucia Puenzo: The novel emerged first as a tale of a family that crossed paths in the desert route with this German man. From the beginning, what interested me this family and the protagonist, the teenage girl, more than Mengele. He is such a powerful character historically, as powerful as Nazism itself, so these subjects always tend to be the protagonists. What I think is that despite this historical references, Wakolda or The German Doctor is a very intimate story. It is the story of a teenage girl and the way she falls in love with a monster. It is the story of a hunt and of a seduction.
Aguilar: What kind of research was involved to develop this novel that needs great historical context?
Lucia: There was a lot of research, years even. It took a year and a half to write the novel, but the research wasn’t the initial thing that occurred to me. In general, even if I’m dealing with a historical subject, I begin with invention rather than investigation, because I need to understand what is going to be the voice or the tone of the story. Whose point of view is it? Who is telling it?“ How is this character telling it? Therefore, I started writing before doing any research to understand the tone of the novel. It was a novel that needed all this information that I started gathering. While I was writing I was reading books on the subjects, meeting with documentarians and historians, all of who provided me with an immense amount of facts that ended up in the novel and eventually the film. An example is the inclusion of Nora Eldoc, the volunteer for the Mossad.
Aguilar: Did you know you wanted to turn this story into a film from the moment you started writing the novel?
Puenzo: At first I didn’t think about it at all, I didn’t write the novel thinking it would become a film. In the case of my second film The Fish Child (El Niño Pez), I had written the novel about 5 years before I made into a film. In the case of The German Doctor I had published the novel a year before I started writing the script, I even had another project to shoot. But I had this idea of the powerful cinematic language from the novel that I couldn’t let go of. When I started writing the script I thought that maybe someone else would direct it, but then I started to fall for it so much that I left the other project and I put all my time on The German Doctor.
Aguilar: It seems as if the chapter in history about the Nazis escaping to South America is often forgotten, or not amply discussed. Were you trying to revisit these events after the war?
Puenzo: Much more than trying to focus on the battlefield of the war, it was the central place that German doctors occupied within Nazism, the omnipotent and insane idea of wanting to generically modify an entire nation. This idea was not on the outskirts of Nazi ideology, it was the heart of movement, that’s what intrigued me. Mengele is the most extreme expression of this idea.
Aguilar: There is a fantastic analogy your film makes between the mass production f porcelain dolls and Mengele’s deranged plans. Did this come from any historical material or was it completely fictional?
Puenzo: That was one of those facts that emerged while I was doing my research. I was reading books about the Nazi presence not only in Argentina, but all over Latin America, and time and after time this information would come up. Mengele had something to do with these types of dolls, the stories say that he made them and gave them away to his friends as symbols of Nazism in exile. They also say this maybe was because he worked at a toy store. There were many of these stories. When I would ask different historians about these, all of them said that it is all part of a myth. There was a myth circulating among many historians that assured them this really happened. However, this is just a myth, no one will ever know for certain, no one ever saw those dolls with certainty, there are no photographs. For me, just the fact that this story exists is such a vicious and poisonous idea. To think he kept on trying to manipulate other bodies is disturbing, so much that I included in the novel and then in the film.
Aguilar: You seem to be attacked to stories about human physiology, not only here, but also with your previous film Xxy, about a hermaphrodite finding her physical and emotional identity.
Puenzo: Evidently this does attract me, if I said no it would be incongruent with the films I’m making [Laughs]. But it is not something I decide consciously. When I wrote Wakolda at first I wasn’t conscious that I was writing about something so close to or that had so many similar elements with Xxy. It was just after I was done writing that I noticed it. I think both teenagers in each film have many similarities, and Mengele is the extreme version of the plastic surgeon in Xxy. Both stories definitely have several ideas connecting them.
Aguilar: You mention that one the ideas that intrigued the most was the family’s vulnerability in particular the parents. Why is that?
Puenzo: The parents intrigued me in a very special way. They remind me of films like Sophie's Choice, how does someone react while having to make such a terrible decision: having a monster in front of you proposing something revolting, but that at the same time it could save your child. The parents in my film had very different perspectives. The mother comes from German parents, and although she doesn’t have an openly Nazi ideology, she was raised in that environment and she ends up trusting this man [Mengele], more than her husband. He is suspicious of the doctor’s motives because he belongs to a different world.
Aguilar: How difficult was it to find the perfect actor to bring Mengele to life and to an extent humanize him?
Puenzo: The casting process was extremely difficult. It was a character that needed the actor to speak Spanish and German, look alike physically, be able to act the part, and it had to be someone we could pay for. Our film required someone that would support the project fully and beyond the financial aspects. Àlex Brendemühl did it with much excitement. I sent him a picture of Mengele, then I called him and I told him they really looked alike and that he had to play this character. He immediately agreed. It was clear from the novel, and now in the film, that we didn’t want to fall in the stereotype of a “simply evil” character. We didn’t want a villain that you can see coming from miles away because he has written on his forehead how bad he is. It wasn’t the case here, because these men were very complex. They were psychopaths that camouflaged and penetrated our societies like in The Plague by Albert Camus, they were in every corner but no one noticed them.
Aguilar: Despite being a film set against the backdrop of important historical events, it still feels very engaging in an intimate way. How has the film been received by audiences?
Puenzo: Absolutely, I think that even though The German Doctor (Wakolda) is placed in a historical context like this, it is a very intimate story. It is basically four characters inside a hotel. That’s how the story is resolved, that’s how the story was conceived, and that was what grabbed me, more than the historical context. The film has been extremely well received around the world. It keeps on going around, opening in different markets, and connecting with the audience. In Argentina it was seen by over 450, 000 spectators, which is way more than anything we could have imagined. It also connected with very young audiences as well, teenagers and people in their 20s, which we also didn’t expect.
Aguilar: When we published our review for the film back when it was in contention for the Academy Award nomination, we received a couple of comments by people claiming that Mengele was still alive hiding somewhere, their claims seems very vivid, but of course surreal. Why do you think these fantastical stories exist?
Puenzo: This is a character that lived 30 years running away from the Mossad, which was always hot on his heels in Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil. They never captured him, and he probably died without ever being found, this lends itself for these kinds of conspiracy theories and myths. We can only hope that he died in a prison like many other Nazis that were extradited, and not at the beach in Brazil. He is a character that lends itself to these intriguing stories because they never found him.
Aguilar: The original title of the film is Wakolda, which if I’m not mistaken comes from the indigenous people of the region, how does it relate to the story?
Puenzo. Yes, it’s a Mapuche name. The Mapuche are our indigenous people from the south, the Patagonia. They are a vey wise and luminous ancient cavitation, which is completely opposite to where Nazism was headed. In the novel, the theme of racial purity and the Nazi obsession with it was much more developed.
Aguilar: How did you work with you young actress, Florencia Bado, who played Lilith, given that this is a rather dark tale in which a strange bond between her and the doctor is formed?
Puenzo: We took very good care of her. She was 12 years old when we shot the film, this is her first movie, and she had never even taken an acting class. María Laura Berch, our casting director, and I, we understood that she needed to be taken care of. She didn’t read the script, her parents read it and agreed for her to be in the film. We told her little by little what the story was about. We made sure that she was comfortable and reassure her that we would take care of her. It was a very happy shoot; we went to film on location in Bariloche. We all stayed together in the same hotel where we filmed.
Aguilar: Luis Puenzo, your father, who won the Academy Award for his film The Official Story, how has he influenced your career as a filmmaker?
Puenzo: I’m completely surrounded, not only my father, but also my three brothers, and Sergio, my husband, all four of them work in film. Some are writers, or directors, or cinematographers, all of them. I’m surrounded by men that make films, so much that at some point I felt there was no more room in the family for another filmmaker. For many years I was only working as novelist or writing screenplays for others to direct. In terms of my father, if you have 4 children that work in film, then there certainly was a happy, positive influence from him because none us became an accountant. [Laughs].
The German Doctor opens in L.A. and New York on April 25th, 2014...
- 4/25/2014
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Sydney's Buzz
Samuel Goldwyn Films has acquired all U.S. rights to writer-director Lucía Puenzo’s ("Xxy") "The German Doctor." "The German Doctor" which screened in Un Certain Regard at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival under its Argentinian title "Wakolda," follows Josef Mengele, the “Angel of Death” of the Aushchwitz concentration camp and his years spent hiding in South America following his escape. The German SS officer and physician was considered to be one of WWII’s most heinous Nazi war criminals and it is widely speculated that Mengele continued his human experimentation after he fled Germany and during his years in South America. Goldwyn plans a Spring 2014 release.
- 9/24/2013
- by James Hiler
- Indiewire
Which films will Denmark and Argentina submit for Oscar consideration this year? Both countries have won the Best Foreign Film prize in the recent past and could compete again this year.
Denmark
They've announced their three finalists for Best Foreign Language Film Oscar submission. I think the likeliest of their three finalists is The Hunt, directed by Thomas Vinterberg (A Celebration) which won Mads Mikkelsen Best Actor at Cannes a year plus ago as a teacher under attack due to false allegations from a child. It's currently in release in the States which means it's eligible for the Oscars in general if not for this specific category (which requires official submission... and each country may only choose one film). The major obstacle to its submission might be its lack of newness. It played in Cannes during last year's eligibility period (Oct 11- Sept 12) but not in its home country (making...
Denmark
They've announced their three finalists for Best Foreign Language Film Oscar submission. I think the likeliest of their three finalists is The Hunt, directed by Thomas Vinterberg (A Celebration) which won Mads Mikkelsen Best Actor at Cannes a year plus ago as a teacher under attack due to false allegations from a child. It's currently in release in the States which means it's eligible for the Oscars in general if not for this specific category (which requires official submission... and each country may only choose one film). The major obstacle to its submission might be its lack of newness. It played in Cannes during last year's eligibility period (Oct 11- Sept 12) but not in its home country (making...
- 8/17/2013
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
Latin Americans have an iffy relationship with Spain. We get it, colonialism leaves scars. But, like it or not, they share language, culture, and DNA. They also share a faltering economy (along with the rest of the world). In times like these, when it’s hard for anyone to put together enough money to make a movie, collaboration is key. Spanish and Latin American co-productions are at an all-time high. This in part has led to a resurgence in the amount of movies produced each year in both Spain and Latin America.
Why a co-production?
There are many benefits to collaborating: pooling of financial resources, more options for government incentives and subsidies, better chances at entering each other’s markets, and risk reduction. Particularly in smaller Latin American countries where a weak film industry provides few funding opportunities and finding crews with professional experience is difficult, a co-production with Spain is a no-brainer. But, this is not without controversy.
Spanish Conquistadors or Equal Partners?
There are critics who warn about reproducing dependency on Spain (some dare to use the word neo-colonialism) and reinforcing economic disparities between the two regions. There is also concern about the effect outside sources of funding can have on content. Many wonder how much editorial control comes with allowing Spain to bankroll a project. Despite the criticism and concern Spanish-Latin American co-productions continue to increase and can offer lots of lessons to U.S. producers looking to team up with their southern neighbors.
How does it work?
As a result of the creation of a film institute (the Icaa or Instituto de la Cinematografía y de las Artes Audiovisuales) and policy changes in the eighties, Spain spearheaded a multinational organization called Caaci (La Conferencia de Autoridades Audiovisuales y Cinematográficas de Iberoamerica, or Conference of Ibero-American Audiovisual and Film Institutes). Its members are Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Honduras, México, Panamá, Perú, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Spain, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Caaci brokered the creation of conventions and co-production treaties amongst its member countries. On top of these multilateral agreements, Spain has several bilateral agreements with individual Latin American countries. Depending on which agreement or convention is applied the conditions are:
(Taken from ‘Industry Report: Produce - Coproduce. How to coproduce with Spain”)
For bilateral agreements; the minor producer’s participation cannot account for less than 20%, while the main producer’s cannot account for more than 80%, only allowing co-productions with real creative participation. For multilateral agreements, where the European or Ibero American Conventions are applied; the minor producer’s participation cannot account for less than 10%, while the main producer’s cannot exceed 70%. In this last case, certain financial co-productions are permitted.
Ibermedia is another source of funding that pools financial contributions from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Chile, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, México, Panamá, Paraguay, Perú, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Spain, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Although the fund receives contributions from each member country, the majority of the money comes from Spain and mostly goes to production costs. Ibermedia also grants financing for a film's development, distribution, exhibition and promotion. The main requirements are:
(Taken from ‘The New International Co-Production Scenario’ and ‘Co-Production and the Cultural Politics of Constructing an Ibero-American Audiovisual Space' by Tamara Falicov.
Co-productions must be among at least three countries. Films must be in Spanish or Portuguese. The director, actors, and technical crew must be from an Ibero-American country. Beneficiaries are limited to independent production companies in countries that are members of the Ibermedia Program. Repayable loans are allocated to each co-producer on the basis of their financial contribution in the co-production. Up to 50 percent of the funding may be awarded by Ibermedia; the rest must come from additional financing sources Films receiving funding are typically very low-budget, and Ibermedia’s contributions range from $30,000 to $200,000 per project
What about us in the U.S.?
It may be hard to believe but the U.S. has no co-production treaties. None! Still, Americans can enter as a third-party in treaty co-productions giving access to the same tax incentives and expanded market access as their partners. With an eye towards fostering collaborations in the absence of treaties, Independent Filmmaker Project (Ifp) offers the No Borders International Co-Production Market, “the oldest and most prominent co-production market in the U.S.” Ifp also operates the International Alliance Program with partners in various regions, the Latin American Training Center (Latc) acts as the official partner for Latin America. And for Latin American immigrants and U.S-born Latinos who are eligible for dual citizenship, opportunities abound.
Written by Juan Caceres and Vanessa Erazo, LatinoBuzz is a weekly feature on SydneysBuzz that highlights emerging and established Latino indie talent and upcoming trends in Latino film with the specific objective of presenting a broad range of Latino voices. Follow@LatinoBuzzon twitter.
Notable Spanish-Latin American Co-productions
El espinazo del diablo (The Devil’s Backbone, dir. Guillermo del Toro, Spain-Mexico, 2001)
La ciénaga (The Swamp, dir. Lucrecia Martel, Argentina-Spain-France, 2001)
El crimen del Padre Amaro (The Crime of Father Amaro, dir. Carlos Carrera, Mexico-Spain-Argentina-France, 2002)
Whisky (dir. Juan Pablo Rebella and Pablo Stoll, Uruguay-Spain, 2004)
Xxy (dir. Lucía Puenzo, Argentina-Spain, 2007)...
Why a co-production?
There are many benefits to collaborating: pooling of financial resources, more options for government incentives and subsidies, better chances at entering each other’s markets, and risk reduction. Particularly in smaller Latin American countries where a weak film industry provides few funding opportunities and finding crews with professional experience is difficult, a co-production with Spain is a no-brainer. But, this is not without controversy.
Spanish Conquistadors or Equal Partners?
There are critics who warn about reproducing dependency on Spain (some dare to use the word neo-colonialism) and reinforcing economic disparities between the two regions. There is also concern about the effect outside sources of funding can have on content. Many wonder how much editorial control comes with allowing Spain to bankroll a project. Despite the criticism and concern Spanish-Latin American co-productions continue to increase and can offer lots of lessons to U.S. producers looking to team up with their southern neighbors.
How does it work?
As a result of the creation of a film institute (the Icaa or Instituto de la Cinematografía y de las Artes Audiovisuales) and policy changes in the eighties, Spain spearheaded a multinational organization called Caaci (La Conferencia de Autoridades Audiovisuales y Cinematográficas de Iberoamerica, or Conference of Ibero-American Audiovisual and Film Institutes). Its members are Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Honduras, México, Panamá, Perú, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Spain, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Caaci brokered the creation of conventions and co-production treaties amongst its member countries. On top of these multilateral agreements, Spain has several bilateral agreements with individual Latin American countries. Depending on which agreement or convention is applied the conditions are:
(Taken from ‘Industry Report: Produce - Coproduce. How to coproduce with Spain”)
For bilateral agreements; the minor producer’s participation cannot account for less than 20%, while the main producer’s cannot account for more than 80%, only allowing co-productions with real creative participation. For multilateral agreements, where the European or Ibero American Conventions are applied; the minor producer’s participation cannot account for less than 10%, while the main producer’s cannot exceed 70%. In this last case, certain financial co-productions are permitted.
Ibermedia is another source of funding that pools financial contributions from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Chile, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, México, Panamá, Paraguay, Perú, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Spain, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Although the fund receives contributions from each member country, the majority of the money comes from Spain and mostly goes to production costs. Ibermedia also grants financing for a film's development, distribution, exhibition and promotion. The main requirements are:
(Taken from ‘The New International Co-Production Scenario’ and ‘Co-Production and the Cultural Politics of Constructing an Ibero-American Audiovisual Space' by Tamara Falicov.
Co-productions must be among at least three countries. Films must be in Spanish or Portuguese. The director, actors, and technical crew must be from an Ibero-American country. Beneficiaries are limited to independent production companies in countries that are members of the Ibermedia Program. Repayable loans are allocated to each co-producer on the basis of their financial contribution in the co-production. Up to 50 percent of the funding may be awarded by Ibermedia; the rest must come from additional financing sources Films receiving funding are typically very low-budget, and Ibermedia’s contributions range from $30,000 to $200,000 per project
What about us in the U.S.?
It may be hard to believe but the U.S. has no co-production treaties. None! Still, Americans can enter as a third-party in treaty co-productions giving access to the same tax incentives and expanded market access as their partners. With an eye towards fostering collaborations in the absence of treaties, Independent Filmmaker Project (Ifp) offers the No Borders International Co-Production Market, “the oldest and most prominent co-production market in the U.S.” Ifp also operates the International Alliance Program with partners in various regions, the Latin American Training Center (Latc) acts as the official partner for Latin America. And for Latin American immigrants and U.S-born Latinos who are eligible for dual citizenship, opportunities abound.
Written by Juan Caceres and Vanessa Erazo, LatinoBuzz is a weekly feature on SydneysBuzz that highlights emerging and established Latino indie talent and upcoming trends in Latino film with the specific objective of presenting a broad range of Latino voices. Follow@LatinoBuzzon twitter.
Notable Spanish-Latin American Co-productions
El espinazo del diablo (The Devil’s Backbone, dir. Guillermo del Toro, Spain-Mexico, 2001)
La ciénaga (The Swamp, dir. Lucrecia Martel, Argentina-Spain-France, 2001)
El crimen del Padre Amaro (The Crime of Father Amaro, dir. Carlos Carrera, Mexico-Spain-Argentina-France, 2002)
Whisky (dir. Juan Pablo Rebella and Pablo Stoll, Uruguay-Spain, 2004)
Xxy (dir. Lucía Puenzo, Argentina-Spain, 2007)...
- 6/13/2013
- by Vanessa Erazo
- Sydney's Buzz
#84. Lucia Puenzo’s Wakolda
Gist: Starring Alex Brendemuhl, Natalia Oreiro, Diego Peretti and Elena Roger, this is based on Puenzo’s own novel detailing the true story of an Argentine family who lived with Josef Mengele without knowing his true identity, and of a girl who fell in love with one of the biggest criminals of all times.
Prediction: Un Certain Regard. Despite Lucía Puenzo making waves when she had Xxy unfold in 2007′s Critics’ Week, by appearances, Wakolda might have a a narrower chance of showing in Cannes as this stylistically looks too mainstream for the Directors’ Fortnight. In between films she premiered El niño pez (2009) in Berlin and this 2013 feature is set to be released in Argentina less than a week before the Croisette opens for business.
prev next...
Gist: Starring Alex Brendemuhl, Natalia Oreiro, Diego Peretti and Elena Roger, this is based on Puenzo’s own novel detailing the true story of an Argentine family who lived with Josef Mengele without knowing his true identity, and of a girl who fell in love with one of the biggest criminals of all times.
Prediction: Un Certain Regard. Despite Lucía Puenzo making waves when she had Xxy unfold in 2007′s Critics’ Week, by appearances, Wakolda might have a a narrower chance of showing in Cannes as this stylistically looks too mainstream for the Directors’ Fortnight. In between films she premiered El niño pez (2009) in Berlin and this 2013 feature is set to be released in Argentina less than a week before the Croisette opens for business.
prev next...
- 4/2/2013
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
In Clandestine Childhood (Infancia Clandestina), writer/director Benjamín Ávila drew inspiration from his personal exiled childhood during Argentina's Dirty War as the son of two Montoneros guerillas. The film, which took prizes at both San Sebastian and Havana Film Festivals last year, is set in 1979 during the family's return from Cuba to fight in the Montoneros counteroffensive operation under new assumed identities. Benjamín spoke to LatinoBuzz about what it meant to see memories from his formative years unfold on the big screen.
Clandestine Childhood is being released in NY and CA on Friday, January 11th, 2013.
LatinoBuzz: What did the actors take away from spending several days with former Montoneros?
Benjamín Ávila: I wanted the actors to have the chance to physically live that era. The most complex challenge for an actor is the ability to give dimension to the story from the time that it happened, not from the present. For them it was important to get rid of all the Whys and be able to answer them by themselves. So I decided to have the actors meet a couple of former guerrilla members to do a training drill for two days, the way it was done back then, as well as for them to have a chance to talk and for the actors to be able to ask anything they wanted.
It was very productive because their body changed, as well as their stand before history. It also helped me to confirm some doubts that had arisen during the process of writing the script. And from that moment on, the improvisations we did were very important in defining some scenes of the film. Particularly the argument scene between the grandmother and mother. That improvisation came after the work we did, and some glorious moments emerged as a result, very complex and incorrect that served to give another dimension to the movie.
LatinoBuzz: Was there a particular audience for this film that was most important for you to see it?
Benjamín Ávila: Not really. But firstly, it is a film that I made for my brothers. And for the children of the disappeared and those killed during the last dictatorship in Argentina. They are the primary audience, but the story is not constructed so that only they understand. On the contrary, I wanted the film to move people, to it would provoke feelings and ideas, without sacrificing the cinematic and artistic construction. Luckily, for all the feedback that I receive from the people who have seen it, I think we have achieved that goal. It's a film that provokes many emotions, that endures for days within the people who see it, and that generates the need to reiterate the questions that were supposedly already answered.
LatinoBuzz: When was the first time you realized that 'Infancia Clandestina' was the story you had to tell?
Benjamín Ávila: I always knew it. Since I was 13, I knew I wanted to work in film. I also knew back then that one day I would film my childhood. Somehow I made a tacit commitment at that time with myself, with my family, and with my own story. Therefore it is very important for me to have completed this process. It is a feeling of a debt paid, like I "had to do" this film. It was a duty rather than a necessity. Now that the film is finished I feel a relief, that of mission accomplished. Now I can be at peace.
LatinoBuzz: How much of what was going on were you very much aware of and how did you process that as a young boy?
Benjamín Ávila: My older brother and I were very aware, even though we were 7 and 8 years old at the time. I always think we were like the kids living in the street, who have a very conscious relationship with their environment. We knew what was happening, what we could and could not say. Although we were doing and saying what we were living, we could not have a dialectical discussion nor a real argument. We understood it all.
For us what we lived was not anything special, but it was normal. It was our life. We could not imagine anything different. This is why we were never traumatized. Even nowadays I miss that lifestyle. That clear and powerful bonding we all had. What was traumatizing was everything else: the absence, the persecution, the disappearance of my mother and not knowing anything to this day, not having been raised with my younger brother (Vicky in the movie). It was not until three yeas ago that we started having a life of ordinary siblings. And it cost a lot to have it...
LatinoBuzz: You were a child of Montoneros, so your childhood was unlike many others yet in the film we largely see this sweet portrayal of this blossoming first love between Juan and Maria –just like any teenager experiences. How much of that was Benjamín wishing that childhood was that innocent?
Benjamín Ávila: What you need to understand is that living in hiding was not something different to normality. It had parameters that were unusual, but we lived them like any other, even inside the house. I remember many common and normal family moments. Like waking up too late at night to watch the matches of the national team playing the World Cup youth soccer, Maradona’s first in Japan, and the matches were at 4 or 6 am. I remember going out at 7am in the morning with all the neighbors to celebrate the championship. My mother chastising me because I was late for school, or because I hadn't made my bed. Family barbecues, like any other Sunday, and so on, thousands of memories as normal as any other.
LatinoBuzz: What happened to “María”?
Benjamín Ávila: Maria never existed at that time. I had my Marías, but in other places and other times!
LatinoBuzz: In writing such a personal story what was the hardest thing to
write and did you avoid anything?
Benjamín Ávila: The most difficult part was at the beginning, trying to detach myself from my own history. Because several things were clear to me: the subject of film, that I did not want to be the protagonist of the story, that the most important part was the reconstruction of a routine
that has never been shown but that was not only mine but of many. That's why I took anecdotes and stories from others... Writing the script with Marcelo Muller, a dear Brazilian friend, helped me to achieve that distance I wanted for the construction of the story. With him I was able to rule out what wasn't important to the film’s story even if it was personally very important to me, and so we achieved that distance even though I deepened what remained. It was as if Marcelo pulled out to keep it to the essential, and I pulled inwards to deepen what remained.
LatinoBuzz: Was the casting difficult? Were you looking for yourself in
the Actor?
Benjamín Ávila: The casting of the children was complicated. We did it with María Laura Berch, an incredible casting director specializing in children, and we elaborated a very clear, yet complex, strategy. We saw over 700 children in total for all the roles, and it took us three months as planned.
But most importantly, we wanted to cast very homely, to give the kids the idea of what the shooting was going to be right from the beginning. And as I do my own camerawork every time I film, I decided I was going to shoot the casting so the kids could get used to my presence close to them and behind the camera from the beginning. And it worked really well.
With the adults it was very different. I saw Ernesto Alterio in the TV series "Vientos de Agua" by Campanella miniseries and compared to other roles I've seen him perform, I found the construction of his character wonderful. Something similar happened with Natalia Oreiro, she is very famous in Argentina but because of roles in comedies or romantic comedies, but seeing her in Caetano's "Francia" I noticed a dramatic profile in which I was very interested. With Cesar Troncoso, he was recommended by Luis Puenzo who had worked with him in "Xxy" the film he produced, directed by his daughter Lucía Puenzo. I had seen him in "The Pope's Toilet" and I had loved his role. And it was always a dream that Cristina Banegas play the role of the grandmother, and luckily we did it!
LatinoBuzz: Was seeing the film for the first time like looking at
photographs of your childhood?
Benjamín Ávila: No, this film has a lot of traits that belong to my childhood but they're for the most part, changed or modified. What does happen to me, is that I see through them my own memories. That happens to me, but it's something very intimate. The photos that appear at the end, which are from my family in reality, is the moment that moves me the most as I get haunted by the echoes of that wonderful past that was destroyed at the moment portrayed by the film.
My production company is called Room 1520 in tribute to the last scene of Paris, Texas by Wim Wenders, where the young kid (Hunter) is reunited with his mother after a long time in that same room... My childhood accompanies much of what I do.
LatinoBuzz: How many details from set design and wardrobe to how the actors who played your parents looked and acted did you involve yourself or were you able to separate yourself?
Benjamín Ávila: The shooting process was very intimate, intense and emotional. All of the staff, technicians and actors, we were involved in a special way. I have a way of working which at first puzzled the team. I like getting carried away by what is happening and then decide each scene based on the actors, the set and the light.
I operate the camera, I always do it when I'm the director, and I like to approach it as a documentary, finding the images based on what happens, as it happens. In that sense, each take was a particular universe of its own, unique and not replicable. Of course some takes came out really bad. But others were magical ... and those are the ones remained.
On the third day of filming something happened that made the whole team realize the scope of what we were doing, and from that moment on, everybody trusted my working technique. It happened that we were shooting Juan's (played by Teo Gutiérrez Moreno) first sequence where he burns the photos, near the end of the film. A tough sequence due to the mood that Juan had to reflect (as he just learns that his father was killed and had just hopelessly cried with his mother), and with children you don't work from a rational place but rather from the body directly, something very natural to them. So, I asked Natalia Oreiro to stand off-screen next to me, and that at moment I said 'action', for her to scream inconsolably, begging for help. On the other hand I told Teo that regardless of whatever was happening, he should not take his eyes off the fire, and that he should run out when I called his name. We got ready and at the moment of saying 'action' Natalia started to scream, heart wrenching, and all that I wanted to happen to Teo, started happening to me with the camera on my shoulder. I began to cry inconsolably (if you look carefully at the scene, the camera moves because I'm crying), as if it was an ancestral cry from some other time, and at some point I yelled at Teo and he perfectly did what he had to do, as usual, an he ran. I said 'cut', gave the camera to my assistant and as I was leaving I saw Natalia crying uncontrollably, everyone saw me and realized I was crying. I went to the video assist and as I entered everybody was very excited, they saw me crying. I asked to see the take… At that moment, everybody including actors, technicians and me, realized that we were doing something more than professional, but also very personal.
LatinoBuzz: Were there any films that influenced the look of the film?
Benjamín Ávila: Absolutely. For the tone of the performance and the gaze of the kids, "My Life as a Dog" by Lasse Halstrom. All of Krystof Kieslowski's filmography, and the political view of the films that Ken Loach made in
England such as "Raining Stones", "Riff-Raff" and "Hidden Agenda".
LatinoBuzz: What's the next project?
Benjamín Ávila: I am writing for a TV series of 40 single chapters. Additionally, I am adapting a novel by Elsa Osorio that I've been wanting to do for 12 years. I'm adapting it with her to make a miniseries of 13 chapters. It's about 40 years of history and involves many characters. A different look at the people who survived or were involved in Argentina's dictatorship.
For Screening times in NY and CA visit: http://www.filmmovement.com/theatrical/index.asp?MerchandiseID=314
Like em at: https://www.facebook.com/Infancia.clandestina
Written by Juan Caceres and Vanessa Erazo, LatinoBuzz is a weekly feature on SydneysBuzz that highlights Latino indie talent and upcoming trends in Latino film with the specific objective of presenting a broad range of Latino voices. Follow @LatinoBuzz on twitter.
Clandestine Childhood is being released in NY and CA on Friday, January 11th, 2013.
LatinoBuzz: What did the actors take away from spending several days with former Montoneros?
Benjamín Ávila: I wanted the actors to have the chance to physically live that era. The most complex challenge for an actor is the ability to give dimension to the story from the time that it happened, not from the present. For them it was important to get rid of all the Whys and be able to answer them by themselves. So I decided to have the actors meet a couple of former guerrilla members to do a training drill for two days, the way it was done back then, as well as for them to have a chance to talk and for the actors to be able to ask anything they wanted.
It was very productive because their body changed, as well as their stand before history. It also helped me to confirm some doubts that had arisen during the process of writing the script. And from that moment on, the improvisations we did were very important in defining some scenes of the film. Particularly the argument scene between the grandmother and mother. That improvisation came after the work we did, and some glorious moments emerged as a result, very complex and incorrect that served to give another dimension to the movie.
LatinoBuzz: Was there a particular audience for this film that was most important for you to see it?
Benjamín Ávila: Not really. But firstly, it is a film that I made for my brothers. And for the children of the disappeared and those killed during the last dictatorship in Argentina. They are the primary audience, but the story is not constructed so that only they understand. On the contrary, I wanted the film to move people, to it would provoke feelings and ideas, without sacrificing the cinematic and artistic construction. Luckily, for all the feedback that I receive from the people who have seen it, I think we have achieved that goal. It's a film that provokes many emotions, that endures for days within the people who see it, and that generates the need to reiterate the questions that were supposedly already answered.
LatinoBuzz: When was the first time you realized that 'Infancia Clandestina' was the story you had to tell?
Benjamín Ávila: I always knew it. Since I was 13, I knew I wanted to work in film. I also knew back then that one day I would film my childhood. Somehow I made a tacit commitment at that time with myself, with my family, and with my own story. Therefore it is very important for me to have completed this process. It is a feeling of a debt paid, like I "had to do" this film. It was a duty rather than a necessity. Now that the film is finished I feel a relief, that of mission accomplished. Now I can be at peace.
LatinoBuzz: How much of what was going on were you very much aware of and how did you process that as a young boy?
Benjamín Ávila: My older brother and I were very aware, even though we were 7 and 8 years old at the time. I always think we were like the kids living in the street, who have a very conscious relationship with their environment. We knew what was happening, what we could and could not say. Although we were doing and saying what we were living, we could not have a dialectical discussion nor a real argument. We understood it all.
For us what we lived was not anything special, but it was normal. It was our life. We could not imagine anything different. This is why we were never traumatized. Even nowadays I miss that lifestyle. That clear and powerful bonding we all had. What was traumatizing was everything else: the absence, the persecution, the disappearance of my mother and not knowing anything to this day, not having been raised with my younger brother (Vicky in the movie). It was not until three yeas ago that we started having a life of ordinary siblings. And it cost a lot to have it...
LatinoBuzz: You were a child of Montoneros, so your childhood was unlike many others yet in the film we largely see this sweet portrayal of this blossoming first love between Juan and Maria –just like any teenager experiences. How much of that was Benjamín wishing that childhood was that innocent?
Benjamín Ávila: What you need to understand is that living in hiding was not something different to normality. It had parameters that were unusual, but we lived them like any other, even inside the house. I remember many common and normal family moments. Like waking up too late at night to watch the matches of the national team playing the World Cup youth soccer, Maradona’s first in Japan, and the matches were at 4 or 6 am. I remember going out at 7am in the morning with all the neighbors to celebrate the championship. My mother chastising me because I was late for school, or because I hadn't made my bed. Family barbecues, like any other Sunday, and so on, thousands of memories as normal as any other.
LatinoBuzz: What happened to “María”?
Benjamín Ávila: Maria never existed at that time. I had my Marías, but in other places and other times!
LatinoBuzz: In writing such a personal story what was the hardest thing to
write and did you avoid anything?
Benjamín Ávila: The most difficult part was at the beginning, trying to detach myself from my own history. Because several things were clear to me: the subject of film, that I did not want to be the protagonist of the story, that the most important part was the reconstruction of a routine
that has never been shown but that was not only mine but of many. That's why I took anecdotes and stories from others... Writing the script with Marcelo Muller, a dear Brazilian friend, helped me to achieve that distance I wanted for the construction of the story. With him I was able to rule out what wasn't important to the film’s story even if it was personally very important to me, and so we achieved that distance even though I deepened what remained. It was as if Marcelo pulled out to keep it to the essential, and I pulled inwards to deepen what remained.
LatinoBuzz: Was the casting difficult? Were you looking for yourself in
the Actor?
Benjamín Ávila: The casting of the children was complicated. We did it with María Laura Berch, an incredible casting director specializing in children, and we elaborated a very clear, yet complex, strategy. We saw over 700 children in total for all the roles, and it took us three months as planned.
But most importantly, we wanted to cast very homely, to give the kids the idea of what the shooting was going to be right from the beginning. And as I do my own camerawork every time I film, I decided I was going to shoot the casting so the kids could get used to my presence close to them and behind the camera from the beginning. And it worked really well.
With the adults it was very different. I saw Ernesto Alterio in the TV series "Vientos de Agua" by Campanella miniseries and compared to other roles I've seen him perform, I found the construction of his character wonderful. Something similar happened with Natalia Oreiro, she is very famous in Argentina but because of roles in comedies or romantic comedies, but seeing her in Caetano's "Francia" I noticed a dramatic profile in which I was very interested. With Cesar Troncoso, he was recommended by Luis Puenzo who had worked with him in "Xxy" the film he produced, directed by his daughter Lucía Puenzo. I had seen him in "The Pope's Toilet" and I had loved his role. And it was always a dream that Cristina Banegas play the role of the grandmother, and luckily we did it!
LatinoBuzz: Was seeing the film for the first time like looking at
photographs of your childhood?
Benjamín Ávila: No, this film has a lot of traits that belong to my childhood but they're for the most part, changed or modified. What does happen to me, is that I see through them my own memories. That happens to me, but it's something very intimate. The photos that appear at the end, which are from my family in reality, is the moment that moves me the most as I get haunted by the echoes of that wonderful past that was destroyed at the moment portrayed by the film.
My production company is called Room 1520 in tribute to the last scene of Paris, Texas by Wim Wenders, where the young kid (Hunter) is reunited with his mother after a long time in that same room... My childhood accompanies much of what I do.
LatinoBuzz: How many details from set design and wardrobe to how the actors who played your parents looked and acted did you involve yourself or were you able to separate yourself?
Benjamín Ávila: The shooting process was very intimate, intense and emotional. All of the staff, technicians and actors, we were involved in a special way. I have a way of working which at first puzzled the team. I like getting carried away by what is happening and then decide each scene based on the actors, the set and the light.
I operate the camera, I always do it when I'm the director, and I like to approach it as a documentary, finding the images based on what happens, as it happens. In that sense, each take was a particular universe of its own, unique and not replicable. Of course some takes came out really bad. But others were magical ... and those are the ones remained.
On the third day of filming something happened that made the whole team realize the scope of what we were doing, and from that moment on, everybody trusted my working technique. It happened that we were shooting Juan's (played by Teo Gutiérrez Moreno) first sequence where he burns the photos, near the end of the film. A tough sequence due to the mood that Juan had to reflect (as he just learns that his father was killed and had just hopelessly cried with his mother), and with children you don't work from a rational place but rather from the body directly, something very natural to them. So, I asked Natalia Oreiro to stand off-screen next to me, and that at moment I said 'action', for her to scream inconsolably, begging for help. On the other hand I told Teo that regardless of whatever was happening, he should not take his eyes off the fire, and that he should run out when I called his name. We got ready and at the moment of saying 'action' Natalia started to scream, heart wrenching, and all that I wanted to happen to Teo, started happening to me with the camera on my shoulder. I began to cry inconsolably (if you look carefully at the scene, the camera moves because I'm crying), as if it was an ancestral cry from some other time, and at some point I yelled at Teo and he perfectly did what he had to do, as usual, an he ran. I said 'cut', gave the camera to my assistant and as I was leaving I saw Natalia crying uncontrollably, everyone saw me and realized I was crying. I went to the video assist and as I entered everybody was very excited, they saw me crying. I asked to see the take… At that moment, everybody including actors, technicians and me, realized that we were doing something more than professional, but also very personal.
LatinoBuzz: Were there any films that influenced the look of the film?
Benjamín Ávila: Absolutely. For the tone of the performance and the gaze of the kids, "My Life as a Dog" by Lasse Halstrom. All of Krystof Kieslowski's filmography, and the political view of the films that Ken Loach made in
England such as "Raining Stones", "Riff-Raff" and "Hidden Agenda".
LatinoBuzz: What's the next project?
Benjamín Ávila: I am writing for a TV series of 40 single chapters. Additionally, I am adapting a novel by Elsa Osorio that I've been wanting to do for 12 years. I'm adapting it with her to make a miniseries of 13 chapters. It's about 40 years of history and involves many characters. A different look at the people who survived or were involved in Argentina's dictatorship.
For Screening times in NY and CA visit: http://www.filmmovement.com/theatrical/index.asp?MerchandiseID=314
Like em at: https://www.facebook.com/Infancia.clandestina
Written by Juan Caceres and Vanessa Erazo, LatinoBuzz is a weekly feature on SydneysBuzz that highlights Latino indie talent and upcoming trends in Latino film with the specific objective of presenting a broad range of Latino voices. Follow @LatinoBuzz on twitter.
- 1/9/2013
- by Juan Caceres
- Sydney's Buzz
Justine Smith
Bright Star, Jane Campion
Orlando, Sally Potter
Trouble Every Day, Claire Denis
Cleo 5 a 7, Agnes Varda
A New Leaf, Elaine May
The Night Porter, Liliana Cavani
American Psycho, Mary Harron
Anatomy of Hell, Catherine Breillat
Point Break, Kathryn Bigelow
Everyone Else, Maren Ade
Ricky D
Connection, Shirley Clarke
Wuthering Heights, Andrea Arnold
35 Shots of Rhum, Claire Denis
Meshes of the Afternoon, Maya Derin
Seven Beauties, Lina Wertmuller
The Hitch-Hiker, Ida Lupino
Lina Wertmuller- Swept Away
Meek’s Cutoff, Kelly Reichardt
Headless Woman, Lucrecia Martel
Xxy, Lucía Puenzo
Special mention:
Skyscraper – Shirley Clarke
Wasp – Andrea Arnold
On Dangerous Ground – Ida Lupino (uncredited)
Wanda
Chris Clemente
Little Miss Sunshine, Valerie Faris
American Psycho, Mary Harron
Lost in Translation, Sofia Coppola
We Need to Talk About Kevin, Lynne Ramsay
Fish Tank, Andrea Arnold
Monster, Patty Jenkins
A League of Their Own, Penny Marshall
Wayne’s World, Penelope Spheeris
Clueless, Amy Heckerling
Point Break,...
Bright Star, Jane Campion
Orlando, Sally Potter
Trouble Every Day, Claire Denis
Cleo 5 a 7, Agnes Varda
A New Leaf, Elaine May
The Night Porter, Liliana Cavani
American Psycho, Mary Harron
Anatomy of Hell, Catherine Breillat
Point Break, Kathryn Bigelow
Everyone Else, Maren Ade
Ricky D
Connection, Shirley Clarke
Wuthering Heights, Andrea Arnold
35 Shots of Rhum, Claire Denis
Meshes of the Afternoon, Maya Derin
Seven Beauties, Lina Wertmuller
The Hitch-Hiker, Ida Lupino
Lina Wertmuller- Swept Away
Meek’s Cutoff, Kelly Reichardt
Headless Woman, Lucrecia Martel
Xxy, Lucía Puenzo
Special mention:
Skyscraper – Shirley Clarke
Wasp – Andrea Arnold
On Dangerous Ground – Ida Lupino (uncredited)
Wanda
Chris Clemente
Little Miss Sunshine, Valerie Faris
American Psycho, Mary Harron
Lost in Translation, Sofia Coppola
We Need to Talk About Kevin, Lynne Ramsay
Fish Tank, Andrea Arnold
Monster, Patty Jenkins
A League of Their Own, Penny Marshall
Wayne’s World, Penelope Spheeris
Clueless, Amy Heckerling
Point Break,...
- 9/26/2012
- by Ricky
- SoundOnSight
(In Alphabetical order)
Meek’s Cutoff
Directed by Kelly Reichardt
Kelly Reichardt had a stellar if hushed 2000s, and then she commenced the current decade with a film that is already beginning to feel like an unsung modern classic. Meek’s Cutoff is one of those exhilarating instances in which a marriage of disparate styles produces something tricky to imagine, but perfect to behold: a period piece set in mid-1800’s Oregon, shot in academy ratio and classically beautiful for it, but with Reichardt’s signature severe naturalism. The result is so stark and understated that it begins to feel graceful, weirdly epic. A small caravan of settlers (featuring Michelle Williams and a once again devout Paul Dano) hires a guide, big-talking Stephen Meek, to help them navigate the Oregon Trail. As the terrain grows less forgiving and water evermore scarce, the settlers begin to wonder if the route Meek...
Meek’s Cutoff
Directed by Kelly Reichardt
Kelly Reichardt had a stellar if hushed 2000s, and then she commenced the current decade with a film that is already beginning to feel like an unsung modern classic. Meek’s Cutoff is one of those exhilarating instances in which a marriage of disparate styles produces something tricky to imagine, but perfect to behold: a period piece set in mid-1800’s Oregon, shot in academy ratio and classically beautiful for it, but with Reichardt’s signature severe naturalism. The result is so stark and understated that it begins to feel graceful, weirdly epic. A small caravan of settlers (featuring Michelle Williams and a once again devout Paul Dano) hires a guide, big-talking Stephen Meek, to help them navigate the Oregon Trail. As the terrain grows less forgiving and water evermore scarce, the settlers begin to wonder if the route Meek...
- 9/26/2012
- by Ricky
- SoundOnSight
To celebrate the DVD re-release of Lucía Puenzo's Argentinian drama Xxy (2007), starring Ines Efron and Ricardo Darín (2009's The Secret in Their Eyes), we have a fantastic coming of age DVD bundle to give away courtesy of Peccadillo Pictures, which includes Xxy, Céline Sciamma's Tomboy (2011) and Julia Solomonoff's The Last Summer of La Boyita (2009). This is an exclusive competition for our Facebook and Twitter fans, so if you haven't already, 'Like' us at facebook.com/CineVueUK or follow us @CineVue before answering the question below.
Read more »...
Read more »...
- 6/22/2012
- by CineVue
- CineVue
2012 Tribeca Film Festival announced the World Narrative and Documentary Competition film selections
HollywoodNews.com: The 2012 Tribeca Film Festival (Tff), presented by American Express®, today announced the World Narrative and Documentary Competition film selections, along with selections for the out-of-competition Viewpoints section—the program established last year that highlights personal stories in international and independent cinema. Forty-six of the 90 feature-length films were announced. The 11th edition of the Festival will take place from April 18 to April 29 at locations around New York City.
The Festival was curated by a new programming team this year. Frédéric Boyer has joined Tff as Artistic Director, having most recently served as Artistic Director and Head of Programming for the Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival. Geoffrey Gilmore, Chief Creative Officer of Tribeca Enterprises, has expanded his role in overseeing the Festival program. Genna Terranova has been promoted to Director of Programming and Cara Cusumano returns as Programmer.
“It’s been so gratifying to watch the new programming...
The Festival was curated by a new programming team this year. Frédéric Boyer has joined Tff as Artistic Director, having most recently served as Artistic Director and Head of Programming for the Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival. Geoffrey Gilmore, Chief Creative Officer of Tribeca Enterprises, has expanded his role in overseeing the Festival program. Genna Terranova has been promoted to Director of Programming and Cara Cusumano returns as Programmer.
“It’s been so gratifying to watch the new programming...
- 3/6/2012
- by Josh Abraham
- Hollywoodnews.com
The Tribeca Film Festival announced half of this year’s movie showcase, the 11th edition of the New York celebration set for April 18-29. James Franco’s behind-the-scenes General Hospital feature, Francophrenia, will have its North American premiere in the Viewpoints section – the program established last year that highlights more personal stories. “He’s kind of constructed this really interesting and well-crafted film about that experience that plays with the boundaries of documentary,” says Genna Terranova, Tribeca’s director of programming. “It’s a bit tongue in cheek, as James himself can be. He’s a bit enigmatic and the film is as well.
- 3/6/2012
- by Jeff Labrecque
- EW - Inside Movies
With The Five-Year Engagement set as the opening title for the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival, they’ve announced more of the line-up today with World Narrative & Documentary Features as the Viewpoint titles. We’ve got the next film from The Exploding Girl director Bradley Rust Gray, Jack and Diane (as well as a first look about featuring Juno Temple, thanks to Styd).
There is a new Harmony Korine short as well Kate Bosworth‘s While We Were Here and The Girl, starring Abbie Cornish. James Franco also has his latest film, Francophrenia, featuring footage from his performance on General Hospital. Nothing sticks out too greatly yet, but if I see something as interesting as Beyond the Black Rainbow or Magic Valley like last year, I’ll be a happy man. Check it out below and come back Thursday for the rest of the announcement.
World Narrative Feature Competition
• All In (La Suerte En Tus Manos...
There is a new Harmony Korine short as well Kate Bosworth‘s While We Were Here and The Girl, starring Abbie Cornish. James Franco also has his latest film, Francophrenia, featuring footage from his performance on General Hospital. Nothing sticks out too greatly yet, but if I see something as interesting as Beyond the Black Rainbow or Magic Valley like last year, I’ll be a happy man. Check it out below and come back Thursday for the rest of the announcement.
World Narrative Feature Competition
• All In (La Suerte En Tus Manos...
- 3/6/2012
- by jpraup@gmail.com (thefilmstage.com)
- The Film Stage
SXSW kicks off later this week, but once your done slurping the BBQ sauce off your fingers, pack your backs and head north to Manhattan as the Tribeca Film Festival is gearing up to unspool in April. To whet cinephile appetites, organizers have dropped the lineup for the World Narrative Feature Competition, World Documentary Feature Competition and Viewpoints lineups and there are plenty of titles to take note of.
Among the narratives, the anticipated "Jack And Diane" from Bradley Rust Gray will make its world premiere. Starring Juno Temple and Riley Keough, the film takes a teenage lesbian love tale and twists the formula, with one of them revealing she's a werewolf. Add to that a cast rounded out by Dane DeHaan, Jena Malone and pop star Kylie Minogue (as a tattooed lesbian, of course) and you can see why this will be one of the hottest tickets at the fest.
Among the narratives, the anticipated "Jack And Diane" from Bradley Rust Gray will make its world premiere. Starring Juno Temple and Riley Keough, the film takes a teenage lesbian love tale and twists the formula, with one of them revealing she's a werewolf. Add to that a cast rounded out by Dane DeHaan, Jena Malone and pop star Kylie Minogue (as a tattooed lesbian, of course) and you can see why this will be one of the hottest tickets at the fest.
- 3/6/2012
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
The 2012 Tribeca Film Festival will attack eyeballs from April 18-29, and they’ve launched their first offensive by declaring some of the movies they’ll have in their arsenal. That group includes James Franco and Ian Olds‘s Francophrenia (or Don’t Kill Me, I Know Where the Baby Is) which was filmed during tapings of Franco’s appearances on General Hospital. It also boasts new work from Harmony Korine and several of the most interesting-sounding flicks from the European Film Market. Check out the full list below: World Narrative Feature Competition All In (La Suerte En Tus Manos), directed by Daniel Burman, written by Daniel Burman and Sergio Dubcovsky. (Argentina) – International Premiere. Professional poker player Uriel has been on a real hot streak—with the ladies—since his marriage fizzled out. But in between growing his online gambling business and helping to raise his kids, Uriel has rediscovered his old pre-marriage flame, Gloria...
- 3/6/2012
- by Cole Abaius
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
Critics' Week has already begun celebrating its 50th anniversary by posting 50 video interviews with directors and actors who've seen their work debut in this section at Cannes. We're celebrating, too. In association with the 4+1 Film Festival, Mubi is presenting a retrospective of some of the greatest films first seen in Critics' Week over the past half-century. And even though the first 1000 views of each of the films will be free to you, the viewer, the rights holders will carry on receiving their duly earned revenue.
The retrospective encompasses over 100 titles in all, but please do keep in mind that rights issues can get complicated and not every film can be available in every country. That said, here's a quick overview of just some of the highlights:
Over in the Garage, a La Semaine Blogathon is already on the roll, starting with Kj Farrington's entry on Miranda July's Me and You and Everyone We Know,...
The retrospective encompasses over 100 titles in all, but please do keep in mind that rights issues can get complicated and not every film can be available in every country. That said, here's a quick overview of just some of the highlights:
Over in the Garage, a La Semaine Blogathon is already on the roll, starting with Kj Farrington's entry on Miranda July's Me and You and Everyone We Know,...
- 5/14/2011
- MUBI
First comes Oscar. If you follow my charts and this race each year it's impossible to escape Argentinian movie star Ricardo Darín. Not only is he continually employed but whichever body chooses Argentina's Oscar submission each year has a huge crush. He's the star of their 2001 nominee Son of the Bride and their 2009 winner The Secret in Their Eyes and he's also principle cast in their submission titles that weren't nominated from 2002 (Kamchatka), 2005 (El Aura) and 2007 (Xxy).
<--- Portrait of a Busy Actor.
The charts have been updated to include new submissions from Argentina, Costa Rica, Hong Kong and Portugal. The latter chose a transsexual film from the controversy baiting director João Pedro Rodrigues of O Fantasma (2000) fame. If you've ever seen that one, and if this one feels like it's coming from the same mind, you'll understand this is a brave if impossible choice.
Here are the trailers for...
<--- Portrait of a Busy Actor.
The charts have been updated to include new submissions from Argentina, Costa Rica, Hong Kong and Portugal. The latter chose a transsexual film from the controversy baiting director João Pedro Rodrigues of O Fantasma (2000) fame. If you've ever seen that one, and if this one feels like it's coming from the same mind, you'll understand this is a brave if impossible choice.
Here are the trailers for...
- 10/2/2010
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
Ghosted (Directed by Monica Treut and written by Astrid Stroner), It Came From Kuchar by Jennifer Kroot, and El Niño Pez (The Fish Child) are stand-out genre films by women playing at the 2009 Outfest Film Festival.
These award-winning women directors deal with subjects like murder, revenge, twisted love, unsolved murders, and the absolutely awesome B-movie industry in their films...
Writer-director Lucía Puenzo won awards - including two prizes at Cannes - and critical acclaim all over the world for Xxy, and now the Argentine filmmaker returns with a lesbian romance that’s also a Chabrol-esque mystery thriller and a scathing examination of class differences in the South American nation. Lala (Inés Efron, whose performance has inspired comparisons to the early film roles of both Sissy Spacek and Chloë Sevigny), the privileged daughter of a powerful judge, wants to run off with her Paraguayan lover La Guayi (Mariela Vitale), a maid...
These award-winning women directors deal with subjects like murder, revenge, twisted love, unsolved murders, and the absolutely awesome B-movie industry in their films...
Writer-director Lucía Puenzo won awards - including two prizes at Cannes - and critical acclaim all over the world for Xxy, and now the Argentine filmmaker returns with a lesbian romance that’s also a Chabrol-esque mystery thriller and a scathing examination of class differences in the South American nation. Lala (Inés Efron, whose performance has inspired comparisons to the early film roles of both Sissy Spacek and Chloë Sevigny), the privileged daughter of a powerful judge, wants to run off with her Paraguayan lover La Guayi (Mariela Vitale), a maid...
- 6/3/2009
- by Superheidi
- Planet Fury
'People should have the freedom in it to see what they want to see,' said director Lucía Puenzo (Xxy), discussing her moody and magnificent second film, The Fish Child. Two girls in a dangerous love that crosses class boundaries, the story originated in Puenzo's head ten years ago: 'It started as a short story written in the voice of a dog,' she said. 'I was always fascinated by legends, they're created from a very dark crime, an unsolved story, and people need to retell it with luminous creativity.' She adapted her own book for the screen: '[the dog narrator] has a lot of humor and when I took it away, the genre came out. There's a lot of genres.' There's a social underpinning to this mysterious story of Lala and her love, her familiy maid Guayi. '[In Argentina] the domestic help often lives with the family, which creates an intimacy.
- 4/30/2009
- TribecaFilm.com
I know it looks dire as it's 28% lighter (at least so far) and minus an artistic director, but no fear, there's still more to come, and with what's been announced theirs some interesting sounding stuff, especially a film we wrote about briefly called Accidents Happen. Also premiering is the comedy Stay Cool and the Danish film Original, along with the North American premier of The Exploding Girl which we also wrote about.
Check the narrative features, world documentary, and discovery lineups after the break!
World Narrative Feature Competition
A compelling cross-section of bold creative visions from every corner of the globe come together in this year’s World Narrative Feature Competition. Presenting a diverse array of unique voices, this international film collection includes premieres from a wide range of directors, such as U.S. indie veterans the Polish brothers and Tony-nominated Conor McPherson, as well as exciting newcomers. Together, these...
Check the narrative features, world documentary, and discovery lineups after the break!
World Narrative Feature Competition
A compelling cross-section of bold creative visions from every corner of the globe come together in this year’s World Narrative Feature Competition. Presenting a diverse array of unique voices, this international film collection includes premieres from a wide range of directors, such as U.S. indie veterans the Polish brothers and Tony-nominated Conor McPherson, as well as exciting newcomers. Together, these...
- 3/10/2009
- QuietEarth.us
By Neil Pedley
The Tribeca Film Festival is in full swing, but if you don't live in New York, there's no need to fret. No less than three films ("From Within," "Mister Lonely" and "Redbelt") on this list of coming attractions have played the festival in recent days. Then again, if you are in New York and want to catch something outside the fest, there's always that intimate character drama starring Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow and a red and gold metal suit of armor.
"The Favor"
Writer/director Eva J. Aridjis brings us a quiet tale of angst and alienation starring former New York subway busker Ryan Donowho as Johnny, a high school loner who's taken in by Lawrence (Frank Wood), a quiet pet photographer, after his mother (Paige Turco) is killed in an accident. In order to be the father he needs, Lawrence must fight through Johnny's rebellious...
The Tribeca Film Festival is in full swing, but if you don't live in New York, there's no need to fret. No less than three films ("From Within," "Mister Lonely" and "Redbelt") on this list of coming attractions have played the festival in recent days. Then again, if you are in New York and want to catch something outside the fest, there's always that intimate character drama starring Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow and a red and gold metal suit of armor.
"The Favor"
Writer/director Eva J. Aridjis brings us a quiet tale of angst and alienation starring former New York subway busker Ryan Donowho as Johnny, a high school loner who's taken in by Lawrence (Frank Wood), a quiet pet photographer, after his mother (Paige Turco) is killed in an accident. In order to be the father he needs, Lawrence must fight through Johnny's rebellious...
- 4/30/2008
- by Neil Pedley
- ifc.com
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