San Sebastian’s pix-in-post showcases have often launched standout movies, such as Sebastian Lelio’s “Gloria,” winner of the Films in Progress Award at the 2012 edition, plus notable directors, such as Jayro Bustamante, whose praised debut “Ixcanul” played at the festival in rough cut in 2015 before winning the Alfred Bauer prize for innovation at 2016’s Berlinale, breaking out handsome sales.
San Sebastian’s 2023 Co-Production Forum registers two trends: Films that are genre pics or enrol genre tropes or genre blend; an exploration of identity.
Thus year’s San Sebastian Wip Latam skews in another direction. “The films and stories are very grounded in reality, either by there hybrid formal move between fiction and non-fiction, their singular take on daily matters or the very social issues they address,” Javier Martín, San Sebastian Latin American delegate, told LatAmCinema.com.
Yet genre surfaces in disparate ways: the mix of coming of age, apocalypse...
San Sebastian’s 2023 Co-Production Forum registers two trends: Films that are genre pics or enrol genre tropes or genre blend; an exploration of identity.
Thus year’s San Sebastian Wip Latam skews in another direction. “The films and stories are very grounded in reality, either by there hybrid formal move between fiction and non-fiction, their singular take on daily matters or the very social issues they address,” Javier Martín, San Sebastian Latin American delegate, told LatAmCinema.com.
Yet genre surfaces in disparate ways: the mix of coming of age, apocalypse...
- 9/23/2023
- by Emiliano De Pablos and John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
The technology of cinematography has undergone some of the most seismic shifts in film history this century, with what began in the 2000s as an almost entirely photochemical process transforming into the digitally captured, manipulated, and projected images of today. The art of cinematography, however — using light, color, and texture to express ideas and elicit emotional reactions from the audience — remains intact.
In 2017, IndieWire made a list of the best shot feature films of the century thus far; the list was updated in 2020, and what follows is the third and most extensive version of the list. It’s also the first to be spearheaded by the IndieWire Craft team, which has grown considerably since this list was first published. Ranking cinematography is, in some ways, a fool’s errand given the broad variety of genres, resources, and intentions encompassed by the films below, but these are 60 titles that IndieWire believes...
In 2017, IndieWire made a list of the best shot feature films of the century thus far; the list was updated in 2020, and what follows is the third and most extensive version of the list. It’s also the first to be spearheaded by the IndieWire Craft team, which has grown considerably since this list was first published. Ranking cinematography is, in some ways, a fool’s errand given the broad variety of genres, resources, and intentions encompassed by the films below, but these are 60 titles that IndieWire believes...
- 5/3/2023
- by Jim Hemphill, Chris O'Falt, Bill Desowitz and Sarah Shachat
- Indiewire
Former Film Factory executive Manon Barat joins company as dedicated sales executive.
Heading into Cannes XYZ Films has launched New Visions, an initiative to champion bold global voices, kicking off with Directors’ Fortnight entry In Flames.
Former Film Factory executive Manon Barat has joined the company as a dedicated sales executive and will work alongside longtime head of international acquisitions Todd Brown to oversee the slate.
The highly curated New Visions will discover and support the next generation of filmmakers and give established talents room to make smaller, more intimate and challenging work.
Besides Zarrar Kahn’s Pakistani-Canadian horror In Flames,...
Heading into Cannes XYZ Films has launched New Visions, an initiative to champion bold global voices, kicking off with Directors’ Fortnight entry In Flames.
Former Film Factory executive Manon Barat has joined the company as a dedicated sales executive and will work alongside longtime head of international acquisitions Todd Brown to oversee the slate.
The highly curated New Visions will discover and support the next generation of filmmakers and give established talents room to make smaller, more intimate and challenging work.
Besides Zarrar Kahn’s Pakistani-Canadian horror In Flames,...
- 4/19/2023
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
XYZ Films have launched a new label for low-budget international genre films, called New Visions.
The company will launch its first New Visions slate at the Cannes Film Market next month with In Flames, the feature debut of Pakistani-Canadian director Zarrar Kahn. The Urdu-language horror movie, which was just picked for the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight lineup, follows a young woman who is tormented by vivid hallucinations after the death of her boyfriend. Other titles in the New Visions slate include the Czech science fiction title Restore Point from director Robert Hloz, and Irish folk horror All You Need Is Death from Very Extremely Dangerous helmer Paul Duane.
XYZ Films has hired Manon Barat, formerly a sales and marketing executive with Barcelona-based Film Factory Entertainment, as a dedicated sales executive overseeing the new slate, working alongside XYZ head of international acquisitions Todd Brown.
Brown framed the new label as a return to the roots for XYZ,...
The company will launch its first New Visions slate at the Cannes Film Market next month with In Flames, the feature debut of Pakistani-Canadian director Zarrar Kahn. The Urdu-language horror movie, which was just picked for the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight lineup, follows a young woman who is tormented by vivid hallucinations after the death of her boyfriend. Other titles in the New Visions slate include the Czech science fiction title Restore Point from director Robert Hloz, and Irish folk horror All You Need Is Death from Very Extremely Dangerous helmer Paul Duane.
XYZ Films has hired Manon Barat, formerly a sales and marketing executive with Barcelona-based Film Factory Entertainment, as a dedicated sales executive overseeing the new slate, working alongside XYZ head of international acquisitions Todd Brown.
Brown framed the new label as a return to the roots for XYZ,...
- 4/19/2023
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
XYZ Films has hired Manon Barat, a former executive at the Spanish sales company Film Factory, to head a slate of titles that will fall under the company’s newly-launched global film initiative, New Visions.
Barat will work alongside XYZ Head of International Acquisitions Todd Brown to oversee the new slate, which the company has described as a “highly curated collection of films.”
XYZ will launch the new slate in Cannes with In Flames, a Pakistani-Canadian horror film directed by Zarrar Kahn and executive produced by Shant Joshi. The pic will screen as part of the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar. Check out a first-look image from the film below.
Other titles from the initial New Visions slate include the Czech sci-fi pic Restore Point, directed by Robert Hloz and produced by Jan Kallista, which will have footage screened at the Marché du Film as part of the Fantastic 7 lineup. Paul Duane...
Barat will work alongside XYZ Head of International Acquisitions Todd Brown to oversee the new slate, which the company has described as a “highly curated collection of films.”
XYZ will launch the new slate in Cannes with In Flames, a Pakistani-Canadian horror film directed by Zarrar Kahn and executive produced by Shant Joshi. The pic will screen as part of the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar. Check out a first-look image from the film below.
Other titles from the initial New Visions slate include the Czech sci-fi pic Restore Point, directed by Robert Hloz and produced by Jan Kallista, which will have footage screened at the Marché du Film as part of the Fantastic 7 lineup. Paul Duane...
- 4/19/2023
- by Zac Ntim
- Deadline Film + TV
Tenerife-based Bendita Films has pounced on international rights to “Almamula,” a buzzy debut, mixing folklore, sexuality and fantasy. From helmer Juan Sebastián Torales, the film will have its world premiere as part of the Generation 14plus’ strand at this month’s Berlinale. The film is nominated for the Gwff Best First Feature Award 2023 and has seen wins already with the Ciné+ Award for distribution at Ventana Sur 2022 and the Eurimages Development Co-production Award at the San Sebastian Co-Production Forum in 2019.
“We have been following this project since 2019, when we had the opportunity to attend Juan Sebastián Torales impressive pitch at the san Sebastian Co-Production Forum,” says Luis Renart, CEO of Bendita Film Sales.
He added: “We were immediately captivated by the director’s singular vision and that delicate combination of coming-of-age sexuality and fantasy, rooted in the legends and folklore of the Argentine countryside. Now, we are excited to be...
“We have been following this project since 2019, when we had the opportunity to attend Juan Sebastián Torales impressive pitch at the san Sebastian Co-Production Forum,” says Luis Renart, CEO of Bendita Film Sales.
He added: “We were immediately captivated by the director’s singular vision and that delicate combination of coming-of-age sexuality and fantasy, rooted in the legends and folklore of the Argentine countryside. Now, we are excited to be...
- 2/7/2023
- by Callum McLennan
- Variety Film + TV
San Sebastian’s pix-in-post showcases, which have launched notable movies – Sebastian Lelio’s “Gloria” – and notable directors – Jayro Bustamante, introducing his debut “Ixcanul” – unspools in 2022, with the screenings of six Wip Latam titles taking place over Sept. 19 – 21. Wip Europe, with four titles, runs on Sept. 19 and 20.
In the mix is an awaited title from Chile, “Penal Cordillera,” directed by Felipe Carmona, produced by Dominga Sotomayor and Omar Zuñiga and sold by Luxbox, and “A Strange Path,” from Brazil’s Guto Parente, whose “The Cannibal Club,” acquired by Uncork’d Entertainment, made a stir by portraying a Brazil in which the rich literally eat the poor.
Also competing in Wip Latam is “A House in the Country,” from Davi Pretto whose “Rifle” – his second film, after the impressive “Castanha” – premiered at 67th Berlinale Forum and won the Grand Prize at Jeonju Intl. Film Festival.
The highest profile title in Wip Europe is “Hesitation Wound,...
In the mix is an awaited title from Chile, “Penal Cordillera,” directed by Felipe Carmona, produced by Dominga Sotomayor and Omar Zuñiga and sold by Luxbox, and “A Strange Path,” from Brazil’s Guto Parente, whose “The Cannibal Club,” acquired by Uncork’d Entertainment, made a stir by portraying a Brazil in which the rich literally eat the poor.
Also competing in Wip Latam is “A House in the Country,” from Davi Pretto whose “Rifle” – his second film, after the impressive “Castanha” – premiered at 67th Berlinale Forum and won the Grand Prize at Jeonju Intl. Film Festival.
The highest profile title in Wip Europe is “Hesitation Wound,...
- 9/19/2022
- by Anna Marie de la Fuente
- Variety Film + TV
Panama’s award-winning Hypatia Films and Guatemala’s Jayro Bustamante, whose most recent film, “La Llorona,” made the Oscar international film shortlist, is partnering with Jonathan Keasey of Mind Riot Entertainment to make WWII drama “Down Wind.”
The film marks a rare collaboration between two major Central American filmmakers and an American writer-producer. Bustamante will direct based on a screenplay by Keasey, who has also boarded as a producer.
The drama’s lead production company, Hypatia Films, run by Pituka Ortega Heilbron and Marcela Heilbron, is an associate producer on Claire Denis’ Cannes competition contender “The Stars at Noon,” which was filmed in Panama and on which Hypatia provided production services.
Inspired by true events, “Down Wind” (a working title) is sourced from an article concerning incidents that transpired in the U.S. Southwest towards the end of World War II.
While details of the story remain under wraps, Ortega...
The film marks a rare collaboration between two major Central American filmmakers and an American writer-producer. Bustamante will direct based on a screenplay by Keasey, who has also boarded as a producer.
The drama’s lead production company, Hypatia Films, run by Pituka Ortega Heilbron and Marcela Heilbron, is an associate producer on Claire Denis’ Cannes competition contender “The Stars at Noon,” which was filmed in Panama and on which Hypatia provided production services.
Inspired by true events, “Down Wind” (a working title) is sourced from an article concerning incidents that transpired in the U.S. Southwest towards the end of World War II.
While details of the story remain under wraps, Ortega...
- 5/22/2022
- by Anna Marie de la Fuente
- Variety Film + TV
In the fourth episode of the second season, two artists talk about cinema as a link between the present and the past, a way of confronting and rewriting the official history.Cristina Gallego is a film producer and director. Her career is characterized by a long and close collaboration with director Ciro Guerra. The Wind Journeys, Birds of Passage, and Embrace of the Serpent are all films that take account of Colombia's complex geography and portray other faces of its history and culture. Jayro Bustamante is a screenwriter, director and producer from Guatemala. His film Ixcanul won the Best First Film Award at Berlinale. His filmography has been characterized by a frontal approach to Guatemala's most acute social problems: racism, homophobia, and the most recalcitrant conservatism.Cristina and Jayro talk about cinema with a clear political commitment.Listen to the fourth episode of the new season below or in your favorite podcast app.
- 4/20/2022
- MUBI
Introducing a musical performance at the Academy Awards isn’t normally the biggest of deals, but for Chilean newcomer Daniela Vega, it was a landmark opportunity: At the 2018 ceremony, she became the first transgender person ever to present at the Oscars. The film that got her there, meanwhile, had already made history that same night. Sebastián Lelio’s uplifting drama “A Fantastic Woman,” in which Vega gave a luminous performance as a trans woman battling heartbreak and discrimination, won that year’s international feature award — becoming the first film with a transgender lead to win an Oscar in any category.
“Thank you so much for this moment,” Vega said from the stage, before segueing into a tribute to gay Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino’s much-nominated queer romance “Call Me by Your Name”: It was a minute of airtime that contained more global LGBTQ visibility than many a previous broadcast.
“Thank you so much for this moment,” Vega said from the stage, before segueing into a tribute to gay Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino’s much-nominated queer romance “Call Me by Your Name”: It was a minute of airtime that contained more global LGBTQ visibility than many a previous broadcast.
- 4/1/2021
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
Guatemala has only submitted three films for Oscar consideration in the history of the Best International Feature category. In 1995 it entered “The Silence of Neto” and in 2016 “Ixcanul,” but neither advanced in the race toward a nomination. This year, the director of “Ixcanul” Jayro Bustamante is back in the race with Guatemala’s third-ever submission “La Llorona.” In February the film became the country’s first submission to make the 15-title shortlist and is now on pace to be its first nominee.
The supernatural drama film reimagines a Latin American fable using magical realism and horror to examine Guatemala’s dark past in a story of cultural guilt and justice. “La Llorona” had its world premiere at the 2019 Venice Film Festival where it won the Best Film prize at the Venice Days sidebar and then screened at TIFF shortly after, a full year before it was made available stateside via...
The supernatural drama film reimagines a Latin American fable using magical realism and horror to examine Guatemala’s dark past in a story of cultural guilt and justice. “La Llorona” had its world premiere at the 2019 Venice Film Festival where it won the Best Film prize at the Venice Days sidebar and then screened at TIFF shortly after, a full year before it was made available stateside via...
- 3/8/2021
- by John Benutty
- Gold Derby
Jayro Bustamante Is Building the Guatemalan Film Industry from Scratch with Movies Like ‘La Llorona’
A Google search for Guatemalan submissions for the International Feature Oscar will yield just three titles, and two of them are directed by Jayro Bustamante, the queer 43-year-old director and screenwriter behind this year’s entry “La Llorona.” That’s because there’s no real movie industry in Guatemala, his native country, where you could count the number of films made each year on one hand. Bustamante wanted to do something about it, and so he founded La Casa De Producción in 2009 to give natives “an opportunity to become icons, and to become actors, and not just people who see films,” as he explained to IndieWire. “There is not any help coming from the state, and there are no private investors. It’s a completely individual effort coming from the directors.”
More than a decade later, Guatemala is finally on the international cinema map thanks to “La Llorona,” Bustamante’s...
More than a decade later, Guatemala is finally on the international cinema map thanks to “La Llorona,” Bustamante’s...
- 3/5/2021
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
This review of “La Llorona” was first published following its premiere at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.
For his third and most tonally adventurous feature to date, socially perceptive writer-director Jayro Bustamante repurposes one of Latin America’s most ubiquitous supernatural legends to fiercely examine genocide against indigenous people in his native Guatemala. Invoking genre narrative devices, the entrancingly evocative “La Llorona” (“The Weeping Woman”) walks between fact and myth to engender a shrewdly frightening piece of political horror.
Sadistic military dictator General Enrique Monteverde (Julio Diaz), a fictionalized incarnation of the country’s former president Efraín Ríos Montt, stands accused of sanctioning the murder of thousands of Maya Ixil people in the Central American nation between 1982 and 1983. Battling health complications but still refusing to accept any fault, Monteverde is found guilty thanks to the courageous testimony of Ixil women still mourning their dead. Bustamante shoots the courtroom as a spiritual confessional devoid of natural light.
For his third and most tonally adventurous feature to date, socially perceptive writer-director Jayro Bustamante repurposes one of Latin America’s most ubiquitous supernatural legends to fiercely examine genocide against indigenous people in his native Guatemala. Invoking genre narrative devices, the entrancingly evocative “La Llorona” (“The Weeping Woman”) walks between fact and myth to engender a shrewdly frightening piece of political horror.
Sadistic military dictator General Enrique Monteverde (Julio Diaz), a fictionalized incarnation of the country’s former president Efraín Ríos Montt, stands accused of sanctioning the murder of thousands of Maya Ixil people in the Central American nation between 1982 and 1983. Battling health complications but still refusing to accept any fault, Monteverde is found guilty thanks to the courageous testimony of Ixil women still mourning their dead. Bustamante shoots the courtroom as a spiritual confessional devoid of natural light.
- 3/4/2021
- by Carlos Aguilar
- The Wrap
Launched by “El Chapo” producer Camila Jiménez and its creator Silvana Aguirre, L.A.-based The Immigrant is developing drama series with Guatemala’s Jayro Bustamante and Spain’s Javier Ruíz Caldera (“Superlópez”).
The news comes after The Immigrant made a large splash in October 2019 when Fremantle bought into the production house, acquiring a 25% stake, marking its first major investment in a Latinx company.
Jiménez has spent Covid-19 lockdown building talent relations across the Latinx community in U.S., Latin America and Spain. Development on the drama series with Bustamante and Ruíz Caldera are just some of the results.
Bustamante has made three features to date, which have established him as one of the most consistently acclaimed of Latin American arthouse auteurs. His first, 2015’s “Ixcanul,” described by Variety as a “powerful modern fable” about the clash of civilizations in a Mayan farming community, won the Alfred Bauer Prize at Berlin,...
The news comes after The Immigrant made a large splash in October 2019 when Fremantle bought into the production house, acquiring a 25% stake, marking its first major investment in a Latinx company.
Jiménez has spent Covid-19 lockdown building talent relations across the Latinx community in U.S., Latin America and Spain. Development on the drama series with Bustamante and Ruíz Caldera are just some of the results.
Bustamante has made three features to date, which have established him as one of the most consistently acclaimed of Latin American arthouse auteurs. His first, 2015’s “Ixcanul,” described by Variety as a “powerful modern fable” about the clash of civilizations in a Mayan farming community, won the Alfred Bauer Prize at Berlin,...
- 1/20/2021
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
by Nick Taylor
Three cheers for the Boston Society of Film Critics, who kicked off this year’s wave of critics prizes with an amazingly idiosyncratic list of winners and runners-up. Capping their day off with their Foreign Language Film category, they honored Jayro Bustamente’s political ghost story La Llorona, with The Painted Bird in second place. La Llorona has been selected as Guatemala’s submission for International Film at the Oscars, making this the second of Bustamente’s films to be submitted after his astonishing debut Ixcanul in 2015. Three more cheers for Cláudio Alves, whose heroically long FYC thread on Twitter has informed a lot of my recent choices for which 2020 films to catch up with.
La Llorona’s opening credits are delivered over a black background with white text, while a woman’s quiet, hurried, forceful prayers can be heard. Our first real image of the film...
Three cheers for the Boston Society of Film Critics, who kicked off this year’s wave of critics prizes with an amazingly idiosyncratic list of winners and runners-up. Capping their day off with their Foreign Language Film category, they honored Jayro Bustamente’s political ghost story La Llorona, with The Painted Bird in second place. La Llorona has been selected as Guatemala’s submission for International Film at the Oscars, making this the second of Bustamente’s films to be submitted after his astonishing debut Ixcanul in 2015. Three more cheers for Cláudio Alves, whose heroically long FYC thread on Twitter has informed a lot of my recent choices for which 2020 films to catch up with.
La Llorona’s opening credits are delivered over a black background with white text, while a woman’s quiet, hurried, forceful prayers can be heard. Our first real image of the film...
- 12/18/2020
- by Nick Taylor
- FilmExperience
Bookmark this page for all the latest international feature submissions.
Submissions for the best international feature film award at the 2021 Academy Awards have started to come in, and Screen is keeping a running list of each film below.
Scroll down for the full list
The 93rd Academy Awards is set to take place on April 25, 2021. It was originally set to be held on February 28, before both the ceremony and eligibility period were postponed for two months due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Submitted films must have been released in their respective countries between the expanded dates of October 1, 2019, and December 31, 2020. (Last year it was October-September.
Submissions for the best international feature film award at the 2021 Academy Awards have started to come in, and Screen is keeping a running list of each film below.
Scroll down for the full list
The 93rd Academy Awards is set to take place on April 25, 2021. It was originally set to be held on February 28, before both the ceremony and eligibility period were postponed for two months due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Submitted films must have been released in their respective countries between the expanded dates of October 1, 2019, and December 31, 2020. (Last year it was October-September.
- 11/9/2020
- by Ben Dalton¬Michael Rosser
- ScreenDaily
Since the last round up three more countries have announced Oscar submissions bringing the total of competing films to 37.
Guatemala's La Llorona, from the director of Ixcanul
Bulgaria - The Father Guatemala - La Llorona Slovakia - The Auschwitz Report
A few trivia notes regarding these latest submissions. First, Maria Bakalova who is currently enjoying an instant critical/populist splash as the co-star of Borat Subsequent MovieFilm is in the ensemble of Bulgaria's dramedic submission The Father. That film is not to be confused with the English-language Anthony Hopkins Oscar hopeful The Father or the Serbian film Father (which we loved at Ciff this fall). Too many movies named Father!
Meanwhile, Guatemala has submitted the newish filmmaker Jayro Bustamante again, who made a festival splash with his debut Ixcanul (2015). His new film is La Llorona (2020)... yes, another film with a title that could easily get it confused with other contemporary...
Guatemala's La Llorona, from the director of Ixcanul
Bulgaria - The Father Guatemala - La Llorona Slovakia - The Auschwitz Report
A few trivia notes regarding these latest submissions. First, Maria Bakalova who is currently enjoying an instant critical/populist splash as the co-star of Borat Subsequent MovieFilm is in the ensemble of Bulgaria's dramedic submission The Father. That film is not to be confused with the English-language Anthony Hopkins Oscar hopeful The Father or the Serbian film Father (which we loved at Ciff this fall). Too many movies named Father!
Meanwhile, Guatemala has submitted the newish filmmaker Jayro Bustamante again, who made a festival splash with his debut Ixcanul (2015). His new film is La Llorona (2020)... yes, another film with a title that could easily get it confused with other contemporary...
- 11/7/2020
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
Nobel Prize winner, survivor of Guatemalan atrocities Rigoberta Menchú Tum plays cameo.
Jayro Bustamente’s social commentary and magical realism horror La Llorona has been named Guatemala’s in the international feature film Oscar submission.
The winner of best film in 2019 Venice Film Festival’s Giornate degli Autori is the third feature from Bustamente, whose 2015 debut Ixcanul was Guatemala’s Osca submission.
La Llorona is a retelling of a Latin America legend set in present day, as a retired general’s home is besieged by protestors ahead of a trial for his role in the massacre of Mayans decades earlier.
Jayro Bustamente’s social commentary and magical realism horror La Llorona has been named Guatemala’s in the international feature film Oscar submission.
The winner of best film in 2019 Venice Film Festival’s Giornate degli Autori is the third feature from Bustamente, whose 2015 debut Ixcanul was Guatemala’s Osca submission.
La Llorona is a retelling of a Latin America legend set in present day, as a retired general’s home is besieged by protestors ahead of a trial for his role in the massacre of Mayans decades earlier.
- 11/6/2020
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
Ancient myths, religious otherworldliness, and culturally tailored re-imaginings of classic tropes or creatures populate the landscape of Latino horror. Although genre films have been present in Latin American cinema since the 1930s, over the last two decades — with the advent of digital filmmaking and increased government investment in the art form — they have exponentially flourished in the region.
Meanwhile, in the United States, Latinx audiences are known to be enthusiastic (and paying) fans of all things horror, even if Hollywood projects rarely include Latinos on screen. There are still few genre features by or about American Latinos out there, but up-and-coming storytellers are striving to change that. As streamers and studios vow to support emerging voices in entertainment, this is a space ripe for growth.
A thematically compelling quality in many of the most prominent Latino horror films is that genre often serves as a vehicle to create discourse around...
Meanwhile, in the United States, Latinx audiences are known to be enthusiastic (and paying) fans of all things horror, even if Hollywood projects rarely include Latinos on screen. There are still few genre features by or about American Latinos out there, but up-and-coming storytellers are striving to change that. As streamers and studios vow to support emerging voices in entertainment, this is a space ripe for growth.
A thematically compelling quality in many of the most prominent Latino horror films is that genre often serves as a vehicle to create discourse around...
- 10/24/2020
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Indiewire
The San Sebastian Festival’s new Works in Progress Latam program will unveil from Sept. 22 six film productions from Latin America to potential production partners and sales agents.
Examining such topics as militant activism, the relationship between leaders and followers, employers and employees, identity, devoutness and belief systems, this year’s projects reflect universal subject matter in films from Argentina, Colombia, Paraguay and Uruguay.
Wip Latam, which runs Sept. 22-24, replaces San Sebastian’s Films in Progress event after its 18-year run.
This year’s works include “The Fossilized Remains,” Jerónimo Quevedo’s Argentine drama about young militants in Buenos Aires; Manuel Nieto’s “The Employer and the Employee,” an Uruguayan-Argentine-Brazilian-French co-production about the relationship between two young men, a boss and his worker, and the convoluted relationship of both with work, freedom and happiness; and “Boreal,” Federico Adorno’s Paraguayan-Mexican co-production about the followers of a Mennonite leader and...
Examining such topics as militant activism, the relationship between leaders and followers, employers and employees, identity, devoutness and belief systems, this year’s projects reflect universal subject matter in films from Argentina, Colombia, Paraguay and Uruguay.
Wip Latam, which runs Sept. 22-24, replaces San Sebastian’s Films in Progress event after its 18-year run.
This year’s works include “The Fossilized Remains,” Jerónimo Quevedo’s Argentine drama about young militants in Buenos Aires; Manuel Nieto’s “The Employer and the Employee,” an Uruguayan-Argentine-Brazilian-French co-production about the relationship between two young men, a boss and his worker, and the convoluted relationship of both with work, freedom and happiness; and “Boreal,” Federico Adorno’s Paraguayan-Mexican co-production about the followers of a Mennonite leader and...
- 9/23/2020
- by Ed Meza
- Variety Film + TV
One of the major figures at this year’s Venice Film Festival, Academy Award-nominated “Call Me By Your Name” director Luca Guadagnino will serve as president of the main competition official jury at Spain’s 68th San Sebastian Festival.
The announcement comes as Guadagnino world premieres two films at Venice: the doc feature “Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams,” about extraordinary Italian luxury shoe designer-entrepreneur Salvatore Ferragamo, and a more personal 122-minute short “Fiori, Fiori, Fiori,” in which Guadagnino looks up childhood friends to see how they’re faring during Covid-19.
At San Sebastian, Guadagnino will also be on double duty as he will also present out of the competition the world premiere of his series “We Are What We Are,” an HBO/Sky Italia production sold by Fremantle.
Acclaimed for his often glamorous movies directed with a high-style, and set in glorious locations and featuring marvelous houses – Guadagnino nevertheless maintains he has no style,...
The announcement comes as Guadagnino world premieres two films at Venice: the doc feature “Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams,” about extraordinary Italian luxury shoe designer-entrepreneur Salvatore Ferragamo, and a more personal 122-minute short “Fiori, Fiori, Fiori,” in which Guadagnino looks up childhood friends to see how they’re faring during Covid-19.
At San Sebastian, Guadagnino will also be on double duty as he will also present out of the competition the world premiere of his series “We Are What We Are,” an HBO/Sky Italia production sold by Fremantle.
Acclaimed for his often glamorous movies directed with a high-style, and set in glorious locations and featuring marvelous houses – Guadagnino nevertheless maintains he has no style,...
- 9/4/2020
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Riveting Guatemalan drama La Llorona, premiering on Shudder, continues a rich tradition of horror with a political message, from Night of the Living Dead to Get Out
As cinemas tentatively reopen, many of the year’s best films continue to forsake them in favour of streaming – sometimes popping up in highly unpredictable places. If you aren’t a hardcore devotee of horror film, chances are you don’t have a subscription to Shudder, a fine genre platform with programming that often stretches beyond the expected slash-and-scream territory. If so, you’re missing out on a remarkable new film from Guatemala that is exclusively streaming there. Much acclaimed on the festival circuit last year, Jayro Bustamante’s La Llorona may burrow under your skin with unsettling atmospherics, but it has as much to offer arthouse patrons as it does horrorheads in its adherence to a tradition of horror cinema with a real-world political undercurrent.
As cinemas tentatively reopen, many of the year’s best films continue to forsake them in favour of streaming – sometimes popping up in highly unpredictable places. If you aren’t a hardcore devotee of horror film, chances are you don’t have a subscription to Shudder, a fine genre platform with programming that often stretches beyond the expected slash-and-scream territory. If so, you’re missing out on a remarkable new film from Guatemala that is exclusively streaming there. Much acclaimed on the festival circuit last year, Jayro Bustamante’s La Llorona may burrow under your skin with unsettling atmospherics, but it has as much to offer arthouse patrons as it does horrorheads in its adherence to a tradition of horror cinema with a real-world political undercurrent.
- 8/22/2020
- by Guy Lodge
- The Guardian - Film News
With any luck, the name Jayro Bustamante will be well-known by cinephiles near and far very soon. At Sundance earlier this year, I said his third feature La Llorona is “an effective slow-burn that uses thriller tropes to explore the lingering scars of the Guatemalan Civil War.” As the film is now available on Shudder, The Film Stage had the opportunity to chat with the filmmaker about the project, how it interweaves the complicated history of his home country, and where he turned for inspiration.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The Film Stage: You have mentioned that you wanted to explore a triptych of different issues that were specific to Guatemala in your feature films and that La Llorona would be the third of those. Could you go into the historical origins and the reasoning behind making this picture?
Jayro Bustamante: Yeah, when I decided to make these three films,...
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The Film Stage: You have mentioned that you wanted to explore a triptych of different issues that were specific to Guatemala in your feature films and that La Llorona would be the third of those. Could you go into the historical origins and the reasoning behind making this picture?
Jayro Bustamante: Yeah, when I decided to make these three films,...
- 8/6/2020
- by Dan Mecca
- The Film Stage
Winner of Venice Days 2019. Official Selection TIFF 2019, Sundance 2020, Shudder has unveiled the trailer for director Jayro Bustamante’s LA Llorona.
Indignant retired general Enrique finally faces trial for the genocidal massacre of thousands of Mayans decades ago. As a horde of angry protestors threatens to invade their opulent home, the women of the house—his haughty wife, conflicted daughter, and precocious granddaughter—weigh their responsibility to shield the erratic, senile Enrique against the devastating truths being publicly revealed and the increasing sense that a wrathful supernatural force is targeting them for his crimes. Meanwhile, much of the family’s domestic staff flees, leaving only loyal housekeeper Valeriana until a mysterious young Indigenous maid arrives.
Guy Lodge, Variety, called LA Llorona, “Astonishing… A trauma-induced reverberation of patriarchal war and violence.”
A tale of horror and magical realism, the film reimagines the iconic Latin American fable as an urgent metaphor of Guatemala...
Indignant retired general Enrique finally faces trial for the genocidal massacre of thousands of Mayans decades ago. As a horde of angry protestors threatens to invade their opulent home, the women of the house—his haughty wife, conflicted daughter, and precocious granddaughter—weigh their responsibility to shield the erratic, senile Enrique against the devastating truths being publicly revealed and the increasing sense that a wrathful supernatural force is targeting them for his crimes. Meanwhile, much of the family’s domestic staff flees, leaving only loyal housekeeper Valeriana until a mysterious young Indigenous maid arrives.
Guy Lodge, Variety, called LA Llorona, “Astonishing… A trauma-induced reverberation of patriarchal war and violence.”
A tale of horror and magical realism, the film reimagines the iconic Latin American fable as an urgent metaphor of Guatemala...
- 7/14/2020
- by Michelle Hannett
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
If you read Heather Wixson's 4.5-star Sundance review, then you know we're excited for Daily Dead readers to experience Jayro Bustamante's La Llorona. With the film coming to Shudder on August 6th, the wait is nearly over, and we have a look at the trailer ahead of its streaming release.
Directed by Bustamante from a screenplay he wrote with Lisandro Sánchez, La Llorona stars María Mercedes Coroy, Margarita Kénefic, Sabrina De La Hoz, and Julio Diaz.
You can watch the new trailer below, and in case you missed it, check out Heather's Sundance interview with Bustamante.
Synopsis: "Indignant retired general Enrique finally faces trial for the genocidal massacre of thousands of Mayans decades ago. As a horde of angry protestors threatens to invade their opulent home, the women of the house—his haughty wife, conflicted daughter, and precocious granddaughter—weigh their responsibility to shield the erratic, senile Enrique...
Directed by Bustamante from a screenplay he wrote with Lisandro Sánchez, La Llorona stars María Mercedes Coroy, Margarita Kénefic, Sabrina De La Hoz, and Julio Diaz.
You can watch the new trailer below, and in case you missed it, check out Heather's Sundance interview with Bustamante.
Synopsis: "Indignant retired general Enrique finally faces trial for the genocidal massacre of thousands of Mayans decades ago. As a horde of angry protestors threatens to invade their opulent home, the women of the house—his haughty wife, conflicted daughter, and precocious granddaughter—weigh their responsibility to shield the erratic, senile Enrique...
- 7/14/2020
- by Derek Anderson
- DailyDead
Berlin-based Films Boutique (“There is No Evil”) has acquired world sales to Dani Rosenberg’s feature debut “The Death of Cinema And My Father Too,” which is part of the Cannes 2020 Official Selection.
“The Death of Cinema And My Father Too,” set to have its market premiere in the Cannes Virtual Market, was described by the festival’s artistic director Thierry Fremaux as a “strong take” and “somewhere between a creative documentary and fiction film.”
Penned by Rosenberg and Itay Kohay, the movie tells the story of Yoel, who hears about an imminent Iranian military attack on Tel Aviv and sets off to escape with his family to a safe haven in Jerusalem. His son Assaf, who is a filmmaker and about to become a father himself, wants to give Yoel one last lead role in his movie by weaving the fictional world into bittersweet reality.
“Working on this film...
“The Death of Cinema And My Father Too,” set to have its market premiere in the Cannes Virtual Market, was described by the festival’s artistic director Thierry Fremaux as a “strong take” and “somewhere between a creative documentary and fiction film.”
Penned by Rosenberg and Itay Kohay, the movie tells the story of Yoel, who hears about an imminent Iranian military attack on Tel Aviv and sets off to escape with his family to a safe haven in Jerusalem. His son Assaf, who is a filmmaker and about to become a father himself, wants to give Yoel one last lead role in his movie by weaving the fictional world into bittersweet reality.
“Working on this film...
- 6/11/2020
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
The Panama Film Festival (Iff Panama), with support from the Inter-American Development Bank, is unspooling a five-day online festival, running May 22-26, which includes film screenings and round tables.
Held on May 22, 23 and 24, three online round-tables – two moderated by festival director Pituka Ortega Heilbron and one by Tiff’s senior director, film, Diana Sanchez – questioned leading international talent, based in Latin America and Europe, about what film festivals and film production and distribution will look like after Covid-19.
The panelists were Jayro Bustamante (“Ixcanul”), Nicolás Celis (“Roma”), Cristina Gallegos (“Embrace of the Serpent”) Elena Manrique (“Pan’s Labyrinth”), production designer Enrique Caballero (“Roma”), and actors Yalitza Aparicio (“Roma”), Luis Tosar (“Cell 211”), Ricardo Darín (“The Secret in Their Eyes”), Geraldine Chaplin (“Talk to Her”), Daniela Vega (“A Fantastic Woman”) and Marina de Tavira (“Roma”).
Several innovative new projects adapted to the lockdown period were discussed. For example, Spanish actor Luis Tosar...
Held on May 22, 23 and 24, three online round-tables – two moderated by festival director Pituka Ortega Heilbron and one by Tiff’s senior director, film, Diana Sanchez – questioned leading international talent, based in Latin America and Europe, about what film festivals and film production and distribution will look like after Covid-19.
The panelists were Jayro Bustamante (“Ixcanul”), Nicolás Celis (“Roma”), Cristina Gallegos (“Embrace of the Serpent”) Elena Manrique (“Pan’s Labyrinth”), production designer Enrique Caballero (“Roma”), and actors Yalitza Aparicio (“Roma”), Luis Tosar (“Cell 211”), Ricardo Darín (“The Secret in Their Eyes”), Geraldine Chaplin (“Talk to Her”), Daniela Vega (“A Fantastic Woman”) and Marina de Tavira (“Roma”).
Several innovative new projects adapted to the lockdown period were discussed. For example, Spanish actor Luis Tosar...
- 5/26/2020
- by Martin Dale and John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
The Berlin Film Festival has suspended its Alfred Bauer Prize following revelations that the award’s namesake and the Berlinale’s first director was much more closely affiliated with the Nazi Party than previously known.
Bauer, a film historian, was appointed to head the festival in 1951 following its inception by Oscar Martay, a film officer in the U.S. Army who worked in the Information Service Branch of the U.S. High Commissioner for Germany. Bauer oversaw the Berlinale until 1976. The festival introduced the Alfred Bauer Prize in his honor following his death in 1986.
While it was known that Bauer worked for the Nazi government’s Reich Film Office in the 1940s and also advised the British military government on film issues after the end of the war, a new report by German newspaper Die Zeit has uncovered evidence that his association with the Nazis went far deeper.
Working with amateur film researcher Ulrich Hähnel,...
Bauer, a film historian, was appointed to head the festival in 1951 following its inception by Oscar Martay, a film officer in the U.S. Army who worked in the Information Service Branch of the U.S. High Commissioner for Germany. Bauer oversaw the Berlinale until 1976. The festival introduced the Alfred Bauer Prize in his honor following his death in 1986.
While it was known that Bauer worked for the Nazi government’s Reich Film Office in the 1940s and also advised the British military government on film issues after the end of the war, a new report by German newspaper Die Zeit has uncovered evidence that his association with the Nazis went far deeper.
Working with amateur film researcher Ulrich Hähnel,...
- 1/30/2020
- by Ed Meza
- Variety Film + TV
Reviews of Jayro Bustamante’s “La Llorona” (“The Weeping Woman”) are obligated to mention that this quiet and trembling phantasmagoria about the ghosts of the Guatemalan Civil War has virtually nothing to do with Michael Chaves’ “The Curse of La Llorona,” the schlocky jump-scare machine that Warner Bros. released last spring. Aside from their shared roots in the same piece of Latin American folklore, these two films couldn’t have less in common; one is a slow-burn séance for the victims of a recent genocide, and the other is a PG-13 studio programmer that was only produced because of its ridiculous margins ($122 million in ticket sales against a $9 million budget is a job well done).
And yet, maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if critics let their readers assume a more direct connection between these wildly different visions of death. While anyone who subscribes to...
And yet, maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if critics let their readers assume a more direct connection between these wildly different visions of death. While anyone who subscribes to...
- 1/25/2020
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
Guillaume Nicloux’s “To the Ends of the World,” Erwan Le Duc’s “The Bare Necessity” and Caroline Poggi & Jonathan Vinel’s “Jessica Forever” are among the ten French and French-language films set to compete at the 10th edition of MyFrenchFilmFestival, the online film showcase created by UniFrance.
Ira Sachs, the American director whose latest film “Frankie” competed at Cannes, will preside over the international jury which will comprise of the French actress Agathe Bonitzer (“Isadora’s Children”), Guatemaltec director Jayro Bustamante (“Ixcanul”), American actor-turned-director Brady Corbet (“Vox Lux”), Belgian director Judith Davis (“My Revolution”) and Czech director Michaela Pavlatova (“My Sunny Maad”). The other jury is made up of members of the international press.
“To the Ends of the World,” which world premiered at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight last year, stars Gaspard Ulliel (“Saint Laurent”) as a young French soldier in Indochina, in 1945, who survives a brutal massacre in which...
Ira Sachs, the American director whose latest film “Frankie” competed at Cannes, will preside over the international jury which will comprise of the French actress Agathe Bonitzer (“Isadora’s Children”), Guatemaltec director Jayro Bustamante (“Ixcanul”), American actor-turned-director Brady Corbet (“Vox Lux”), Belgian director Judith Davis (“My Revolution”) and Czech director Michaela Pavlatova (“My Sunny Maad”). The other jury is made up of members of the international press.
“To the Ends of the World,” which world premiered at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight last year, stars Gaspard Ulliel (“Saint Laurent”) as a young French soldier in Indochina, in 1945, who survives a brutal massacre in which...
- 1/7/2020
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
Guatemalan writer-director Jayro Bustamante broke out with the 2015 drama “Ixcanul,” set on an active volcano. Here he returns with “Tremors” (the English translation of “Temblores”), equally volcanic in its emotional insight about an affluent, religious family torn asunder after patriarch Pablo (Juan Pablo Olyslager) reveals that he’s been in a relationship with another man. Below, check out the first trailer.
Here’s the rest of the synopsis of the film, which is being distributed by Film Movement in the U.S. on November 29:
“What follows is a tale of passionate romance, immense inner conflict, and devastating tragedy. Separated from his wife, his children, and his life of Evangelical tradition, Pablo initially finds a sense of freedom. But how long can he sustain this new and exciting life when he’s fired from his job and his religious creed begins to take over again? Filled with gorgeous and breathtaking cinematography,...
Here’s the rest of the synopsis of the film, which is being distributed by Film Movement in the U.S. on November 29:
“What follows is a tale of passionate romance, immense inner conflict, and devastating tragedy. Separated from his wife, his children, and his life of Evangelical tradition, Pablo initially finds a sense of freedom. But how long can he sustain this new and exciting life when he’s fired from his job and his religious creed begins to take over again? Filled with gorgeous and breathtaking cinematography,...
- 10/20/2019
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
The legend of the Llorona, the crying woman, is told throughout Latin America. It is about a young mother who, abandoned by her husband, is driven mad by grief, drowns her two children in the river and kills herself. She is punished by having to haunt the earth forever after.
Jayro Bustamante, the fiery director from Guatemala who burst on the festival scene with his debut film Ixcanul (Silver Bear winner at Berlin in 2015) and the Lgbt drama Tremors, in Berlin this year, brilliantly reinterprets this folktale in The Weeping Woman (La Llorona), which leaps from psychological suspense and dark ...
Jayro Bustamante, the fiery director from Guatemala who burst on the festival scene with his debut film Ixcanul (Silver Bear winner at Berlin in 2015) and the Lgbt drama Tremors, in Berlin this year, brilliantly reinterprets this folktale in The Weeping Woman (La Llorona), which leaps from psychological suspense and dark ...
- 9/30/2019
- The Hollywood Reporter - Film + TV
The legend of the Llorona, the crying woman, is told throughout Latin America. It is about a young mother who, abandoned by her husband, is driven mad by grief, drowns her two children in the river and kills herself. She is punished by having to haunt the earth forever after.
Jayro Bustamante, the fiery director from Guatemala who burst on the festival scene with his debut film Ixcanul (Silver Bear winner at Berlin in 2015) and the Lgbt drama Tremors, in Berlin this year, brilliantly reinterprets this folktale in The Weeping Woman (La Llorona), which leaps from psychological suspense and dark ...
Jayro Bustamante, the fiery director from Guatemala who burst on the festival scene with his debut film Ixcanul (Silver Bear winner at Berlin in 2015) and the Lgbt drama Tremors, in Berlin this year, brilliantly reinterprets this folktale in The Weeping Woman (La Llorona), which leaps from psychological suspense and dark ...
- 9/30/2019
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Guatamalan writer-director Jayro Bustamante had a dream debut with “Ixcanul” in 2015: The richly textured folk drama premiered in Competition at Berlin and won him the Alfred Bauer Prize, before going on to healthy international arthouse exposure. So it’s surprising that Bustamante’s subsequent work, while amply delivering on his first feature’s promise, has been comparatively sidelined in major festival programs. Earlier this year, his superb gay drama “Tremors” was demoted to Berlin’s lower-profile Panorama section; now “La Llorona,” his swift, thrilling, genre-expanding follow-up, has unspooled on the Lido in the external Venice Days sidebar — duly winning the top prize. By any measure, Bustamante’s latest is meaty, adventurous auteur cinema that would be of prime competition standard at any major fest: A nervy alternative horror film in which political ghosts of the past mingle with more uncanny phantoms, it ought to be the filmmaker’s most widely distributed work to date.
- 9/16/2019
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
Guatamalan director Jayro Bustamante’s genocide revenge drama “The Weeping Woman” (“La Llorona”), set during the 1960s civil war in his country, has won the Venice Days Director Award, the top nod in Venice’s independently run section.
This is the second feature by Bustamante, who put Guatemalan cinema the map with his debut, “Ixcanul.” The film takes its cue from the acquittal of a former Guatemalan general whose initial sentence is overturned on a procedural pretext. This unleashes a vengeful supernatural spirit upon his household.
Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz (“The Invisible Life”) presided over the jury formed by 28 young European movie buffs. They praised the film for being “an intimate ghost story told through a vivid female character.”
The award comes with a cash prize of €20,000, which is split equally between the director and the film’s international distributor, in this case Film Factory Entertainment.
This is the second feature by Bustamante, who put Guatemalan cinema the map with his debut, “Ixcanul.” The film takes its cue from the acquittal of a former Guatemalan general whose initial sentence is overturned on a procedural pretext. This unleashes a vengeful supernatural spirit upon his household.
Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz (“The Invisible Life”) presided over the jury formed by 28 young European movie buffs. They praised the film for being “an intimate ghost story told through a vivid female character.”
The award comes with a cash prize of €20,000, which is split equally between the director and the film’s international distributor, in this case Film Factory Entertainment.
- 9/6/2019
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
New York-based Filipina filmmaker Isabel Sandoval’s “Lingua Franca,” about a transgender immigrant, is among 11 competition entries, all world premieres, that will launch from the Venice Film Festival’s independently run Venice Days section.
The only U.S. entry set to compete in the section modeled on Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight, “Lingua Franca” is Sandoval’s third work. It follows “Apparition” (2012), a period drama about cloistered Filipina nuns praised by Variety’s Richard Kuipers as an “outstanding sophomore feature.”
Produced by Tony- and Grammy-winning Filipino producer Jhett Tolentino, and by Darlene Malimas and Carlo Velayo, “Lingua Franca” is set in Brighton Beach, New York, where a transgender Filipina immigrant named Olivia – played by Sandoval, who is herself transgender – scrambles to avoid deportation. She becomes involved with a Russian slaughterhouse worker who is unaware that she’s trans.
Venice Days artistic director Giorgio Gosetti said that this year’s selection is characterized...
The only U.S. entry set to compete in the section modeled on Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight, “Lingua Franca” is Sandoval’s third work. It follows “Apparition” (2012), a period drama about cloistered Filipina nuns praised by Variety’s Richard Kuipers as an “outstanding sophomore feature.”
Produced by Tony- and Grammy-winning Filipino producer Jhett Tolentino, and by Darlene Malimas and Carlo Velayo, “Lingua Franca” is set in Brighton Beach, New York, where a transgender Filipina immigrant named Olivia – played by Sandoval, who is herself transgender – scrambles to avoid deportation. She becomes involved with a Russian slaughterhouse worker who is unaware that she’s trans.
Venice Days artistic director Giorgio Gosetti said that this year’s selection is characterized...
- 7/23/2019
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Focusing on award-winning independent and foreign films by some of the world’s great directors, New York based Film Movement has acquired all rights to the U.S. and Canada on the latest titles by two auteurs with growing international reputations: “Temblores,” from Guatemala’s Jayro Bustamante, and Quebecois Phillipe Lesage’s “Genesis.”
“Temblores,” Bustamante’s follow-up to his debut, “Ixcanul,” which was Guatemala’s first Oscar submission in 21 years, tells the story of an evangelical married father of two who falls in love and moves in with another man. His family thinks he can be “healed.”
Film Movement’s pickup was announced by its president Michael Rosenberg and Vicente Canales, managing director of Film Factory Entertainment.
“This strong second feature from Guatemalan talent Jayro Bustamante doesn’t ask new questions, but its sensuous, reverberating atmospherics find fresh, angry ways to answer them,” Variety said in its review. “Temblores” will...
“Temblores,” Bustamante’s follow-up to his debut, “Ixcanul,” which was Guatemala’s first Oscar submission in 21 years, tells the story of an evangelical married father of two who falls in love and moves in with another man. His family thinks he can be “healed.”
Film Movement’s pickup was announced by its president Michael Rosenberg and Vicente Canales, managing director of Film Factory Entertainment.
“This strong second feature from Guatemalan talent Jayro Bustamante doesn’t ask new questions, but its sensuous, reverberating atmospherics find fresh, angry ways to answer them,” Variety said in its review. “Temblores” will...
- 5/16/2019
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
“Love knows nothing improper,” chides a zealous preacher in “Tremors.” Ostensibly, she says it to an entire rapt church; more pointedly, she’s addressing mild-mannered family man Pablo, as he’s dragged through a terrestrial hell for the cardinal sin of falling in love with another man. What’s the greater impropriety, then: same-sex love or the victimization of its practitioners, to the point of denying them jobs or access to their children? As the latest in a long line of films to examine the hypocrisy-laden clash between gay rights and evangelical Christian ethos — including the recent U.S. double bill of “Boy Erased” and “The Miseducation of Cameron Post” — this strong second feature from Guatemalan talent Jayro Bustamante doesn’t ask new questions, but its sensuous, reverberating atmospherics find fresh, angry ways to answer them.
Premiering in Berlin’s Panorama strand, “Tremors” is a weighty, promise-fulfilling follow-up to a dream debut.
Premiering in Berlin’s Panorama strand, “Tremors” is a weighty, promise-fulfilling follow-up to a dream debut.
- 2/15/2019
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
There are any number of movies about gay men trying to liberate themselves from the long shadow of heteronormative oppression — a regrettably, enduringly relevant premise — but few have been told with the extraordinary nuance or compassion of Jayro Bustamante’s “Tremors.”
The Guatemalan drama begins where a previous iteration of this drama might have left off. Rather than argue for the hero’s basic humanity, Bustamante moves the goalposts forward by reframing the stakes. There’s never any doubt that Pablo has the right to be with the man he loves, the question is whether the happiness that would bring is worth the hurt that would come with it. And it’s a question that only Pablo can answer for himself.
From its rain-drenched prologue to its pensive final shot, “Tremors” explores whether self-identity is more legibly defined by what people are, or what they are not. Must we shed...
The Guatemalan drama begins where a previous iteration of this drama might have left off. Rather than argue for the hero’s basic humanity, Bustamante moves the goalposts forward by reframing the stakes. There’s never any doubt that Pablo has the right to be with the man he loves, the question is whether the happiness that would bring is worth the hurt that would come with it. And it’s a question that only Pablo can answer for himself.
From its rain-drenched prologue to its pensive final shot, “Tremors” explores whether self-identity is more legibly defined by what people are, or what they are not. Must we shed...
- 2/12/2019
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
The Weeping Woman (La Llorona)
Before he’s even premiered his sophomore feature, Guatemalan director Jayro Bustamante commences on his third feature, The Weeping Woman (La Llorona). Winning a coveted co-production grant at the 2018 San Sebastian Film Festival and world rights were snapped up by Film Factory Ent., and is backed by French investor George Renard, serving as associate producer. Bustamante reunites with his Ixcanul actress Maria Mercedes Coroy, who will be playing the lead. Bustamante’s 2015 debut Ixcanul was the first Guatemalan film to compete in the festival and was awarded the Alfred Bauer award and subsequently selected as the country’s official submission for the Best Foreign Language category for Academy Award consideration.…...
Before he’s even premiered his sophomore feature, Guatemalan director Jayro Bustamante commences on his third feature, The Weeping Woman (La Llorona). Winning a coveted co-production grant at the 2018 San Sebastian Film Festival and world rights were snapped up by Film Factory Ent., and is backed by French investor George Renard, serving as associate producer. Bustamante reunites with his Ixcanul actress Maria Mercedes Coroy, who will be playing the lead. Bustamante’s 2015 debut Ixcanul was the first Guatemalan film to compete in the festival and was awarded the Alfred Bauer award and subsequently selected as the country’s official submission for the Best Foreign Language category for Academy Award consideration.…...
- 1/4/2019
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Edgard Tenembaum’s Paris-based Tu Vas Voir, producer of “The Motorcycle Diaries,” and “Ixcanul,” has boarded Argentine writer-director Rodrigo Guerrero’s “Venezia,” a tale of a grieving woman’s discovery of a larger freedom.
Tu Vas Voir will co-produce “Venezia” with Cordoba’s Twins Latin Films but leaving all international territory rights open outside Argentina, including those to France, said Tenembaum.
Lead produced by Twins Latin Films, located in Argentine second city Cordoba, “Venezia” competes in a strong Copia Final competition at this year’s Ventana Sur, which kicks off next week in Buenos Aires.
Shot entirely in Italy, “Venezia’s” production was also supported by Alfredo Federico, at Italy’s 39 Films, said Lorena Quevedo, the film’s producer at Twins Latin Films.
Maybe the most arthouse of the films in this year’s highly-varied Copia Final line-up, “Venezia” begins with a distraught young woman, Sofía, aimlessly wandering the streets...
Tu Vas Voir will co-produce “Venezia” with Cordoba’s Twins Latin Films but leaving all international territory rights open outside Argentina, including those to France, said Tenembaum.
Lead produced by Twins Latin Films, located in Argentine second city Cordoba, “Venezia” competes in a strong Copia Final competition at this year’s Ventana Sur, which kicks off next week in Buenos Aires.
Shot entirely in Italy, “Venezia’s” production was also supported by Alfredo Federico, at Italy’s 39 Films, said Lorena Quevedo, the film’s producer at Twins Latin Films.
Maybe the most arthouse of the films in this year’s highly-varied Copia Final line-up, “Venezia” begins with a distraught young woman, Sofía, aimlessly wandering the streets...
- 12/5/2018
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Los Cabos, Mexico — In a newly expansive move for a vigorous Mexican movie industry, Machete Producciones founder Edher Campos and producer Gabriela Maire are launching a new production house, Zafiro Cinema.
Based out of Mexico City, Zafiro will look to co-produce titles from territories currently underserved by state film funding and industry infrastructure, such as Bolivia – Maire’s home country – Paraguay and Central America.
Zafiro’s launch obeys a major net of globalized film production: Talent can come from anywhere. Think Guatemala’s Jayro Bustamante, a recent Berlinale Alfredo Bauer winner with “Ixcanul,” sold voluminously by The Film Factory.
But talent often does emerge in the world’s less privileged territories, in film terms, often because of not only a lack of funding but producer facilitators linking talent to further funds, festival exposure and sales agents.
Zafiro Cinema’s most immediate focus will be Bolivia, where Maire has multiple contacts.
Based out of Mexico City, Zafiro will look to co-produce titles from territories currently underserved by state film funding and industry infrastructure, such as Bolivia – Maire’s home country – Paraguay and Central America.
Zafiro’s launch obeys a major net of globalized film production: Talent can come from anywhere. Think Guatemala’s Jayro Bustamante, a recent Berlinale Alfredo Bauer winner with “Ixcanul,” sold voluminously by The Film Factory.
But talent often does emerge in the world’s less privileged territories, in film terms, often because of not only a lack of funding but producer facilitators linking talent to further funds, festival exposure and sales agents.
Zafiro Cinema’s most immediate focus will be Bolivia, where Maire has multiple contacts.
- 11/12/2018
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
San Sebastian — San Sebastian, the highest-profile festival and biggest movie event in the Spanish-speaking world, wraps Saturday after nine days of sun, some festival hits, deals and intense business discussions about gender parity and the future for Spanish-film-making in a future ever more dominated by digital platforms or vast and fast consolidating conglom-studio combos.
Ten takeaways from this year’s 67th edition.
1.Festivals: More Crucial Than Ever
The festival’s banner deal saw Film Factory Ent. seal world sales on San Sebastian Co-Production Forum winner “La Llorona,” from “Ixcanul” director Jayro Bustamente, about a mother ready to wreak vengeance on the never-punished soldier-now politician who killed her children.
Multiple sales agents deals went down – or were announced – on still available festival titles in the run-up to Toronto and San Sebastian or at the festivals. Luxbox (“Rojo”), Indie Sales (“Core of the World”), Latido (“Happiness”), Loco Films (“Journey to a Mother...
Ten takeaways from this year’s 67th edition.
1.Festivals: More Crucial Than Ever
The festival’s banner deal saw Film Factory Ent. seal world sales on San Sebastian Co-Production Forum winner “La Llorona,” from “Ixcanul” director Jayro Bustamente, about a mother ready to wreak vengeance on the never-punished soldier-now politician who killed her children.
Multiple sales agents deals went down – or were announced – on still available festival titles in the run-up to Toronto and San Sebastian or at the festivals. Luxbox (“Rojo”), Indie Sales (“Core of the World”), Latido (“Happiness”), Loco Films (“Journey to a Mother...
- 9/28/2018
- by John Hopewell, Emiliano De Pablos and Jamie Lang
- Variety Film + TV
San Sebastian — In one of the banner deals at this year’s San Sebastian, Vicente Canales’ Film Factory Ent, the sales agent on “Wild Tales,” “The Clan” and now Argentine Oscar entry “El Angel,” has pounced on world sales rights to “La Llorona,” which stars the female leads of Bustamante’s Berlin awarded debut “Ixcanul.”
Deal was struck at this year’s San Sebastian Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum, where “La Llorona” walked off with one of the top prizes, the EFADs-caci Co-production Grant, adjudicated by Europe and Latin America’s powerful state film agencies, from the BFI to France’s Cnc, Mexico’s Imcine or Argentina’s Incaa, a sign that “La Llorona” is the kind of film that these government film funds want to encourage.
Backed by French investor George Renard, who will serve as associate producer, “La Llorona” is scheduled to shoot from this December, Bustamante said. If ready,...
Deal was struck at this year’s San Sebastian Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum, where “La Llorona” walked off with one of the top prizes, the EFADs-caci Co-production Grant, adjudicated by Europe and Latin America’s powerful state film agencies, from the BFI to France’s Cnc, Mexico’s Imcine or Argentina’s Incaa, a sign that “La Llorona” is the kind of film that these government film funds want to encourage.
Backed by French investor George Renard, who will serve as associate producer, “La Llorona” is scheduled to shoot from this December, Bustamante said. If ready,...
- 9/27/2018
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
San Sebastian — Pablo Fendrik’s “Hermano Peligro,” Jayro Bustamante’s “La Llorona,” Matthias Huser’s “The Jungle” and Clara Roquet’s “Libertad” took one prize a piece at San Sebastian’s 7th Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum, which wrapped Wednesday night.
Meanwhile, “The Sharks,” the first feature of Uruguay’s Lucia Garibaldi, swept San Sebastian’s Films in Progress.
While awards in the past have sometimes gone to little-known projects, this year saw plaudits shared by four of the strongest projects at the market in terms of director reknown, prestige producer backing or even, in the case of “La Llorona,” a sales market deal.
Winner of the Co-production Forum Best Project Award, “Hermano Peligro,” for instance, comes from a director. Pablo Fendrik, whose first three films, “The Mugger,” “Blood Appears” and “Ardor” have all been selected for the Cannes Festival, before he went on to co-direct two of the most distinguished...
Meanwhile, “The Sharks,” the first feature of Uruguay’s Lucia Garibaldi, swept San Sebastian’s Films in Progress.
While awards in the past have sometimes gone to little-known projects, this year saw plaudits shared by four of the strongest projects at the market in terms of director reknown, prestige producer backing or even, in the case of “La Llorona,” a sales market deal.
Winner of the Co-production Forum Best Project Award, “Hermano Peligro,” for instance, comes from a director. Pablo Fendrik, whose first three films, “The Mugger,” “Blood Appears” and “Ardor” have all been selected for the Cannes Festival, before he went on to co-direct two of the most distinguished...
- 9/26/2018
- by John Hopewell and Jamie Lang
- Variety Film + TV
San Sebastian — As many people talk the talk, some companies are walking the walk – acquiring and selling women’s films as part of a growing business.
In the latest move, announced Sunday at San Sebastian as the festival, the biggest in the Spanish-speaking world, signed a gender parity charter, Latido Films has acquired international rights to films by two first-time Latin American women filmmakers: Camila Urrutia’s “Polvora en el corazón,” and “La Casa de los Conejos,” from Valeria Selinger.
That’s not charity. Rather, it reflects Latido’s conviction there’s really a market for movies by striking new women directors, following on what it describes as “a string of successes,” headed by Chilean Pepa San Martín’s “Rara” and Colombian Laura Mora’s “Killing Jesús.”
“We do not look at the gender of a talented director, we look for talent,” said Latido director Antonio Saura.
But it’s no coincidence,...
In the latest move, announced Sunday at San Sebastian as the festival, the biggest in the Spanish-speaking world, signed a gender parity charter, Latido Films has acquired international rights to films by two first-time Latin American women filmmakers: Camila Urrutia’s “Polvora en el corazón,” and “La Casa de los Conejos,” from Valeria Selinger.
That’s not charity. Rather, it reflects Latido’s conviction there’s really a market for movies by striking new women directors, following on what it describes as “a string of successes,” headed by Chilean Pepa San Martín’s “Rara” and Colombian Laura Mora’s “Killing Jesús.”
“We do not look at the gender of a talented director, we look for talent,” said Latido director Antonio Saura.
But it’s no coincidence,...
- 9/24/2018
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
A brilliant, celebrated performer accepts a low-profile gig in unfamiliar environs, only to be trapped as the situation falls apart around her. But enough about Julianne Moore agreeing to star in “Bel Canto,” and let’s keep the focus on Paul Weitz’s po-faced hostage melodrama itself, which strands a world-renowned American soprano in the crossfire between an oppressive government and desperate insurgents in an unspecified South American nation. Ann Patchett’s much-lauded 2001 novel was optioned upon publication for its seemingly surefire cinematic fusion of high romantic and political stakes, yet until a sudden, bloody climax, this belated adaptation remains a blandly perfumed, low-peril affair.
With an enviable international ensemble — including Moore, Ken Watanabe and Sebastian Koch — all looking variously out of sorts, only an unseen Renee Fleming, who lends her gorgeously shaded vocals to the leading lady’s lips, emerges on song. Moore’s name will draw some interest...
With an enviable international ensemble — including Moore, Ken Watanabe and Sebastian Koch — all looking variously out of sorts, only an unseen Renee Fleming, who lends her gorgeously shaded vocals to the leading lady’s lips, emerges on song. Moore’s name will draw some interest...
- 9/13/2018
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
Madrid — Four burgeoning Latin American auteurs – Argentina’s Pablo Fendrik and Emiliano Torres, Guatemala’s Jayro Bustamante and Chile’s Pepa San Martín – will present new movie projects at San Sebastian’s 7th Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum, the biggest industry event at the most important festival in Spain and Latin America.
Project screenplays still have to be read. Lent edge, however, by the presence of titles from nine women, including two of Catalonia’s most exciting young female cineasts, Meritxell Colell and Clara Roquet, the Forum competition will also welcome some of the producer movers and shakers on Ibero-America’s arthouse scene: Brazil’s Dezenove, Argentina’s Rei Cine and Varsovia Films, Spain’s Avalon and Lastor Media.
Add to that mix two players on three ever more ambitious film hubs – the Basque Country’s Gariza Films, Switzerland’s Matthias Huser and Moroco Alfredo Colman at Argentina second-city Cordoba – and...
Project screenplays still have to be read. Lent edge, however, by the presence of titles from nine women, including two of Catalonia’s most exciting young female cineasts, Meritxell Colell and Clara Roquet, the Forum competition will also welcome some of the producer movers and shakers on Ibero-America’s arthouse scene: Brazil’s Dezenove, Argentina’s Rei Cine and Varsovia Films, Spain’s Avalon and Lastor Media.
Add to that mix two players on three ever more ambitious film hubs – the Basque Country’s Gariza Films, Switzerland’s Matthias Huser and Moroco Alfredo Colman at Argentina second-city Cordoba – and...
- 8/9/2018
- by John Hopewell and Emiliano De Pablos
- Variety Film + TV
Panama City — Cuban Reggaeton documentary “En La Caliente,” won the $10,000 first prize and a trip to this year’s Cannes Film Market in the 4th Primera Mirada pix-in-post sidebar.
Omnibus film “Dias de Luz” was awarded the $5,000 second prize.
“Caliente” focuses on Rubén Cuesta Palomo (aka Candyman), Cuba’s best known reggaeton artist in the early 2000s.
“Now he’s like a king without a crown. Nobody listens to him any more,” said producer Alejandro Tovar. “Maybe it’s because he’s too political. Maybe he was ahead of his time.”
The Primera Mirada jury enjoyed the pic’s playful spirit and its exploration of issues of class and race and the differences between high and low art, including the Cuban Institute of Music’s ambivalent attitude towards reggaeton.
Omnibus pic “Dias de Luz” impressed the jury because of its capacity to engage with audiences throughout Central America (see separate...
Omnibus film “Dias de Luz” was awarded the $5,000 second prize.
“Caliente” focuses on Rubén Cuesta Palomo (aka Candyman), Cuba’s best known reggaeton artist in the early 2000s.
“Now he’s like a king without a crown. Nobody listens to him any more,” said producer Alejandro Tovar. “Maybe it’s because he’s too political. Maybe he was ahead of his time.”
The Primera Mirada jury enjoyed the pic’s playful spirit and its exploration of issues of class and race and the differences between high and low art, including the Cuban Institute of Music’s ambivalent attitude towards reggaeton.
Omnibus pic “Dias de Luz” impressed the jury because of its capacity to engage with audiences throughout Central America (see separate...
- 4/12/2018
- by Martin Dale
- Variety Film + TV
Panama City — As Guatemalan director Jayro Bustamante finalizes post-production on drama “Tremors,” the follow-up to his Berlin Silver Bear-winning debut “Ixcanul,” he’s also prepping his next feature, “La Llorona” (The Weeping Woman).
It will be produced by his company, La Casa de Producción. “La Llorona” – starring Maria Mercedes Caroy and María Telón, the lead actresses of “Ixcanul” – is about the Guatemalan genocide, the mass killings of Maya civilians during the Guatemalan Civil War (1960-1996), for which Guatemala’s former dictator Jose Efrain Rios Montt was tried and convicted in 2013, but whose sentence was then annulled in the same year.
“Tremors,” to be released by Memento Films Distribution in France and sold worldwide by Film Factory, takes place in Guatemala City and tells the story of an evangelical Christian and father of two children, Pablo, who falls in love with another man, and then faces the risk of losing the...
It will be produced by his company, La Casa de Producción. “La Llorona” – starring Maria Mercedes Caroy and María Telón, the lead actresses of “Ixcanul” – is about the Guatemalan genocide, the mass killings of Maya civilians during the Guatemalan Civil War (1960-1996), for which Guatemala’s former dictator Jose Efrain Rios Montt was tried and convicted in 2013, but whose sentence was then annulled in the same year.
“Tremors,” to be released by Memento Films Distribution in France and sold worldwide by Film Factory, takes place in Guatemala City and tells the story of an evangelical Christian and father of two children, Pablo, who falls in love with another man, and then faces the risk of losing the...
- 4/10/2018
- by Martin Dale
- Variety Film + TV
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