Malaga — Opening last Friday with “Dragonkeeper,” also in competition, Spain’s Malaga Festival, its biggest dedicated event for movies from Spain and Latin America, is studded by latest films by Isaki Lacuesta – “Saturn Return,” reportedly fun, broad audience and radical – David Trueba – “The Good Man,” small scale but almost certainly ingratiating – and Antonio Chavarrías’ “Holy Mother,” about an extraordinary real life female figure in Spain’s 9th century Reconquista.
Also in the running is “Rest in Peace,” from notable Argentine writer-director Sebastián Borensztein (“Chinese Takeaway”).
All are front-runners for some kind of award next Saturday. Prominent also is a bevy of first or second features, featuring from Spain three titles from women directors – gender abuse drama “The Snows,” “Nina,” reportedly a Western set in a northern Spanish town, and tragi-comedy “We Treat Women Too Well” – plus a clutch of debuts from Latin America.
This year’s Competition may, in the final analysis,...
Also in the running is “Rest in Peace,” from notable Argentine writer-director Sebastián Borensztein (“Chinese Takeaway”).
All are front-runners for some kind of award next Saturday. Prominent also is a bevy of first or second features, featuring from Spain three titles from women directors – gender abuse drama “The Snows,” “Nina,” reportedly a Western set in a northern Spanish town, and tragi-comedy “We Treat Women Too Well” – plus a clutch of debuts from Latin America.
This year’s Competition may, in the final analysis,...
- 3/4/2024
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Few European arthouse-crossover film sales agents have better weathered the ebb and flow of international market dynamics than Madrid’s Latido Films, which turns 20 in 2023.
Proof of that came at April’s Platino Awards, where Latido scored six statuettes, split between an acting double for Alauda Ruiz de Azúa’s “Lullaby” and four for Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s “The Beasts,” which has already swept Spain’s Goya Awards and scored a French Cesar for foreign film.
Scoring €6.8 million ($7.5 million) in Spain, and 327,000 admissions in France, “The Beasts” also rates as one of the top-performing recent Spanish-language movies.
If Latido has survived for so long, insists director general Antonio Saura, it’s because of a core strategy of “working with talent, our search for talent.” Beyond that, other keys have been “collaboration with production companies that understand long-term relationships, and well-established relationships with clients.”
Companies with which Latido has held or holds...
Proof of that came at April’s Platino Awards, where Latido scored six statuettes, split between an acting double for Alauda Ruiz de Azúa’s “Lullaby” and four for Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s “The Beasts,” which has already swept Spain’s Goya Awards and scored a French Cesar for foreign film.
Scoring €6.8 million ($7.5 million) in Spain, and 327,000 admissions in France, “The Beasts” also rates as one of the top-performing recent Spanish-language movies.
If Latido has survived for so long, insists director general Antonio Saura, it’s because of a core strategy of “working with talent, our search for talent.” Beyond that, other keys have been “collaboration with production companies that understand long-term relationships, and well-established relationships with clients.”
Companies with which Latido has held or holds...
- 5/16/2023
- by John Hopewell and Emiliano De Pablos
- Variety Film + TV
“Lost And Found” has closed first sales to Italy (Eagle Pictures), France (Kmbo) and Taiwan (Creative Century Entertainment) on thriller “Lost and Found,” starring Álvaro Morte, “Money Heist’s” Professor, and directed by “The Head” helmer Jorge Dorado.
The caliber of the distributors – Eagle Pictures is one of Italy’s most muscular mainstream buyers, for instance – and the movie’s high-profile talent package confirm “Lost and Found” as a preeminent title in Spain’s currently most exportable product line: Upscale ambitious thrillers with a social-issue underbelly.
Filmax, “Lost and Found’s” sales company, screened a promo at Berlin’s European Film Market. The first sales news comes just before the film’s first market screening at a private event at Cannes.
In “Lost and Found,” Morte plays Mario, who leads a solitary existence working at a Lost and Found office. One day, a suitcase arrives, found at the bottom of a river.
The caliber of the distributors – Eagle Pictures is one of Italy’s most muscular mainstream buyers, for instance – and the movie’s high-profile talent package confirm “Lost and Found” as a preeminent title in Spain’s currently most exportable product line: Upscale ambitious thrillers with a social-issue underbelly.
Filmax, “Lost and Found’s” sales company, screened a promo at Berlin’s European Film Market. The first sales news comes just before the film’s first market screening at a private event at Cannes.
In “Lost and Found,” Morte plays Mario, who leads a solitary existence working at a Lost and Found office. One day, a suitcase arrives, found at the bottom of a river.
- 5/18/2022
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Barcelona-based indie sales outfit Filmax has taken international sales rights to Jorge Dorado’s noir thriller feature “Objetos” (“Lost & Found”), starring “Money Heist” actor Álvaro Morte.
Filmax is launching the film onto the market with a first promo at this year’s European Film Market.
Shot October-November at several locations in Spain and Argentina, including Madrid and Jujuy, the film is currently in post-production.
“Lost & Found” is produced by Cristina Zumárraga and Pablo Bossi at Tandem Films, the Madrid-based production company, whose recent titles include award-winning comedy “Rosa’s Wedding” and toon feature sales hit “Turu, the Wacky Hen.”
A Spain-Argentina-Germany co-production, “Lost & Found” also teams Spain’s Setembro Cine (“A Fantastic Woman”), Argentina’s Pampa Films (“Chinese Take-Away”) and In Post We Trust (“Unknown Origins”), plus Germany’s Rexin Film, with the participation of Spanish pubcaster Rtve, Amazon Studios and Germany’s Zdf.
Written by top Spanish scribe Natxo López,...
Filmax is launching the film onto the market with a first promo at this year’s European Film Market.
Shot October-November at several locations in Spain and Argentina, including Madrid and Jujuy, the film is currently in post-production.
“Lost & Found” is produced by Cristina Zumárraga and Pablo Bossi at Tandem Films, the Madrid-based production company, whose recent titles include award-winning comedy “Rosa’s Wedding” and toon feature sales hit “Turu, the Wacky Hen.”
A Spain-Argentina-Germany co-production, “Lost & Found” also teams Spain’s Setembro Cine (“A Fantastic Woman”), Argentina’s Pampa Films (“Chinese Take-Away”) and In Post We Trust (“Unknown Origins”), plus Germany’s Rexin Film, with the participation of Spanish pubcaster Rtve, Amazon Studios and Germany’s Zdf.
Written by top Spanish scribe Natxo López,...
- 2/8/2022
- by Emiliano De Pablos
- Variety Film + TV
Natalia Oreiro (“I’m Gilda”), Gustavo Bassani (“Separados”) and Mercedes Moran (“Spider) head the cast of Argentine Amazon Original “Iosi, El Espía Arrepentido,” one of Amazon Prime Original’s biggest bets to date in Latin America.
The series, an espionage thriller, will be available exclusively on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide.
Showrun by Daniel Burman, a leading light of the New Argentine Cinema and recent Cannes Un Certain Regard jury member, “Iosi, El Espía Arrepentido” is produced by Oficina Burman, part of The Mediapro Studio, whose credits include “Pequeña Victoria” and “Pequeñas victorias, perdidxs en la Tierra,” both produced with Vis, with the latter acquired for Latin America by Amazon Prime Video.
Burman serves a series creator and showrunner on a banner project for the writer-director, which was one of the two he presented in person at Berlin Festival in 2017 when Mediapro confirmed it had taken a substantial stake in Oficina Burman.
The series, an espionage thriller, will be available exclusively on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide.
Showrun by Daniel Burman, a leading light of the New Argentine Cinema and recent Cannes Un Certain Regard jury member, “Iosi, El Espía Arrepentido” is produced by Oficina Burman, part of The Mediapro Studio, whose credits include “Pequeña Victoria” and “Pequeñas victorias, perdidxs en la Tierra,” both produced with Vis, with the latter acquired for Latin America by Amazon Prime Video.
Burman serves a series creator and showrunner on a banner project for the writer-director, which was one of the two he presented in person at Berlin Festival in 2017 when Mediapro confirmed it had taken a substantial stake in Oficina Burman.
- 7/26/2021
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Barcelona-based mini-studio Filmax is bringing onto the market “The Roar of the Butterflies,” an ambitious period drama made with Pablo Bossi’s Gloriamundi and Disney Plus in Latin America.
Focusing on the extreme courage of two women who stood up to one of the bloodiest dictators in Latin American history, the drama series is being brought into the open market at this week’s L.A. Virtual Screenings.
Increasing the show’s appeal is an impressive and now expanded cast of Spanish and Caribbean talent including Susana Abaitua, Sandy Hernández (“On the Block”), Guillermo Toledo (“I’m so Excited”) and Alberto Garcia (“Che”).
It was first announced in late 2019 as a Buena Vista Original Productions title produced with Bossi’s Pampa Films (“Chinese Takeaway”). It follows on their highly successful collaboration on “Monzón,” which raised the bar on production standards in Latin America.
“The Roar of the Butterflies” now also marks...
Focusing on the extreme courage of two women who stood up to one of the bloodiest dictators in Latin American history, the drama series is being brought into the open market at this week’s L.A. Virtual Screenings.
Increasing the show’s appeal is an impressive and now expanded cast of Spanish and Caribbean talent including Susana Abaitua, Sandy Hernández (“On the Block”), Guillermo Toledo (“I’m so Excited”) and Alberto Garcia (“Che”).
It was first announced in late 2019 as a Buena Vista Original Productions title produced with Bossi’s Pampa Films (“Chinese Takeaway”). It follows on their highly successful collaboration on “Monzón,” which raised the bar on production standards in Latin America.
“The Roar of the Butterflies” now also marks...
- 5/14/2021
- by Jamie Lang and Pablo Sandoval
- Variety Film + TV
“We’re not thieves,” insists the ringleader of a heist in “Heroic Losers,” a South American crowd-pleaser about a rural collective seeking justice against big-city banking elites. He may be wrong in the most literal sense, but like an Argentinean Danny Ocean, he’s assembled a group of amateurs who have no intention of filling their coffers with ill-gotten gains — they just want their money back. Adding to a tradition of modest heist comedies like “Going in Style” and “Big Deal on Madonna Street,” . That populist touch has put it on track to be the year’s biggest box-office hit in its home country, and other territories will surely pounce after its international premiere in Toronto.
Anchoring this motley ensemble is Ricardo Darín, the durable star of Borensztein’s previous two films, “Chinese Take-Out” and “Kóblic,” though international audiences will likely remember him from “Nine Queens,” which also placed him...
Anchoring this motley ensemble is Ricardo Darín, the durable star of Borensztein’s previous two films, “Chinese Take-Out” and “Kóblic,” though international audiences will likely remember him from “Nine Queens,” which also placed him...
- 9/8/2019
- by Scott Tobias
- Variety Film + TV
Panama City — Argentine actor Ricardo Darin, currently attending the 8th Iff Panama for the fest’s opening film, “An Unexpected Love,” is prepping a new film, “Heroic Losers,” (La Odisea de los Giles) about an agricultural cooperative in Argentina in 2001, to be directed by Sebastián Borensztein, with whom Darin previously worked on “Koblic” (2016) and “Chinese Take-Out” (2011).
“Love” was the first production from Darin’s new production shingle, Kenya Films, founded in 2018 with his son, Chino Darin.
“Heroic Losers” is their second production. The film is about a group of people from a chic neighborhood of Buenos Aires, who have an idea to create an agricultural cooperative, in 2001, at a very difficult moment in Argentine history, with rampant inflation and banking controls.
Darin plays a retired ex-football player who lives in a small town near Buenos Aires, Villa Alsina, who has the original idea to create the cooperative. Darin explained at...
“Love” was the first production from Darin’s new production shingle, Kenya Films, founded in 2018 with his son, Chino Darin.
“Heroic Losers” is their second production. The film is about a group of people from a chic neighborhood of Buenos Aires, who have an idea to create an agricultural cooperative, in 2001, at a very difficult moment in Argentine history, with rampant inflation and banking controls.
Darin plays a retired ex-football player who lives in a small town near Buenos Aires, Villa Alsina, who has the original idea to create the cooperative. Darin explained at...
- 4/7/2019
- by Martin Dale
- Variety Film + TV
The popular, high-end fashion brand led by sisters Kendall and Kylie Jenner has been thrust into the controversial limelight once again. According to the Huffington Post, the latest controversy surrounding the Kendall + Kylie line is a white leather purse modelled after a Chinese take-out box, called “Lee Leather Clutch”. The handbag is part of the limited edition collection entitled […]...
- 9/14/2017
- by Frances Leigh
- ET Canada
The One You’re With: Jacobs Brings Mature Gaze to Dark Marital Comedy
Imagine if George and Martha actually had allowed themselves the opportunity to derive pleasure from extra-marital liaisons as an avenue to re-discover the attraction they once had for one another and you get a sense of the rueful tone in Azazel Jacob’s The Lovers. Although hardly as caustic as the broken beings locking horns in Edward Albee’s classic play, Jacobs scores his most mature and sobering portrayal to date.
Compared to the focal points of earlier works like Momma’s Man (2008) and Terri (2011), featuring male protagonists in the throes of arrested development or navigating adolescence as pariah, the unhappily married couple played delectably by Debra Winger and Tracy Letts may be a familiar concept, yet plays like uncharted territory as far as American indie cinema goes. Neither the butt of a joke nor fodder for a frivolous sex farce, theirs is an emotionally sound portrayal of a complex, adult relationship, and makes absolute mincemeat out of the lethargic shenanigans of the comparably staged It’s Complicated (2009).
Michael (Letts) and Mary (Winger) have been going through the motions of a stale marriage for years. Both deeply embroiled in affairs with other people, they seem to be waiting for merely the right moment to announce the obvious to one another and begin a new chapter of their lives. When their son Joel (Tyler Ross) announces an upcoming visit home during a break from university to introduce them to his new girlfriend (Jessica Sula), Michael and Mary each hatch their own plots to use the event as a springboard for their big news. Robert (Aidan Gillen), an aspiring novelist, and Lucy (Melora Walters), an emotionally fragile ballet teacher, are both chomping at the bit for their respective lovers to end their empty husk of a marriage. As the date for Joel’s visit looms night, the anxiety induced by Robert and Lucy force Michael and Mary to seek solace elsewhere…which leads them back into the comfort of each other’s arms. Reawakening a sensuality they haven’t felt for one another in years, Michael and Mary are soon hiding their rekindled feelings from their respective lovers.
Surely, the adulterous situation Jacobs is exploring is nothing new, as we’ve seen all approximations and combinations of this synopsis (including scenarios where two lovers discover their significant others are lovers as well, as in Kirill Serebrennikov’s Betrayal, 2012). But there’s a level of nuance in his The Lovers often absent from these deliberations of heteronormative marriages made sour by the crushing combo of time and domesticity. What’s more, Michael and Mary are presented on an equal playing field, both at fault in the current state of affairs and yet also both wholly capable of exploring alternate avenues of fulfillment. Their reconnection is imperceptibly nestled in a tipping point involving Chinese take-out, and it’s this, among many other details, which nails the irrationality involved in conceptions of lust and love. Both made aware of the other’s infidelity, Jacobs steers this initial droll comedy into formidable poignancy.
Out shopping for groceries for their son’s visit, a jocular trip gets marred suddenly, allowing for Letts to walk away with one of the best scenes standing befuddled at the meat counter. With realistic tendencies and avoiding the usual heartrending, exaggerated beats which are used to enhance what, at its core, is a social melodrama, The Lovers finds notes of the sublime in the dueling performances of Winger and Letts.
★★★½/☆☆☆☆☆
The post The Lovers | Review appeared first on Ioncinema.com.
Imagine if George and Martha actually had allowed themselves the opportunity to derive pleasure from extra-marital liaisons as an avenue to re-discover the attraction they once had for one another and you get a sense of the rueful tone in Azazel Jacob’s The Lovers. Although hardly as caustic as the broken beings locking horns in Edward Albee’s classic play, Jacobs scores his most mature and sobering portrayal to date.
Compared to the focal points of earlier works like Momma’s Man (2008) and Terri (2011), featuring male protagonists in the throes of arrested development or navigating adolescence as pariah, the unhappily married couple played delectably by Debra Winger and Tracy Letts may be a familiar concept, yet plays like uncharted territory as far as American indie cinema goes. Neither the butt of a joke nor fodder for a frivolous sex farce, theirs is an emotionally sound portrayal of a complex, adult relationship, and makes absolute mincemeat out of the lethargic shenanigans of the comparably staged It’s Complicated (2009).
Michael (Letts) and Mary (Winger) have been going through the motions of a stale marriage for years. Both deeply embroiled in affairs with other people, they seem to be waiting for merely the right moment to announce the obvious to one another and begin a new chapter of their lives. When their son Joel (Tyler Ross) announces an upcoming visit home during a break from university to introduce them to his new girlfriend (Jessica Sula), Michael and Mary each hatch their own plots to use the event as a springboard for their big news. Robert (Aidan Gillen), an aspiring novelist, and Lucy (Melora Walters), an emotionally fragile ballet teacher, are both chomping at the bit for their respective lovers to end their empty husk of a marriage. As the date for Joel’s visit looms night, the anxiety induced by Robert and Lucy force Michael and Mary to seek solace elsewhere…which leads them back into the comfort of each other’s arms. Reawakening a sensuality they haven’t felt for one another in years, Michael and Mary are soon hiding their rekindled feelings from their respective lovers.
Surely, the adulterous situation Jacobs is exploring is nothing new, as we’ve seen all approximations and combinations of this synopsis (including scenarios where two lovers discover their significant others are lovers as well, as in Kirill Serebrennikov’s Betrayal, 2012). But there’s a level of nuance in his The Lovers often absent from these deliberations of heteronormative marriages made sour by the crushing combo of time and domesticity. What’s more, Michael and Mary are presented on an equal playing field, both at fault in the current state of affairs and yet also both wholly capable of exploring alternate avenues of fulfillment. Their reconnection is imperceptibly nestled in a tipping point involving Chinese take-out, and it’s this, among many other details, which nails the irrationality involved in conceptions of lust and love. Both made aware of the other’s infidelity, Jacobs steers this initial droll comedy into formidable poignancy.
Out shopping for groceries for their son’s visit, a jocular trip gets marred suddenly, allowing for Letts to walk away with one of the best scenes standing befuddled at the meat counter. With realistic tendencies and avoiding the usual heartrending, exaggerated beats which are used to enhance what, at its core, is a social melodrama, The Lovers finds notes of the sublime in the dueling performances of Winger and Letts.
★★★½/☆☆☆☆☆
The post The Lovers | Review appeared first on Ioncinema.com.
- 5/5/2017
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
This article originally appeared on Extra Crispy.
By Molly Thomson
If Gilmore Girls makes you crave Chinese take-out and Mad Men makes you want a stiff drink, Parks and Recreation will make you desperate for a waffle with whipped cream, served with bacon, coffee, and a heaping plateful of scrambled eggs. Parks and Rec is the ultimate breakfast show, and the evidence is overwhelming. From Leslie and gang fighting to save their beloved J.J’s Diner, to April and Andy eating turkey chili out of a Frisbee for breakfast because they can’t be bothered to buy plates, to...
By Molly Thomson
If Gilmore Girls makes you crave Chinese take-out and Mad Men makes you want a stiff drink, Parks and Recreation will make you desperate for a waffle with whipped cream, served with bacon, coffee, and a heaping plateful of scrambled eggs. Parks and Rec is the ultimate breakfast show, and the evidence is overwhelming. From Leslie and gang fighting to save their beloved J.J’s Diner, to April and Andy eating turkey chili out of a Frisbee for breakfast because they can’t be bothered to buy plates, to...
- 2/8/2017
- by Extra Crispy Staff
- PEOPLE.com
Ina Garten appears to live the quiet, beach-side life we all dream of having. In reality, though, her unconventional path to success (she started out as a nuclear budget analyst in the White House, Fyi) was built on incredibly hard work, a vigilant passion for cooking, and the support of her beloved husband, Jeffrey.
As part of the promotional tour for her latest cookbook, Cooking for Jeffrey — casually the top-selling cookbook of 2016, even though it only came out in October — I sat down with the Barefoot Contessa for an on-stage interview at Baltimore’s Hippodrome Theater.
Given the nearly 2,000 people...
As part of the promotional tour for her latest cookbook, Cooking for Jeffrey — casually the top-selling cookbook of 2016, even though it only came out in October — I sat down with the Barefoot Contessa for an on-stage interview at Baltimore’s Hippodrome Theater.
Given the nearly 2,000 people...
- 1/24/2017
- by Shay Spence
- PEOPLE.com
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y3n03CMLj4&w=640&h=390]
Kim Kardashian West has been radio silent on social media since the Oct. 3 Paris jewelry robbery that found her tied up, gagged, and held at at gunpoint. But in an interview given in Vogue before the horrific heist, the 35-year-old reality star said she couldn’t live with the Internet.
In a fun game of “Would You Rather” for the fashion magazine’s YouTube channel, Kardashian West got real about her priorities — choosing to live without air-conditioning and heat rather than unplugging from the World Wide Web.
“Dewey is good — we could put on some nice coats,” she joked.
She may be feeling differently now.
Kim Kardashian West has been radio silent on social media since the Oct. 3 Paris jewelry robbery that found her tied up, gagged, and held at at gunpoint. But in an interview given in Vogue before the horrific heist, the 35-year-old reality star said she couldn’t live with the Internet.
In a fun game of “Would You Rather” for the fashion magazine’s YouTube channel, Kardashian West got real about her priorities — choosing to live without air-conditioning and heat rather than unplugging from the World Wide Web.
“Dewey is good — we could put on some nice coats,” she joked.
She may be feeling differently now.
- 10/15/2016
- by Dave Quinn
- PEOPLE.com
Set visits are like a blind date. You know a little about them before you show up, but you’re never really sure what you’re going to get until it’s too late to back out. Which is how I found myself in Toronto in June of 2015 asking director David Ayer just what he was thinking when designing costumes for the women of Suicide Squad. After all, the men are in armor and or at least fully-clothed (even Killer Croc!), but all of the women are baring skin. I asked Ayer what the deal was because it was a little disheartening. “I just wanted to see Waller in a bikini. I mean really that drove everything for me. [Laughs.] For me it's, if you look at the aesthetic of comic books and you look at how the imagery of it and sort of what it means and what it does...
- 7/11/2016
- by Donna Dickens
- Hitfix
Ghostbusters Finds New Laughs Inside an Old FormulaPaul Feig’s remake is hilarious, forward-looking, and delightfully in touch with its origins.
Rebooting beloved classics is delicate business. On the artistic side of the deal, we pray for the offshoot to stand on its own two feet with a fresh take on the original recipe. On the broader cultural front, perhaps the trickier-to-fulfill facet of the whole remake madness, we nervously hope what we get can fend off countless cynics (who usually await with sharpened knives) by offering them a creative output both new and exciting, and warmly familiar through a graceful embracement (but not aggressive imitation) of its predecessor.
After months of speculation, swelling anticipation, and Ok, fanboy whining, it’s extremely good news that Bridesmaids and Spy director Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters reboot, co-written by him and Katie Dippold, accomplishes all that and then some. Enormously entertaining and ingeniously cast (wait until you discover the kind...
Rebooting beloved classics is delicate business. On the artistic side of the deal, we pray for the offshoot to stand on its own two feet with a fresh take on the original recipe. On the broader cultural front, perhaps the trickier-to-fulfill facet of the whole remake madness, we nervously hope what we get can fend off countless cynics (who usually await with sharpened knives) by offering them a creative output both new and exciting, and warmly familiar through a graceful embracement (but not aggressive imitation) of its predecessor.
After months of speculation, swelling anticipation, and Ok, fanboy whining, it’s extremely good news that Bridesmaids and Spy director Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters reboot, co-written by him and Katie Dippold, accomplishes all that and then some. Enormously entertaining and ingeniously cast (wait until you discover the kind...
- 7/10/2016
- by Tomris Laffly
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
A Brilliant Young Mind tells the story of a mathematically gifted British teen on the autism spectrum as he prepares to compete in an international math Olympics.
Nathan (Asa Butterfield) is gifted at math but struggles with relationships, including with his caring but overwhelmed mother Julie (Sally Hawkins). Nathan has the more functional form of autism once known as Aspergers but he is also still struggling with the trauma of the accidental death of his father Michael (Martin McCann), who was killed in a car wreck while Nathan was in the car. His mother has done her best to raise him as a single parent but Nathan was never as close to her as his dad and it has been difficult for them both. A chance to enter the International Math Olympiad brings an unconventional math coach into Nathan’s life and introduces him to other mathematically gifted kids.
There...
Nathan (Asa Butterfield) is gifted at math but struggles with relationships, including with his caring but overwhelmed mother Julie (Sally Hawkins). Nathan has the more functional form of autism once known as Aspergers but he is also still struggling with the trauma of the accidental death of his father Michael (Martin McCann), who was killed in a car wreck while Nathan was in the car. His mother has done her best to raise him as a single parent but Nathan was never as close to her as his dad and it has been difficult for them both. A chance to enter the International Math Olympiad brings an unconventional math coach into Nathan’s life and introduces him to other mathematically gifted kids.
There...
- 9/25/2015
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
My experience last November at Los Cabos International Film Festival was fabulous! Set up to promote film coproduction and financing among Mexico, U.S., and Canada, the festival allowed all of us to be very close and connected to our peers in the business – international sales agents, writers of all kinds, programmers and filmmakers. There we met the bright new talent, so idealistic and yet so knowledgeable and educated about film in the world. To be able to see films, concentrate on creating business and still have time to mingle -- this is what makes a festival a happy experience.
Among the many people I met there, was Ben Odell, partner at 3Pas Studios, the newly launched production company that he and Mexico’s most beloved and renowned comic star and director, Eugenio Derbez, founded on the strength and success of the $100 million dollar grossing comedy, "Instructions Not Included".
The success of this film also allowed the film’s producer Monica Lozano to establish Alebrije Distribución a new distribution company which will acquire distribution rights for the Latin and North American markets.
Monica has had her hand in 23 productions since her first film, "Amores Perros". Her most recent success was "Instructions Not Included", the Us$ 5.5 million film that became the highest grossing Spanish language film of all time in the U.S., and the second highest grossing film in any language in Mexico.
But to return to Ben and his new company, the subject of this blog: 3Pas in Spanish means three steps, but is also a play on words, something Mexicans like a lot. Tres Pas sounds like tripas, which in English means guts, or tripe. Personally, I too love tripas. Deliciosas!
I Finally met Ben at Los Cabos Film Festival. I say I "finally" met him, because we have so many friends in common and ever since I have been following Latino films and writing my book on Latin America and the film business, I had often heard of Ben as the head of production for Pantelion, U.S.'s only sustained and successful Latino film distributor.
Last September, when Strategic Partners’ Laura Mackenzie in Halifax invited me to moderate a panel on “The Games Maker”, an Argentinean-Canadian-Italian coproduction, Ben’s name was prominent as the one who made the match between Argentina’s Juan Pablo Buscarini and Canada’s Tina Pehme and Kim Roberts.
I always had him pictured as my other friend whose last name is Odell, a slight and wiry, dark haired type. How surprised I was to see this big, handsome blond who exuded warmth and a good-willed wit and storytelling skill. Love at first sight! And I am sure I am not the only one who is smitten with him.
I wish I could convey his spirit, humor and strength as he recounted his life and career(s) to me in the hour we spent together in his new spacious, airy and bright Santa Monica office where Ben Shalom-Martinez was the third person in the new company, manning a phone system not yet working.
I told Ben I had read his mini bio in IMDb, and it made me want to know how he had gotten into the Latino side of the business. I expected him to reveal that, in fact, and in spite of his name, he was Latino.
One year out of college, Ben said, "I worked in editing with the Maysles Brothers. I was a P.A. on the first film John Turturro directed called “Mac”, and I was a reader for Art Linson. And that was my degree in Liberal Arts in Film. I wanted to be a screenwriter but I didn’t feel I had enough life experience. A family friend offered me a job in commercial production in Colombia. It was 1992 and my dad said: “if you love all things Latino, go learn Spanish and become an expert in the Latino market. It’s going to need people that understand it. No one was really talking about its importance then but that piece of advice changed my life. I moved to Colombia to learn Spanish and start what would be a life long journey in all things Latino, from U.S. Latino to Latin America. It’s not a single market but there is a connectivity between all of it.”
Ben grew up in Pennsylvania and when he was six years old, neighbors, who had old friends from Colombia, did an exchange of one of their children with a Colombian child. “My father ended up basically adopting that child for the year he lived with our neighbors and from that grew a friendship with this Colombian family.”
When he was 12 years old the whole Colombian family moved to Philadelphia. “I wanted them to adopt me. They were crazy, emotional, passionate, loving. It was a warmth and lust for life I hadn’t really experienced in suburban white America. And then I realized there was a whole country full of them.” At 15 he went with a friend to Colombia and loved it.
His father eventually married someone from that family. So Ben's connection to Colombia, if not to all of Latin America was very organic. Colombia is not part of the "U.S. Latino market" per se, but Colombia and the rest of Latin America share certain characteristics and commonalities — views on life and death, family, spirituality -- that end up working their way into storytelling that are shared throughout the U.S. Latino market and Latin America along with a larger emotional scale in the tone of their storytelling.
Odell lived in Colombia from 1992 to 2000. He also worked as a freelance journalist before becoming a Spanish language television writer and screenwriter there.
When he was in Colombia working in commercials, he met Tom Quinn, a journalist Iiving there for 25 years, working for Time Magazine and running an English language rag called The Colombian Post. In his youth ,Tom had run with the likes of Hunter S. Thompson. He had lots of adventures and lots of stories of those days.
Ben asked Tom what was the most compelling story they could make into a movie that wasn’t about narcotrafficking, and Tom said one word: “Emeralds.” Colombia supplies 60% of the world's emeralds. The mines in the Emerald Zone have strong drug laundering connections as well, as one might guess. The land is leased by the government to the three or four mining companies and they control everything with no supervision by the government.
The society is totally feudal. Workers labor for the companies for 28 days of the month and on the last two days they are allowed to keep whatever they find. Victor Carranza ran everything. He was The Don, violent and scary. A small man, about 5'2". He died in prison worth over a billion dollars.
Ben thought this was a great story to develop into a movie, and so he went back to New York to the contacts he had made including an exec at Tribeca Films. “They all said the same thing, great story but you are not a writer. Go write the script and then we’ll talk.” Ben returned to Colombia to do research.
In the meanwhile he began writing for Colombian TV. He had never written a feature film script, nor did he speak Spanish. He had, however, taken a course in feature film screenwriting with Robert McKee. And he had a girlfriend who was bilingual. He knew about Colombian TV and he saw the potential for legitimizing the story first as a TV show and then making it into a feature later.
Tom Quinn was very well known in Colombia as he was the Time News correspondent there at a moment when the magazine had a lot of power; the drug wars were one of its most consistent cover stories. They pitched it to Rti TV, and structured it like "The Fugitive".
There is a drug, called Burandanga, scientifically known as Scopolamine. It comes from a plant that grows wild in Colombia. The drugged one loses control of his or her will. He once heard a story about a man in a bar who wakes up in jail accused of a murder he can’t remember. This became the basis of the story. The lead goes into the Emerald Zone and drugged by burundanga, he kills one on the wrong side in a war going on there. He wakes up with no recollection and a full on civil war going on around him. He can't get out of the Emerald Zone until he finds the man who drugged him. The title of this series that Tom and he pitched and in 1998 created was "Fuego verde", like the 1954 Hollywood movie, “ Green Fire” starring Grace Kelly and Stewart Grainger.
As a television writer, he eventually created and wrote over 300 hours of Spanish-language narrative television including “Fuego Verde” -- the first-ever action series. It was one of the highest rated series on Colombian television. He also co-wrote the Colombian political satire feature film, “ Golpe de estadio”, which was nominated for Spain's Academy Award, the Goya in 1999, and was Colombia's nomination to the Oscar in 2000. It is still one of the highest grossing Colombian films of all time.
In the film, "Golpe de estadio", (Golpe de Estado means “Coup d'état”but it also could mean “Coup d’ Stadium”), an oil company has set up a camp for geological research in a small village in Colombia that has been named New Texas. It becomes the target of the guerrillas who are constantly clashing with police in the area. The confrontation is put on hold however during the TV transmission of the world Cup qualifiers. The two sides declare a sort of truce so that they can all watch the match between Colombia and Argentina on the only working TV in the town. Colombia wins the game, 5 to 0, (a victory, in real life, infamous in the annals of world cup) and of course the Colombian police and guerrilla find themselves cheering for the same team.
"Golpe" was released in theaters in 1999 while the drug wars and war between the guerrillas and the government were moving into peace talks. It came out during the war, and Ben naively believed it could make tangible impact on the country. Instead they received death threats. It was a very volatile time.
He left Colombia and put together a business plan to make movies for Latino audiences. He was too green and he was way ahead of his time so instead he went to film school at Columbia University.
He went to film school thinking it was only to network and realized he knew nothing about film writing or production. "Going to film school's more valuable if a student already has some experience," Ben says.
"Confess", a feature length film he produced in his second year of film school (2005) was one of his thesis projects. It was made for a couple of hundred thousand dollars. Ali Larter and Melissa Leo starred in it (way before she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Role in “The Fighter”). The movie was about a disgruntled computer hacker of mixed race, who struggles to adjust to life after a jaunt in prison. He takes his anger online forcing confessions out of those who slighted him. Eventually his focus becomes political. “It had all the trappings of a first time filmmaker. But conceptually it was scratching the surface of trends that wouldn’t appear online until years later. This was several years before YouTube took hold, which is a lifetime in human years.”
"For my second film, we had Scorsese as an executive producer. When we started preproduction we quickly discovered that one of our two investors really didn’t have the money. He signed a contract to invest while he was still trying to raise the funds“
At this point in our discussion Ben and I went off on a tangent...Money that falls out at the last minute is such a common story. Do these guys think the money will come just because they have "bet" on it, using the film as collateral?... Do they just want to go for the ride, as far as they can go?... are they sociopaths, liars, gamblers, on drugs or what? I remember when I worked at Ifa (until it became ICM); at the Motion Picture Division's meetings that Mike Medavoy held every week, agents would sometimes report on someone wanting to invest in film, and once Mike said "No. Not him. He has a very bad reputation, and his money is not good. We don't want that kind of money." But young producers know very little about vetting financial prospects.
This digression is only to illustrate the fact that that in this person-to-person business it is important to know who you are dealing with.
But Odell’s luck was going to change. Just a few weeks after the implosion of the film, he got an email from Jim McNamara. NBC had bought McNamara's Telemundo for Us$ 3 billion . McNamara had been CEO of New World, a position once held by Harry Sloan and Jon Feltheimer. Feltheimer went off to Sony TV which had a majority stake in Telemundo. McNamara, who had just been president of Universal TV worldwide, was brought in to run Telemundo
After leaving Telemundo, he went back to Feltheimer, in the early days of building Lionsgate, to discuss his new idea. At the time -- this was 2006 -- there were two Spanish language networks, 600 Spanish language radio stations, 2,000 Spanish language newspapers, and no one was making movies in Spanish. Felt liked it and they made a deal. Panamax was born.
McNamara knew of Odell when he was buying TV series for Telemundo. He bought a lot of the TV shows Odell had written.
Panamax’ made a six picture deal with Lionsgate. Odell became President of Production at Panamax Films and produced many feature films and TV movies both in Spanish and in English for the Hispanic market.
On one of their first scouting trips, Odell and McNamara went to see a play called “Latinologues” written by Rick Najera. In it, there was a Mexican actor named Eugenio Derbez. Derbez was known only for Spanish language TV at the time. He wrote, directed, produced and starred in his own shows for Televisa. These shows also played on Univision in the U.S. and were building a huge fan base in both countries as well as much of the Spanish-speaking world.
Latinologues was made up of multiple monologues from different actors playing roles as Latino archetypes. Derbez did three or four different characters. “When he came on stage,” recalls Odell, “He was electrifying, hilarious, magnetic. And then I met him afterwards. He was the humblest man, quiet, and a bit shy. I realized what an amazing talent he was, he had that ‘it factor’ – when he turned it on, it turned on the room.”
At the time Odell and McNamara were packaging a project called "Under the Same Moon" and suggested Derbez for a role. They flew the director, Patricia Riggen, to N.Y. to meet him. While Lionsgate ended up not financing the project, Derbez stayed in the picture. “Looking back, I think a significant part of why that movie did $20 million in box office between U.S. and Mexico, was Eugenio. He was already a mega star. No one really knew it in the general market because they weren’t paying attention to the success of his shows. Hollywood tends to ignore the Spanish speaking market, but the U.S. is the second biggest Spanish speaking country in the world and Eugenio has built a huge following there.”
Ben also made the art house Spanish language thriller, "Padre Nuestro" in 2007 which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. IFC changed the title to “Sangre de mi Sangre” for its U.S. release. It also played at New Directors/ New Films at Museum of Modern Art in New York in the Spring of 2007, received two Independent Spirit Awards nominations, for Best First Feature (for which Odell was nominated) and Best Screenplay. Odell also produced “Un Cuento Chino” aka “Chinese Take-Out” (a Spanish/ Argentinean co-production), starring Argentina’s most popular actor, Ricardo Darin (“El Secreto de los Ojos”), written and directed by Sebastián Borensztein. In Spanish, referring to a story as a cuento chino is equivalent to calling it a tall tale.
“Chino” was the top grossing Argentinean film of 2011 and one of the highest grossing Argentinean films of all times. In its international release it has broken box office records for Latin American films in both Latin America and Europe. It won the Argentinean Academy Award for best feature and the Goya, the Spanish Academy Award, for Best Latin American Film. It won numerous festivals including the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at the Rome Film Festival.
When Odell was developing the script with Borensztein in 2009, he sent the script to Derbez, who immediately expressed interested in remaking it. “I loved the original story and movie,” Derbez said. “There is a heartfelt relationship that develops between these two very different people set around a whimsical, comical and magical world.”
Odell was also an executive producer on the English language 3D family thriller, “ The Games Maker”, starring Joseph Fiennes and Ed Asner. Made as a coproduction with Disney Latin America, the movie was produced in Argentina by Pampa Films and directed by Juan Pablo Buscarini, one of the producers of “Un Cuento Chino”. It was released widely across Latin America in the summer of 2014 and continues its theatrical release around the world.
Several years into Panamax’s deal with Lionsgate, a joint venture was created between Panamax, Televisa and Lionsgate called Pantelion Films. McNamara became chairman of Pantelion and Ben became President of Production.
Under the new deal he produced the 2012 coming of age comedy “Girl in Progress”, directed by “Under the Same Moon” director Patricia Riggen and staring Eva Mendes, Eugenio Derbez, Mathew Modine and Patricia Arquette
His most recent film was the inspirational true story, “Spare Parts”, starring George Lopez, Jamie Lee Curtis and Marisa Tomei which was released in January 2015.
While Eugenio was making his breakout film "Instructions not Included” neither he nor Ben had any idea it would be so big. “Instructions Not Included,” was released in 2013 by Pantelion and grossed $44.5 million, making it the highest-grossing Spanish-language film ever released in the U.S. It grossed another $55 million overseas making it the number one Spanish language movie in the world.
The two realized, this was The One Time In A Career To Capitalize, and they decided to go together, to focus on brand-building, based on Eugenio's popularity and to go beyond his own work, in English and Spanish. Together they formed 3pas Studios which signed a first-look deal with Pantelion in August 2014.
They are in development on many feature films including “Un Cuento Chino”, a remake of the French comedy, “The Valet” and an untitled original script about an aging Latin lover from writers Chris Spain and Jon Zack (“The Perfect Storm”) which Derbez will star in and produce with Ben.
“We are developing multiple projects with an eye to shooting one at the end of 2015,” Odell said.
Meantime, Eugenio Derbez just filmed roles in Warner Brothers’ “Geostorm” with Gerard Butler and Sony Pictures “ Miracles from Heaven” with Jennifer Garner, and Queen Latifah. The latter was directed by Patricia Riggen who directed Derbez in both “Under the Same Moon” and “Girl in Progress”.
Ben is sure that his producing partner will go way beyond his current core Latino market “He is so lovable to watch. He has a magic about him that is undeniable and transcends language and culture.”...
Among the many people I met there, was Ben Odell, partner at 3Pas Studios, the newly launched production company that he and Mexico’s most beloved and renowned comic star and director, Eugenio Derbez, founded on the strength and success of the $100 million dollar grossing comedy, "Instructions Not Included".
The success of this film also allowed the film’s producer Monica Lozano to establish Alebrije Distribución a new distribution company which will acquire distribution rights for the Latin and North American markets.
Monica has had her hand in 23 productions since her first film, "Amores Perros". Her most recent success was "Instructions Not Included", the Us$ 5.5 million film that became the highest grossing Spanish language film of all time in the U.S., and the second highest grossing film in any language in Mexico.
But to return to Ben and his new company, the subject of this blog: 3Pas in Spanish means three steps, but is also a play on words, something Mexicans like a lot. Tres Pas sounds like tripas, which in English means guts, or tripe. Personally, I too love tripas. Deliciosas!
I Finally met Ben at Los Cabos Film Festival. I say I "finally" met him, because we have so many friends in common and ever since I have been following Latino films and writing my book on Latin America and the film business, I had often heard of Ben as the head of production for Pantelion, U.S.'s only sustained and successful Latino film distributor.
Last September, when Strategic Partners’ Laura Mackenzie in Halifax invited me to moderate a panel on “The Games Maker”, an Argentinean-Canadian-Italian coproduction, Ben’s name was prominent as the one who made the match between Argentina’s Juan Pablo Buscarini and Canada’s Tina Pehme and Kim Roberts.
I always had him pictured as my other friend whose last name is Odell, a slight and wiry, dark haired type. How surprised I was to see this big, handsome blond who exuded warmth and a good-willed wit and storytelling skill. Love at first sight! And I am sure I am not the only one who is smitten with him.
I wish I could convey his spirit, humor and strength as he recounted his life and career(s) to me in the hour we spent together in his new spacious, airy and bright Santa Monica office where Ben Shalom-Martinez was the third person in the new company, manning a phone system not yet working.
I told Ben I had read his mini bio in IMDb, and it made me want to know how he had gotten into the Latino side of the business. I expected him to reveal that, in fact, and in spite of his name, he was Latino.
One year out of college, Ben said, "I worked in editing with the Maysles Brothers. I was a P.A. on the first film John Turturro directed called “Mac”, and I was a reader for Art Linson. And that was my degree in Liberal Arts in Film. I wanted to be a screenwriter but I didn’t feel I had enough life experience. A family friend offered me a job in commercial production in Colombia. It was 1992 and my dad said: “if you love all things Latino, go learn Spanish and become an expert in the Latino market. It’s going to need people that understand it. No one was really talking about its importance then but that piece of advice changed my life. I moved to Colombia to learn Spanish and start what would be a life long journey in all things Latino, from U.S. Latino to Latin America. It’s not a single market but there is a connectivity between all of it.”
Ben grew up in Pennsylvania and when he was six years old, neighbors, who had old friends from Colombia, did an exchange of one of their children with a Colombian child. “My father ended up basically adopting that child for the year he lived with our neighbors and from that grew a friendship with this Colombian family.”
When he was 12 years old the whole Colombian family moved to Philadelphia. “I wanted them to adopt me. They were crazy, emotional, passionate, loving. It was a warmth and lust for life I hadn’t really experienced in suburban white America. And then I realized there was a whole country full of them.” At 15 he went with a friend to Colombia and loved it.
His father eventually married someone from that family. So Ben's connection to Colombia, if not to all of Latin America was very organic. Colombia is not part of the "U.S. Latino market" per se, but Colombia and the rest of Latin America share certain characteristics and commonalities — views on life and death, family, spirituality -- that end up working their way into storytelling that are shared throughout the U.S. Latino market and Latin America along with a larger emotional scale in the tone of their storytelling.
Odell lived in Colombia from 1992 to 2000. He also worked as a freelance journalist before becoming a Spanish language television writer and screenwriter there.
When he was in Colombia working in commercials, he met Tom Quinn, a journalist Iiving there for 25 years, working for Time Magazine and running an English language rag called The Colombian Post. In his youth ,Tom had run with the likes of Hunter S. Thompson. He had lots of adventures and lots of stories of those days.
Ben asked Tom what was the most compelling story they could make into a movie that wasn’t about narcotrafficking, and Tom said one word: “Emeralds.” Colombia supplies 60% of the world's emeralds. The mines in the Emerald Zone have strong drug laundering connections as well, as one might guess. The land is leased by the government to the three or four mining companies and they control everything with no supervision by the government.
The society is totally feudal. Workers labor for the companies for 28 days of the month and on the last two days they are allowed to keep whatever they find. Victor Carranza ran everything. He was The Don, violent and scary. A small man, about 5'2". He died in prison worth over a billion dollars.
Ben thought this was a great story to develop into a movie, and so he went back to New York to the contacts he had made including an exec at Tribeca Films. “They all said the same thing, great story but you are not a writer. Go write the script and then we’ll talk.” Ben returned to Colombia to do research.
In the meanwhile he began writing for Colombian TV. He had never written a feature film script, nor did he speak Spanish. He had, however, taken a course in feature film screenwriting with Robert McKee. And he had a girlfriend who was bilingual. He knew about Colombian TV and he saw the potential for legitimizing the story first as a TV show and then making it into a feature later.
Tom Quinn was very well known in Colombia as he was the Time News correspondent there at a moment when the magazine had a lot of power; the drug wars were one of its most consistent cover stories. They pitched it to Rti TV, and structured it like "The Fugitive".
There is a drug, called Burandanga, scientifically known as Scopolamine. It comes from a plant that grows wild in Colombia. The drugged one loses control of his or her will. He once heard a story about a man in a bar who wakes up in jail accused of a murder he can’t remember. This became the basis of the story. The lead goes into the Emerald Zone and drugged by burundanga, he kills one on the wrong side in a war going on there. He wakes up with no recollection and a full on civil war going on around him. He can't get out of the Emerald Zone until he finds the man who drugged him. The title of this series that Tom and he pitched and in 1998 created was "Fuego verde", like the 1954 Hollywood movie, “ Green Fire” starring Grace Kelly and Stewart Grainger.
As a television writer, he eventually created and wrote over 300 hours of Spanish-language narrative television including “Fuego Verde” -- the first-ever action series. It was one of the highest rated series on Colombian television. He also co-wrote the Colombian political satire feature film, “ Golpe de estadio”, which was nominated for Spain's Academy Award, the Goya in 1999, and was Colombia's nomination to the Oscar in 2000. It is still one of the highest grossing Colombian films of all time.
In the film, "Golpe de estadio", (Golpe de Estado means “Coup d'état”but it also could mean “Coup d’ Stadium”), an oil company has set up a camp for geological research in a small village in Colombia that has been named New Texas. It becomes the target of the guerrillas who are constantly clashing with police in the area. The confrontation is put on hold however during the TV transmission of the world Cup qualifiers. The two sides declare a sort of truce so that they can all watch the match between Colombia and Argentina on the only working TV in the town. Colombia wins the game, 5 to 0, (a victory, in real life, infamous in the annals of world cup) and of course the Colombian police and guerrilla find themselves cheering for the same team.
"Golpe" was released in theaters in 1999 while the drug wars and war between the guerrillas and the government were moving into peace talks. It came out during the war, and Ben naively believed it could make tangible impact on the country. Instead they received death threats. It was a very volatile time.
He left Colombia and put together a business plan to make movies for Latino audiences. He was too green and he was way ahead of his time so instead he went to film school at Columbia University.
He went to film school thinking it was only to network and realized he knew nothing about film writing or production. "Going to film school's more valuable if a student already has some experience," Ben says.
"Confess", a feature length film he produced in his second year of film school (2005) was one of his thesis projects. It was made for a couple of hundred thousand dollars. Ali Larter and Melissa Leo starred in it (way before she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Role in “The Fighter”). The movie was about a disgruntled computer hacker of mixed race, who struggles to adjust to life after a jaunt in prison. He takes his anger online forcing confessions out of those who slighted him. Eventually his focus becomes political. “It had all the trappings of a first time filmmaker. But conceptually it was scratching the surface of trends that wouldn’t appear online until years later. This was several years before YouTube took hold, which is a lifetime in human years.”
"For my second film, we had Scorsese as an executive producer. When we started preproduction we quickly discovered that one of our two investors really didn’t have the money. He signed a contract to invest while he was still trying to raise the funds“
At this point in our discussion Ben and I went off on a tangent...Money that falls out at the last minute is such a common story. Do these guys think the money will come just because they have "bet" on it, using the film as collateral?... Do they just want to go for the ride, as far as they can go?... are they sociopaths, liars, gamblers, on drugs or what? I remember when I worked at Ifa (until it became ICM); at the Motion Picture Division's meetings that Mike Medavoy held every week, agents would sometimes report on someone wanting to invest in film, and once Mike said "No. Not him. He has a very bad reputation, and his money is not good. We don't want that kind of money." But young producers know very little about vetting financial prospects.
This digression is only to illustrate the fact that that in this person-to-person business it is important to know who you are dealing with.
But Odell’s luck was going to change. Just a few weeks after the implosion of the film, he got an email from Jim McNamara. NBC had bought McNamara's Telemundo for Us$ 3 billion . McNamara had been CEO of New World, a position once held by Harry Sloan and Jon Feltheimer. Feltheimer went off to Sony TV which had a majority stake in Telemundo. McNamara, who had just been president of Universal TV worldwide, was brought in to run Telemundo
After leaving Telemundo, he went back to Feltheimer, in the early days of building Lionsgate, to discuss his new idea. At the time -- this was 2006 -- there were two Spanish language networks, 600 Spanish language radio stations, 2,000 Spanish language newspapers, and no one was making movies in Spanish. Felt liked it and they made a deal. Panamax was born.
McNamara knew of Odell when he was buying TV series for Telemundo. He bought a lot of the TV shows Odell had written.
Panamax’ made a six picture deal with Lionsgate. Odell became President of Production at Panamax Films and produced many feature films and TV movies both in Spanish and in English for the Hispanic market.
On one of their first scouting trips, Odell and McNamara went to see a play called “Latinologues” written by Rick Najera. In it, there was a Mexican actor named Eugenio Derbez. Derbez was known only for Spanish language TV at the time. He wrote, directed, produced and starred in his own shows for Televisa. These shows also played on Univision in the U.S. and were building a huge fan base in both countries as well as much of the Spanish-speaking world.
Latinologues was made up of multiple monologues from different actors playing roles as Latino archetypes. Derbez did three or four different characters. “When he came on stage,” recalls Odell, “He was electrifying, hilarious, magnetic. And then I met him afterwards. He was the humblest man, quiet, and a bit shy. I realized what an amazing talent he was, he had that ‘it factor’ – when he turned it on, it turned on the room.”
At the time Odell and McNamara were packaging a project called "Under the Same Moon" and suggested Derbez for a role. They flew the director, Patricia Riggen, to N.Y. to meet him. While Lionsgate ended up not financing the project, Derbez stayed in the picture. “Looking back, I think a significant part of why that movie did $20 million in box office between U.S. and Mexico, was Eugenio. He was already a mega star. No one really knew it in the general market because they weren’t paying attention to the success of his shows. Hollywood tends to ignore the Spanish speaking market, but the U.S. is the second biggest Spanish speaking country in the world and Eugenio has built a huge following there.”
Ben also made the art house Spanish language thriller, "Padre Nuestro" in 2007 which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. IFC changed the title to “Sangre de mi Sangre” for its U.S. release. It also played at New Directors/ New Films at Museum of Modern Art in New York in the Spring of 2007, received two Independent Spirit Awards nominations, for Best First Feature (for which Odell was nominated) and Best Screenplay. Odell also produced “Un Cuento Chino” aka “Chinese Take-Out” (a Spanish/ Argentinean co-production), starring Argentina’s most popular actor, Ricardo Darin (“El Secreto de los Ojos”), written and directed by Sebastián Borensztein. In Spanish, referring to a story as a cuento chino is equivalent to calling it a tall tale.
“Chino” was the top grossing Argentinean film of 2011 and one of the highest grossing Argentinean films of all times. In its international release it has broken box office records for Latin American films in both Latin America and Europe. It won the Argentinean Academy Award for best feature and the Goya, the Spanish Academy Award, for Best Latin American Film. It won numerous festivals including the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at the Rome Film Festival.
When Odell was developing the script with Borensztein in 2009, he sent the script to Derbez, who immediately expressed interested in remaking it. “I loved the original story and movie,” Derbez said. “There is a heartfelt relationship that develops between these two very different people set around a whimsical, comical and magical world.”
Odell was also an executive producer on the English language 3D family thriller, “ The Games Maker”, starring Joseph Fiennes and Ed Asner. Made as a coproduction with Disney Latin America, the movie was produced in Argentina by Pampa Films and directed by Juan Pablo Buscarini, one of the producers of “Un Cuento Chino”. It was released widely across Latin America in the summer of 2014 and continues its theatrical release around the world.
Several years into Panamax’s deal with Lionsgate, a joint venture was created between Panamax, Televisa and Lionsgate called Pantelion Films. McNamara became chairman of Pantelion and Ben became President of Production.
Under the new deal he produced the 2012 coming of age comedy “Girl in Progress”, directed by “Under the Same Moon” director Patricia Riggen and staring Eva Mendes, Eugenio Derbez, Mathew Modine and Patricia Arquette
His most recent film was the inspirational true story, “Spare Parts”, starring George Lopez, Jamie Lee Curtis and Marisa Tomei which was released in January 2015.
While Eugenio was making his breakout film "Instructions not Included” neither he nor Ben had any idea it would be so big. “Instructions Not Included,” was released in 2013 by Pantelion and grossed $44.5 million, making it the highest-grossing Spanish-language film ever released in the U.S. It grossed another $55 million overseas making it the number one Spanish language movie in the world.
The two realized, this was The One Time In A Career To Capitalize, and they decided to go together, to focus on brand-building, based on Eugenio's popularity and to go beyond his own work, in English and Spanish. Together they formed 3pas Studios which signed a first-look deal with Pantelion in August 2014.
They are in development on many feature films including “Un Cuento Chino”, a remake of the French comedy, “The Valet” and an untitled original script about an aging Latin lover from writers Chris Spain and Jon Zack (“The Perfect Storm”) which Derbez will star in and produce with Ben.
“We are developing multiple projects with an eye to shooting one at the end of 2015,” Odell said.
Meantime, Eugenio Derbez just filmed roles in Warner Brothers’ “Geostorm” with Gerard Butler and Sony Pictures “ Miracles from Heaven” with Jennifer Garner, and Queen Latifah. The latter was directed by Patricia Riggen who directed Derbez in both “Under the Same Moon” and “Girl in Progress”.
Ben is sure that his producing partner will go way beyond his current core Latino market “He is so lovable to watch. He has a magic about him that is undeniable and transcends language and culture.”...
- 8/5/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Exclusive: Disney has swooped on Latin American and Spanish rights to Kóblic, a thriller that reunites Argentinian idol Ricardo Darin with his Chinese Take-Out director Sebastián Borensztein.
Guido Rud’s Buenos Aires-based FilmSharks closed the early deal on the $3.5m project and has scored a Greek pre-sale with Seven Films.
Production on Kóblic is set to start in Argentina on July 20 with Darin playing a Navy captain in the late 1970s during the country’s ‘Dirty War’ who refuses to take part in the death flights, whereby drugged dissidents are dropped from planes.
The officer takes refuge in a coastal city and flies crop dusters for a family friend. He eventually falls for a local woman and confronts a thuggish police chief as the dictatorship’s agents close in on his whereabouts.
Darin, who appeared in Argentina’s Oscar-nominated Wild Tales as well as Oscar winner The Secret In Their Eyes and Nine Queens, will star alongside...
Guido Rud’s Buenos Aires-based FilmSharks closed the early deal on the $3.5m project and has scored a Greek pre-sale with Seven Films.
Production on Kóblic is set to start in Argentina on July 20 with Darin playing a Navy captain in the late 1970s during the country’s ‘Dirty War’ who refuses to take part in the death flights, whereby drugged dissidents are dropped from planes.
The officer takes refuge in a coastal city and flies crop dusters for a family friend. He eventually falls for a local woman and confronts a thuggish police chief as the dictatorship’s agents close in on his whereabouts.
Darin, who appeared in Argentina’s Oscar-nominated Wild Tales as well as Oscar winner The Secret In Their Eyes and Nine Queens, will star alongside...
- 5/14/2015
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
God may have given His Witness Grace Abigail Mills many gifts, but the ability to Bs isn’t one of ‘em.
So in this week’s Sleepy Hollow, when Abbie’s frustration with Katrina mounts by the second, you can see every single fiber in Lt. Mills’ body ache with the desire to strangle Ichabod’s witchy wife.
Abbie’s urge is easy to understand, particularly when the redhead makes a startling move near the end of the hour. Still, that tricky Katrina, ever the victim enchantress, proves herself a very useful rookie member of Team Wtf throughout the episode...
So in this week’s Sleepy Hollow, when Abbie’s frustration with Katrina mounts by the second, you can see every single fiber in Lt. Mills’ body ache with the desire to strangle Ichabod’s witchy wife.
Abbie’s urge is easy to understand, particularly when the redhead makes a startling move near the end of the hour. Still, that tricky Katrina, ever the victim enchantress, proves herself a very useful rookie member of Team Wtf throughout the episode...
- 11/11/2014
- TVLine.com
To my knowledge, the concept of Bootlegging and its affect on African-American cinema has not been explored in any substantive detail. In general, we all know that bootlegging severely diminishes the box-office of African-American films and it should be discouraged, but the bootlegging of African-American films continues vigorously today on the street corners, in hair & nail salons, barbershops, flea markets, factory parking lots and Chinese take-out lobbies of every city with a large African-American population. Bootlegging is an open secret, but it is not so much a radical tactic to “stick it to the man” as it is an informal (and illegal) business practice that fits neatly...
- 5/27/2014
- by Andre Seewood
- ShadowAndAct
Cavu Pictures
Sometimes it feels like everyone is always talking about the same old movies – the “classics” have been established for years already, after all, and we all sit down to the same blockbusters week after week… it’s harder to break out and see those films that fall outside of those kinds of circles; great movies that are a little more elusive to find, that haven’t been bombarded with critical reviews telling you whether to watch them, that exist in a state of their own being. Stumbling upon these sorts of movies offers up a rare situation; the chance to form your own opinion.
Which is another way of directing the question… which little known movie do you love that very few other people have seen? A movie that you constantly refer back to as a favourite that most people have probably never heard of or are aware existed?...
Sometimes it feels like everyone is always talking about the same old movies – the “classics” have been established for years already, after all, and we all sit down to the same blockbusters week after week… it’s harder to break out and see those films that fall outside of those kinds of circles; great movies that are a little more elusive to find, that haven’t been bombarded with critical reviews telling you whether to watch them, that exist in a state of their own being. Stumbling upon these sorts of movies offers up a rare situation; the chance to form your own opinion.
Which is another way of directing the question… which little known movie do you love that very few other people have seen? A movie that you constantly refer back to as a favourite that most people have probably never heard of or are aware existed?...
- 4/8/2014
- by WhatCulture
- Obsessed with Film
News
Now, that’s how you want to celebrate an iconic show’s 50th anniversary. The son of Anthony Coburn, who wrote the very first episode of Doctor Who, claims he owns the rights to the Tardis, the iconic police call box used to travel through space and time. He claims his dad gave the BBC informal permission to use the idea but that ended with his father’s death in 1977.
The CW has ordered a full season of its new dramas — The Originals, , The Tomorrow People and Reign. That last one is a bit of a surprise, since Reign has lost a lot of The Vampire Diaries‘ viewers (apparently, its ratings are consistent with or without the Tvd lead-in and there are a lot of online viewers only The CW can measure).
Sure, the writing on The Tomorrow People has me rolling my eyes, but it also has a...
Now, that’s how you want to celebrate an iconic show’s 50th anniversary. The son of Anthony Coburn, who wrote the very first episode of Doctor Who, claims he owns the rights to the Tardis, the iconic police call box used to travel through space and time. He claims his dad gave the BBC informal permission to use the idea but that ended with his father’s death in 1977.
The CW has ordered a full season of its new dramas — The Originals, , The Tomorrow People and Reign. That last one is a bit of a surprise, since Reign has lost a lot of The Vampire Diaries‘ viewers (apparently, its ratings are consistent with or without the Tvd lead-in and there are a lot of online viewers only The CW can measure).
Sure, the writing on The Tomorrow People has me rolling my eyes, but it also has a...
- 11/12/2013
- by Lyle Masaki
- The Backlot
Spanish producer to make 25 feature films and TV series over the next three years.
Spanish media giant Telefónica has unveiled global ambitions for production outfit Telefónica Studios.
The brand will handle all the projects produced by the company, which over the next three years will involve 25 high-quality feature films and several television series.
Telefónica Studios, launched during the San Sebastian Film Festival, stated its intention to establish itself as a significant player in the international market, a source of top-quality projects first in Europe and Latin America and later also in the English-speaking markets.
Currently, Telefónica Studios generates an output of between ten and 12 films a year.
In the last five years, three divisions of Telefónica have produced films and TV series: Telefé, Telefónica Producciones Media Networks and Telefónica España.
Among these projects were The Secret in Their Eyes (El Secreto de sus ojos), The Adventures of Thaddeus Jones (Las aventuras de Tadeo Jones) and Chinese Takeaway...
Spanish media giant Telefónica has unveiled global ambitions for production outfit Telefónica Studios.
The brand will handle all the projects produced by the company, which over the next three years will involve 25 high-quality feature films and several television series.
Telefónica Studios, launched during the San Sebastian Film Festival, stated its intention to establish itself as a significant player in the international market, a source of top-quality projects first in Europe and Latin America and later also in the English-speaking markets.
Currently, Telefónica Studios generates an output of between ten and 12 films a year.
In the last five years, three divisions of Telefónica have produced films and TV series: Telefé, Telefónica Producciones Media Networks and Telefónica España.
Among these projects were The Secret in Their Eyes (El Secreto de sus ojos), The Adventures of Thaddeus Jones (Las aventuras de Tadeo Jones) and Chinese Takeaway...
- 9/27/2013
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
It’s been a mere two days since we last received new Oldboy pics, but images from Spike Lee‘s latest joint just keep pouring in. Collider‘s gotten their hands on four new ones, including a tease of one of the original film’s gooiest, grossest moments. A lot of this we’ve either seen before, like the hallway hammer fight (which was glimpsed in the trailer) or Josh Brolin‘s character holding a Chinese take-out carton (which presumably will take the place of the original’s dumplings). Brolin staring longingly into an octopus, however, is brand new stuff. Chan-wook Park’s original Oldboy infamously saw its lead actor consume a live octopus in a sushi bar. The octopus was both real and really alive (before being crammed unceremoniously down Min-sik Choi’s throat), and four octopi had to sacrifice their lives to nail the right take. There’s no word yet whether Brolin will committing...
- 8/16/2013
- by Adam Bellotto
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
Paul McCarthy and Damon McCarthy Rebel Dabble Babble Hauser & Wirth Gallery Through July 26, 2013 Paul McCarthy Ws Park Avenue Armory Through August 4, 2013
James Franco is finishing a joke. "Natalie Wood…get it? What kind of wood doesn't float?" Everyone is very hung over this morning, but fortunately Franco sent his Maybach Landaulet and driver to whisk us to Chlamydia, the new Bobby Flay café in Chelsea, where we are drinking revivifying Bellinis and an assortment of other smart cocktails with Vito Schnabel, Slavoj Žižek, Natalie Portman (or possibly Keira Knightley, or Keira Knightley's body double), Sasha Grey, Heath Ledger, Michael Lee Nirenberg, Lena Dunham, Chloë Sevigny, and a Thai/Puerto Rican pre-op transsexual Franco introduces as "Pinball."
We are all sweating slightly and staring at Billy Cyborg passed out in a bowl of muesli. Inexplicably, the table is cluttered with untouched Chinese take-out containers and bottles of Evian, and there...
James Franco is finishing a joke. "Natalie Wood…get it? What kind of wood doesn't float?" Everyone is very hung over this morning, but fortunately Franco sent his Maybach Landaulet and driver to whisk us to Chlamydia, the new Bobby Flay café in Chelsea, where we are drinking revivifying Bellinis and an assortment of other smart cocktails with Vito Schnabel, Slavoj Žižek, Natalie Portman (or possibly Keira Knightley, or Keira Knightley's body double), Sasha Grey, Heath Ledger, Michael Lee Nirenberg, Lena Dunham, Chloë Sevigny, and a Thai/Puerto Rican pre-op transsexual Franco introduces as "Pinball."
We are all sweating slightly and staring at Billy Cyborg passed out in a bowl of muesli. Inexplicably, the table is cluttered with untouched Chinese take-out containers and bottles of Evian, and there...
- 7/9/2013
- by bradleyrubenstein
- www.culturecatch.com
"The Vampire Diaries" star Ian Somerhalder has appeared in a series of photos from his photographer friend, Butch Hogan. In them, Somerhalder appears to be naked (although tastefully covered at all times) in a variety of everyday activities.
Well, they're kind of everyday activities. Some people might drink beer in a bathtub or sit around naked with Chinese take-out. It's kind of fun to believe that Somerhalder, who plays immortal bad boy Damon Salvatore on "The Vampire Diaries," would actually do these things.
The really important thing to remember here is that the actor is intensely attractive in all poses. Even sitting in dirty water while making angry faces doesn't detract from the beauty of a man like this.
It's unclear when exactly these photos were taken. Somerhalder posted on Twitter about a photo shoot with his friend back in 2012:
"Shooting pictures with my longest NY bro and mentor Butch Hogan.
Well, they're kind of everyday activities. Some people might drink beer in a bathtub or sit around naked with Chinese take-out. It's kind of fun to believe that Somerhalder, who plays immortal bad boy Damon Salvatore on "The Vampire Diaries," would actually do these things.
The really important thing to remember here is that the actor is intensely attractive in all poses. Even sitting in dirty water while making angry faces doesn't detract from the beauty of a man like this.
It's unclear when exactly these photos were taken. Somerhalder posted on Twitter about a photo shoot with his friend back in 2012:
"Shooting pictures with my longest NY bro and mentor Butch Hogan.
- 7/3/2013
- by editorial@zap2it.com
- Pop2it
There are two things you should know about "The Kings of Summer," if you haven't already heard of it. First, back when it was called "Toy's House" at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, it was a huge crowd pleaser and one of the favorites of Park City.
Second, it stars some serious comedy talent that you might know from NBC's Thursday night line-up, including the awesome husband-wife duo of Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally from "Parks and Recreation" and Alison Brie from "Community."
In this exclusive clip from the film, which opens in theaters on May 31, Offerman and Brie play a father and daughter, who get some Chinese take-out. Much to the chagrin of Offerman's character, the wontons that come with the food are too big to eat, leading to a confrontation with the delivery man.
The preview gives you a quick look at the brand of humor working here and...
Second, it stars some serious comedy talent that you might know from NBC's Thursday night line-up, including the awesome husband-wife duo of Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally from "Parks and Recreation" and Alison Brie from "Community."
In this exclusive clip from the film, which opens in theaters on May 31, Offerman and Brie play a father and daughter, who get some Chinese take-out. Much to the chagrin of Offerman's character, the wontons that come with the food are too big to eat, leading to a confrontation with the delivery man.
The preview gives you a quick look at the brand of humor working here and...
- 5/13/2013
- by Kevin P. Sullivan
- MTV Movies Blog
Various artists: NYC 1993: Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star The New Museum Through May 26, 2013
and
Julian Schnabel 1978–1981
Oko
Through March 30, 2012
One must turn to the past to move forward.-- Akan proverb
We are sitting around a banquette at Nell’s, well sorted, and I am overwhelmed with a vague sadness all of a sudden -- the conversations around the table, a sonic penumbra: who has new tits (girls with names like Coriander and Chloe), who is in rehab (“she has a nasal addiction”), who fucked whom with what (don’t ask), and possibly, for the first time in recent memory, I no longer care what I am wearing (Comme des Garçons leather jacket over a vintage Led Zeppelin t-shirt, imitation of Imitation of Christ store-torn jeans, Prada driving shoes, with no socks, as my awesome new ankle tattoo -- neo-tribal -- is still too fresh and...
and
Julian Schnabel 1978–1981
Oko
Through March 30, 2012
One must turn to the past to move forward.-- Akan proverb
We are sitting around a banquette at Nell’s, well sorted, and I am overwhelmed with a vague sadness all of a sudden -- the conversations around the table, a sonic penumbra: who has new tits (girls with names like Coriander and Chloe), who is in rehab (“she has a nasal addiction”), who fucked whom with what (don’t ask), and possibly, for the first time in recent memory, I no longer care what I am wearing (Comme des Garçons leather jacket over a vintage Led Zeppelin t-shirt, imitation of Imitation of Christ store-torn jeans, Prada driving shoes, with no socks, as my awesome new ankle tattoo -- neo-tribal -- is still too fresh and...
- 2/16/2013
- by bradleyrubenstein
- www.culturecatch.com
As if this break-up could not get more dramatic, Harry’s arch-nemesis Max is thinking about swooping in on a newly-single Taylor. Yikes!
The Wanted and One Direction‘s feud has been dragging on for months now, but it’s about to get personal! After Harry Styles and Taylor Swift‘s dramatic breakup on Jan. 4, Harry has been out partying with reality TV stars, while Taylor has been staying in eating Chinese take-out. But she may not be a sad single girl for long, as Harry’s arch-enemy Max George has said that he finds Taylor “attractive”. Are we about to have a love triangle more complicated than the one between George Harrison, Eric Clapton and Pattie Boyd?
Max George Likes Taylor Swift
Max has most recently been linked to Hollywood’s bad girl Lindsay Lohan, but after that brief romance fizzled out, it looks like Max has set his...
The Wanted and One Direction‘s feud has been dragging on for months now, but it’s about to get personal! After Harry Styles and Taylor Swift‘s dramatic breakup on Jan. 4, Harry has been out partying with reality TV stars, while Taylor has been staying in eating Chinese take-out. But she may not be a sad single girl for long, as Harry’s arch-enemy Max George has said that he finds Taylor “attractive”. Are we about to have a love triangle more complicated than the one between George Harrison, Eric Clapton and Pattie Boyd?
Max George Likes Taylor Swift
Max has most recently been linked to Hollywood’s bad girl Lindsay Lohan, but after that brief romance fizzled out, it looks like Max has set his...
- 1/10/2013
- by Eleanore Hutch
- HollywoodLife
A look back at 2012 reveals an undeniable fact, it has been a great year for Latino film. Sundance started the year off strong with films like Aurora Guerrero’s sweet and tender Mosquita y Mari and Marialy Rivas’ rambunctious Joven y Alocada (Young & Wild). Gina Rodriguez broke out in Filly Brown, as a rapper who needs to make it big so she can raise money to get her mom out of jail. In the film, Jenni Rivera played the part of Filly’s mom in her first, and sadly last, movie role.
There was also a strong Latin American presence at Cannes this past summer, boasting films from Mexico, Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina. It might as well have been called Mexi-Cannes, with Mexican films winning awards across all main sections of the festival. Carlos Reygadas was honored as the Best Director for his controversial film Post Tenebras Lux, despite having received boos at its premiere screening. The prize for the Critics’ Week section went to Aquí y Allá (Here and There) and Después de Lucía (After Lucia) won the top prize for Un Certain Regard.
It’s been an especially favorable year for Chilean cinema. The New York Film Festival, in its 50th edition this past Fall, included three highly anticipated films by Pablo Larraín, Valeria Sarmiento, and the late Raúl Ruiz. And Chile continued to outshine the rest of the region by winning two top spots at the Festival Internacional de Nuevo Cine Latino de La Habana (the Havana Film Festival) just a few days ago. Pablo Larraín’s No, starring Gael Garcia Bernal, won the First Coral Prize. It’s a brilliant take on the real life story of an advertising campaign that ousted General Pinochet from power during a shining moment in Chilean politics. Violeta se fue a los cielos (Violeta Went To Heaven), a biopic about internationally famous Violeta de la Parra, a Chilean singer, songwriter, and poet won the Second Prize.
Whether it was at Cannes, Sundance, or countless other festivals, Latino films were winning award after award this year and even getting distribution (albeit usually in limited release). With the flurry of activity surrounding the region’s filmmaking, it can be hard to keep up with it all. Thankfully, there are professionals who get paid to keep track of what movies are receiving accolades, have the most buzz, and got picked up for distribution. LatinoBuzz went straight to the experts, film programmers, to ask, “What’s your top 5 Latino films of 2012?”
Carlos Gutierrez, Co-Founder and Director of Cinema Tropical
In no particular order, a list of five Latin American films that made it to Us screens in the past year (some of them are a couple of years old), which I highly recommend.
De Jueves a Domingo (Thursday Till Sunday), Director: Dominga Sotomayor, Chile
O Som ao Redor (Neighboring Sounds), Director: Kleber Mendonça Filho, Brazil
El Estudiante, Director: Santiago Mitre, Argentina
El Velador, Director: Natalia Almada, Mexico
El Lugar Más Pequeño (The Tiniest Place), Director: Tatiana Huezo, Mexico/El Salvador
Juan Caceres, Director of Programming at the New York International Latino Film Festival
Mosquita y Mari is a gorgeous film full of heart. Marialy Rivas (Director of Joven y Alocada) is an incredibly exciting new voice in Latin American cinema. She's fearless and full of love. I'm a huge fan of Lucy Mulloy (Director of Una Noche). She draws these wonderful performances from non-professional actors. A natural at using the lens to tell a story. In Las Malas Intenciones Fatima Buntinx plays the lead perfectly. Andres Wood made a beautiful film called 'Machuca', that captured the soul of Chile in the 70's and he does the same with a bio-pic of Violeta Parra, a folk singer who was a part of 'La Nueva Canción Chilena'.
Mosquita y Mari, Director: Aurora Guerrero, USA
Joven y Alocada (Young and Wild), Director: Marialy Rivas, Chile
Una Noche, Director: Lucy Mulloy, Cuba
Violeta Se Fue A Los Cielos (Violeta Went to Heaven), Director: Andrés Wood, Chile
Las Malas Intenciones (The Bad Intentions), Director: Rosario García-Montero, Perú
Christine Davila, Programming Associate at Sundance Film Festival
There are way too many Latino films and not enough coverage on American Latino films so with that -- mine are going to be strictly American Latino films.
Los Chidos, Director: Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, USA/Mexico
Mosquita y Mari, Director: Aurora Guerrero, USA
Elliot Loves, Director: Terracino, USA
Aquí y Allá (Here and There), Director: Antonio Méndez Esparza, USA/Spain/Mexico
Love, Concord, Director: Gustavo Guardado, USA
Lisa Franek, Artistic Director at the San Diego Latino Film Festival
Just 5?? That's tough! In Filly Brown, Gina Rodriguez turns in a great performance, and I expect to see more great things from her very soon. No, I saw at Cannes, and it was fascinating, especially in contrast to Larraín's previous (amazing) films. La Hora Cero has unforgettable scenes and characters! La Mujer de Ivan has amazing acting, and I believe Maria de Los Angeles Garcia is definitely a talent to watch. Reportero is also fantastic.
La Mujer de Iván, Director: Francisca Silva, Chile
No, Director: Pablo Larraín, Chile/France/USA
La Hora Cero, Director: Diego Velasco, Venezuela
Reportero, Director: Bernardo Ruiz, USA/Mexico
Filly Brown, Directors: Youssef Delara, Michael D. Olmos, USA
Marcela Goglio, Programmer for Latinbeat at The Film Society of Lincoln Center
Las Acacias, Director: Pablo Giorgelli, Argentina
As Cançoes (Songs), Director: Eduardo Coutinho, Brazil
Unfinished Spaces, Directors: Alyssa Nahmias & Benjamin Murray, USA
O Som ao Redor (Neighboring Sounds), Director: Kleber Mendonça Filho, Brazil
Aquí y Allá (Here and There), Director: Antonio Méndez Esparza, USA/Spain/Mexico
Pepe Vargas, Executive Director of the International Latino Cultural Center and Chicago Latino Film Festival
Not an easy task to come up with 5 titles - there are so many good movies.
La Piel que Habito (The Skin I Live In)
Director: Pedro Almodóvar, Spain
Salvando al Soldado Pérez, (Saving Private Perez)
Director: Beto Gómez, Mexico
Un Cuento Chino (Chinese Take-Out)
Director: Sebastián Borensztein, Argentina/Spain
Lobos de Arga (Game of Werewolves)
Director: Juan Martínez Moreno, Spain
Mariachi Gringo
Director: Tom Gustafson, USA/Mexico
Amalia Cordova, Coordinator of the Latin American Program at the Film and Video Center of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian
Granito, Director: Pamela Yates, USA/Guatemala/Spain
Desterro Guarani, Directors: Patricia Ferreira y Ariel Duarte Ortega, Brazil
Violeta Se Fue A Los Cielos (Violeta Went to Heaven), Director: Andrés Wood, Chile
5 x Favela – Agora por nós Mesmos (5 x Favela, Now by Ourselves), Directors: Manaíra Carneiro, Wagner Novais, Cacau Amaral, Rodrigo Felha, Luciano Vidigal, Cadu Barcelos, and Luciana Bezerra, Brazil
Un Cuento Chino (Chinese Take-Out), Director: Sebastián Borensztein, Argentina/Spain
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.
There was also a strong Latin American presence at Cannes this past summer, boasting films from Mexico, Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina. It might as well have been called Mexi-Cannes, with Mexican films winning awards across all main sections of the festival. Carlos Reygadas was honored as the Best Director for his controversial film Post Tenebras Lux, despite having received boos at its premiere screening. The prize for the Critics’ Week section went to Aquí y Allá (Here and There) and Después de Lucía (After Lucia) won the top prize for Un Certain Regard.
It’s been an especially favorable year for Chilean cinema. The New York Film Festival, in its 50th edition this past Fall, included three highly anticipated films by Pablo Larraín, Valeria Sarmiento, and the late Raúl Ruiz. And Chile continued to outshine the rest of the region by winning two top spots at the Festival Internacional de Nuevo Cine Latino de La Habana (the Havana Film Festival) just a few days ago. Pablo Larraín’s No, starring Gael Garcia Bernal, won the First Coral Prize. It’s a brilliant take on the real life story of an advertising campaign that ousted General Pinochet from power during a shining moment in Chilean politics. Violeta se fue a los cielos (Violeta Went To Heaven), a biopic about internationally famous Violeta de la Parra, a Chilean singer, songwriter, and poet won the Second Prize.
Whether it was at Cannes, Sundance, or countless other festivals, Latino films were winning award after award this year and even getting distribution (albeit usually in limited release). With the flurry of activity surrounding the region’s filmmaking, it can be hard to keep up with it all. Thankfully, there are professionals who get paid to keep track of what movies are receiving accolades, have the most buzz, and got picked up for distribution. LatinoBuzz went straight to the experts, film programmers, to ask, “What’s your top 5 Latino films of 2012?”
Carlos Gutierrez, Co-Founder and Director of Cinema Tropical
In no particular order, a list of five Latin American films that made it to Us screens in the past year (some of them are a couple of years old), which I highly recommend.
De Jueves a Domingo (Thursday Till Sunday), Director: Dominga Sotomayor, Chile
O Som ao Redor (Neighboring Sounds), Director: Kleber Mendonça Filho, Brazil
El Estudiante, Director: Santiago Mitre, Argentina
El Velador, Director: Natalia Almada, Mexico
El Lugar Más Pequeño (The Tiniest Place), Director: Tatiana Huezo, Mexico/El Salvador
Juan Caceres, Director of Programming at the New York International Latino Film Festival
Mosquita y Mari is a gorgeous film full of heart. Marialy Rivas (Director of Joven y Alocada) is an incredibly exciting new voice in Latin American cinema. She's fearless and full of love. I'm a huge fan of Lucy Mulloy (Director of Una Noche). She draws these wonderful performances from non-professional actors. A natural at using the lens to tell a story. In Las Malas Intenciones Fatima Buntinx plays the lead perfectly. Andres Wood made a beautiful film called 'Machuca', that captured the soul of Chile in the 70's and he does the same with a bio-pic of Violeta Parra, a folk singer who was a part of 'La Nueva Canción Chilena'.
Mosquita y Mari, Director: Aurora Guerrero, USA
Joven y Alocada (Young and Wild), Director: Marialy Rivas, Chile
Una Noche, Director: Lucy Mulloy, Cuba
Violeta Se Fue A Los Cielos (Violeta Went to Heaven), Director: Andrés Wood, Chile
Las Malas Intenciones (The Bad Intentions), Director: Rosario García-Montero, Perú
Christine Davila, Programming Associate at Sundance Film Festival
There are way too many Latino films and not enough coverage on American Latino films so with that -- mine are going to be strictly American Latino films.
Los Chidos, Director: Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, USA/Mexico
Mosquita y Mari, Director: Aurora Guerrero, USA
Elliot Loves, Director: Terracino, USA
Aquí y Allá (Here and There), Director: Antonio Méndez Esparza, USA/Spain/Mexico
Love, Concord, Director: Gustavo Guardado, USA
Lisa Franek, Artistic Director at the San Diego Latino Film Festival
Just 5?? That's tough! In Filly Brown, Gina Rodriguez turns in a great performance, and I expect to see more great things from her very soon. No, I saw at Cannes, and it was fascinating, especially in contrast to Larraín's previous (amazing) films. La Hora Cero has unforgettable scenes and characters! La Mujer de Ivan has amazing acting, and I believe Maria de Los Angeles Garcia is definitely a talent to watch. Reportero is also fantastic.
La Mujer de Iván, Director: Francisca Silva, Chile
No, Director: Pablo Larraín, Chile/France/USA
La Hora Cero, Director: Diego Velasco, Venezuela
Reportero, Director: Bernardo Ruiz, USA/Mexico
Filly Brown, Directors: Youssef Delara, Michael D. Olmos, USA
Marcela Goglio, Programmer for Latinbeat at The Film Society of Lincoln Center
Las Acacias, Director: Pablo Giorgelli, Argentina
As Cançoes (Songs), Director: Eduardo Coutinho, Brazil
Unfinished Spaces, Directors: Alyssa Nahmias & Benjamin Murray, USA
O Som ao Redor (Neighboring Sounds), Director: Kleber Mendonça Filho, Brazil
Aquí y Allá (Here and There), Director: Antonio Méndez Esparza, USA/Spain/Mexico
Pepe Vargas, Executive Director of the International Latino Cultural Center and Chicago Latino Film Festival
Not an easy task to come up with 5 titles - there are so many good movies.
La Piel que Habito (The Skin I Live In)
Director: Pedro Almodóvar, Spain
Salvando al Soldado Pérez, (Saving Private Perez)
Director: Beto Gómez, Mexico
Un Cuento Chino (Chinese Take-Out)
Director: Sebastián Borensztein, Argentina/Spain
Lobos de Arga (Game of Werewolves)
Director: Juan Martínez Moreno, Spain
Mariachi Gringo
Director: Tom Gustafson, USA/Mexico
Amalia Cordova, Coordinator of the Latin American Program at the Film and Video Center of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian
Granito, Director: Pamela Yates, USA/Guatemala/Spain
Desterro Guarani, Directors: Patricia Ferreira y Ariel Duarte Ortega, Brazil
Violeta Se Fue A Los Cielos (Violeta Went to Heaven), Director: Andrés Wood, Chile
5 x Favela – Agora por nós Mesmos (5 x Favela, Now by Ourselves), Directors: Manaíra Carneiro, Wagner Novais, Cacau Amaral, Rodrigo Felha, Luciano Vidigal, Cadu Barcelos, and Luciana Bezerra, Brazil
Un Cuento Chino (Chinese Take-Out), Director: Sebastián Borensztein, Argentina/Spain
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.
- 12/19/2012
- by Vanessa Erazo
- Sydney's Buzz
Ah, the power of the pimp spot.
If you read our X Factor recap yesterday, it probably wasn't as shocking as producers had hoped when Fifth Harmony squeaked by Groups teammates Emblem3 to secure a place in next week's Season Two finale alongside front-runners Tate Stevens and Carly Rose Sonenclar. (Alas, the breaking news that mentor L.A. Reid is leaving the show didn't involve an epic on-screen meltdown over results; the more mundane explanation lies below.)
There was never any doubt that Tate and Carly Rose would sail through to the Top Three,...
If you read our X Factor recap yesterday, it probably wasn't as shocking as producers had hoped when Fifth Harmony squeaked by Groups teammates Emblem3 to secure a place in next week's Season Two finale alongside front-runners Tate Stevens and Carly Rose Sonenclar. (Alas, the breaking news that mentor L.A. Reid is leaving the show didn't involve an epic on-screen meltdown over results; the more mundane explanation lies below.)
There was never any doubt that Tate and Carly Rose would sail through to the Top Three,...
- 12/14/2012
- Rollingstone.com
In another week chock full o'new releases, Austin's cinephiles have plenty of choices at the local arthouse or multiplex. I may suspend my usual boycott of megabudget Hollywood fare and see Looper, which is getting great critical buzz. [Editor Jette butts in here briefly to say yes, Don, go see Looper. Go.]
There are, of course, irresistible alternatives. Austin film-scene favorite Alex Karpovsky is gracing us with his new comedy Red Flag (pictured above), in which he plays an indie filmmaker (named Alex Karpovsky) who takes his film (Karpovsky's actual film Woodpecker) on tour after a bitter breakup with his longtime girlfriend. Pursued by an ardent groupie and his own demons, he encounters what the film's press materials describe as "a twisting constellation of fear, sex, and tortured illumination." How could this movie not be interesting? Read Jette's review for details. The screening, presented by the Austin Film Society and Cinema East, is on Sunday at Cheer Up Charlie's at 8 pm. Karpovsky will be...
There are, of course, irresistible alternatives. Austin film-scene favorite Alex Karpovsky is gracing us with his new comedy Red Flag (pictured above), in which he plays an indie filmmaker (named Alex Karpovsky) who takes his film (Karpovsky's actual film Woodpecker) on tour after a bitter breakup with his longtime girlfriend. Pursued by an ardent groupie and his own demons, he encounters what the film's press materials describe as "a twisting constellation of fear, sex, and tortured illumination." How could this movie not be interesting? Read Jette's review for details. The screening, presented by the Austin Film Society and Cinema East, is on Sunday at Cheer Up Charlie's at 8 pm. Karpovsky will be...
- 9/28/2012
- by Don Clinchy
- Slackerwood
No Rest for the Wicked (No habrá paz para los malvados) and the other winners for the 2012 Goya Awards (Premios Goyas) have been announced. The 26th Annual Goya Awards (Premios Goyas), presented by the Academia de las Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas de España (Spanish Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences), is “Spain’s main national film awards, considered by many in Spain, and internationally, to be the Spanish equivalent of the American Academy Awards.”
The full listing of the 2012 Goya Awards (Premios Goyas) winners is below.
Film
No habrá paz para los malvados (No Rest for the Wicked), Enrique Urbizu
Director
Enrique Urbizu, No habrá paz para los malvados (No Rest for the Wicked)
New Director
Kike Maillo, Eva
Original Screenplay
Enrique Urbizu and Michel Gaztambide, No habrá paz para los malvados (No Rest for the Wicked)
Adapted Screenplay
Angel de la Cruz, Ignacio Ferreras, Paco Roca and Rosanna Cecchini,...
The full listing of the 2012 Goya Awards (Premios Goyas) winners is below.
Film
No habrá paz para los malvados (No Rest for the Wicked), Enrique Urbizu
Director
Enrique Urbizu, No habrá paz para los malvados (No Rest for the Wicked)
New Director
Kike Maillo, Eva
Original Screenplay
Enrique Urbizu and Michel Gaztambide, No habrá paz para los malvados (No Rest for the Wicked)
Adapted Screenplay
Angel de la Cruz, Ignacio Ferreras, Paco Roca and Rosanna Cecchini,...
- 2/20/2012
- by filmbook
- Film-Book
José Coronado, No Rest for the Wicked Pedro Almodóvar didn't have much luck at the Spanish Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Goya Awards this evening in Madrid: Almodóvar's The Skin I Live In won a total of four Goyas, but none for its director/writer. Starring Antonio Banderas as a plastic surgeon, Elena Anaya as his captive woman, and Jan Cornet as the good-looking young man whom the doctor blames for the death of his daughter, the sex-bending mystery melodrama won Goyas for Best Actress (Anaya), Best New Actor (Cornet), Best Original Music (Alberto Iglesias, his tenth Goya win), and Best Makeup/Hair. [Full list of Premios Goya winners/nominations.] Instead of the internationally renowned (and BAFTA winner) The Skin I Live In, the 2012 Goyas' big winner was Enrique Urbizu's No habrá paz para los malvados / No Rest for the Wicked, the story of a murderous, corrupt cop. No Rest for the Wicked won Goyas for Best Picture,...
- 2/20/2012
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Fernando Tejero, Salma Hayek, As Luck Would Have It No Rest For The Wicked, The Artist, Un Cuento Chino: Goya Award Winners Pt.1 Best Actor Daniel Brühl, Eva Antonio Banderas, The Skin I Live In Luis Tosar, Mientras duermes * José Coronado, No Rest for the Wicked Best Actress Verónica Echegui, Katmandu: un espejo en el cielo * Elena Anaya, The Skin I Live In Inma Cuesta, The Sleeping Voice Salma Hayek, La Chispa de la vida / As Luck Would Have It Best Supporting Actor Juan Diego, 23-f: la película * Lluís Homar, Eva Juanjo Artero, No Rest for the Wicked Raúl Arévalo, Cousins Best Supporting Actress Goya Toledo, Maktub Maribel Verdú, De tu ventana a la mía Pilar López de Ayala, Intruders * Ana Wagener, The Sleeping Voice Best New Actor José Mota, As Luck Would Have It * Jan Cornet, The Skin I Live In Adrián Lastra, Cousins Marc Clotet, The Sleeping...
- 2/20/2012
- by Steve Montgomery
- Alt Film Guide
Elena Anaya, Antonio Banderas, The Skin I Live In No Rest For The Wicked Tops, Pedro Almodóvar Empty-Handed: Goyas 2012 Winners Best Film La Piel que habito / The Skin I Live In, Pedro Almodóvar * No habrá paz para los malvados / No Rest for the Wicked, Enrique Urbizu La Voz dormida / The Sleeping Voice, Benito Zambrano Blackthorn. Sin destino / Blackthorn, Mateo Gil Best Foreign Film in the Spanish Language Boleto al paraíso (Cuba), Gerardo Chijona Miss Bala (Mexico), Gerardo Naranjo * Un cuento chino / Chinese Take-Away (Argentina), Sebastián Borensztein Violeta se fue a los cielos (Chile), Andrés Wood Best European Film Jane Eyre (United Kingdom), Cary Fukunaga Melancholia (Germany / Denmark / France), Lars von Trier * The Artist (France), Michel Hazanavicius Carnage (France), Roman Polanski Best Director Pedro Almodóvar, The Skin I Live In Benito Zambrano, The Sleeping Voice * Enrique Urbizu, No Rest for the Wicked Mateo Gil, Blackthorn Best New Director Paula Ortiz, De tu ventana a la mía...
- 2/20/2012
- by Steve Montgomery
- Alt Film Guide
The Skin I Live In (La piel que habito) and the other nominations for the 2012 Goya Awards (Premios Goyas) have been announced. The 26th Annual Goya Awards (Premios Goyas), presented by the Academia de las Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas de España (Spanish Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences), is “Spain’s main national film awards, considered by many in Spain, and internationally, to be the Spanish equivalent of the American Academy Awards.” The awards will be handed out on February 19, 2012 in Madrid, Spain.
The full listing of the 2012 Goya Awards (Premios Goyas) nominations is below.
Film
La piel que habito (The Skin I Live In), Pedro Almodovar
No habrá paz para los malvados (No Rest for the Wicked), Enrique Urbizu
La voz dormida (The Sleeping Voice), Benito Zambrano
Blackthorn. Sin destino (Blackthorn), Mateo Gil
Director
Pedro Almodovar, La piel que habito (The Skin I Live In)
Benito Zambrano, La voz dormida...
The full listing of the 2012 Goya Awards (Premios Goyas) nominations is below.
Film
La piel que habito (The Skin I Live In), Pedro Almodovar
No habrá paz para los malvados (No Rest for the Wicked), Enrique Urbizu
La voz dormida (The Sleeping Voice), Benito Zambrano
Blackthorn. Sin destino (Blackthorn), Mateo Gil
Director
Pedro Almodovar, La piel que habito (The Skin I Live In)
Benito Zambrano, La voz dormida...
- 1/11/2012
- by filmbook
- Film-Book
Sebastián Borensztein "Un Cuento Chino" took top prizes at the International Rome Film Festival over the weekend, winning the international jury award for best film as well as the Audience nod for best feature at the festival. Ashley Sabin and David Redmon's "Girl Model," meanwhile, took Rome's "Marc' Aurelio Award" for best documentary. The list of 2011 International Rome Film Festival prizes (with information provided by the festival International Jury ...
- 11/6/2011
- Indiewire
The International Rome Film Festival announces fifteen films playing in competition at the fest's 6th edition. From October 27-November 4, the Italian festival will open with Luc Besson's The Lady (out of competition), close with a digitally restored version of Breakfast at Tiffany's (marking its 50th anniversary), and in-between will showcase Leander Haubmann's Hotel Lux, Pål Sletaune's Babycall, Tanya Wexler's Hysteria, Juhn Jaihong's Poongsan, Fred Schepisi's The Eye of the Storm, Cédric Kahn's Une vie meilleure, Jaffe Zinn's Magic Valley, Sebastián Borensztein's Un Cuento Chino and Pawel Pawlikowski's La Femme du cinquièmen (The Woman in the Fifth), starring Kristin Scott Thomas (pictured). The four Italian films playing in competition are Ivan Cotroneo's La kryptonite nell borsa, Pupi Avati's Il cuore grande delle ragazze, Marina Spada's ...
- 10/13/2011
- Thompson on Hollywood
HeyUGuys brings you the latest in World Cinema film trailers in association with Film Dates UK.
Each week we’ll be showcasing some of most anticipated foreign releases as well as highlighting a few hidden gems which may have fallen off your radar. It’s no surprise that Hollywood has turned to World Cinema for inspiration in recent years with the number of remakes getting more and more popular.
Whilst it remains to be seen how many of these remakes go on to succeed or stay true to their original story counterparts, we decided it was high-time we turned the spotlight onto the next wave of foreign films to grace our screens.
This week we have 6 new trailers for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!
Ladli Laila (Virgin Goat) UK Cinema Release Date: Tuesday 5th July 2011
Synopsis: Raghubir Yadav, the doyen of Indian indie actors, plays Kalyan Singh, a farmer who is...
Each week we’ll be showcasing some of most anticipated foreign releases as well as highlighting a few hidden gems which may have fallen off your radar. It’s no surprise that Hollywood has turned to World Cinema for inspiration in recent years with the number of remakes getting more and more popular.
Whilst it remains to be seen how many of these remakes go on to succeed or stay true to their original story counterparts, we decided it was high-time we turned the spotlight onto the next wave of foreign films to grace our screens.
This week we have 6 new trailers for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!
Ladli Laila (Virgin Goat) UK Cinema Release Date: Tuesday 5th July 2011
Synopsis: Raghubir Yadav, the doyen of Indian indie actors, plays Kalyan Singh, a farmer who is...
- 7/5/2011
- by Andy Petrou
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
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