Tag Archives: San Sebastian Film Festival

Rondón’s “Pelo Malo” Chosen as Part of the Global Lens Films Series

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Mariana Rondón is having a good (bad) hair day…

The Venezuelan cinema director, screenwriter and producer’s latest film.

Pero Malo

Pelo Malo (Bad Hair) has been chosen as one of the Global Film Initiative’s 10 films from around the world for its 2014 Global Lens Films Series, which is distributed by the New York-based FilmRise.

Rondón’s Pelo Malo, which she wrote and directed, is one of 10 titles being added to the 96-title GFI library, whose exclusive distribution rights FilmRise, headed by CEO Danny Fisher, acquired last year.

The dramatic film, which won the Golden Shell award at the 61st San Sebastian Film Festival, centers on a nine-year-old boy’s preening obsession with straightening his hair, eliciting a tidal wave of homophobic panic in his hard-working mother.

In addition to Pelo Malo, the lineup that includes Turkey’s 11’e 10 kala (10 to 11) and Babamin sesi (Voice of My Father), India’s Chitra Sutram (The Image Threads), Armenia’s Yerku ashkharhic i hishatak (From Two Worlds as a Keepsake), Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Halimin put (Halima’s Path), Rwanda’s Imbabazi (The Pardon), Morocco’s Wadaan Carmen (Adios Carmen), Cameroon’s Ninah’s Dowry and Egypt’s La Moakhza (Excuse My French).

Over the past 10 years, the Global Film Initiative has provided grants and distribution support for the Global Lens series, which supports filmmakers in the developing world by providing programming for festivals, libraries, cultural institutions, schools and art house cinemas throughout North America.

“We are excited to leverage our partnership with FilmRise as we continue our work to present the very best of world cinema as a means of promoting cross-cultural understanding,” Susan Weeks Coulter, founder and board chair of the Global Film Initiative, said

del Solar’s “Magallanes” Wins Films in Progress Award at San Sebastian Film Festival

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The first time’s the charm for Salvador del Solar…

The 44-year-old Peruvian actor’s directorial debut Magallanes picked up the Films in Progress award on Wednesday night at the San Sebastian Film Festival.

Salvador del Solar

del Solar’s film portrays a man who’s humdrum life suddenly changes when a woman he met while serving in Peru’s military leaps into his taxi.

Magallanes, a Peru-Argentina-Columbia co-production, beat out five other promising, yet unfinished film contenders, including Jayro Bustamante‘s Ixcanul, which received an honorable mention from the competition jury.

The Films in Progress sidebar gives international buyers of Spanish-speaking films a sneak peek at strong projects aimed at the world market.

del Solar just starred in Javier Fuentes-León‘s The Vanished Elephant, which had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this month.

Also in San Sebastian, the Europe-Latin America co-production forum award for the best 2014 project went to Armando Capo’s Agosto, a Costa Rica-Cuba co-production. The jury gave an honorable mention to Walls, directed by Spain’s Pablo Iraburu and Migueltxo Molina.

The San Sebastian festival runs in Spain’s Basque region until Saturday.

Arvelo’s “The Liberator,” Starring Edgar Ramirez, Selected as Venezuela’s Oscar Submission for Foreign Language Film

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Alberto Arvelo is one step closer to a possible Oscar nomination…

The Venezuelan filmmaker’s latest project The Liberator has been selected to be the country’s submission to the Foreign Language Film category for the next Academy Awards, according to the Venezuelan paper Ultimas Noticias.

The Liberator

The paper reports that a selection of Venezuelan film industry professionals voted on Arvelo’s film earlier this week.

The voting was reportedly divided between The Liberator and Mariana Rondon’s indie drama Bad Hair, winner of the Golden Shell at the San Sebastian Film Festival last year.

An absolute rarity for local standards in terms of production value, The Liberator is a $50 million co-production between Spain and Venezuela about military and political leader Simon Bolivar, who commanded an army that freed a great part of the region from Spanish colonialism back in the 19th century, and is regarded as a forefather of South America, together with Argentine Jose de San Martin.

The epic period piece stars Venezuela’s most high profile international actor Edgar Ramírez (Carlos, Zero Dark Thirty) as Bolivar, with a score by the L. A. Philharmonic’s music director Gustavo Dudamel, and a script by Timothy J. Sexton, who co-wrote Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men.

The film’s unusually international crew also features Spanish cinematographer Xavi Gimenez (The Machinist, Agora), production designer Paul D. Austerberry (Twilight Saga: Eclipse), costume designer Sonia Grande (Midnight in Paris) and editor Tariq Anwar (American Beauty, The King’s Speech).

The Liberator opened in Venezuela on July 24, selling more than 500,000 tickets to date.

The film is scheduled for US release on October 3.

Saba’s “The Cleaner” to Represent Peru in the Oscars’ Foreign Language Film Race

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Adrián Saba’s first feature film could earn him an Oscar nomination…

The half-Peruvian filmmaker’s sci-fi drama The Cleaner has been selected as Peru’s submission for the foreign language category at the Academy Awards.

The Cleaner

The announcement was made by the South American country’s Ministry of Culture, which established a committee for the selection formed by Javier Alfredo Portocarrero, Rodrigo Ernesto Portales, Rafael Álvaro Sedano and Pierre Emile Vandoorne.

The committee’s selection act stated the film was chosen “for its original proposal of an apocalyptic Lima, where loneliness and strain are shown through an effective use of cinematographic elements, expressing a city that slowly fades out.”

The Cleaner tells the story of a forensic cleaner (played by Victor Prada) who takes charge of an 8-year-old (Adrian Du Bois) orphaned by a strange epidemic in Lima.

The film won a Special Mention of the New Directors Award at the San Sebastian Film Festival last year.