Noticias

There are more and more stories being told in film about people growing old. Earlier this summer, Music Box released the lovely little film Familiar Touch, described as a "coming-of-old-age" story about a woman who moves into a nursing home. A few years ago, there was a Japanese film titled Plan 75 about the option for anyone after 75 to be terminated so they don't overburden Japanese society – but, of course, not all old people really want to go. I'm also a big fan of the Oscar nominated documentary from Chile titled The Mole Agent, which was recently adapted into the Netflix series A Man on the Inside set inside a retirement home. Another film about aging is this one from Brazil – The Blue Trail, the latest feature directed by Brazilian filmmaker Gabriel Mascaro. It first premiered at the 2025 Berlin Film Festival, where it won Grand Jury Prize at the end,...

This episode reflects on how Brazilian and Portuguese cinemas serve as a bridge between Latin America and Europe.Rui Poças is an acclaimed Portuguese cinematographer best known for his long-standing collaborations with two key figures of contemporary Portuguese cinema: Miguel Gomes and João Pedro Rodrigues. Since working on their respective debuts—The Face You Deserve (2004) and O Fantasma (2000)—Poças has lensed such acclaimed films as Our Beloved Month of August (2008), Tabu (2012), The Ornithologist (2016), Will-o’-the-Wisp (2022), and most recently Grand Tour (2024), which won Best Director at Cannes Film Festival.His distinctive visual style has also shaped important works by leading voices in Latin America, Europe, and the US, including Zama (2017) by Lucrecia Martel, Good Manners (2017) by Juliana Rojas and Marco Dutra, Frankie (2019) by Ira Sachs, and The Rye Horn (2023) by Jaione Camborda.Rachel Daisy Ellis is a producer originally from England who relocated to Brazil in 2004. For over a decade, she has...

One of the many peculiarities of recent U.S. cultural trends is the “over-55 community,” gated havens for well-off retirees who embrace the idea of mono-generational living as an all-comforts interlude before Thanatos comes knocking. In Gabriel Mascaro’s The Blue Trail, a gentle blend of delayed self-realization fantasy and dystopian portent, the cutoff age is 77, which in a way is progress (think of Logan’s Run) and the move is involuntary, but resistance is not futile. Mascaro’s fourth feature can be considered a pair with his previous Divine Love, which also imagined a near-future controlled by a repressive state disguised as a caring Big Brother, but his latest is less deliciously elliptical than earlier films, privileging sensorial rewards that come from the natural world rather than the human body.

Set aglow by the earthy force of Denise Weinberg as Tereza, a woman determined not to be put away, The Blue Trail...

August Winds (2014), Neon Bull (2015) and Divine Love (2019) filmmaker Gabriel Mascaro has began production on his fourth fiction feature film in his native Brazil. Details are extremely sparse but what we could tell from the socials is that it might be a challenging production due to the backdrop (fishing village / shoreline) and we are looking at around a five-week shoot. Recife is possibly the main location for the project. Production began this week so we can expect a major film festival showcase beginning with a first bid at a Cannes showcase — his previous films were showcased at heavyweight film fests such as Locarno, Venice and Sundance.…...

Selection includes projects from Gabon, Chile, Mongolia and Argentina.

International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR)’s Hubert Bals Fund (Hbf) has selected 12 film projects for its 2020 funding round, marking an increase on the 10 selections of previous years.

The 12 projects for the Script and Project Development Scheme hail from Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. Each will receive €9,000 for a total of €108,000 funding.

Selected projects for the development scheme include Tremble Like A Flower from Thai director Pathompon Mont Tesprateep, whose short Lullaby received its European premiere at IFFR 2020.

Also chosen is Gente De Noche from Argentina’s Romina Paula. Paula...

The first word that comes to mind when thinking about the thematically complex yet always accessible fiction films from Brazilian filmmaker Gabriel Mascaro is “sensual.” His previous two features, August Winds (2014) and Neon Bull (2015), luxuriated in flesh-on-flesh couplings in ways that suggested the love scene is still far from a tired old cinematic trope — as long as you manage to suggest that the physical act comes from a place of desire that feels at once overwhelming and the most natural thing in the world.

Fast forward to 2019, or rather 2027, the year ...

The first word that comes to mind when thinking about the thematically complex yet always accessible fiction films from Brazilian filmmaker Gabriel Mascaro is “sensual.” His previous two features, August Winds (2014) and Neon Bull (2015), luxuriated in flesh-on-flesh couplings in ways that suggested the love scene is still far from a tired old cinematic trope — as long as you manage to suggest that the physical act comes from a place of desire that feels at once overwhelming and the most natural thing in the world.

Fast forward to 2019, or rather 2027, the year ...

Brazilian director Gabriel Mascaro excels at digging inside distinctive worlds and transforming them into poetry. His first two narrative features, “Neon Bull” and “August Wind” are lyrically transcendent works that blur the lines between reality and fiction. That makes the premise of his latest effort a welcome surprise: While “Neon Bull” depicted nomadic rodeo performers and “August Winds” reveled in the romance of a remote fishing village, “Divine Love” is an allegorical sci-fi story set in the near future.

Nevertheless, Mascaro and cinematographer Diego García have crafted a lush, intricate sociopolitical commentary that builds on the filmmaker’s inquisitive approach even as it sometimes overextends its ambition.

The movie takes its time developing its setup. At its center is Joana (Dira Paes), a devout Evangelical woman who works in Brazil’s notary office in 2027. Keen on talking would-be divorced couples into salvaging their crumbling marriages, she often coaxes them into...

Gabriel Mascaro. Photo by Beto Figueiroa.Similarly to the “slow cinema” fad of international art-house cinema, the docufiction format and variations of the fiction and documentary marriage seem to be in high demand by festival programmers, judging by last year´s Locarno and this year´s Rotterdam programs. The plethora of films at the intersection of both realms, resulting in a blending of cinematic strategies, styles and codes of both formats, span a wide spectrum of options from audience-pleasers like Kaweh Modiri´s Bodkin Ras to avangardishly-tuned Pietro Marcello´s Lost and Beautiful. Brazilian director Gabriel Mascaro also fits the label, currently dominating the festival circuit with award-reaping Neon Bull, which sees its release in the Us cinemas on April 8, followed by a retrospective devoted to the director at New York's Film Society of Lincoln Center. Mascaro was born in north-eastern region of Brazil in Recife, the capital and the...

Twenty-nine films from twelve countries have been nominated in the sixth annual edition of the Cinema Tropical Awards, honoring the best of Latin American cinema of the year in six different categories: Best Feature Film; Best Documentary Film; Best Director, Feature Film; Best Director, Documentary Film; Best First Film; and Best U.S. Latino Film.

The five films competing for the Cinema Tropical Award for Best Feature Film of the Year are: The Club by Pablo Larraín (Chile), Jauja by Lisandro Alonso (Argentina), Los Hongos by Oscar Ruiz Navia (Colombia), The Princess of France by Matías Piñeiro (Argentina), and White Out, Black In by Adirley Queirós (Brazil).

The five nominees for Best U.S. Latino Film of the Year are: The Book of Life by Jorge Gutierrez, East Side Sushi by Anthony Lucero, Mala Mala by Antonio Santini and Dan Sickles, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, and We Like It Like That by Mathew Ramirez Warren.

The winners of the 6th Annual Cinema Tropical Awards will be announced at a special evening ceremony at The New York Times Company headquarters in New York City on Wednesday, January 20, 2016. The winning films will be showcased as part of the Cinema Tropical Festival at Museum of the Moving Image, February 25-28, 2016, celebrating the organization’s 15th anniversary.

The candidates were culled from a comprehensive list of films created by a nominating committee composed of 12 film professionals from Latin America, the U.S., and Europe. All the films under consideration had a minimum of 60 minutes in length and premiered between April 1, 2014 and March 31, 2015.

Complete List of Nominations:

Best Feature Film

• "The Club"/ "El club" (Pablo Larraín, Chile, 2015)

• "Jauja" (Lisandro Alonso, Argentina, 2014)

• "Los Hongos" (Óscar Ruiz Navia, Colombia, 2014)

• "The Princess of France" / "La princesa de Francia" (Matías Piñeiro, Argentina/USA, 2014)

• "White Out, Black In" / "Branco Sai, Petro Fica" (Adirley Queirós, Brazil, 2014)

Best Director, Feature Film

• Nicolás Pereda, "The Absent" / "Los ausentes" (Mexico, 2014)

• Gabriel Mascaro, "August Winds" / "Ventos de Agosto" (Brazil, 2014)

• Pablo Larraín, "The Club" / "El club" (Chile, 2015)

• Laura Amelia Guzmán and Israel Cárdenas, "Sand Dollars" / "Dólares de arena" (Dominican Republic/Mexico/Argentina, 2014)

• Paz Fábrega, "Viaje" (Costa Rica, 2015)

Best First Film

• "600 Miles" (Gabriel Ripstein, Mexico, 2015)

• "The Fire" / "El incendio" (Juan Schnitman, Argentina, 2015)

• "Ixcanul" (Jayro Bustamante, Guatemala, 2015)

• "She Comes Back on Thursday" / "Ela Volta Na Quinta" (Andrés Novais Oliveira, Brazil, 2014)

• "Videophilia (and Other Viral Syndromes)" / "Videofilia (y otros síndromes virales)" (Juan Daniel F. Molero, Peru, 2015)

Best Documentary Film

• "A Committee Chronicle" / "Crónica de un comité" (José Luis Sepúlveda and Carolina Adriazola, Chile, 2014)

• "Identification Photos" / "Retratos de Identificaçao" (Anita Leandro, Brazil, 2014)

• "Invasion" / "Invasión" (Abner Benaim, Panama, 2014)

• "Last Conversations" / "Últimas Conversas" (Eduardo Coutinho, Brazil,2015)

• "Monte Adentro" (Nicolás Macario Alonso, Colombia/Argentina, 2014)

Best Director, Documentary Film

• Maíra Bühler and Matias Mariani, "I Touched All Your Stuff"/ "A Vida Privada dos Hipopótamos" (Brazil, 2014)

• Karina García Casanova, "Juanicas" (Mexico, 2014)

• Betzabé García, "Kings of Nowhere"/ "Los reyes del pueblo que no existe" (Mexico, 2015)

• Aldo Garay, "The New Man" / "El hombre nuevo" (Uruguay, 2015)

• Christopher Murray, "Propaganda" (Chile, 2014)

Best U.S. Latino Film

• "The Book of Life" (Jorge Gutierrez, USA, 2014)

• "East Side Sushi" (Anthony Lucero, USA, 2014)

• "Mala Mala" (Antonio Santini and Dan Sickles, USA/Puerto Rico, 2014)

• "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" (Alfonso Gomez-Rejon USA, 2015)

• "We Like It Like That" (Mathew Ramirez Warren, USA, 2015)

2015 Jury: Amalia Córdova, film programmer and scholar; Aaron Cutler, film critic and programmer; Paul Dallas, film critic; Vanessa Erazo, Film Editor, Remezcla; Michelle Farrell, film scholar; Sandra Kogut, filmmaker; Dominic Davis, film programmer, Rooftop Films; David Schwartz, Chief Curator, Museum of the Moving Image; Diana Vargas, Artistic Director, Havana Film Festival New York.

2015 Nominating Committee: Fábio Andrade, Revista Cinética, Brazil; Juan Pablo Bastarrachea, Cine Tonalá, Mexico; Consuelo Castillo, Doctv Latinoamérica, Colombia; Fernando del Razo, Riviera Maya Film Festival, Mexico; Vanessa Erazo, Film Editor, Remezcla, USA; Luis Gonzalez Zaffaroni, DocMontevideo, Uruguay; James Lattimer, Berlinale's Forum, Germany; Alicia Morales, Lima Film Festival, Peru; Joel Poblete. Sanfic, Chile; Andrea Stavenhagen, San Sebastian Film Festival, Spain; Charles Tesson, Critics' Week, Cannes, France; Raúl Niño Zambrano, International Documentary Film Festival - Idfa, Netherlands.

Exclusive: Us-based FiGa Films has lined up a Cannes slate that includes Paz Fabrega’s Tribeca 2015 selection Viaje and Berlin entry The Fire from Juan Schnitman.

Kattia Gonzalez and Fernando Bolanos star in Viaje, which marks the Costa Rican Fabrega’s second film and centres on a casual encounter.

The Fire (El Incendio) stars Pilar Gambo and Juan Barberini and tells of a couple whose love is tested during a tense attempt to buy a home.

FiGa, which as of June 1 will relocate from Los Angeles and Florida, will also tout Berlin selection and rites-of-passage drama Seashore (Beira Mar) from Filipe Matzembacher and Marcio Reolon and stars Mateus Almada and Mauricio Jose Barcellos.

Gregoria Graziosi’s Brazilian drama Obra (pictured) premiered in Toronto last year and stars Irandhir Santos, Lola Peploe and Julio Andrade.

Thriller I Swear I’ll Leave This Town (Prometo Um Dia Deixar Essa Cidade) from Daniel Aragao launched at the Rio de Janeiro...

Gabriel Mascaro's August Winds (Ventos de Agosto) is a love-dance of life and death. With a remarkable background in documentary filmmaking, the Brazilian Mascaro combines an observational nonfiction-styled movement and a poetical reflection on age, youth, flesh, and memory. There is no linear story told by the film. Instead a series of beautiful glimpses unfolds. One observes a young couple, Shirley and Jeison. She is young, sultry and hungry for life. When she is not working, making love, or thinking about making tattoos, she cares for her grandmother. In a scene full of sensual power and humour -- aspects that are true for the film as such -- she puts on some unusual lotion: Coca-Cola. Jeison, on the contrary, is fascinated by death. He does not...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

The Hamptons International Film Festival also unveils its annual Golden Starfish competition titles.

The Hamptons International Film Festival (Hiff) is to honour filmmaker Joel Schumacher with the Golden Starfish Lifetime Achievement in Directing Award at its 22nd edition (Oct 9-13).

The director of The Lost Boys, Batman Forever and more recently two episodes of House of Cards, will also take part in a “conversation with” session on Oct 11, where he will be also be presented with the award.

Oscar-winning actress Hilary Swank will also be in conversation at the festival on Oct 12, where she will receive the Creative Impact in Acting Award.

Swank won Best Actress Academy Award’s in 2000 and 2005 for Boys Don’t Cry and Million Dollar Baby, and her latest performance in The Homesman will be seen when the film is screened at Hiff.

In addition, Hiff has revealed the 20 films from 15 countries selected for this year’s Golden Starfish competition, including the Us...

Once again the San Sebastian Festival will showcase the best Latin American productions of the year. The program of the Horizontes Latinos section at the 62nd edition includes fourteen productions from Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay and Colombia. Films that have competed or been presented at important international festivals, but which have not yet been seen at a Spanish festival or commercially released in the country.

The selected films compete for the Horizontes Award, decided by a specific jury and carrying €35,000, of which €10,000 go to the director of the winning film, and the remaining €25,000 to its distributor in Spain.

"Casa Grande"Fellipe Barbosa (Brazil - U.S.A.)Set within Rio's social elite, a teenage boy struggles to escape his overprotective parents as his family spirals into bankruptcy. This second movie by Brazil's Fellipe Barbosa was presented in the Official Selection at the Rotterdam Festival.

"Natural Sciences" (Ciencias Naturales)

Matías Lucchesi (Argentina - France)Presented in the Generation section of the Berlin Festival and winner of the Award for Best Ibero-American Film at the Guadalajara Festival, the first film by Matías Luchesi revolves around a girl who, starting to become a woman, feels the profound need to discover her true identity. She does not know who her father is and she is determined to find him.

"Two Gun Shots" (Dos Disparos)

Martín Rejtman (Argentina - Chile - Netherlands - Germany)The Argentinian filmmaker Martín Rejtman competed at the Locarno Festival with his latest film. Early one morning, 16 year-old Mariano finds a gun in his house and proceeds to shoot himself twice without giving it a second thought. He survives. Dos disparos (Two Shots Fired) is the tale of how Mariano and his family react to the situation.

"Gente de Bien"Franco Lolli (France - Colombia)The feature film debut of Franco Lolli, following several short films to have won awards at several festivals, was presented in the Critics' Week at Cannes. Ten year-old Eric finds himself almost overnight living with Gabriel, his father, who he barely knows. Maria Isabel, the woman Gabriel works for as a carpenter, decides to help and invites them both to the country to spend Christmas with her and her family. However, she fails to foresee all the consequences of taking the child under her wing.

"Güeros"Alonso Ruiz Palacios (Mexico)A road movie and coming of age comedy which pays homage to the French new wave, winner of Panorama's First Feature Award in Berlin Film Festival and of Best Cinematography Award and Special Jury Mention in Tribeca Festival. Since the teenager Tomás is clearly too much of a handful for his mother, she packs him off to stay with his big brother who is studying in Mexico City.Tomás has brought a cassette along with him; the tape is part of his father’s legacy and contains the music of Epigmenio Cruz. When the trio learns that their idol is in hospital fading fast and alone, they set off in their rusty heap of a car to pay their last respects to this one-time rock star.

"History of Fear" (Historia del Miedo)

Benjamín Naishtat (Argentina - France - Germany - Uruguay - Qatar)Following its screening in Films in Progress at last year's San Sebastian Festival, Benjamín Naishtat's first film competed at the Berlin Festival and won Best Film at the Jeonju Festival. When a heat wave grips the suburbs, blackouts and waves of pollution push the social order to the brink of collapse, forcing each inhabitant to confront his own motives, instincts and fears.

"Jauja"

Lisandro Alonso (Argentina - U.S.A. - Mexico - Netherlands - France - Denmark- Germany)Viggo Mortensen stars in a film by Lisandro Alonso that competed in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Festival and won the Fipresci Award. In 1882, Captain Dinesen arrives in Patagonia from Denmark with his 15 year old daughter Ingeborg to take up an engineering post with the Argentinian army. When Ingeborg falls in love with a young soldier and runs away with him, the Captain ventures into enemy territory to find the couple. A solitary quest that takes us to a place beyond time.

"The Princess of France"(La Princesa de Francia)

Matías Piñeiro (Argentina)Matías Piñeiro returns to his reflections on the theatre world in this competitor in the Official Selection of the Locarno Festival. A year after his father's death in Mexico, Víctor returns to Buenos Aires with a job for his former theatre company: to make a Latin American series of radio dramas by recording a pilote episode of the last play they put on together.

"La Salada"Juán Martín Hsu (Argentina - Spain)The winning film of the Films in Progress Industry Award at last year's Festival is a mosaic of experiences for new immigrants in Argentina. Three tales of people from different races who struggle with loneliness and alienation during "La feria de La Salada".

"The Third Side of the River" (La Tercera Orilla)

Celina Murga (Argentina- Germany - The Netherlands)The Argentinian director Celina Murga competed in Berlin's Official Selection with this film focused on the seventeen-year-old Nicolas, who lives with his mother and younger siblings in a small provincial city. When his entranged father returns to his life, tensions rise between father and son. Nicolas realizes he has to make radical choices for his own future.

"To Kill a Man" (Matar a un Hombre)

Alejandro Fernández Almendras (Chile - France)The third film from Chile's Alejandro Fernández Almendras participated in Films in Progress last year and has won awards at several international festivals, including Sundance and Rotterdam. Jorge, a hardworking man, is muggled by Kalule, a neighbourhood delinquent. Jorge’s son, in an attemp to defend his father, is shot by Kalule for what Kalule is sent to prision. When he is released, only wants one thing: revenge.

"Futuro Beach" (Praia do Futuro)

Karim Ainouz (Brazil - Germany)A love story directed by Karim Aïnouz which competed in the Official Selection at the Berlin Festival. Donato works as a life guard patrolling the spectacular but treacherous Praia do Futuro beach. When he dives into the sea after two men caught in the undercurrent, he saves Konrad, a German vacationing in Brazil, but Konrad’s friend is lost to the sea. While waiting for the body to resurface, a bond grows between donato and Konrad and the initial sexual sparks give way to a deeper,emotional connection. Winner of the Sebastiane Latino Award.

"Refugiado"Diego Lerman (Argentina- Colombia - France - Poland - Germany)Presented at the Directors' Fortnight in Cannes, the latest film from Diego Lerman opens when Matías, a 7 year-old boy, finds his mother, Laura, unconscious on the floor on coming home from a birthday party. When Laura comes round, she decides to flee with her son to a shelter for battered women. Seen through the eyes of Matías, we follow their escape and the way everything he knew turns into danger, while Laura looks for a safe place to live.

"August Winds" (Ventos de Agosto)

Gabriel Mascaro (Brazil)The arrival to a small coastal village in Brazil of a researcher registering the sound of the trade winds and a surprise discovery take Shirley and Jeison on a journey that confronts them with the duel between life and death, loss and memory, the wind and the sea. A first film by Gabriel Mascaró, winner of a special mention at the Locarno Festival.

Competitive strand will feature 14 films, including Jauja starring Viggo Mortensen.

A total of 14 titles have been selected to compete in Horizontes Latinos at the 62nd San Sebastian Festival (Sept 19-27).

The strand comprises productions from Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay and Colombia that have competed or screneed at international festivals but have yet to be seen in Spain.

The selected films compete for the Horizontes Award, decided by a jury and including a prize of €35,000 ($46,000), of which €10,000 ($13,000) goes to the director of the winning film, and the remaining €25,000 ($33,000) to its distributor in Spain.

Casa Grande

Fellipe Barbosa (Brazil - USA)

Set within Rio’s social elite, a teenage boy struggles to escape his overprotective parents as his family spirals into bankruptcy. This second movie by Brazil’s Fellipe Barbosa was presented in the Official Selection at the Rotterdam Festival.

Ciencias naturales (Natural Sciences)

Matías Lucchesi (Argentina - France)

Presented in the Generation section of the Berlin Festival...

The results are in and the two heavy favorites, Lav Diaz and Pedro Costa, have both received major awards.

Concorso internazionale

Golden Leopard

From What is Before (Lav Diaz, Philippines)

Special Jury Prize

Listen Up Philip (Alex Ross Perry, USA)

Best Director

Pedro Costa for Horse Money (Portugal)

Best Actor

Artem Bystrov for The Fool (Yury Bykov, Russia)

Special Mention

Ventos de Agosto (Gabriel Mascaro, Brazil)

Concorso Cineasti del presente

Pardo d’oro Cineasti del presente – Premio Nescens

Navajazo (Ricardo Silva, Mexico)

Premio speciale della giuria Ciné+ Cineasti del presente

Los Hongos (Oscar Ruiz Navia, Colombia/France/Argentina/Germany)

Premio per il miglior regista emergente

The Creation of Meaning (Simone Rapisarda Casanova, Canada/Italy)

Special Mention

Un jeune poete (Damien Manivel, France)

Opera Prima

Pardo per la migliore opera prima

Songs From the North (Soon-mi Yoo, USA/South Korea/Portugal)

Special Mention

Parole De Kamizake (Sawada Masa, France)

Pardi di...

Locarno’s Golden Leopard has been awarded to Filipino director Lav Diaz’s five-and-a-half-hour epic From What Is Before.Scroll down for full list of winners

The film, which has the Filipino title Mula sa kung ano ang noon, also picked up the Fipresci International Critics Prize, the Environment is Quality of Life Prize, and the International Federation of Film Societies’ (Iffs) Don Quixote Prize.

On learning that he had won Locarno’s top honour, Diaz said that he wanted to dedicate the award to his father.

“He brought me cinema, he’s a cinema addict, and he started this passion in me,” said Diaz.

“For the Filipino people, it’s for them, for their struggle, and then I would like to dedicate it to all serious filmmakers in the world, to Pedro Costa, he’s my brother and I love his work, to Matias Pineiro, and to the makers of all the other films in the...

New Brazilian cinema label kicks off with Locarno competition title.

Sandro Fiorin and Alex Garcia’s Latin American specialist sales company FiGa Films is launching its new label devoted to Brazilian cinema, FiGa/Br, by boarding sales for Locarno competition title August Winds (Ventos De Agosto).

Gabriel Mascaro’s film will have its world premiere in Locarno on Friday. Set in a small coastal village in Brazil, the story is set during the tumultuous weather of late summer, when a researcher arrives to study trade winds. There is a surprise discovery that take two young lovers on a journey exploring life and death.

Mascaro previously directed the documentary Housemaids.