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¡Que viva México! is a film directed by Luis Estrada starring Damián Alcázar, Alfonso Herrera, Joaquín Cosío and Ana Martín.

A Mexican comedy about Mexico that takes life, tradition, family, the political system, customs and seriousness itself… as a joke.

A comedy that knows that comedy -or a certain kind of comedy- is based on stereotypes and plays with them in a healthy and even intelligent way.

It will have, for sure, its detractors, but you won’t find us among them.

¡Que viva México! Movie review

A comedy about the rich and the poor, mariachis, drunks, cheap brothels, yellowed walls, and mold everywhere. Between bad taste for some, intelligent provocation for others and, for others (for sure) stupidity.

It is a combination of (Mexican) humor that laughs at all the Mexican clichés and makes this encounter between two parallel universes an enriching experience that leaves no one indifferent.

You may like it or not,...

Exclusive: Sony Pictures International Productions has picked up worldwide theatrical rights to ¡Que Viva México! — the latest in a series of political satires from filmmaker Luis Estrada — slating it for release on more than 3,000 screens across Mexico, via Sony Pictures Releasing International, on March 23.

The film follows Pancho Reyes (Alfonso Herrera), a prosperous and “aspirational” middle class man who 20 years ago, abandoned his hometown and entirely forgot all about his very large and very poor family. One day, he receives unexpected news, when his father informs him that his grandfather, Don Francisco Reyes (Joaquín Cosío), a rich old miner, just passed away, and that he is part of his will and possible heir.

Motivated by greed, Pancho decides to go back to the remote town of La Prosperidad to meet with his estranged and resented family, taking his wife, kids, and maid with him. But the mere presence of Pancho,...

“Ray and Manny,” “Witch’s Business” and “Worldoscope” feature among the five animation projects chosen for the 2nd Women Animation Directors Mentoring Program, run by Ventana Sur’s Animation!

Launched with the aim to boost gender parity and build a more equitable and diverse animation industry, the initiative has been launched in alliance with the Annecy Festival’s MIFA market, Argentina’s Institut Français and, for the first time, the Quirino Ibero-American Animation Awards.

Five projects will have access to a training program focused on production, scriptwriting and pitching techniques starting in early 2022. After training is completed, one selected project will participate at MIFA 2022.

And these are the projects unveiled today in Buenos Aires at Ventana Sur:

“Ray And Manny”

Directed and produced by Rafaela de Abreu at Brazil’s Estudio Paulares an edutainment preschool series comprising 26 episodes. Mixing cut out and 2D techniques, the show follows siblings Ray, whose...

Pánico

Directed by Julián Soler

Mexico, 1970

Julián Soler’s Pánico is part-understated horror gem, part-mad scientist absurdism. This three-part anthology film starts really strong, with visible influences from Welles and Kurosawa, and then takes a left turn with something that would be very much at home in a Rex Carlton-produced episode of Tales from the Crypt.

There’s virtually no dialogue in the first seventeen minutes of the film. But there are a whole lot of screams. Ana Martín plays an unnamed woman shrieking and running through a forest away from a purple-clad woman wielding a knife. There are a few flashbacks, one indicating a possible gang rape, the grotesque close-ups of which remind of Janet Leigh’s interaction with a gang of thugs in Touch of Evil, but for the most part this first short film (titled, simply, Panic) gets its mileage out of some pretty compositions and camera movements from Soler.

Back in December, we got our first look at Forum Expanded, a program of exhibitions, performances and other works that don't necessarily entail lowering the lights and peering straight ahead at the big white screen. So we already know that we'll be seeing new work by Luke Fowler, Harun Farocki and many others. The first of today's announcements from the Berlinale (February 9 through 19) fills in the details.

The addition, for example, of whiteonwhite:algorithmicnoir (image above) by Eve Sussman/Rufus Corporation, "a film edited live in real time which shows a man under surveillance in a fictional East European city," solidifies the impression that Forum Expanded is a rough equivalent of Toronto's Future Projections program and Sundance's New Frontier since, by the time it rolls into Berlin, it'll already have been presented by both.

Other notable additions since December's announcement: Luc Moullet's "uncompleted project about two thieves (mother and daughter...