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The 48th edition of the Huelva Ibero-American Film Festival will honor Spanish actress Nathalie Poza with a City of Huelva Award, an acknowledgment whose previous recipients included filmmaker Oscar-winning director Fernando Trueba (“Belle Epoque”) and actors Dario Grandinetti, Eduard Fernández and Edward James Olmos.

Running Nov. 11-18, Huelva 2022 will also homage young thesp Greta Fernández, a best actress winner at San Sebastian for Belén Funes’ “A Thief’s Daughter,” and Andalusian writer-director Juan Miguel del Castillo (“Food and Shelter”) with two Light Awards.

Meanwhile, Seville-born director Santi Amodeo will receive a Rtva Award for best Andalusian filmmaker.

Launched 48 years ago, Huelva represents Europe’s oldest confab dedicated exclusively to movies from Ibero-America: Spain, Latin America and Portugal, and a traditional launchpad for Latino filmmakers in Spain and Europe.

Over the years other festivals have been adding parallel sections of Latin American cinema, a symptom of its growing international relevance.

“Our...

Chicago – A hybrid spring film festival – both in-person and online – kicks offs with the 38th edition of the Chicago Latino Film Festival (Clff). The Opening Night Panamanian film “Plaza Catedral,” will screen April 21st, 2022, at the Drive-In theater, ChiTown Movies. Click Clff for details.

“Plaza Catedral” tells the story of Alicia (Ilse Salas) – still in mourning after the death of her six-year-old son in a freak accident plus divorced from Diego (Manolo Cardona) – and 13-year-old “Chief” (Fernando Xavier de Casta), who makes a living “watching” parked cars. Alicia meets Chief when she tries to park her car right in front of her building, and days later he appears at her doorstep, bleeding from a gunshot wound. Her decision to let him in leads to an unforeseen emotional bond.

Panamanian’s ‘Plaza Catedral’ Opens the 38th Clff on April 21st, 2022

Photo credit: ChicagoLatinoFilmFestival.org

The 38th Chicago Latino Film Festival (Clff...

In a new series, Variety catches up with the directors of the films shortlisted for the International Feature Oscar to discuss their road to the awards, what they’ve learned so far, and what’s taken them off guard.

Two of Abner Benaim’s films, documentaries “Invasion” (2014) and “Ruben Blades Is Not My Name” (2018), were Panamanian entries to the Oscars, but his “Plaza Catedral” is the first time a film from the country has been shortlisted. The film, which portrays a violent society with a gulf between the rich and poor, won major awards at the Guadalajara and Panama film festivals. It follows a grief-stricken woman (Ilse Salas) whose life changes when a wounded teenage street kid (Fernando Xavier de Casta) shows up at her doorstep. Tragically, Xavier de Casta was shot dead months before the film’s premiere.

What does it mean to you to be shortlisted for the best international feature Oscar?...

Panama makes its debut on the International Feature Oscar shortlist with the character-driven thriller Plaza Catedral. This contender from Abner Benaim (Ruben Blades Is Not My Name) is a taut two-hander between a grieving mother and a young street hustler, with a sobering message about corruption and violence. Samuel Goldwyn Films recently acquired the title.

Alicia (Ilse Salas) is a well-heeled Mexican architect working in Panama, who moves into a swish new apartment in Plaza Catedral. A young teen known as “Chief” (Fernando Xavier De Casta) offers her “VIP parking” and she haggles wearily, assuring him she’s no “gringa.” Over the coming days, they develop a grudging understanding. When he shows up on the stairs of her building bleeding from a gunshot wound, she has a choice. Help the boy and risk her own safety, or turn a blind eye?

It’s a palpable moral dilemma in a city...

The Miami Film Festival has announced its opening and closing titles for its upcoming 39th edition.

The festival, which showcases works from filmmaker’s in the Ibero-American diaspora, will premiere and end with two films listed on the Oscar shortlist for international feature film. “The Good Boss” (El Buen Patrón), a comedy written and directed by Spain’s Fernando León de Aranoa, will open the festival, which will close with “Plaza Catedral,” the sophomore narrative feature of Panamanian director Abner Benaim.

“The Good Boss” stars Javier Bardem as Blanco, the owner of a family business up for consideration for a local award for business excellence. Determined to win the award, Blanco begins meddling in the lives of his employees, setting off a chain of events that leads to shocking repercussions. In Spain, the film was nominated for a record-breaking 20 Goya Awards, which will be held on Feb. 12. León de Aranoa...

Panama’s entry for Best International Feature Film at the 2022 Oscars, “Plaza Catedral,” tells the story of Alicia (Ilse Salas), a 42-year old grief-stricken woman who has become estranged from society. Her world is turned upside down when a 14-year-old boy named Chief (Fernando Xavier De Casta) stumbles into her house, bleeding. Abner Benaim wrote and directed the film and says he is honored to be selected to represent Panama for the first time on the Oscar shortlist. Watch the exclusive video interview above.

“I thought I was having a heart attack for a little bit,” Benaim recalls about hearing “Plaza Catedral” had been shortlisted for the Oscars. “It’s really good for the film. We were a very small film from a very small country and, like any independent film, just struggling to get some visibility. All of the sudden we have that visibility. We’re on the shortlist.

Mexico’s Tatiana Huezo and Abner Benaim of Panama, whose respective dramas, “Prayers for the Stolen” and “Plaza Catedral,” made the coveted shortlist in the Oscars’ international feature category, have quite a few things in common. Both have mainly worked in documentary filmmaking, although in the case of Benaim, he made a hit comedy in 2009, “Chance,” before focusing on nonfiction films.

Neither are strangers to the Oscar experience. Benaim has represented Panama twice. With its first submission to the Oscars in 2014, an account of the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama, “Invasion,” and in 2018 with “Ruben Blades Is Not My Name,” which gets up close and personal with the actor, multi-Grammy winner and activist who also served as minister of tourism and ran for president of Panama.

“Prayers for the Stolen” is Huezo’s first narrative feature and her second turn at representing Mexico, the first time was with her documentary...

Exclusive: Samuel Goldwyn Films has acquired Plaza Catedral, the Oscar-shortlisted film from writer-director Abner Benaim, which looks to represent Panama at the 94th Academy Awards, in the category of Best International Feature. The company’s release plan has not yet been disclosed.

The drama centers on Alicia (Ilse Salas), a woman who had a perfect life before her 6-year-old son died in a tragic accident. Plagued by grief, she becomes estranged from society – until one night a street-smart 13-year-old boy named Chief (Fernando Xavier de Casta) arrives at her door bleeding from a gunshot wound, and begs her to let him inside.

Plaza Catedral made its world premiere at the Guadalajara International Film Festival, where it won the awards for both Best Actress and Best Actor. The film then went on to win the Audience Award for Best Film at the International Film Festival of Panama. Benaim produced it with...

The striking opening shot of Abner Benaim’s plangent drama “Plaza Catedral” induces slight vertigo. The camera rises on an elevator attached to the outside of a partially built skyscraper, looking out across Panama City’s high-rise apartment complexes, and eventually, at the bay beyond. It should be uplifting, but a chilly, murmured voiceover and the opening drone of Matthew Herbert’s rueful score, are like the rainclouds that edge the blue sky in foreboding gray. The view ascends, but it evokes a sinking feeling.

The voice belongs to Alicia, who introduces herself and speaks elliptically, in her emotionless, removed way, of a loss she has suffered in her recent past, that has put her at odds with the world around her. She is an architect by training but a salesperson for an upscale property developer by profession, hence her visit to this half-finished penthouse, with the young family who are thinking of buying it.

The first screenings in the programme are the Oscar entries for Luxembourg, Ukraine, Panama, Netherlands and Algeria.

Screen International is hosting a series of online screenings, focused on - but not limited to - the international feature awards race.

This initiative is designed to enable each country to organise an event around their submission.

Sign up for the screenings here

For the second year, Screen is partnering with Archipel Market, a film market platform powered by Cascade8, enabling industry professionals to interact and replicate film market activities online, all year round.

Find out more about the titles below:

Hong Kong:...

The 10th Panama Int’l Film Festival wrapped Sunday, Dec. 5 with Michel Franco’s Acapulco-set drama “Sundown” closing the event.

Winners of the rough-cut sidebar Primera Mirada were announced at closing night, which took place at festival venue, La Manzana de Santa Ana. Costa Rican entries took home the top prizes this year, indicative of the tiny Central American nation’s outsized filmmaking talent.

The Primera Mirada jury, led by Diana Sánchez, Marcelo Quesada and Paula Gastaud, bestowed the top prize to Costa Rican supernatural drama “Domingo and the Mist” by Ariel Escalante who took home the $10,000 cash prize; Mauricio Morales of El Salvador won the second cash prize of $5,000 for his docu “Milo, Breaking Frontiers.”

“I’m enormously thankful to Iff Panama for having not only supported ‘Domingo and the Mist,’ both in Primera Mirada as well as in the Panama Film Match a year and a half ago,...

Just months prior to its world premiere, young “Plaza Catedral” actor Fernando Xavier de Casta was shot to death. The prescient portrayal of a society fractured by violence is Panama’s submission for this year’s Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. As a co-production between Panama, Mexico and Colombia, it is Benaim’s second fiction feature film after his 2009 comedy “Chance.” It is repped for worldwide sales by Luminosity Entertainment and Gulfstream Pictures. With the logline, “How far would you go to help a stranger?” the film features 40-year old mother Alicia (Ilse Salas) who is grieving over her 13-year old son. After initially avoiding street-kid Chief (Fernando Xavier de Casta), she takes him in when he turns up at her doorstep with a gunshot wound.

A key theme underlying the film is the way that Panama’s affluent elite and foreigners are ignoring the plight of the underprivileged.

The first screenings in the programme are the Oscar entries for Luxembourg, Ukraine, Panama, Netherlands and Algeria.

Screen International is hosting an exclusive series of online screenings focused on the international feature awards race.

This initiative is designed to enable each country to organise an event around their submission.

The first screenings in the programme are the Oscar entries for Luxembourg (Io Sto Bene), Ukraine (Bad Roads), Panama (Plaza Catedral), Netherlands (Do not Hesitate) and Algeria (Heliopolis). More titles will be added during this year’s awards season.

Sign up for the screenings here

For the second year, Screen is partnering with Archipel Market,...

In a ceremony marked by laughter, tears, a lot of hugs and a celebration of a return to watching films al vivo, the 36th Guadalajara International Film Festival (Ficg) came to a close with the presentation of a long list of prizes to some of Latin America’s top filmmakers, many whose names are well-known in Mexico and across the region and many whose names will, no doubt, be well-known in the future.

In a contradiction fit for the movies, Rodrigo Guardiola and Gabriel Nuncio’s “The Comedian,” a film all about failure, took top honors as this year’s best Mexican film in competition with cinematographer Mario Secco scooping the best cinematography prize for his work on the film.

“It’s wonderful that this movie exists,” said Nuncio at the ceremony. “The truth is, I got to work with very talented people on this movie and I think that...

Elie Samaha’s Luminosity Entertainment and Mike Karz’s Gulfstream Pictures have snagged the worldwide rights to Abner Benaim’s dramatic thriller, “Plaza Catedral.”

The deal, forged by Luminosity partner and co-president Daniel Diamond and Karz, closed just ahead of the film’s world premiere at the Guadalajara Int’l Film Festival (Ficg) on Oct. 3. “Plaza Catedral” is in competition at Ficg’s main category, the Mezcal Awards.

“Plaza Catedral is a very powerful, moving film with superb performances and outstanding direction by Benaim. We are proud to be a part of bringing this film to worldwide audiences,” said Diamond.

This is the first non-English pickup by Luminosity, which was launched in September. “I haven’t represented many, if any, non English-language films but audiences in the U.S. and around the world are demonstrating their interest in content of all nationalities and languages, as evidenced by the success of shows like ‘Lupin,...