News

Toronto International Film Festival’s inaugural TIFF: The Market will take place from September 10-16, 2026. Eight members have been added to the global advisory committee.

TIFF announced the market in Cannes last year and said it would run concurrently with the festival, sparking immediate speculation over whether it would push back the dates to afford sales agents more time to package projects after Cannes and the summer break.

Screen understands TIFF brass gamed out pushing back the dates and stuck with the second-week slot after they decided a short delay would not have a material impact, and wanted the festival...

Mmm Film Sales has picked up Aurélien Vernhes-Lermusiaux’s “Black Snake” ahead of its premiere at Cannes’ Acid. Arp has taken distribution rights in France.

Acid’s closing film, shot in the Colombian desert, tells the story of Ciro, who returns to his home town after 10 years to tend to his dying mother, confront those he has abandoned as well as a legacy.

“In each of our family histories, there’s the question of inheritance. With ‘The Black Snake’, I want to show that it’s sometimes difficult to receive what we inherit from our ancestors or parents,” Vernhes-Lermusiaux told Variety.

“For fear of disappointing them, some people prefer to run away. Ciro’s family’s visceral attachment to a way of life can be seen as an obstacle. But behind this need to keep a tradition alive, it’s the intangible part of the heritage that interests me. The...

The Panama Int’l Film Festival (Iff Panama) presented a brief opening ceremony April 4, where Iff Panama board president Pituka Ortega-Heilbron heralded the return of documentary filmmaker Ana Endara to the festival with her fiction feature debut “Beloved Tropic.” (“Querido trópico”).

Said Endara: “’Beloved Tropic’ ‘has been traveling, but no screening will ever be as special as this one, because it’s a homecoming, and home means Panama, and home means the Panama International Film Festival.”

“It’s also special because I’m here with two incredible women who are my creative core, [producer] Isabela Gálvez and [co-writer] Pilar Moreno. And especially because the actresses I had the honor of working with are here, and because so many people contributed to making this film. Making a film takes a lot of people, and that’s what I love most—collaboration. In this room, there are so many people who helped bring this film to life,...

Exclusive: As it preps for the release of notable titles like Nickel Boys, production company Louverture Films has added a handful of key execs and collaborators, including two principal partners and a chief financial officer.

As those new arrivals come aboard, co-founder Danny Glover has announced he is stepping down as CEO but will remain a partner. Melony Lewis and Adam Lewis have joined as principal partners and Longtime German film finance expert Frank Lehmann is now CFO. Colombian producer Diana Bustamante, a significant figure in South American cinema and former head of the Cartagena Film Festival, is collaborating with Louverture on a number of projects.

Along with the Lewises, the company’s partners include Glover, co-founder Joslyn Barnes, Susan Rockefeller, Sawsan Asfari, Tony Tabatznik and Jeffrey L. Clark.

Louverture is known for a number of acclaimed international co-productions, among them narrative titles Memoria, Zama, Capernaum and documentaries Gunda, Hale...

The #MeToo movement has claimed another casualty. Spain’s Málaga Film Festival, unspooling March 1-10, has canceled the participation of U.S.-born director Julio Hernandez Cordon’s vampire drama “The Day is Long and Dark” (“El día es largo y oscuro”) at the festival, citing “complaints regarding acts of gender violence.”

In a press release issued on Feb. 28, the Spanish festival declared it had decided to withdraw the film “in order to avoid situations that may endanger the vulnerability of the affected individuals and in line with the strong commitment of this Festival against any form of violence against women and in favor of full equality of rights…”

Hernandez Cordon, who resides between Mexico and Guatemala, and his Colombia-based producer, Diana Bustamante, heard about the decision in the Spanish press as the festival director’s letter to Bustamante arrived later in the afternoon in Colombia after the news had...

Colombian sales and distribution company Doc:Co is venturing into the global sales arena with its first international pick up, Chilean-Colombian co-production “Otra Piel.”

The debut feature documentary of Patricia Correa, “Otra Piel” is co-produced by Colombia’s Romeo, 235 Digital and Sonata Films alongside Chile’s Cine Matriz, founded by producer Gabriela Sandoval who co-runs another, more established label, Storyboard Media.

The doc revolves around Miguel, who at 38, is not just a taxidermist but also an accomplished hunter. His passion lies in creating a unique museum for visually impaired children, showcasing some of the species he skillfully preserves. As we delve into Miguel’s narrative, we unravel the prejudices associated with his craft, prompting us to reflect on our complex relationship with animals.

“It’s excellent news for Latin American cinema that Doc:Co is expanding and venturing into international sales of fiction and documentary films; They’ve been successful in distributing films in Colombia,...

The first Floodlight Summit will take place from Nov. 30 to Dec. 3 in Cartagena, Colombia. The event, curated and organized by Philippa Kowarsky and Alesia Weston, is a one-of-a-kind pilot for a long-term alliance that seeks to connect investigative journalists and their reporting with the film and television industry.

The event has been established by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (Occrp) and the Gabo Foundation as part of both institutions’ public interest focus. It will attempt “to nurture a symbiotic relationship between investigative journalism and fiction filmmaking that will result in storytelling that entertains, educates, and inspires,” according to a press statement. “Investigative journalists can help adapt their extensive reporting about organized crime and corruption into new formats to reach more audiences while filmmakers can pull from a wealth of content and expertise across subjects to inform their projects.”

Writer-director Rodrigo García, Gabo Foundation board member and son of author Gabriel García Marquez,...

Julio Hernández Cordón’s vampire tale “The Day is Long and Dark” (“El Día es Largo y Oscuro”) is unveiling first images and trailer, which world premieres at Cannes’ Fantastic Pavilion.

Alina Rojas, Diana Bustamante and Hernández Cordón produce, for La Mitad del Continente (Mexico) and Burning (Colombia).

The film, currently in post-production, dives into a complicated family dynamic as Vera, a 17-year-old girl, needs to learn how to live with her “vampirism gene.”

Prisoners of the sun, she and her father, Cruz, spend their days in hotel rooms until she can’t take it: Feeling guilty and misunderstood, and missing her boyfriend she is afraid of hurting, Vera wants to die. Suddenly, her father – who is also a film director – has two missions in life. He can’t let her attack anyone but he also needs to make sure she doesn’t commit suicide.

Luis Alberti and Carla Nieto star,...

The Berlin Film Festival has revealed its juries, and the addition of Liu Jian’s animated feature “Art College 1994” to its competition lineup, which now has 19 films and is complete.

In addition to the already announced actor Kristen Stewart as president, the International Jury members will be actor Golshifteh Farahani (Iran/France), director and writer Valeska Grisebach (Germany), director and screenwriter Radu Jude (Romania), casting director and producer Francine Maisler (U.S.), director and screenwriter Carla Simón (Spain), and director and producer Johnnie To.

“Art College 1994” is set in China in the 1990s. It follows a group of young people who “prepare to face a world caught between tradition and modernity,” according to the festival. The film, represented for world sales by Memento Intl., was originally destined for Cannes, but Liu and the film were reported to have faced bureaucratic obstacles, which put the kibosh on those plans. The director...

Director Liu Jian was previously in Competition with ‘Have A Nice Day’ in 2017.

The Berlinale has made a last-minute addition to its Competition lineup with Chinese filmmaker Liu Jian’s animated feature Art College 1994 and revealed its competition juries.

Art College 1994 will receive its world premiere at the festival’s 73rd edition, which runs February 16-26, and marks Liu’s third feature after 2010’s Piercing I and Have A Nice Day, which became the first Chinese animation ever selected to play in Competition at the Berlinale in 2017.

Art College 1994 is set among a group of students in China in the...

Aeden O’Connor’s “Sun Falls,” Manuela Martelli’s “The Meltdown” and Tomás Corredor’s “November” feature among 15 projects to be presented at Ventana Sur’s 5th Proyecta co-production forum, a wide-ranging showcase of emerging and already consolidated filmmakers plus new talents to track from Latin America and Europe.

Producer Ana Isabel Martins at Honduras’ Pulsar Cine is re-teaming with director Aeden O’Connor, whose feature debut “90 Minutes” won the Audience Award at the 37th Miami Film Festival. Their new project, “Sun Falls,” follows a passionate young man dreams of making films to denounce the corruption, poverty and violence in Honduras that succumbs to the support of the leader of a local gang.

Chile’s Manuela Martelli, director of 2022 Cannes Director’s Fortnight premiere “1976,” returns with “The Meltdown,” produced by Wood Producciones’ Alejandra García, of Sundance player “The Cow Who Sang a Song into the Future.”

Burning’s Diana Bustamante, the...

Diana Bustamante’s Our Movie (Nuestra película) feels like both a departure and a homecoming for the Latin American producer credited on numerous Cannes winners, most recently Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Jury Prize-awarded (and Tilda Swinton-starring) Memoria. Comprised entirely of news footage from the Medellín-born Bustamante’s childhood—who grew up in the ’80s and ’90s when kidnappings, political assassinations and blood-soaked streets were as common as choir practice—the “essay documentary” is, as the producer/director puts it, “a collage of images, repetitions and memories, built through the intervention of the Colombian news archive.” And what a visceral collage it is—from closeups of bullet holes to a […]

The post “The Film Is Full of Ghosts”: Diana Bustamante on Her Doc NYC-debuting Our Movie (Nuestra película) first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Diana Bustamante’s Our Movie (Nuestra película) feels like both a departure and a homecoming for the Latin American producer credited on numerous Cannes winners, most recently Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Jury Prize-awarded (and Tilda Swinton-starring) Memoria. Comprised entirely of news footage from the Medellín-born Bustamante’s childhood—who grew up in the ’80s and ’90s when kidnappings, political assassinations and blood-soaked streets were as common as choir practice—the “essay documentary” is, as the producer/director puts it, “a collage of images, repetitions and memories, built through the intervention of the Colombian news archive.” And what a visceral collage it is—from closeups of bullet holes to a […]

The post “The Film Is Full of Ghosts”: Diana Bustamante on Her Doc NYC-debuting Our Movie (Nuestra película) first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Colombia-set drama will play throughout country in string of engagements across multiple cities.

Neon has set April 1 as the start of its “cinemas only…forever” US tour for Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Memoria starring Tilda Swinton.

The film will play throughout the country in a continuous string of more than 100 week-long engagements across multiple cities each week in arthouse cinemas and non-traditional venues like pop-up drive-ins, museums, art galleries, university screenings and outdoor events

Memoria premiered at Cannes last year and won the jury prize. It went on to become Colombia’s Oscar submission and was produced by Weerasethakul, Diana Bustamante,...

In a move aimed at addressing the paucity of Afro-Latino content, Sony Pictures TV (Spt) Latin America has announced a TV series project in development with Colombian producer-director Diana Bustamante, who most recently produced Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s “Memoria,” starring Tilda Swinton, winner of the Cannes Jury Prize this year.

“Memoria” has just been selected to represent Colombia at the Academy Awards’ Best International Feature Film category.

Titled “Sanyu,” the original bilingual and bicultural Afro-Latino thriller marks Bustamante’s first television project, and touches on universal themes of connecting to one’s heritage and discovering oneself.

Said Nestor Hernandez, VP of content development in Latin America and U.S. Hispanic for Spt International Production: “We’ve been focusing on elevating unique voices and stories in the region and Diana’s immense creative talent is a huge asset as we tell this original story about Afro-Latino heritage in Latin America.

​Daniela Leyva at La Mitad del Continente (“The Howls”), Andrea Toca at Mexico’s Un Beso Cine (“Human Animals”) and Diana Bustamante at Burning Sas (“Buy Me a Gun”) have teamed to co-produce the vampire drama “The Day is Long and Dark,” the eighth feature from one of Mexico’s most important directors, Julio Hernández Cordón.

“Working with Julio has always been an enthralling experience. With this film there is also a mixture of things that interests me on a narrative level. Julio’s cinema is always a welcomed surprise,” producer and artistic director of the Cartagena International Film Festival Diana Bustamante told Variety.

From his first film “Gasolina” – winner as a project at San Sebastian’s work in progress section in 2007 and one year later at its Horizontes showcase – Hernández’s features have played at festivals including Locarno, Mar del Plata (“I Promise You Anarchy”), San Sebastian and Torino...

Exclusive: Indie distributor and SVOD service Mubi is continuing its remarkable buying spree at Cannes 2021. The growing player has now taken rights from The Match Factory to Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Cannes Competition drama Memoria for Germany, Italy, Latin America and India.

Palme d’Or winner Weerasethakul is debuting his latest drama on the Croisette today. Tilda Swinton stars in the movie as Jessica a woman who travels from Scotland to Bogotá to visit her sister. Ever since being startled by a loud ‘bang’ at daybreak, she is unable to sleep. However, during her journey she befriends Agnes (Jeanne Balibar), an archaeologist studying human remains discovered within a tunnel under construction, and a fish scaler, Hernan (Elkin Diaz). As the day comes to a close, she is awakened to a sense of clarity.

Weerasethakul’s ninth feature is his first shoot outside his native Thailand.

Mexican virtual lab offers Usd 30,000 in cash prizes.

Spanish multiple Cannes award winner Olivier Laxe and Argentina’s Lisandro Alonso are among participants in the expanded third Mexican project lab Catapulta set to run as an entirely virtual event from March 24-27.

Scroll to bottom to see all lab participants

Laxe, whose Fire Will Come won the Cannes Un Certain Regard jury prize in 2019 and followed a 2016 Critics’ Week grand prize for Mimosas and the 2010 Fipresci award for Directors’ Fortnight selection You Are All Captains, takes part in the new development programme.

His project After (France) follows a man and...

Mexican virtual lab offers Usd 30,000 in cash prizes.

Spanish multiple Cannes award winner Olivier Laxe, US auteur Rick Alverson and Argentina’s Lisandro Alonso are among participants in the expanded third Mexican project lab Catapulta set to run as an entirely virtual event from March 24-27.

Scroll to bottom to see all lab participants

Laxe, whose Fire Will Come won the Cannes Un Certain Regard jury prize in 2019 and followed a 2016 Critics’ Week grand prize for Mimosas and the 2010 Fipresci award for Directors’ Fortnight selection You Are All Captains, takes part in the new development programme.

His project After (France...

Memoria

Produced by Diana Bustamante, Julio Chavezmontes, Charles de Meaux, Simon Field, Keith Griffiths, Michael Weber

Directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Written by Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Starring: Tilda Swinton, Jeanne Balibar, Daniel Giménez Cacho, Juan Pablo Urregom, Elkin Díaz

Cinematographer: Sayombhu Mukdeeprom

Release Date/Prediction: Thai Joe will attempt to win the Palme d’Or again in Cannes Film Festival’s Main Comp.

…...

Thierry Lenouvel’s Cine Sud Promotion has boarded the upcoming sophomore feature of Colombia’s Cesar Augusto Acevedo, “Horizonte” whose debut feature “Land and Shade” (“La Tierra y La Sombra”) took Cannes 2015 by storm, winning the Camera d’Or for best first feature and three other Critics’ Week awards that year.

Cine Sud backed “Land and Shade” so it was virtually a given that it would support Acevedo’s next film. “First of all, I would like to say we lived a wonderful adventure with César and his first film, a big human adventure, with him and his producers, Diana Bustamante and Paola Perez,” Lenouvel told Variety.

“No one supported us in France at the beginning, despite the obvious talent of Cesar. But we finished the film and then the Cannes miracle happened,” he continued, adding: “How can I forget those magical moments and have the privilege of seeing the...

Costa Rican documentary “Los Últimos,” by Álvaro Torres Crespo, won the $10,000 Iff Panama Film Match Award, in the first edition of Iff Panama Film Match – the Panama Film Festival’s Cinematographic Co-Production Forum for Central America and the Caribbean, supported by the Idb Lab.

Initially planned as an integral part of the on-site film festival, the event was restructured as a virtual forum, with 10 projects in development – from Costa Rica, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic and Panama, including four Panamanian projects.

The jury members – top Colombian producer Diana Bustamante, Thierry Lenouvel, one of France’s key co-producers with Latin America, and Inti Cordera, director of DocsMX, one of Latin America’s key doc events – said that “Los Últimos” was chosen “due to the relevance of its issues, history and central character, [as] ever more than before, messages from drawn from the knowledge of our indigenous peoples must be disseminated and promoted through...

Forum was first to target filmmakers from Central America and the Caribbean.

Costa Rica’s Los Ultimos has won the inaugural virtual Iff Panama Film Match co-production forum’s $10,000 Iff Panama Film Match Award.

The pitching forum was the first of its kind to target filmmakers from Central America and the Caribbean and ran from May 18-21.

A jury comprising Diana Bustamante, Thierry Lenouvel and Inti Cordea hailed the “complex socio-economic reality” of Álvaro Torres Crespo’s documentary in its depiction of a fishing family who realise drug smuggling may be their best way of earning an income.

The...

The Panama Intl. Film Festival, (Iff Panama) the highest-profile film event in Central America, is using online tools to develop existing and new initiatives.

In one move, it has just completed its pix-in-post competition Primera Mirada, its new Su Mirada sidebar for women filmmakers from the region, and is now launching a new Virtual Co-Production Forum – the Panama Film Match – and a streamlined five-day online festival.

All initiatives are sponsored by the Inter-American Development Bank.

Iff Panama was initially slated to run from March 26 to April 1, but was postponed due to the Covid-19 crisis.

Undeterred, the festival has used online tools to maintain its crucial role in supporting new projects from the region.

Launched in 2015, Primera Mirada has served as an important springboard for projects from the region, providing vital post-production funding.

This year’s $10,000 first prize went to Dominican Republic revenge thriller “Rafaela,” by Tito Rodríguez (“Una fiesta inolvidable...

Mexico’s Piano, which is the producer of Abel Ferrara’s “Siberia” and upcoming films from Leos Carax, Mia Hansen-Love and Apichatpong Weerasethakul, is expanding into Germany and Colombia, incorporating Diana Bustamante and Ingmar Trost as producer partners.

Julio Chavezmontes heads Piano.

Piano’s initial focus will be to establish itself as a creator of premium television content for international audiences, and as a provider of top-level production services in all three countries, said Chavezmontes. It was also continue to make high-profile, auteur-driven, festival-winning movies.

Both Bustamante and Trost are well-known figures on the international production scene. Bustamante — whose credits include “The Wind Journeys,” “Crab Trap” and Cannes Camera d’Or and Critics’ Week winner “Land and Shade” — will head up Piano Colombia.

Trost, producer of Ilian Metev’s Locarno Golden Leopard winner “3/4,” Benjamin Naishtat’s San Sebastian-prized “Rojo” and Kristi Jacobson’s News & Documentary Emmy-winning “Solitary,” will run Piano’s German office in Cologne,...

Jesús premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last autumn.

Breaking Glass Pictures, who acquired North American rights to Chilean writer-director Fernando Guzzoni’s Jesús last November, has unveiled release dates for the film.

Jesús will open theatrically in New York and Los Angeles on September 1, New Orleans on September 8, with other markets to follow leading up to the DVD/VOD release on September 19.

Nicolás Durán and Alejandro Goic star in the film that centres on eighteen-year-old Jesús, who is trapped in a dead end cycle of drugs, sex, apathy, and an obsession with violence.

After he and his friends attack a young boy, Jesús has no choice but to turn to his father for help, despite their troubled relationship.

The film held its Us premiere at the Neighboring Scenes Series held by the Film Society of the Lincoln Center in New York City.

Jacques Bidou, Marianne Dumoulin, Giancarlo Nasi produced, while [link=nm...

Exclusive: Sales outfit boards Siete Cabezas and Killing Jesus.

Spanish sales outfit Latido Films is strengthening its links with Latin American cinema at every market, and Cannes is no exception. The Madrid-based company has scored two key Latin American deals at the start of the Marché, boarding international sales for Siete Cabezas (pictured) by El Paramo director Jaime Osorio Marquez and Killing Jesus, the debut feature of Laura Mora.

They are two of the most anticipated Colombian films of the year. With Ciro Guerra’s Embrace Of The Serpent winning the Directors’ Fortnight prize in 2015 and Cesar Augusto Acevedo’s Land And Shade winning the Camera d’Or that same year, Cannes has been a strong launchpad for the country’s films in recent years.

Diana Bustamante, who produced Land And Shade and is on the Critics’ Week jury this year, is a driving force in the new wave of Latin American cinema. She has teamed...

Christopher Murray’s Venice entry will screen in the fiction category of official selection when the 57th edition of the Cartagena International Film Festival (Ficci) gets underway on March 1.

Vladimir Durán’s So Long Enthusiasm (Adiós Entusiasmo, Argentina-Colombia) gets its Ibero-American premiere in the section and also screens in the Colombian Cinema strand.

Entries from that category include the world premiere of Rubén Mendoza’s Señorita María: La Falda De La Montaña (Colombia, Señorita María: The Skirt Of The Mountains), as well as an Ibero-American premiere for Clare Weiskopf and Nicolas Van Hemelryck’s To The Amazon (Amazona).

Rounding out Colombian Cinema are Juan Andrés Arango’s X 500 (Canada, Mexico, Colombia), Yo, Lucas (Colombia) by Lucas Maldonado, and the Ibero-American premiere of Epiphany (Epifanía, Colombia-Sweden-Denmark) by Óscar Ruiz Navia and Anna Eborn.

Programmers will announce a further two titles in the shortly and also unveiled films in documentary, Nuevos Creadores (New Creators) and shorts.

Ficci director...

Claudia Pedraza’s debut feature scooped the $20,000 top prize at the Bogotá Audiovisual Market.

The seventh edition of the Bogotá Audiovisual Market closed on Friday (July 15) with this year’s award-winners illustrating the energy and diversity of the Colombian film industry.

La Sed (The Thirst) won the Efd (Equipment and Film Design Colombia) Prize, which comes with $20,000 (€18,000) worth of Efd shooting equipment. The film marks director Claudia Pedraza’s [pictured] debut feature after working as first assistant director on Ciro Guerra’s Embrace Of The Serpent.

La Sed, a Marejada Films production, is a drama set in a world where the lack of water has made living conditions extreme. With a budget of $490,000 (€443,000), the film will be shot next year in La Guajira desert in Colombia, the same location where Ciro Guerra is planning to shoot Pájaros De Verano, his next feature following the success of Embrace Of The Serpent, which won at Director’s Fortnight in Cannes...

Exclusive: Mainstream and auteur Colombian companies join efforts for the comeback of El Páramo director.

Bam (Bogotá Audiovisual Market) runs from July 11-15 and is abuzz with positive energy this year.

Colombia’s growing economy, the country’s historic ceasefire deal and, on the film front, an effective film policy to support the local industry and attract foreign investors have given the local industry a visible confidence boost.

At the two ends of the spectrum are the international critical successes of arthouse films such as Oscar nominated Embrace Of The Serpent and Cannes Camera d’Or winner Land And Shade and more mainstream hits such as Netfflix-backed TV series Narcos.

But they are not necessarily fighting in different corners as evidenced by an intriguing new collaboration.

Diana Bustamante, from Burning Blue, the production company behind Land And Shade, has revealed to Screen that her company and Dynamo, the Colombian production powerhouse behind Narcos and The 33, with...

Exclusive: Mainstream and auteur Colombian companies join efforts for the comeback of El Páramo director.

The Bogotá Audiovisual Market (July 11-15) is abuzz with positive energy this year.

Colombia’s growing economy, the country’s historic ceasefire deal and, on the film front, an effective film policy to support the local industry and attract foreign investors have given the local industry a visible confidence boost.

At the two ends of the spectrum are the international critical successes of arthouse films such as Oscar nominated Embrace Of The Serpent and Cannes Camera d’Or winner Land And Shade and more mainstream hits such as Netfflix-backed TV series Narcos.

But they are not necessarily fighting in different corners as evidenced by an intriguing new collaboration.

Diana Bustamante, from Burning Blue, the production company behind Land And Shade, has revealed to Screen that her company and Dynamo, the Colombian production powerhouse behind Narcos and The 33, with [link=nm...

Elba McAllister’s Cineplex of Colombia seems to be everywhere. We met up at the Iff Panama this April and had some time to talk, a rarity at such events as Cannes or Berlin.

It seemed to me she had been in the business forever, though I only met her when Ficg (Guadalajara Film Festival) began its market maybe 10 years ago. Cineplex itself is 23 years old, having begun in 1993 in a partnership with the well-known buyers rep and producer Andre Boissier.

Twenty-three years ago, Colombia screened very few arthouse movies. Cineplex and other indie distributors introduced smaller films from Europe, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and North America. Now Colombia’s international coproductions are extending viewer’s perspectives even further. Indies captured 5.9% of the market in 2007, compared with a relatively paltry 3.6% in 2003. Local and foreign independent films now share 20% of the market.

About a decade ago, the country had 250 screens and now it has 935. In 2005 there were 15M people going to the cinema per year. Now it’s 58M. In local currency, there was a 71% increase in box office from 2011 to 2015.

Colombia has seen notable growth thanks in part to the construction of more shopping malls. Mexican exhibition giant Cinépolis opened its first megaplex in Colombia in 2008.

Cineplex is one of the leading distributors of independent films in Colombia. In 23 years in the market, it has presented and average of 20 to 25 films a year, over 300 high quality films, selected from major festivals and film markets around the world.

Elba actually began her career in the pharmaceutical industry but later joined her husband and her brother-in-law in a new venture -- film distribution, something she knew nothing about. In Colombia, the films acquired by Cineplex go first into cinemas and progress to all windows including DVD, VOD and TV in all its forms (Pan TV, VOD, Svod, Cable, Free TV).

In 2000 Cineplex expanded its distribution to include Central America & Ecuador. Elba McAllister and her husband, Juan David McAllister, have brought in such directors as Wong Kar Wai, Susanne Bier, Mike Leigh, Lars von trier, Katherine Bigelow, Claude Chabrol, Agnieszka Holland and Ken Loach and others to Colombia and its neighbors.

Cineplex began forming alliances with other Latin American indies and prebuying pan-Latin rights to name some, “Satin Rouge,” “Evil”, ¨Reconstruction¨, “Broken Flowers”, “Brokeback Mountain”, ¨My Blueberry Nights¨ and most recently ¨Mustang¨.

Two recent stand-out films include “Mustang” and “Land and Shade” the Cannes 2015 Camera d’Or and Critics’ Week Winner sold by France’s Pyramide. Lead produced by Diana Bustamante’s Burning Blue, (Diana Bustamente, currently the Director of Cartagena Film Festival as well) “Land and Shade” also won two prizes at Cannes Critics’ Week: the France 4 Visionary Award and Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers Sacd Prize. Other new releases include Academy Award winners and contenders “Carol”, “Theeb” and “Brooklyn”.

Anne Marie De La Fuente in Variety quotes Elba as saying,

“Bringing art house films to Colombia and shifting moviegoers’ attention from Hollywood blockbusters requires close work with universities, embassies and cultural institutions and creating original grassroots campaigns. Whenever possible, Cineplex gets the directors and/ or actors to fly in to help promote their pictures.”

With Ang Lee’s “Brokeback Mountain,” which Cineplex pre-bought for Latam, it organized marketing tie-ins with Levis, Universal Music (for the soundtrack) and a gay rights foundation. Marlboro sponsored the premiere in Bogota.

Additionally Cineplex helps Colombian filmmakers representing their films for Latin America and advising the world sales agent, depending their films to name a few, Ciro Guerra, William Vega, Oscar Ruiz, Dago Garcia among others.

Last year, Diana Salcedo (Elba´s daughter) joined the family business to strengthen the distribution in different platforms (theatrical, TV, VOD, Ott) for Colombian and Latin American films in different markets. Diana is bringing wide experience after working for a major Latin American Pay TV and Ott broadcaster.

“We believe in the potential of independent cinema with the participation of strategic partners that make marketing a global business. We want to make each of our friends, colleagues, competitors and customers a community that allows a film to reach its greatest potential. We believe humanity has a chance to think and act without borders and that its only limit is in its own desire to achieve the best result using innovation and partnership with strategic partners that will be part of each project.”

“We’ve brought in what we wanted: films that don’t need pretty faces, multimillion-dollar budgets, special effects or predictable endings. Marketing Independent cinema is our passion¨.

Plus: Donne Yen joins xXx reboot; Film Movement acquires The Ardennes; Kino Lorber finds Cosmos; and more…

Gale Anne Hurd, Joe Swanberg, Don Cheadle, Joel Edgerton, Gaby Hoffmann, Joe Berlinger and Barbara Kopple are among the keynotes and on-stage conversation stars featuring at SXSW. The festival and conference runs in Austin, Texas, from March 11-19. For full details click here.

Martial arts star Donnie Yen has been cast as the villain opposite Vin Diesel in xXx: The Return Of Xander Cage for Revolution Studios, Roth Kirschenbaum Films, One Race Films and Paramount Pictures. Production is set to begin this month in Toronto and the Dominican Republic.Kino Lorber has picked up North American rights to Andrzej Żuławski’s Locarno 2015 best director winner Cosmos ahead of its Us premiere at the Film Comment Selects series in New York on Wednesday. The distributor brokered the deal with producer Paulo Branco of Alfama Films.Film Movement has acquired...

Plus: Donne Yen joins xXx reboot; Film Movement acquires The Ardennes; Kino Lorber finds Cosmos; and more…

Gale Anne Hurd, Joe Swanberg, Don Cheadle, Joel Edgerton, Gaby Hoffmann, Joe Berlinger and Barbara Kopple are among the keynotes and on-stage conversation stars featuring at SXSW. The festival and conference runs in Austin, Texas, from March 11-19. For full details click here.

Martial arts star Donnie Yen has been cast as the villain opposite Vin Diesel in xXx: The Return Of Xander Cage for Revolution Studios, Roth Kirschenbaum Films, One Race Films and Paramount Pictures. Production is set to begin this month in Toronto and the Dominican Republic.Kino Lorber has picked up North American rights to Andrzej Żuławski’s Locarno Silver Leopard winner Cosmos ahead of its Us premiere at the Film Comment Selects series in New York on Wednesday. The distributor brokered the deal with producer Paulo Branco of Alfama Films.Film Movement has acquired...

Shout! Factory and Studio 100 Media have expanded their distribution alliance with a multi-picture deal for Studio 100’s upcoming Maya The Bee film series.

Under the terms, Shout! Factory has secured exclusive North American rights to sequels, including theatrical, VOD, digital, broadcast and home entertainment for cross-platform releases. Shout! Factory plans a strategic rollout of the new films, beginning with the first sequel, Maya The Bee 2 – The Honey Games, in 2017 through its Shout! Factory Kids division.

Shawn Williamson’s Vancouver-based Brightlight Pictures has begun production on Scorched Earth, a post-apocalyptic action project starring Gina Carano and John Hannah. Peter Howitt directs the story of a bounty hunter who learns that there might be more to life than just survival. Brightlight is producing in partnership with Lighthouse Pictures, who packaged the project. Great Point Media is financing.Production began on Thursday in Santa Marta, Colombia, on Sundowners, a dramatic comedy written and directed by Pavan Moondi. [link...

More than 30 film projects in development set to be presented at the Bogota Audiovisual Market (Bam).Scroll down for full list of projects

Peter Webber’s $2m docu-drama One River (El Rio) and Miguel Urrutia’s English-language thriller Madness are among 33 film projects in development being presented this week at Bam (July 13-17).

Colombia’s biggest film market also features 18 screenings of films in an advanced state of development, alongside the regular Bam Projects category.

Webber (The Girl With The Pearl Earring) attended Bam last year to promote his pickpocket drama Fresh and returns this year with One River.

The project is based on an international best-selling book by Canadian Wade Davis, charting Professor Richard Schultes’ journey through the Amazon in the 1940s and the author’s own travels into the same jungle 30 years later, living among the Indian tribes and searching for the origins of coca, the notorious source of cocaine.

Currently in development...

The Girl With A Pearl Earring director’s $2m docu-drama One River (El Rio) and Miguel Urrutia’s English-language thriller Madness are among 32 projects in development being presented at the Bogota Audiovisual market (Bam).

Colombia’s biggest film market takes place all this week (July 13 -17), and also features 18 screenings of films in an advanced state of development, alongside the regular Bam Projects category.

Webber attended Bam last year to promote his pickpocket drama Fresh and returns this year with One River.

The project is based on an international best-selling book by Canadian Wade Davis, charting Professor Richard Schultes’ journey through the Amazon in the 1940s and the author’s own travels into the same jungle 30 years later, living among the Indian tribes and searching for the origins of coca, the notorious source of cocaine.

Currently in development, the project is being produced by Colombian outfit 4 Direcciones in partnership with Canada’s Pimiento Films. They have secured...

Following the unveling of the Official Selection, news from the Cannes Film Festival (May 13-24) continues to arrive. The prestigious Critics' Week –aimed at discovering the world's most interesting directors– announced the list of films to be included in the 54th edition of this event, one of the Festival's most important, along with the Directors' Fortnight.

The big news for Colombia is the selection of director/screenwriter César Augusto Acevedo's first film, "La Tierra y la Sombra" (Land and Shade), one of the seven feature films chosen to compete from among 1,100 submissions from around the world. The film was produced by Jorge Forero, Paola Pérez Nieto and Diana Bustamante, partners and founding members of Burning Blue, the production company responsible for some of the most internationally recognized films to come out of Colombia in recent years ("El vuelco del Cangrejo," "La Playa D.C," "La Sirga," "Solecito," "Los Hongos," "Climas," "Refugiado," and many others).

In "La Tierra y la Sombra," a woman refuses to give up the land she has fought to defend all her life; a son is incapable of leaving his mother, to the point of risking his own life; a father must confront past mistakes in order to recover the loved ones he abandoned; a brave wife fights to save her family; and a child grows up in the midst of devastation. Staged in a family microcosm –a tiny house and a tree surrounded by a formidable sugar cane filed–, the film presents the final days of these characters intent on repairing the fragile ties that bind them as they face their own imminent demise in the overwhelming wake of progress. Out of this situation comes a cruel story, densely populated with metaphors and allegories for culture, the fatality of alienation and oblivion, the fragility of memory, the inevitability of family breakdown, and the solitude it provokes.

The film was produced by Burning Blue (Colombia) in co-production with Ciné-Sud Promotion (France), Tokapi Films (Holland), Rampante Films (Chile), and Preta Portê Filmes (Brazil). In addition to director/screenwriter Cesar Acevedo, the film's crew included cinematographer Mateo Guzmán; editor Miguel Schverdfinger; art director Marcela Gómez; actor trainer Fátima Toledo; and soundman Felipe Rayo. The film stars Haimer Leal as Alfonso; Hilda Ruiz as Alicia; Edison Raigosa as Alfonso's and Alicia's son Gerardo; Marleyda Soto as Gerardo's wife Esperanza; and Felipe Cárdenas as Gerardo's and Esperanza's son Manuel.

According to César Acevedo: "The idea for this film was born of personal pain. At the time I began writing the screenplay my mother was dead, my father was a ghost, and given my inability to generate memories, they seemed completely lost to me. Thus arose my need to make a film that would allow me to recover the two most important people in my life, using the language of film. What I intended at the time was a reflection on our lives together, and what they might have been, based on the most private, the most important elements of this relationship. I believed that only by returning to my roots would I be able to face what I'd forgotten. This led to my decision to create a microcosm consisting of a small house and a tree, where I could somehow be reunited with those I loved most."

That was just the beginning, however, and the film couldn't remain tied to this initial concept with time tugging it in another direction. Acevedo continues: "As I began writing the screenplay I realized that the house was inhabited by ghosts, who drifted through the rooms, incapable of speech, unrecognizable to each other. It took a long time to accept that what I was trying to accomplish was impossible, simply because everything I was looking for had disappeared with them. So I distanced myself from the original intention with the sole purpose of better developing my characters and the film's conflict and the idea arose of telling the story of a dysfunctional family's attempt to repair the ties that bind them, just before being separated for good. Not only are they forced to confront the feelings of others, but, more challenging still, they discover feelings they never knew existed, or never suspected they harbored. "

Burning Blue: Spearheading the Internationalization of Colombian Cinema

After participating in the 65th Berlin Film Festival's Forum less than two months ago with Jorge Forero's film "Violence," Burning Blue is proud to announces the inclusion of "La Tierra y la Sombra" in the Cannes Festival's Critics' Week. This selection confirms Burning Blue's role as key Colombian representative in major film events around the world.

Burning Blue's efforts to produce daring films focusing on the value and power of stories, and construction of self-sustaining formats to achieve significant results internationally, allowing Colombian films to be seen worldwide, are examples of the creativity and innovation in Latin America productions and prove that Burning Blue has succeeded in asserting itself in a depressed market with a new vision that provides transcendent stories.

The successful start-up of a co-production model allowing films to work with partners in France, Germany, Poland and Holland –not to mention Latin America, where they have co-produced with Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Peru and Brazil; the presence of the company's films in more than 200 festivals, with commercial releases in countries like the Us, Greece, Canada, Spain, Portugal, Eastern Europe, and several African nations (as well as co-producing countries); an the company's presence at the Cannes Film Festival in four consecutive years (co-producers of Argentine director Diego Lerman's "Refugiado" in 2014; co-producers of Oscar Ruíz Navia's short film "Solecito" at the 2013 Director's Fortnight; and producers of William Vega's "La Sirga" and Juan Andrés Arango's "La Playa D.C." included in the 2012 Director's Fortnight and Certain Regard sections, respectively) make Burning Blue Colombia's most visible presence on the global film market.

Although Burning Blue has achieved major recognition for its films on the international market, the company aspires, above all, to participate in the creation of films by and for Colombians and, in even more romantically ambitious terms, the creation of Latin American cinema for the Latin American subcontinent. The stories told, therefore, speak profoundly of the continent's many different peoples and uncover the traditions, imagery, dreams, desires, fears and problems facing these richly diverse, passionate, and complex cultures. To this end, Burning Blue hopes to harness the favorable international attention garnered to date to continually ignite local interest, using international platforms as a springboard to its natural audience: Colombia.

Burning Blue, led by Diana Bustamante, Jorge Forero and Paola Pérez Nieto, is currently developing the feature films "Asilo" (Jaime Osorio Márquez), in co-production with Rhayuela Cine, "Desobsesión" (Jorge Navas), and the co-production "Niño Nadie" (Fernando Guzzoni), produced for Chile's Rampante Films.

Diana Bustamante produced Ciro Guerra's "Los Viajes del Viento" (included in the 2009 Cannes Festival's Certain Regard section) and Oscar Ruiz Navia's "El vuelco del cangrejo" (2009 Toronto Film Festival premiere and Fripresci Award at the 2010 Berlinale Festival and Forum). She also designed and managed Caracol Television's film department from 2008 to 2012, taking more than 20 Colombian feature films from the financing to final promotion stages. She recently became the artistic director of the Cartagena International Film Festival (Ficci), contributing to the success of the festival's 55th edition last March, and is currently working on the 2016 festival.

"La Tierra y la Sombra" - Nothing But Success

The process of creating and financing "La Tierra y la Sombra" allowed the film to mature with assistance from specialists, tutors, and evaluation committees at a number of national and international institutions and festivals, each of them helping to move the film towards its world premiere at the upcoming Cannes Festival.

During the project's development stage it won a development grant from Colombia's Film Development Fund in 2009 and was selected the following year to participate in the Pitch Workshop at Colombia's Cali Film Festival. The project also took part in the Ibero-American Films Crossing Borders event at the 2010 Havana Film Festival and the 2012 Ibero-American Co-Production Meeting at the Huelva Film Festival in Spain.

It was, however, in 2013 that the project became a reality, winning at the Cartagena International Film Festival's Co-Production Meeting, which made it possible to attend the Cannes Marché Du Film. The film went on to win a Casa de las Américas Film Project Development grant from the Carolina Foundation and a production grant from Colombia's Film Development Fund. Also in 2013, the Hubert Bals Fund awarded the project a development grant and the San Sebastian Film Festival selected it for the Co-Production Forum.

The final push came in 2014 when the project was invited to participate in Boost! at the Rotterdam Film Festival in Holland and received production grants from both the Ibermedia and Hubert Bals Funds. Shooting took place in late 2014 with post-production following in early 2015 and, finally, the film's submission, in the company of another 1,100 feature films, to the Cannes Festival.

55th edition of the festival to focus on the theme of memory and remembering.

Cartagena International Film Festival (Ficci) has unveiled the official selection for its 55th edition, running March 11-17.

A total of 12 films will participate in the Official Fiction Competition, ten in the Official Documentary Competition, 12 in the Official Colombian Film Competition and 19 in the Official Short Film Competition. All films will be competing for India Catalina statues and over $100,000 in prize money.

This year’s festival will focus on the theme on memory and remembering.

“It’s not every day you turn 55. This brought us to our central theme of memory and remembering, which implies introspection, rethinking and taking stock of the past. We wouldn’t be here talking about the last 55 years if it weren’t for the wonderful people who have made this possible over the years, and that is how memories are created,” commented Ficci Artistic Director Diana Bustamante.

Highlights include...

Special mention for César Augusto Acevedo’s Land and Shade.

Pavel Giroud’s The Companion (El Acompañante) picked up the best project award at the 2nd Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum (Sept 23-25) in San Sebastian.

The film marks the third solo feature for the Cuban director and was produced by Cuba-Panama-based Arete Audiovisual, in co-production with Panama’s Jaguar Films, Venezuela’s Trampolin Impulso Creativo and France’s Tu Vas Voir.

The award, sponsored by Spain’s Audiovisual Producers’ Rights Management Association (Egeda), included a cash prize of €10,000 ($13,000).

Set in 1988 Cuba, the story centres on a friendship between a disgraced boxer forced to serve as a warden for a HIV victim.

A special mention was given to Land and Shade (La Tierra y la Sombra) from Colombian director Cesar Augusto Acevedo.

Diana Bustamante’s Bogota-based Burning Blue will produce.