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Led by Ana Endara’s widely acclaimed feature debut “Beloved Tropic,” this year’s standouts vying for the Panama Film Festival’s (Iff Panama) Audience Award includes such gems as Guatemalan Jayro Bustamante’s latest opus, “Rita,” Mexico’s Sundance winner, “Sujo,” Berlinale Best Director winner Nelson Carlo de los Santos’ “Pepe,” a smattering of documentaries and more animated features such as “Olivia and the Clouds,” sign of a burgeoning interest in Central America for the genre. Iff Panama runs April 3 – 6.

“Beloved Tropic” (“Querido tropico”) Ana Endara, Panama, Colombia

The opening night film. Winner of the festival’s Su Mirada post-production award last year. Director Ana Endara’s fiction feature debut is set in Panama City where it follows Ana María, a Colombian caregiver hiding a secret, and Mercedes, a high-society woman (played by Paulina García) facing early dementia. As their lives intertwine, they form an unexpected bond, navigating caregiving...

In a bid to grab the attention of younger audiences, the 13th Panama International Film Festival (Iff Panama) has included a mélange of comedies, thrillers, animation and genre pics amid the docs, dramas and arthouse fare in its program.

“We aim to engage and inspire younger generations to return to the cinema,” said Karla Quintero, who took over festival director duties last year from Iff Panama board president Pituka Ortega-Heilbron who has been focusing on her film projects.

To captivate them even more, outdoor screenings are free as always. The festival has a number of lauded animation pics this year, led by award-winning “Olivia & the Clouds,” “Ainbo – Spirit of the Amazon” and biopic “Hola, Frida!”

“El Brujo: Julio Zachrisson” by Panama’s Felix “Trillo” Guardia is an animated docu-feature world premiering at the fest while Luis Tosar rom-com “Samana Sunrise” is having its international premiere following its debut in...

Following its audience award won in Berlin, Eva Libertad’s Deaf added four more prizes at the 2025 Malaga Film Festival (March 14-23) including best Spanish film and the audience award.

Libertad’s debut follows the relationship between a deaf woman and her hearing boyfriend, which is put under strain by a new baby, and stars the director’s sister, Miriam Garlo, and Álvaro Cervantes. They both won Malaga’s acting prizes ex aequo alongside Ángela Cervantes for Fury and Mario Casas for Away, respectively.

Latido Films is handling international sales for Deaf, which has already sold to the UK, Ireland,...

The 68th edition of the BFI London Film Festival (Lff) is wrapping up Sunday night with Piece by Piece, the animated Lego biopic of Pharrell Williams by Morgan Neville (Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, 20 Feet From Stardom) following the unveiling of this year’s various competition winners, led by Adam Elliot’s claymation feature Memoir of a Snail.

Set in Australia in the 1970s, the movie, which had already won the animation-focused Annecy Film Festival, stars Succession‘s Sarah Snook as Grace Pudel, a shy girl born with a cleft palate who grows up with her wild and occasionally pyromaniac twin brother Gilbert (Kodi Smit-McPhee) but eventually becomes a lonely hoarder of ornamental snails. Her only friend is a wild octogenarian named Pinky (Jacki Weaver). Eric Bana, Dominique Pinon, and Nick Cave provide supporting voice work. IFC Films has set an Oct. 25 U.S. release date.

Memoir of a...