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Amat Escalante is a Mexican filmmaker whose cinema dares to dwell in spaces most would rather avert their gaze from. Emerging in the early 2000s, Escalante has built a body of work marked by sparse dialogue, clinical detachment, and unsettling intimacy. His characters often exist on the margins — working-class, voiceless, and wounded — and his camera observes them not with sentimentality, but with a precise and unsparing eye.

Early in his career, Escalante worked closely with fellow Mexican auteur Carlos Reygadas, serving as an assistant director on “Batalla en el Cielo” (2005). Reygadas would later co-produce Escalante’s debut feature “Sangre,” and their shared cinematic sensibilities — long takes, non-professional actors, and existential brutality — continue to resonate across both bodies of work.

Escalante’s first short film, “Amarrados” (2002), shot in black and white with handheld urgency, introduces a homeless child sniffing glue to numb the pangs of hunger and trauma. From this earliest effort,...

Movie score aficionados rejoice! The Future Ruins Music & Arts Festival is assembling a line-up of film & TV composers to perform their most celebrated themes, as the credo of the festival is “The Music Tells the Story.” Musical acts like John Carpenter, Danny Elfman, Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, Questlove and Goblin are among those included on the list of performances for the event. The Future Ruins Festival is scheduled to take place on November 8 and will be held at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center. You can get tickets at their official website Here.

The official festival description reads,

“Future Ruins is a first-of-its-kind music festival: a day-long event where the world’s most influential film and television composers step out from behind the screen and onto the stage.

Set across three stages at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center, Future Ruins is designed to feel thoughtful and immersive, bringing this music to...

Nine Inch Nails have announced Future Ruins, a new one-day music festival taking place at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center on Saturday, November 8th, 2025.

Created and curated by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, Future Ruins is billed as “a first-of-its-kind of music festival: a day-long event where the world’s most influential film and television composers step out from behind the screen and onto the stage.”

Get Nine Inch Nails Tickets Here

“It’s about giving people who are, literally, the best in the world at taking audiences on an emotional ride via music the opportunity to tell new stories in an interesting live setting,” explained Reznor in a statement.

“There’s no headliner. There’s no hierarchy. This is a stacked lineup of visionaries doing something you might not see again,” added Reznor and Ross.

Alongside Reznor and Ross, the lineup features such composing luminaries as John Carpenter, Danny Elfman,...

Nine Inch Nails principals and veteran film composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have announced “Future Ruins,” a festival featuring some of the top film and TV composers in the business, taking place on Saturday, November 8 in Los Angeles. John Carpenter, Questlove (performing the soundtrack work of Curtis Mayfield), Danny Elfman, Mark Mothersbaugh and Hildur Guðnadóttir are among the participants; the complete lineup and highlights of their careers appears below.

Presented by Live Nation, the event is “a first-of-its-kind of music festival: a day-long event where the world’s most influential film and television composers step out from behind the screen and onto the stage,” according to the announcement. Tickets are available starting Wednesday, May 21 at 12 p.m. Pt.

“It’s about giving people who are, literally, the best in the world at taking audiences on an emotional ride via music the opportunity to tell new stories in an interesting live setting,...

Amat Escalante’s “Lost in the Night” (Original title: Perdidos en la noche) is driven towards an exploration of guilt, regret, and morality. It skewers the class divides rampant as they are in its setting of Mexico. Across the rural space, the markers of denomination, hierarchies of privilege, and exclusion are starkly evident. As the less-endowed strike out against injustice and exploitation, down comes a brutal hammer. It’s a morally murky quagmire Escalante depicts, hinting at a worldview refusing to trade in clear-cut binaries. The bad guys express remorse, and the good one who has the right on their side don’t always do morally favorable things.

Escalante surprises, especially since the thematic terrain of class conflicts is a well-trod one. So, he genuflects on the characterization, amping up unexpected discoveries and realizations shifting across a morally nebulous spectrum. No person is wholly avaricious, they have quite a few redeeming qualities.

Acclaimed Mexican editor-turned-director Natalia López Gallardo, whose directorial debut feature “Robe of Gems” won the Silver Bear Jury Prize at the Berlinale in 2022, is currently developing her second feature, “Only Love Exists.” The contemporary drama about intertwining digital and real lives will pitch in the Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum at this year’s San Sebastian Film Festival.

“Only Love Exists” is the story of Teresa, a medical assistant who cares for patients in her work and engages with the fears and desires of others on the internet. Over time, the virtual world starts to encroach into her real life as Teresa indulges more and more in her own desires somewhere on the border of the two dimensions.

After a brush with death, Teresa becomes more acutely aware of the physical world around her, where beauty and oppression coexist, the synopsis says. Through the act of caring for a friend, Teresa begins a journey of salvation.

Today, Apple TV+ revealed the premiere date and a first look at Women in Blue (“Las Azules”), its upcoming ten-episode Spanish-language crime drama featuring an entirely Hispanic cast and crew led by Ariel Award nominee Bárbara Mori.

Created by International Emmy Award-winning showrunner and director Fernando Rovzar and Pablo Aramendi, Women in Blue will make its global debut with the first two episodes on Wednesday, July 31, 2024, on Apple TV+, followed by one episode weekly through September 25.

Set in 1970 and inspired by true events, Women in Blue tells the story of four women who defy the ultra-conservative norms of the time and join Mexico’s first female police force, only to discover that their squad is a publicity stunt to distract the media from a brutal serial killer.

As the body count grows, María (Mori), whose determination to catch the killer becomes an obsession; Gabina (Amorita Rasgado), whose father is a...

Sovereign is proud to announce that award-winning Mexican director Amat Escalante’s powerful thriller Lost In The Night received its UK premiere at the 2023 BFI London Film Festival, as part of the ‘Thrill’ section, and now the film is available to rent/buy on Amazon Prime Video in the UK.

From acclaimed Mexican director Amat Escalante, following Heli, for which he won Best Director at Cannes in 2013, and The Untamed, which won him the Best Director prize at Venice in 2016, comes Lost In The Night, a taut, engrossing thriller that blends traditional elements of Latin American cinema with astute social commentary on Mexican society and contemporary influencer culture.

The film, which premiered at Cannes this year, stars Juan Daniel García Treviño (Narcos México), and Latin American influencer superstar Ester Expósito, who has 27 million followers, and features a superb score by Stranger Things composers Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein.

The film...

Ester Expósito was born on January 26, 2000, in Madrid, Spain. From a young age, she displayed a keen interest in the artistic world and knew that acting was her true calling. At the age of 16, after completing her studies, Expósito decided to pursue her dream and enrolled in acting courses.

Expósito’s talent and dedication quickly caught the attention of industry insiders. In 2013 and 2015, she received recognition for her acting skills, winning the Best Actress award at the Madrid Theater Awards. These early accolades set the stage for what was to come in her career.

One of Expósito’s most significant breakthroughs came with her role in the Netflix teen drama series, Élite. She portrayed the character of Carla Rosón Caleruega, a complex and intriguing character that captured the attention of audiences worldwide. Expósito’s portrayal of Carla showcased her ability to bring depth and authenticity to her performances, solidifying her...

Two Spanish female stars who have broken out to huge global audiences in Netflix hits – “Nowhere” and “A Perfect Story” lead Anna Castillo and Ester Expósito, highly prominent in “Elite” in early seasons – are set to star in dramedic vampire thriller “Death to Love,” (“Que muera el amor”), the first series created by “Piggy” director Carlota Pereda, who will also serve as its showrunner.

“If there are two actresses you can believe are immortals, with their out-of-this-world allure and talent, it’s Anna and Ester. I can’t wait to explore this world of darkness, joy and Eternal Love with them,” Pereda told Variety.

With that talent package, and the backing of two Spanish powerhouse producers, Morena Films and Buendía Estudios, “Death to Love” is shaping up as one of the hottest packages to come to market from Spain after it emerged from February’s Berlinale Series Market as one...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Africans with Mainframes (Kima Hibbert)

What if electronic music was invented in the 1920s by Black sharecroppers in the American South? That’s the premise of Kima Hibbert’s debut short, in which a reclusive blogger uncovers a major conspiracy surrounding the origins of electronic music.

Where to Stream: Le Cinéma Club

Bottoms (Emma Seligman)

It’s beginning to feel like South By Southwest is the Rachel Sennott Festival. After breaking out there three years ago with Shiva Baby (the movie premiered as a short in 2018 and would have again as a feature in 2020 if not for the pandemic), she made waves last year in Austin with sleeper horror hit Bodies Bodies Bodies. Now Sennott’s back with Bottoms, one of two...

Night Moves: Escalante Cultivates a Moody, Capricious Mystery

Replete with a slew of customary features encountered in a fatalistic film noir, Amat Escalante’s fifth feature, Perdidos en la noche (Lost in the Night), begins with a missing woman and then splinters off into unexpected directions. Part of the film’s intrigue is in how it resists our expectations, embracing Escalante’s penchant for corruption and nihilism but not without a sense of salvation. While the film’s narrative has more in common with Escalante’s Heli (2013) than his extravagantly perverse The Untamed (2016), it’s a genre film with a mind of it’s own, even if it resists a gratifying sense of catharsis.…...

Seven years after his mesmerizing sci-fi drama on extraterrestrial sex, “The Untamed,” genre-defying Mexican auteur Amat Escalante switches gears once again to try his hand at a sharp-edged, quasi-detective story with “Lost in the Night.” His approach expectedly deviates from a straightforward whodunit. Escalante rejects both simplified villainy and stainless heroism, crafting individuals with clear motivations who never stop to consider their actions through a moral filter. The result is an at times jarring but always intriguing enigma that escapes facile classification, especially because it tends to veer into absurdism.

In just a handful of years since his breakout role in Fernando Frías de la Parra’s “I’m No Longer Here,” Juan Daniel García Treviño has become a familiar face in Mexican cinema, usually playing a member of a criminal organization. Here, Escalante pushes against such typecasting and places him on the righteous side of the fence, as Emiliano, a...

Clockwise from top left: X (A24), Everything Everywhere All At Once (A24), Mea Culpa (Netflix)Image: The A.V. Club

This February, Netflix adds a Best Picture Oscar winner, a Ti West horror movie with a sequel arriving later this year, and Tyler Perry’s latest movie. The surreal Everything Everywhere All At Once...

Debbie Harry, lead singer of Blondie, will be among those taking part in on-stage talks at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, which runs Jan. 25 to Feb. 4.

Harry narrates the latest film by Amanda Kramer, “So Unreal,” an essay-documentary about the relationships between cinema, humanity and technology. On Jan. 27, the two will give an IFFR Talk discussing their work as artists with distinctive esthetics whose careers have developed across film and music.

As previously announced, other speakers in the IFFR Talk program include actor Sandra Hüller, and directors Anne Fontaine, Marco Bellocchio, Bill Plympton and Billy Woodberry.

Directors attending with their titles in the Limelight section, which is for films from established filmmakers, include Mexican filmmaker Amat Escalante with “Lost in the Night,” Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland with “Green Border” and Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania with “Four Daughters,” which is shortlisted for an Oscar.

Fontaine will attend the world premiere of her 19th feature film,...

Disney opens animation ‘Wish’; indie titles include ‘The Eternal Daughter’, ‘Girl’.

Ridley Scott’s historical epic Napoleon becomes the widest release ever in the UK and Ireland for Sony, starting in 716 cinemas this weekend.

The film, starring Joaquin Phoenix as the early 19th century French leader, tops the 690-location opening of Whitney Houston biopic Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody from December 2022.

Written by David Scarpa – who previously collaborated with Scott on All The Money In The World – Napoleon tells the story of Napoleon Bonaparte’s rise to power, and his relationship with Empress Josephine, played in the film...

Roberts and Hawke’s weekend getaway starts to go wrong when two mysterious strangers appear at the door. Then things get weirder

Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali and Ethan Hawke star in this glossy, Shyamalan-level-10 apocalypto-paranoid conspiracy thriller, adapted from the 2020 bestseller by Rumaan Alam. It’s an example of a growing tendency in the movies: baggy, lengthy, episodic pictures which are starting to split the difference between feature film items and streaming TV. Amat Escalante’s Mexican thriller Lost in the Night is, I think, another example of this tendency: films that go on for a while and, like a shaggy-dog story, leave things open for the possibility of getting recommissioned for season two.

Roberts and Hawke play Amanda and Clay, well-off Brooklynites with two teen children; she’s a cynical ad exec, he’s a laidback humanities college professor. On a whim, they decide to take a luxurious weekend...

Amat Escalante brings great intensity to this story of a young man seeking out the truth of his mother’s disappearance, but the point gets rather lost

Amat Escalante is the Mexican film-maker who created the brutal and politically engaged crime drama Heli in 2013, for which he won the best director award in Cannes, and in 2016 the deeply strange body horror parable The Untamed which was a prizewinner at Venice. Now, after a stint on the streaming TV drama Narcos: Mexico he has directed and co-written this contorted Lynchian melodrama about Mexico’s corruption, cynicism and indifference, and all the secrets and lies that bloat the country’s ruling classes.

Lost in the Night concerns what may be the corpse of a woman buried in the grounds of a super-rich family and in this respect it rather resembles Robe of Gems from Natalia López Gallardo, who like Escalante has worked with Carlos Reygadas.

From the very onset with his feature debut Sangre (2005), filmmaker Amat Escalante has proposed a cinema of provocation that simultaneously critiques corruption and violence, and culminates in disheartening statistics (and tragedy) for his adoptive Mexico. For his fifth feature film, Escalante leans on the some of the same matter but as explored with 2016’s The Untamed, he is “mining” within entirely new genre blueprints. Premiering at the Cannes Film Festival in the Premieres section, Lost in the Night (Perdidos en la Noche) delves into moral consciousness while navigating a landscape tainted by corruption, and is once again rooted on the ever-changing dynamics shifting social class paradigms.…...

Japanese filmmaker Ryusuke Hamaguchi has clinched the best film award in the main official competition of the 67th London Film Festival with his latest feature, Evil Does Not Exist.

The enigmatic pic is Hamaguchi’s follow-up to the Oscar-winning Drive My Car and follows young father Takumi and his daughter, Hana, who live in Mizubiki Village, close to Tokyo. Like generations before them, they live a modest life according to the cycles and order of nature. A plan to construct a glamping site near Takumi’s house, offering city residents a comfortable “escape” to nature, threatens to endanger the ecological balance of the area and the local people’s way of life.

The festival jury, headed by Mexican filmmaker Amat Escalante (Lost in the Night), alongside Kate Taylor, program director of the 2023 Edinburgh International Film Festival, and English novelist Niven Govinden (Diary of a Film), described Evil Does Not Exist as “subtle” and “cinematic.

Escalante will head the competition jury while Allen-Miller will preside over first feature

Filmmakers Amat Escalante, Raine Allen-Miller and Rubika Shah will preside over the competition juries for the 67th BFI London Film Festival.

Escalante, the Mexican director whose credits include 2013’s Heli and 2016’s The Untamed, will head the official competition jury where he is joined by Kate Taylor, programme director of the Edinburgh International Film Festival, and author Niven Govinden.

The Mexican director’s latest feature Lost In The Night made its debut in Cannes Premiere earlier this year and is also screening in the Lff Thrills strand.

With the 67th BFI London Film Festival gearing up to start on Oct. 4, the juries for the various competitions have been named.

Leading the official competition jury is acclaimed Mexican director, producer and screenwriter Amat Escalante, who won the best director honor at the 2013 edition of the Cannes Film Festival for Heli and the Silver Lion for the best director in Venice in 2016 for The Untamed. Escalante’s latest feature, Lost in the Night, is playing in the London Film Festival’s Thrill Strand.

Joining Escalante on the main jury are Kate Taylor, program director of the 2023 Edinburgh International Film Festival, and Niven Govinden, the English novelist and author of Diary of a Film.

The films in the official competition that the trio will be judging include:

Baltimore, Christine Molloy, Joe Lawlor

Dear Jassi, Tarsem Singh Dhandwar)

Europa, Sudabeh Mortezai

Evil Does Not Exist, Ryusuke Hamaguchi

Fingernails, Christos Nikou

Gasoline Rainbow,...

‘The Madigan Chronicles’ Optioned By Particle6

Mystical book series The Madigan Chronicles is to be turned into a TV series by UK indie Particle6 Productions. Particle6 has acquired the rights to Marieke Lexmond’s six-book series, which includes the likes of The Dagger, The Magical Tarot Deck and The Wand. The books tell the story of three generations of headstrong witches and their struggle to work together to keep a centuries-old promise and stop a dark witch from claiming a powerful elemental object. While a pilot is being penned for The Dagger, Particle6 is taking a unique approach to the deal by seeking to drive further demand for the IP by creating viral TikTok videos and by developing Magical Spell necklaces, which will be promoted via social media. “Particle6 is big on testing and analytics, and we always work hard to identify the right audience for every project,” said Eline van der Velden,...

Sovereign has acquired the U.K. and Ireland rights to Radu Jude’s latest feature, “Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World,” which won the special jury prize at Locarno Film Festival.

Written and directed by Jude, the comedy stars Ilinca Manolache, Ovidiu Pîrșan, Dorina Lazăr, László Miske, Katia Pascariu and Sofia Nicolaescu, with cameos from Nina Hoss and Uwe Boll. According to its official synopsis, the film follows an overworked production assistant who is instructed to “film a workplace safety video commissioned by a multinational company. But an interviewee makes a statement which forces him to reinvent his story to suit the company’s narrative.”

“Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World” recently premiered at Locarno, where it was nominated for the Golden Leopard Award for best film and won the festival’s special jury prize. The film was well-received by critics at the fest,...

In his films, director and screenwriter Amat Escalante (Mexico) is committed to portraying the violence of his country in a provocative, head-on way. His first three feature films premiered at the Cannes Film Festival: Sangre and Los bastardos screened in the Un Certain Regard section, and his 2013 film Heli premiered in competition for the Palme d'Or, for which Escalante won the Best Director Award. In 2016, he presented The Untamed (La región salvaje), a film with science-fiction elements, in competition at the Venice Festival, which again won him the Best Director Award. This year, he premiered his fifth feature film, Lost in the Night, in the Cannes Premieres section.In this episode, we talk about the relationship between filmmakers and their social context. In conversation with programmer and critic Pamela Biénzobas, Escalante speaks about his relationship with the city of Guanajuato as a source of inspiration and his interest in establishing...

Publishing exec will take over from Petra Müller on January 1, 2024

Walid Nakschbandi is to succeed Petra Müller as CEO of one of the leading German regional film funds, Film- und Medienstiftung Nrw, from January 1, 2024.

Afghan-born Nakschbandi, who settled in Germany at the age of 14, studied political science and law in Bonn and Berlin. He joined the Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group in 1996 and ran the group’s TV production arm Ave Gesellschaft für Fernsehproduktion GmbH from 1999.

His producer credits include the TV movie My Daughter, Anne Frank, a documentary on the right-wing terrorist Beate Zschäpe in Letzte Ausfahrt Gera - Acht Stunden mit Beate Zschäpe,...

Below you will find the results of Notebook's critics' poll for the best films of the Cannes Film Festival, as well as an index of our coverage of the festival.Awardstop 101. Fallen Leaves (Aki Kaurismäki)2. The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer)3. May December (Todd Haynes)4. Anatomy of a Fall (Justine Triet)5. Close Your Eyes (Víctor Erice)6. Killers of the Flower Moon (Martin Scorsese)7. La chimera (Alice Rohrwacher)8. The Pot-au-feu (Tràn Anh Hùng)9. A Prince (Pierre Creton)10. Last Summer (Catherine Breillat)(Poll contributors: Pedro Emilio Segura Bernal, Anna Bogutskaya, Jordan Cronk, Flavia Dima, Lawrence Garcia, Leonardo Goi, Daniel Kasman, Jessica Kiang, Roger Koza, Elena Lazic, Beatrice Loayza, Guy Lodge, Łukasz Mańkowski, Savina Petkova, Caitlin Quinlan, Vadim Rizov, Christopher Small, Öykü Sofuoğlu, Blake Williams)DISPATCHESThe Obscenity of EvilLeonardo Goi on The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer), The Sweet East (Sean Price Williams), Eureka (Lisandro Alonso), and Killers of the Flower Moon...

The festival runs June 23 - July 1.

Films by Jessica Hausner, Elegance Bratton and Sebastian Silva are among 36 titles selected for the Filmfest München’s three international competition strands, CineMasters, CineVision and CineRebels. The festival runs June 23-July 1.

CineMasters

Hausner’s Club Zero will be joined by another four Cannes competition titles - Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves, Marco Bellocchio’s Kidnapped, Kaouther Ben Hania’s Four Daughters, and Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Monster - to screen in Munich’s CineMasters competition for the €50,000 Arri Award which is presented to the producers of the best international film.

The 12-title line-up also includes...

Lost in the Night (Amat Escalante).The more familiar one becomes with Cannes, the less one comes to expect anything like aesthetic coherence from it. Even if one accepts its nominal (or self-proclaimed) status as the standard-setter for international arthouse cinema, there’s still a fair amount of variation within its vast program. Which is to say that while one can lament the general calcification of festival-circuit aesthetics, the arbitrary programming decisions of Thierry Frémaux, or the often perplexing set of awards handed out each year, there are always films worth seeking out. In 1982, the French critic Serge Daney remarked that Antonioni’s Identification of a Woman and Godard’s Passion were part of cinema’s “secret factory”: that is, films which wouldn’t receive awards, but from which future directors would draw inspiration in years to come. The challenge with each edition, of course, is to discover which films those are.

Amat Escalante returned to the Croisette, exactly 10 years after the premiere of Heli, for which he won the Best Director award at this prestigious festival. With Lost in the Night (aka Perdidos en la noche), Escalante continues to address similar themes, linked to one of the most violent times in Mexico. The opposition to a mine that operates with foreign capital causes a group of municipal police officers to carry out brutal actions. Three years later, Emiliano (Juan Daniel García) – the son of a missing woman who led the complaints against the mine – ends up with a key clue that could bring about the resolution that he and his sister have sought so much. Although there’s an eventual passage in the film...

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

Cannes frequently gets criticized for the paucity of Latin American representation in the main competition, so it was widely assumed that the new feature from festival veteran Amat Escalante, the 2013 best director winner for Heli, would be guaranteed a spot. Sad to report that watching Lost in the Night (Perdidos en la noche), it’s easy to see why it was shuffled off to a sidebar. The Mexican filmmaker moves out from the shadow of his former mentor, Carlos Reygadas, with his most accessible work to date in this revenge thriller, which is engrossing enough but also a bit meandering and underpowered.

Escalante’s fifth feature takes its cues more from his experience in television on Narcos: Mexico than from his previous big-screen work, which could in theory bring him to a wider audience. But it lacks the tight cohesion of that series at its best, and softens the jarring intensity,...

Amat Escalante’s title debuted in the Cannes Premiere section.

Mexican auteur Amat Escalante’s Lost In The Night is to be released in the UK and Ireland by Sovereign, following its debut in the Cannes Premiere section.

Sovereign is aiming for a late 2023, early 2024 theatrical release, with The Match Factory handling international sales.

The social thriller tells the story of a Mexican activist who disappears without a trace following her protests against the local mining industry. Five years later, her son attempts to find the culprit.

It was written by Escalante in collaboration with his brother Martín Escalante and Paulina Mendoza.

When Ester Expósito walked the red carpet in Cannes two years ago, she swore she’d be back.

“I was here for a brand, to show off some jewelry,” says the actress, who became a fashion trendsetter and online influencer — with 28 million followers on Instagram — after her turn as the cold, manipulative Carla Rosón Caleruega in Netflix’s Spanish teen drama hit Elite. “But when I was up there on those steps, I thought: ‘I’m going to come back soon, not with a brand with a movie.”

As good as her word, Expósito has returned to the Croisette this year as one of the stars of Lost in the Night, the new crime drama from Mexican director Amat Escalante, which premiered in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard and is being sold worldwide by The Match Factory.

Escalante seems a long way from the soapy prep school world of Elite. The Mexican helmer,...

Five years ago, on March 14th 2018, a car pulled alongside Brazilian Councilwoman Marielle Franco’s vehicle and fired several shots, killing both the politician and her driver. The crime, which enraged a country undergoing grave political turmoil, still remains unsolved. The closest authorities have gotten to a solid verdict is a witness testimony stating a former military police officer wanted the Councilwoman dead. The motivation? Franco’s relentless community work in areas of interest to the local militia, long known to have close ties to the military police.

Continue reading ‘Lost in the Night’ Review: Mexican Auteur Amat Escalante’s Latest is a Chilling Commentary on Absence [Cannes] at The Playlist.

When Rigoberto Duplas, the worrying conceptual artist and antagonist of Amat Escalante’s new film, tells Emiliano, our steadfast lead, that the cheap glass in his modernist mansion has a tendency to “rattle,” it sounds like a dig. Luckily, it’s a tendency our hero doesn’t share. Played with furrowed seriousness by Juan Daniel García (a standout in the recent Robe of Gems), Emiliano is the most convincing part of Escalante’s muddled mystery: a film about a young man on a mission to avenge his mother who disappeared after protesting the sale of a local mine.

After breaking out in Un Certain Regard with Blood in 2005, Escalante’s ascension on the festival circuit has been nothing if not steady: awarded best director for Heli by Steven Spielberg’s jury in 2013, the director followed that success with a Silver Lion in Venice for The Untamed in 2016. That agreeably slimy...

September Film and Rival Cineart have snapped up multiple festival titles.

In an early litmus test of the commercial appeal of Official Selection titles, Benelux’s leading arthouse buyers have swept in to each buy a haul.

Pim Hermeling’s September Film, which is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year, snapped up Dry Grasses, La Chimera, Club Zero, Monster, Fallen Leaves and Last Summer at script stage, as well as Salem in Un Certain Regard and Steve McQueen’s Occupied City.

In the market, the company has now picked up Beta Cinema’s One Last Evening which it will both release and look to remake,...

Stateside, audiences may know Amat Escalante best for directing episodes of “Narcos: Mexico” for Netflix. But Escalante deserves more recognition than that, having excellent independent dramas like 2013’s “Heli” and 2016’s “The Untamed.” And Escalante returns to the Croisette for the first time since “Heli” premiered in competition for the Palme d’Or with his new film, “Lost In The Night.”

Read More: Cannes Directors’ Fortnight 2023 Lineup Includes New Films From Hong Sang-soo, Michel Gondry & More

As a late addition to the Cannes line-up, “Lost In The Night” won’t have its world premiere in competition for the fest’s top prize, instead premiering in the Cannes Premiere section.

Continue reading ‘Lost In The Night’ Trailer: Amat Escalante’s Latest Twisty Crime Drama Premieres At The Cannes Film Festival On May 18 at The Playlist.

"Why did you hire me if you know who I am?" The Match Factory has unveiled a Cannes promo trailer for Lost in the Night, premiering at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival kicking off soon this month. This is the latest film by Mexican filmmaker Amat Escalante, best known for his more recent indie hits Heli and The Untamed. It's premiering in the Cannes Premiere section at the fest, not in the competition, Though it looks like it could be in there nonetheless. Emiliano lives in a small mining town in Mexico. Motivated by a sense of justice, he searches for those responsible for the disappearance of his activist mother. He finds a clue that leads him to the wealthy Aldama Family - soon he gets a job at their home. In search of the truth & justice, Emiliano plunges into a dark world full of secrets, lies and revenge. Starring Juan...

Sales agency The Match Factory is launching the trailer (below) of Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki’s “Fallen Leaves,” which will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in Competition.

This gentle tragicomedy is the fourth part of Kaurismäki’s working-class quartet, following “Shadows in Paradise,” “Ariel” and “The Match Factory Girl,” which The Match Factory, the company, is named after.

The film tells the story of two lonely people (played by Alma Pöysti and Jussi Vatanen) who meet each other by chance in the Helsinki night. They then try to re-find each other: the first, only, and ultimate love of their lives. Their path toward this goal is clouded by the man’s alcoholism, lost phone numbers, not knowing each other’s names or addresses, and life’s tendency to place obstacles in the way of those seeking their happiness.

Ahead of the festival, The Match Factory has secured sales in...

Finnish director’s latest secures sales to key territories in Europe and Asia.

Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves has secured sales in multiple territories through The Match Factory ahead of its world premiere in Cannes Competition this month.

The Match Factory has sold the gentle tragicomedy to: Diaphana for France, Eurospace for Japan, Lucky Red for Italy, September Film for the Benelux, A-One for the Baltics, McF for ex-Yugoslavia, Cinobo for Greece, Cirko for Hungary, Lev for Israel, Midas for Portugal, Folkets Bio for Sweden, Arthause for Norway and Filmcoopi for Switzerland. Pandora Film is releasing the film...

Warwick Thornton’s “The New Boy” has been set as the opening title of next month’s Sydney Film Festival, which will celebrate its 70th edition, June 7-18. The film, a tale of sprituality and survival in 1940s Australia, starring Cate Blanchett, Deborah Mailman, Wayne Blair and Aswan Reid, will also play in the festival’s competition section.

Other titles in competition include: the world premiere of Australian documentary feature “The Dark Emu Story,” directed by Allan Clarke; Christian Petzold’s previously announced “Afire”; Charlotte Regan’s Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner “Scrapper”; Kore-eda Hirokazu’s “Monster”; Aki Kaurismäki’s compassionate comedy “Fallen Leaves”; Kim Jee-woon’s “Cobweb”; Asmae El Moudir’s “The Mother of All Lies”; Alice Englert’s directorial debut “Bad Behaviour”; Celine Song’s Sundance and Berlinale 2023 selected romance “Past Lives”; Liu Jian’s 2023 Berlinale-selected animation “Art College 1994”; Devashish Makhija’s “Joram,” a thriller about an...

Twenty emerging producers from across Europe have been selected to take part in European Film Promotion’s promotion and networking platform Producers on the Move before and during the Cannes Film Festival.

The producers who were selected for the program from nominations submitted by Efp’s member organizations are Gentian Koçi (Albania), David Bohun (Austria), Julie Esparbes (Belgium), Vanya Rainova (Bulgaria), Miljenka Čogelja (Croatia), Stelana Kliris (Cyprus), Alice Tabery (Czech Republic), Emile Hertling Péronard (Denmark), Emilia Haukka (Finland), Silvana Santamaria (Germany), Vicky Miha (Greece), Júlia Berkes (Hungary), Kathryn Kennedy (Ireland), Valon Bajgora (Kosovo), Dominiks Jarmakovičs (Latvia), Erik Glijnis (The Netherlands), Elisa Fernanda Pirir (Norway), Radu Stancu (Romania), Juraj Krasnohorský (Slovak Republic), and Julia Gebauer (Sweden).

They will take part in a tailor-made program to foster international co-productions, increase the exchange of experiences, and help create new professional networks. The pre-festival online program, which started yesterday and runs until May 4, includes 1:1 speed meetings,...

European Film Promotion (Efp) has unveiled its 2023 Producers on the Move, the 20 up-and-coming film producers from 20 European countries picked to take part in the Efp’s networking event at the Cannes Film Festival this year.

The list of 2023 Producers on the Move includes Gentian Koçi (Albania), David Bohun (Austria), Julie Esparbes (Belgium), Vanya Rainova (Bulgaria), Miljenka Čogelja (Croatia), Stelana Kliris (Cyprus), Alice Tabery (Czech Republic), Emile Hertling Péronard (Denmark), Emilia Haukka (Finland), Silvana Santamaria (Germany), Vicky Miha (Greece), Júlia Berkes (Hungary), Kathryn Kennedy (Ireland), Valon Bajgora (Kosovo*), Dominiks Jarmakovičs (The Netherlands), Elisa Fernanda Pirir (Norway), Radu Stancu (Romania), Juraj Krasnohorský (Slovak Republic) and Julia Gebauer (Sweden).

The group will take part in a tailor-made program that runs May 18-22 during the festival intended to improve collaboration and foster international co-productions, between European film professionals. To help kick-start the effort, the Efp has begun a series of pre-festival events, including one-on-one speed meetings,...

Berlinale and Locarno prize winners also among this year’s cohort.

The producers of Cannes titles Lost In The Night and The (Ex)perience Of Love are among those selected for European Film Promotion’s (Efp) Producers On The Move programme, which promotes rising talent and fosters international co-productions.

The 20 producers have already begun a pre-festival online programme (May 2-4), which includes speed meetings, roundtables and pitching sessions. They will then meet during the Cannes Film Festival from May 18-22, taking part in a programme that will include case studies, social events and an extensive promotional campaign. More than half of the selection are women.