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Top brass at the festival, set to run from September 24-October 8, have announced the selections in Focus Mexico.

The films are as follows:

Focus Mexico

The Obscure Spring (Las Oscuras Primaveras)

Ernesto Contreras

Manuela Jankovic’s War (La Guerra De Manuela Jankovic)

Diana Cardozo

González

Christian Díaz Pardo

Asteroide

Marcelo Tobar

The Absent (Los Ausentes)

Nicolás Pereda

Cumbres

Gabriel Nuncio

We Are Mari Pepa (Somos Mari Pepa)

Samuel Kishi

The Well (Manto Acuífero)

Michael Rowe

Güeros

Alonso Ruizpalacios

Cantinflas

Sebastian del Amo

Los Angeles

Damian John Harper

The Amazing Catfish (Los Insólitos Peces Gato)

Claudia Sainte-Luce

The Empty Hours (Las Horas Muertas)

Aaron Fernandez.

Panorama section

Words With Gods (Palabras Con Dioses)

Guillermo Arriaga, Héctor Babenco, Warwick Thornton, Mira Nair, Hideo Nakata, Amos Gitai, Álex de la Iglesia, Emir Kusturica, Bahman Ghobadi

Short Plays

Daniel Gruener, Carlos Reygadas, Fernando Eimbcke, Felipe Gómez, Alejandro Valle, Karim Aïnouz, Marcelo Gomes, Pablo Fendrik, Pablo Stoll, [link...

Chicago – When A.O. Scott described this film as “Passion of the Christ” for liberals, I couldn’t help finding his catchy summation to be awfully glib. “Agora” is a film about ideas, whereas “Passion” was merely about Mel Gibson’s masochism. Director Alejandro Amenábar has crafted a fascinating and haunting historical epic that never exploits its violent subject matter.

The film is set in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, and centers on the moment when Christianity changed from secular to theocratic. The year is 391 A.D. Pagans and Christians hold public debates that quickly turn violent. Heretic heckling soon turns to savage bloodletting. In the midst of such fanatic madness, the first victim proves to be common sense and grounded intelligence, which are gracefully embodied by Hypatia, a highly respected female scholar specializing in astronomy and philosophy.

DVD Rating: 4.5/5.0

Hypatia is played by the radiant Rachel Weisz, whose career appears...

Federal agents prevented a terrorist attack this Sunday in Chicago by 22 year-old, Sami Samir Hassoun. His weapon of choice was a bomb designed to take out half a city block, and his target was the Dave Matthews concert at Wrigley Field. The Sun Times reports that he claimed the event would be filled with "all [the] young people, [the] hippest people."

He couldn't have picked a worse target if he actually wanted to kill young, hip people. Luckily, not only can this colossal moron not tell a hip crowd from its total opposite, but he can't tell a real bomb from a fake either. Undercover Feds, hip to his schemes, had given him a harmless dud.

Apparently Hassoun's earlier ideas included "unleashing a virus, poisoning Lake Michigan, bombing the Willis Tower or Daley Plaza, attacking police officers, and assassinating the mayor." He ended up opting for the concert bomb in an attempt...

The last time we saw a trailer for Rachel Weisz and Alejandro Amenábar’s period epic “Agora”, it was content to set the mood with visuals and title cards. The official trailer fills in the rest of the plot with good ol fashion dialogue and rousing conflict. In English, too! In short: Rachel Weisz versus religion. I got religion for 500 buckaroos. Anyone? Anyone? A historical drama set in Roman Egypt, concerning a slave who turns to the rising tide of Christianity in the hopes of pursuing freedom while also falling in love with his master, the famous female philosophy professor and atheist Hypatia of Alexandria. Starring Rachel Weisz, Max Minghella, Oscar Isaac, Ashraf Barhom , Michael Lonsdale, Rupert Evans, Richard Durden, Sami Samir. Co-written and directed by Alejandro Amenábar. Spain gets the film first October 9, 2009.

You’ve probably seen “Agora” trailer we posted yesterday and today we have great character posters for Alejandro Amenábar’s new movie.

As always, click on any of the posters to enlarge.

The script for historical epic which stars Rachel Weisz, Max Minghella, Oscar Isaac, Ashraf Barhom, Michael Lonsdale, Rupert Evans, Richard Durden and Sami Samir among others was co-written by Amenábar and Mateo Gil.

Rachel Weisz plays astrologer-philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria, who fights to save the collected wisdom of the ancient world.

The central dramatic event is the sacking of Alexandria’s fabled library, the repository of “all the knowledge of the world” up to that time, and the parallel drawn between early-day Christian fundamentalists, who have just been legalized by the Roman Empire at the story’s start, and a certain other religion’s present-day fanatics is entirely clear.

The story also creates a love triangle of sorts...

Also found on the official website for Alejandro Amenábar's Agora are these four beautifully conceived character posters. We featured the trailer yesterday, which gave you a small glimpse at the epic story and what to expect from the film. These four posters give you a better idea of the four main characters: Rachel Weisz as the philosopher Hypatia (Libertad meaning Freedom), Oscar Isaac as Orestes (Poder meaning Power), Max Minghella as Davus (Pasión meaning Passion), and Sami Samir as Cyril (Ambición meaning Ambition). I really hope at least a few of you out there are still interested in seeing this! Check these out. For more on Agora, head over to the official website agorathemovie.com or just watch the trailer as well. Agora is directed by Spanish-Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Amenábar, of Open Your Eyes, The Others, and the Oscar winning The Sea Inside previously. The screenplay was co-written by...

Alejandro Amenabar goes all historical epic on us in the big-budgeted “Agora”, starring Rachel Weisz as an atheist who gets caught up in the approaching wave of Christianity. This’ll teach her to stand in the way of the one true religion! Ahem. The trailer for the movie, due out later this year, looks appropriately epic and lush, though you probably shouldn’t expect anything less from Amenabar, who has always been a visually interesting director. Along with the trailer, poster and images from the movie below. A historical drama set in Roman Egypt, concerning a slave who turns to the rising tide of Christianity in the hopes of pursuing freedom while also falling in love with his master, the famous female philosophy professor and atheist Hypatia of Alexandria. Starring Rachel Weisz, Max Minghella, Oscar Isaac, Ashraf Barhom , Michael Lonsdale, Rupert Evans, Richard Durden, Sami Samir, and Manuel Cauchi. Directed...