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There’s a haunting quality to Ecuadorian Oscar submission “Behind the Mist,” Sebastián Cordero’s intimate documentary on scaling Mount Everest. On one hand, Cordero’s twinning of mountaineering and filmmaking reveals spiritual similarities to both endeavors. On the other hand, his visual texture reveals hidden layers through its lo-fi aesthetic — one that emerges by necessity, given the harsh conditions — resulting in images that feel introspective about their own creation.

Cordero’s main subject is Iván Vallejo, the first Ecuadorian to reach Everest’s peak — without the help of Pxygen too. After achieving this feat in 1999 (and again in 2001), Vallejo hopes to commemorate his climb by returning to the top of the world in 2019. Naturally, he invites Cordero along to document him, but the filmmaker and the mountain maverick have opposing ideas of what the movie should be.

This search ends up taking philosophical form, as the “Europa Report” director...

Predicting the eventual five Oscar nominees for Best International Feature is made difficult by the three-step process that begins after the October 2, 2024 deadline for countries to submit entries. To be part of the selection process for this category, which was called Best Foreign Language Film before 2020, requires a great deal of dedication. (Scroll down for the most up-to-date 2025 Oscar predictions for Best International Feature.)

In the days following the deadline for submissions, the academy determines each film’s eligibility. Then the several hundred academy members who serve on the International Feature screening committee are divided into groups and required to watch all their submissions over a six-week period that ends in early December. Their top 15 vote-getters will make it to the next round. That list of semi-finalists will be revealed on December 17, 2024.

These 15 films will be made available to the entire academy membership who can cast ballots for the final...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 2, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 3, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

A revolution is working through Latin American filmmaking. It’s powered by new gen cineastes, educated at top film schools, very often women, who are questioning pretty much everything everywhere all at once, re-representing themselves and questioning what can make up a movie these days.

Locarno’s Open Doors is a case in point. Five takeaways on this year’s lineup:

Recalibration of a Sense of Self

“Three Bullets,” at Open Doors Projects Hub, is made by Dominican Génesis Valenzuela, an alum of San Sebastian’s prestigious Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola, which plumbs the murder of Dominican immigrant Lucrecia Pérez, shot and killed by four neo-Nazis, the same year that Spain celebrated its conquest of Latin America. Valenzuela will come in at the film as she reconstructs her own identity as a “human being/woman/Afro-Caribbean/filmmaker.” “The driving force of this film is the desire for emancipation, both from...

Noted animation company is in development in first live-action title.

The noted independent animation powerhouse Laika is bolstering its expansion into live-action and has hired longtime Netflix executive Matt Levin as president, live-action film & series.

The studio is in production on its sixth animated feature Wildwood and is developing its first live-action project based on screenwriter John Brownlow’s action thriller novel Seventeen

Levin served as director, original independent film at Netflix from 2014 to 2022 where he co-founded the Original Independent Film department.

During his stint at the streamer he oversaw the development and production of 25 films including the upcoming Gareth...

Laika’s planned expansion into the realm of live-action was furthered on Tuesday, with the announcement that longtime Netflix executive Matt Levin will be joining the studio in the newly created role of President, Live-Action Film & Series.

The venerated Oregon animation studio’s hire comes amidst development on its first live-action project — a feature adaptation of the action-thriller novel Seventeen by screenwriter John Brownlow.

Levin joins the stop-motion specialist following eight years at Netflix, where he most recently served as Director, Original Independent Film. He co-founded that department and is credited with helping it grow into a full-scale mini-major. His direct report at Laika is President & CEO Travis Knight, who also helmed the company’s acclaimed 2016 feature, Kubo and the Two Strings.

Knight remarked in a statement that “Matt Levin is an awesome dude. Both a steely-eyed pragmatist and a starry-eyed dreamer, Matt is the perfect partner...

Eugenio Caballero can conceive an enchanted forest and a disaster zone with equal levels of meticulous ingenuity. He can just as deftly recreate the space where an intimate memory occurred many decades ago, or a surrealist dream where reality and fantasy meet.

The Oscar-winning Mexican production designer learned his profession the way old trades are passed on: as an apprentice absorbing knowledge from more seasoned artisans on the job. Today, his inhabitable fabrications enrich the frames of larger-than-life epics around the globe, as well as unassuming independent dramas in his home country.

“The decisions that I make now are not based on my personal taste, but based on what the story requires,” Caballero told IndieWire during an interview at the Virginia Film Festival, where he received the festival’s 2022 Craft Award. “That’s when you realize the narrative power of the craft.”

Given his world-building dexterity, Caballero is the rare...

Independent film sales and distribution firm Outsider Pictures has acquired the international sales rights to Peruvian director V. Checa’s neo-noir film “Tiempos Futuros” (“The Shape of Things to Come”) and will lead sales to potential buyers at this March’s Málaga Film Festival.

Playing Zonazine, which focuses on bolder plays by up-and-coming cineastes, “Tiempos Futuros” serves as Checa’s debut feature film. It follows the relationship between an obsessive father, Luiz, and his resourceful son, Teo (Lorenzo Molina), as they build a weather-controlling machine in a dystopian Lima, Peru.

To ease financial troubles, Teo joins a gang of teenage spies who lend him money to support him and his father but strain the relationship between the two.

To Checa, the film “was nourished by the context we live in,” referencing the silence brought by the Covid-19 pandemic and the authoritarian nature of governments and parents, with the smile of...

There are lost-at-sea thrillers that make a virtue of the leanness of their narratives. J.C. Chandor’s “All Is Lost,” Wolfgang Fischer’s “Styx” and Chris Kentis’ legitimately traumatizing “Open Water” (not to mention Alfonso Cuarón’s “Gravity” if we switch in space for ocean) all spun gripping tales of survival — or not — using minimal dialogue and very little character backstory. But the pitfalls of this less-is-more approach are laid bare in and stereotypes. In its familiarity, “Submersible” at least appropriately evokes such a sinking feeling.

We’re engulfed in the action immediately, when the film opens, as the rickety, makeshift sub codenamed “Guadalupe” is already mid-crisis. Its crew of three — secretive pseudo-captain Felix (Leynar Gómez), quiet, older engine maintenance guy Kleber (Carlos Valencia) and jittery, crazy-eyed wild card Aquiles (José Restrepo) — scrabble about the squalid, listing interior and decide in desperation to redistribute the weight on board by shifting their precious cargo around.

San Sebastian — Paul Hudson’s Outsider Pictures has acquired world sales rights to“Submergible” (Submerged) a narco capsule-sub-set drama thriller from Ecuador’s Alfredo León León who debuted with an original prisoner-of-war drama, “Open Wound.”

Written by Daniela Granja Nuñez and Alfredo León León, “Submerged” is produced out of Ecuador by León León’s Boom en Cuadro and Carnaval Cine, whose Arturo Yépez and Sebastián Cordero whose credits include “Such is Life in the Tropics.”

Colombia’s Proyección Films co-produces. Yépez, Cordero León León and Colombia’s Simón Beltrán, Diego Bustamante and Juan Pablo Solano serve as producers, Natalia Rojas as executive producer.

Taking the spectator inside the world of the narco-submarine, predominantly used by the Colombian drug cartels to move drugs to Mexico and ultimately the U.S., the “plucked from the headlines thriller,” as Hudson describes it, features a star Latino cast of Natalia Reyes, Leynar Gómez (“Narcos”), José Restrepo and Carlos Valencia.

Pamplona, Spain — Ecuador’s Sebastián Cordero, director of the Guillermo del Toro-produced “Rage” and acclaimed low budget sci-fi thriller “Europa Report,” is teaming with his longtime producer Arturo Yépez to make “Floresta,” a 10 half-hour dramedy which marks Cordero’s move into TV series.

Told in the tone of tragicomedy, and inspired loosely by the back story of lead actor Andrés Crespo, star of “Cordero’s “Pescador,” “Floresta” depicts the desperate attempt of Crespo, playing himself to a certain degree, to get back together with his family, both his new one with a foreign anthropologist girlfriend and an older one with his ex-wife and 20-year old daughter.

But he constantly messes up in a series which depicts the uphill battle of a man to assume the responsibilities of fatherhood in a new more gender equal world.

Cordero is currently writing the series with Ecuadorian writers and will most probably look...

Yesterday afternoon, the long list of countries submitting films for contention in Best Foreign Language Feature at the Oscars was revealed. With 85 movies in play, this is a record breaking group. Honestly, from what I could see, only three snubs seemed to be here, which was Belgium not choosing The Unknown Girl, Korea not choosing The Handmaiden, and Romania not choosing Graduation. Aside from those, all of the expected suspects are here for consideration. That gives us the first bit of information in trying to narrow down what will be nominated. My predictions will have to be updated (look for that either at the end of this week or next week), but that will be taken care of. For now, we just know the players. What you’ll see below are more contenders than ever before. Among the higher profile titles are Canada’s It’s Only the End of the World from Xavier Dolan,...

Eighty-five countries have submitted films for consideration in the Foreign Language Film category for the 89th Academy Awards. Yemen is a first-time entrant.

The 2016 submissions are:

Albania, “Chromium,” Bujar Alimani, director;

Algeria, “The Well,” Lotfi Bouchouchi, director;

Argentina, “The Distinguished Citizen,” Mariano Cohn, Gastón Duprat, directors;

Australia, “Tanna,” Bentley Dean, Martin Butler, directors;

Austria, “Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe,” Maria Schrader, director;

Bangladesh, “link=tt5510934 auto]The Unnamed[/link],” Tauquir Ahmed, director;

Belgium, “The Ardennes,” Robin Pront, director;

Bolivia, “Sealed Cargo,” Julia Vargas Weise, director;

Bosnia and Herzegovina, “Death in Sarajevo,” Danis Tanovic, director;

Brazil, “Little Secret,” David Schurmann, director;

Bulgaria, “Losers,” Ivaylo Hristov, director;

Cambodia, “Before the Fall,” Ian White, director;

Canada, “It’s Only the End of the World,” Xavier Dolan, director;

Chile, “Neruda,” Pablo Larraín, director;

China, “Xuan Zang,” Huo Jianqi, director;

Colombia, “Alias Maria,” José Luis Rugeles, director;

Costa Rica, “About Us,” Hernán Jiménez, director;

Croatia, “On the Other Side,...

Eighty-five countries have submitted a film for consideration in the 60th anniversary year of the foreign language film category.

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Science said on Tuesday that this season also marks the first time Yemen has submitted a film, Khadija Al-Salami’s I Am Nojoom, Age 10 And Divorced.

The 89th Oscars will take place on February 26, 2017, at the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center in Hollywood. László Nemes’ Hungarian entry Son Of Saul won the award last February.

Foreign-language Academy Award Submissions

(Country, Title, director)

Albania, Chromium, dir Bujar Alimani;

Algeria, The Well, Lotfi Bouchouchi;

Argentina, The Distinguished Citizen, Mariano Cohn, Gastón Duprat;

Australia, Tanna, Bentley Dean, Martin Butler;

Austria, Stefan Zweig: Farewell To Europe, Maria Schrader;

Bangladesh, The Unnamed, Tauquir Ahmed;

Belgium, The Ardennes, Robin Pront;

Bolivia, Sealed Cargo, Julia Vargas Weise;

Bosnia and Herzegovina, Death In Sarajevo, Danis Tanovic;

Brazil, Little Secret, David Schurmann.

Bulgaria, Losers, [link...

Read More: 5 Must-See Latin American Films When Ecuadorian filmmaker Diego Araujo was growing up in the eighties and nineties, his country would produce around one good movie a year. More recently, however, that figure has risen to at least a dozen. This week's inaugural edition of the Ecuadorian Film Festival in New York (Effny) provides a window into that emerging renaissance. Ecuadorian cinema has been on the rise in the last decade and a half. This surge can perhaps be traced to the breakout hit, "Ratas, ratones, rateros," the 1999 directorial debut of Sebastián Cordero — the country's most famous filmmaker — and Edoc, the all-documentary film festival that just completed its 14th edition in May. When it started in 2002, Edoc screened only four Ecuadorian films; the 2015 edition contained 13, along with a record attendance of 15,730 guests in Quito. The Effny opens with Dario Aguirre's touching documentary "César's...

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...

Recently during the 67th Edition of the Cannes Film Festival, Cinema23, an association created in 2012 to promote Latin American, Spanish and Portuguese film culture, announced the Fénix Film Awards (Premio Iberoamericano de Cine Fénix). This unique event will take place for the first time in Mexico City in October 2014.

The Mexican actor, director and producer Gael García Bernal (in absentia because of his duties on the jury for Cannes Competition), Portuguese director and actress Maria de Medeiros, Brazilian actress Alice Braga, Spanish actress Paz Vega and Mexican actress Ana de la Reguera, presented the Fénix Film Awards to the international media as one of the key strategies of Cinema23 to provide visibility and recognition of the cinema made in the region.

“There is great variety in our region´s cinema with different forms and languages that in many cases reflect part of who we are. However we are not always able to enjoy it in our own countries, much less worldwide. The activities carried out by Cinema23 aim to develop a closer engagement between the filmmakers and their audiences. It is extremely important to have more visibility in order to gain recognition for the diversity of cinema. This is the premise under which we organized the Fénix Film Awards, commented Ricardo Giraldo, Director of Cinema23.

Ana de la Reguera added: “We have great talent in the region, but it is barely known outside film festivals; it’s important to find another way to reach a broader audience and I believe the Fénix Film Awards is a great strategy and opportunity to achieve it.”

“It is very important for us to get together, allowing us to get closer to the work of our colleagues in order to discover, meet and recognize the voices that make us so different. A celebration like this one opens up a space for us to meet and get to know each other. More importantly it will set the basis for a more profound way for us to share our ideas, create, and cooperate”, added Alice Braga.

María de Medeiros also mentioned: “We are creating a film community that has not existed till now. A community that aims to be inclusive by integrating not only those who make films but also those who study, promote, teach, distribute and exhibit films; so that we all help, support and communicate with each another, allowing our work to be shared both within and outside the region.”

Paz Vega commented: “Collaboration provides an opportunity for creative exchange that strengthens and nourishes our film culture. This collaboration and integration allows our industries to grow without losing their identity and create better opportunities. In the end, difference is what unites us.”

For the past two years, Cinema23 has been shaping a diverse film community from the 22 countries of the region and those who work closely with the region’s filmmaking. The tasks of this community include movie promotion, study, reviews, festivals, distribution, exhibition and filmmaking. The editorial project Cinema23 Notebooks, the conferences during festivals and the student program Classroom Cinema are developed throughout the year, seeking a creative, cultural and knowledge exchange between the different film cultures. These strategies are complemented and strengthened for the general audience through the Fénix Film Awards.

The Fénix Film Awards granted by more than 350 film professionals from Mexico, Latin America, USA, Europe and Canada, will award 12 categories and 4 special recognitions.

It is worth noting that the members of Cinema23 all have an active role in the selection, nomination and voting process for the Fénix Film Awards. Members include:

Karim Ainouz, Elena Anaya, José Carlos Avellar, Héctor Babenco, Luiz Carlos Barreto, Alice Braga, Brigitte Broch, Demián Bichir, Eugenio Caballero, Javier Cámara, Sebastián Cordero, Enrique Chediak, Alfonso Cuarón, Jonás Cuarón, María de Medeiros, Guillermo del Toro, Amat Escalante, Dolores Fonzi, Gael García Bernal, Daniel Giménez Cacho, Iván Giroud, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Salma Hayek, Carlos F. Heredero, Dolores Heredia, Pablo Larraín, Juan de Dios Larraín, Sebastián Lelio, Fernando León de Aranoa, Mónica Lozano, Emmanuel Lubezki, Diego Luna, Fernando Meirelles, Daniela Michel, Luis Miñarro, Wagner Moura, Bertha Navarro, Luis Ospina, Fito Páez, Marisa Paredes, Rodrigo Plá, Alejandro Ramírez, Édgar Ramírez, José Luis Rebordinos, Ana de la Reguera, Carlos Reygadas, José María Riba, Erica Rivas, Catalina Sandino, Ilda Santiago, Rodrigo Santoro, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Albert Serra, Juan Carlos Tabío, Paz Vega, Maribel Verdú & Monika Wagenberg.

Other international members that participate in the various activities of the association include:

Cameron Bailey (Artistic Director Toronto International Film Festival), Frederic Boyer (Artistic Director Tribeca Film Festival), Klaus Eder (President Fipresci), Robert Koehler (Film Critic), Claudia Landsberger (Vice-President Eye Film Institute) and Sydney Levine (Indiewire Blog Sydneys Buzz).

The award ceremony will be held in October 2014 in Mexico City and will be broadcast live on E! Entertainment Television to over 200 million people worldwide with the support of Mexico City’s Government.

To view Cinema23’s promotional video, click on the following link:

www.vimeo.com/81518414

To find out more about Cinema23 and the Fénix Film Awards please visit:

http://www.cinema23.com

About Cinema23

Cinema23 is an association created in 2012 to promote, support and raise awareness for the Latin American, Spanish and Portuguese film culture. It is formed by a diverse group of people with outstanding career trajectories from the film community mainly from the 22 countries of the region and those who work closely with the region’s filmmaking: directors, producers, actors, screenwriters, cinematographers, editors, art directors, sound designers, music composers, costume designers, festival directors and programmers, critics, researchers, distributors and film exhibitors.

Cinema23 seeks a more participative community amongst it members and provides a forum for creative and cultural exchange and cooperation among filmmakers from the region. Its yearly strategies and projects aim to promote and safeguard contemporary Ibero-American film culture, reaching new audiences, sharing ideas and enhancing the visibility and fostering the work of those who make films in Ibero-America.

About the Premio iberoamericano de cine Fénix®, (Fénix Film Awards)

The Fénix Film Awards is the key strategy to further Cinema23’s aims. It celebrates and emphasizes the work of film professionals, provides international visibility and strengthens bonds from the region’s film industry besides captivating and reaching a broader audience.

The first Fénix Film Awards’ gala will award 12 categories and 4 special recognitions. It will be held in October 2014 in Mexico City and will be broadcasted live on E! Entertainment Television to over 200 million people worldwide with the support of Mexico City’s Government.

The Academy Award nominations have been announced and cinephiles are scrambling to catch up on the Best Picture honorees before the big ceremony. Not everyone is a fan of Oscar, though. Perhaps you are already sick of hearing about the Wolf of Wall Street controversy or Matthew McConaughey's weight loss. If you prefer something a little more scary, silly, and/or gory than what the Academy Awards has to offer, here are nine comparable alternatives for horror fans.

Instead of: Gravity

Watch: Europa Report (2013)

While Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity is arguably a horror movie itself (and a gorgeous one at that), it was not the only critically-acclaimed space-terror film of last year. Sebastián Cordero directed an international cast of actors in this tense sci-fi/horror about a space crew seeking alien life on Jupiter's moon.  Just when we were all sick of found footage, Europa Report proved there is still life in the subgenre.

Genre: Horror | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Directors: Sebastián Cordero

Writer: Philip Gelatt (screenplay)

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Run Time: 90 minutes

Summary:

When unmanned probes suggest that a hidden ocean could exist underneath Europa’s icy surface and may contain single-celled life, Europa Ventures, a privately funded space exploration company, sends six of the best astronauts from around the world to confirm the data and explore the revolutionary discovery. After a near-catastrophic technical failure that leads to loss of communication with Earth and the tragic death of a crew member, the surviving astronauts must overcome the psychological and physical toll of deep space travel, and survive a discovery on Europa more profound than they had ever imagined.

I’m always a little bit timid around space thrillers like Europa Report, because I find the idea of space and its lack of gravity and replenish-able sustenance thrilling (in a scary way) enough. When you take...

Arriving on Blu-ray/DVD this week is Sebastián Cordero‘s found-footage sci-fi thriller Europa Report and to celebrate, we’ve teamed with Magnet Releasing to give away one (1) Blu-ray copy. Featuring Christian Camargo, Embeth Davidtz and Sharlto Copley on a mission to find life on Jupiter’s moon Europa, see how to enter below and all entries must be received [...]...

Just saw Gravity (Warner Bros. Worldwide) in 3D at the Arclight Hollywood, having missed its Gala Premiere in Toronto where the line to see even the Press and Industry screening wound around corners on the street, up stairs and around the theater interior like a snake. So glad to have seen it in the comfort of my own favorite theater. (Though Laemmle on Santa Monica in West L.A. is beginning to feel like home again too.)

It occurred to me how similar Europa Report (Isa: Sierra Affinity, U.S. Magnolia) was, although Gravity was like a water ballet in space and Europa Report was all inside the space ship. And Gravity had A list American actors while Europa Report had A list international thespians. You can read my blog on Europa Report at LatinoBuzz: Europa Report 31 July 2013 12:30 Pm, Pdt | Sydney's Buzz on Indiewire or on IMDbPro under Europa Report/ News Releases.

You can read the earlier L.A. Times articles on Europa Report here: Comic-Con: Modest ‘Europa Report’ gets San Diego’s biggest stage published on July 19, 2013 and here: Review: 'Europa Report' gets good mileage from low-budget sci-fi by Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times Film Critic.

Europa Report has just been issued in the home entertainment markets today according to L.A. Times by Magnolia on DVD for $26.98 or Blu-ray for $29.98 after opening theatrically August 2, 2013 in Los Angeles at the Sundance Sunset in West Hollywood, D.C. at the E Street Cinema and New York at the Cinema Village followed by a national roll-out. See playdates here.

L.A. Times Capsule Review:

Another example of the innovative, intelligent sci-fi films that have become blessedly frequent in recent years, director Sebastián Cordero's half-mockumentary/ half-found-footage work reconstructs a doomed space mission using "news reports," "interviews" and "on-ship surveillance recordings." The result feels a little drier than the typical interstellar thriller, but "Europa Report" also achieves a rare verisimilitude with its documentary re-creations. Even though it features recognizable actors (including Sharlto Copley, Michael Nyqvist and Embeth Davidtz), it looks like a real mission, which only adds to the drama when things start to go very wrong. The DVD and Blu-ray add deleted scenes and a featurette about the film's special effects.

Gravity opened this weekend and grossed $55,785,112 at 3,575 locations. Opening weekend for The Europa Report was $22,243 in 3 theaters. It grossed $125,475 in 9.4 weeks.

Really of interest to me however, is the genealogy of the two films. Alfonso Cuaron and Sebastian Cordero are joined like George Clooney and Sandra Bullock on these two very similar films.

Sebastián, an Ecuadorian whose two films, the 2004 Cronicas was produced by Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo del Toro, Isabel Dávalos, and Bertha Navarro, and Rabia, produced by Guillermo del Toro, have created their own exclusive cult fan clubs. The 2004 film Cronicas caused quite a stir among the acquisitions community and the cognoscenti of genre-art house films. It won the Sundance/ Nhk International Filmmakers Award in 2002, premiered in Cannes' Un Certain Regard, played Toronto, San Sebastian, Sundance and Rotterdam, sold worldwide and was picked up for U.S. by Chris Blackwell's Palm Pictures, thus confirming its cult status.

Rabia (Isa:Wild Bunch), a Spanish-Colombian coproduction premiered in 2009 at the Toronto Film Festival. His earlier film Ratas, Ratones, Rateros premiered in Venice in 1999, received over 12 international awards and played in more than 50 film festivals and Pescador, a Colombian-Ecuadorian coproduction won acting and directing awards at the Guadalajara Film Festival in 2012.

This was his first English language film in Hollywood. His cinematographer, Enrique Chediak, and production designer, Eugenio Caballero, have worked with him on three of his films. The production designer was excited to design a realistic space ship. Enrique liked the found footage idea which was still high tech, it did not have the degraded handheld effect you see in the current run of horror films. He liked the idea of working with limitations. He built a 360 degree set with eight cameras shooting continuously. It was very immersive. The cinematographer also liked the challenge.

The Production Designer, Eugenio Caballero, won the Academy Award for his work on Pan's Labyrinth. Enrique Chediak was named on Daily Variety's "10 Cinemagraphers to Watch" in 1999 and has not disappointed with his credits which include Danny Boyle's 127 Hours and was Cordero's cinematographer on Rabia.

As Guillermo del Toro and Alfonso Cuaron mentor Sebastian Cordero, he too is exploring the No. American terrain for movie making, though not at the major studio level. Cordero is creating a larger area, a newer terrain, combining Latin American talent with European talent with his own USC Film School mentality.

Gravity was a huge art film, combining a perspective on its side, upside down, spinning, slow motion on short stop-watched time lines, everything possible going wrong and survived by only one tough woman. So too in The Europa Report everything went wrong and only one woman survived. The Europa Report was the low budget version of Gravity, or Gravity, Jr. Both were told with a quietude and calmness that defies Hollywood High Tech Special Effects.

Europa Report

Written by Philip Gelatt

Directed by Sebastián Cordero

USA, 2013

The world’s collective attitude and passion towards deep space exploration has petered out in the last few decades, and nobody, it seems, is more peeved about this than the makers of Europa Report. With grandiose talk of profound discoveries and changing the context in which humanity perceives itself, the sci-fi found footage film clearly has a polemic in mind, but what it has to say, and how Europa Report says it, sometimes makes for a messy story.

The narrative itself centers around a group of six astronauts (Daniel Wu, Anamaria Marinca, Christian Camargo, Karolina Wydra, Sharlto Copley, and Michael Nyqvist) on board a mission to a moon in Jupiter’s orbit called Europa, hoping to find signs of life. Told through closed circuit cameras and personal camcorder footage found on the ship, which are interlaced with post-mission testimonials...

San Sebastian director details “personal obsession” to enhance industry days.

José Luis Rebordinos, director of the San Sebastián Film Festival, has revealed his “personal obsession” with establishing its industry strand a landmark event for the sector.

His statement of intent follows the launch of its industry days on Friday and marks the start of San Sebastian’s Films in Progress section. The strand will feature six unfinished Latin American films seeking finance that will be showcased to international players.

Also launching is the festival’s Co-Production Forum, where 16 projects are introduced to a wide range of producers, sales agents and distributors.

For the first time, both strands have been launched on the same day in a bid to give them a higher profile and an estimated 1,180 industry members have requested accreditation - a boost of more than 10% on 2012.

Bridge to South America

Both industry strands aim to provide a bridge between Europe and Latin America.

Films in Progress...

Music Composed and Produced by: Bear McCreary

Release Date: August 2, 2013

Formats: CD and Digital Download

Number of Discs: 1 (14 tracks, approx. 56 minutes)

Label: Sparks & Shadows

Overview:

About the Composer:

Bear McCreary‘s unique combination of atypical instrumental background (he is a professional accordionist) with rigorous classical training prepared him to compose for disparate genres. By the age of 24, McCreary was launched into pop culture history with his groundbreaking score to Syfy’s hit series Battlestar Galactica, for which he composed “the most innovative music on TV today” (Variety). It “fits the action so perfectly, it’s almost devastating: a sci-fi score like no other” (NPR). Io9.com declared Bear McCreary one of the Ten Best Science Fiction Composers of all time, listing him alongside legends John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith and Bernard Herrmann.

McCreary, who recently earned his second Emmy nomination for Da Vinci’s Demons, continues to write for the television show The Walking Dead.

"All these worlds are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landing there." There is a sci-fi film playing now that's one of the best in a long time. Similar to the upcoming Gravity, it's a film that might not even deserve the science fiction classification because it's much more science reality. The film is titled Europa Report, directed by Ecuadorian filmmaker Sebastián Cordero, and it involves a two-year long manned mission to Europa, Jupiter's sixth moon where many have theorized life might exist underneath miles of ice covering the surface. It's an excellent film that I've already seen multiple times and can't wait to watch again. Luckily, I was able to meet with Sebastián Cordero in person for a 17 minute chat about sci-fi and making this film. From a screenplay by Philip Gelatt, Europa Report features Christian Camargo, Anamaria Marinca, Michael Nyqvist, Daniel Wu, Karolina Wydra & Sharlto Copley as a six-man...

Exclusive: The Match Factory has signed a raft of deals for Sam Garbarski’s Vijay And I and David Wnendt’s Wetlands ahead of their world premieres in Locarno.

Garbarski’s romantic comedy, starring Patricia Arquette, Moritz Bleibtreu and Danny Pudi, has been sold to the Cis and Baltic states (Project Manometr) and Taiwan (Encore Film), with negotiations currently underway for “a number of territories“, including Italy and Korea.

The world premiere of the Belgium-Luxembourg-Germany co-production is due to be held on Locarno’s Piazza Grande open-air venue on Thursday evening (Aug 8) after the presentation of a Pardo alla carriera to Italian actor-director Sergio Castellitto, who starred in Vijay And I co-producer Pandora Film’s Mostly Martha which premiered on the Piazza Grande in 2001.

In addition, sales have been finalised on Wnendt’s Wetlands to Switzerland (Filmcoopi), Austria (Filmladen) and for a pan-Scandinavian deal (Future Film), with further deals under negotiation.

The adaptation...

Warning: This portion of the interview is All spoilers. Do not continue on if you have not seen “Europa Report!” Now that you’ve gotten loads of development and production details from part one of our interview with director Sebastián Cordero and have seen his film, “Europa Report,” it’s time to unveil the portion of our chat during which Cordero delves into the nitty gritty of putting together that big, bold ending. No use in offering up a synopsis of the film here because if you’ve made it this far, you better have seen it, so without further ado, check out what Cordero had to say about committing to the chosen [ Read More ]

The post Spoiler Interview: Europa Report Director Sebastián Cordero (Part 2) appeared first on Shockya.com.

Title: Europa Report Directed By: Sebastián Cordero Starring: Michael Nyqvist, Sharlto Copley, Embeth Davidtz, Daniel Wu, Christian Camargo, Karolina Wydra, Anamaria Marinca “Europa Report” is a highly effective documentary-style piece that puts you in the heart of a deep space mission, letting you feel the thrill and then, ultimately, the utter terror. The film focuses on Europa Ventures’ privately funded mission to the Jupiter moon. The company recruits a team of six astronauts and tasks them with documenting the existence of single-celled life beneath Europa’s icy surface. All goes well during the lengthy deep space trek, but upon their arrival, a string of severe calamities puts the crew’s discoveries and [ Read More ]

The post Europa Report Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

The year 2013 has been a surprisingly bad one for intelligent science fiction, save for one stellar exception. Sure, it's been an alright year for action movies tinged with sci-fi. If all you want are people talking into ear pieces between explosions, Star Trek Into Darkness, After Earth, Iron Man 3, Pacific Rim and Elysium certainly get that job done. If you want some actual science in your science fiction, though, the only 2013 movie (so far; Gravity is still coming) that delivers is Europa Report. And oh how it does deliver. Directed by Sebastián Cordero written by Philip Gelatt, and featuring a standout cast including Sharlto Copley, Michael Nyqvist, Christian Camargo,Embeth Davidtz and Anamaria Marinca, Europa Report...

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With the pressure to deliver on big time thrills and eye-popping CGI set pieces, multiplex sci-fi offerings frequently appear nearly brainless. While Sebastián Cordero’s “Europa Report” is far from flawless, this contained sci-fi thriller is shot through with a devotion to realism and a sense of wonder largely missing in films that overshadow it in terms of scale. Smartly utilizing found footage, here broadcast by a team of astronauts who have landed on Europa, one of the moons orbiting Jupiter, the film includes talking heads that hint ominously at the mission having gone wrong. Stemming from a discovery of water below the icy surface of the moon, the privately funded enterprise sees the team blast off to where no man has gone in hopes of uncovering basic forms of extraterrestrial life. However, when communications go out and strand the crew on a frozen rock with no earthly guidance, the...

Can’t wait a week for District 9 star Sharlto Copley to return to the science fiction genre with the much-touted Elysium? Then, good news — you don’t have to. From today, Copley can be seen on cinema screens in his other sci-fi film of the summer Europa Report, which is also available on iTunes and VOD.

Europa Report stars Copley and Michael Nyqvist (the original The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy) as members of a team of astronauts sent to explore the titular moon of Jupiter and was made by Ecuadorian director Sebastián Cordero in a single Brooklyn studio.

Sebastián Cordero made a movie about a team of astronauts searching for life on Jupiter’s moon Europa on a limited budget. He was bound to have stories to tell and, sure enough, ShockYa.com wound up sitting down with the director for a full 30 minutes to discuss everything from the early stages of the process to building his sets, editing footage from eight different cameras, the film’s astonishing ending, and more. In an effort to tempt you to see the film, but not spoil the prime element that makes it a truly unforgettable adventure, we’re splitting up the interview into two sections. Part two will feature Cordero discussing the film’s [ Read More ]

The post Interview: Europa Report Director Sebastián Cordero (Part 1) appeared first on Shockya.com.

As much as a Sci-Fi film full of laser cannons, ferocious aliens, and non-stop action can be tremendously fun, there’s also a very intelligent and explorative nature about the genre. The whole idea of people sacrificing their lives to drive around space for nothing but a picture or rock sample shows the dedication humans have to advancing their knowledge, and the courage people possess that pushes them farther and farther. Europa Report is a brilliant little space exploration flick about a team of scientists going blindly into the unknown all in the name of science – and the challenges they face.

I know it seems overdone, but I actually found the film to be highly thought provoking, plenty full of dramatic tension, and brilliantly acted by all involved. It’s no wonder why I jumped at the chance to interview director Sebastián Cordero in a one on one setting, letting...

Ecuadorian filmmaker Sebastián Cordero has a handful of titles on his directing resume, the best known probably 2004's John Leguizamo-starring non-comic journalist drama Cronicas. All of his films have been in Spanish and none venturing into what we would commonly call "genre cinema." Therefore, the decision to hire Cordero for what has repeatedly been referred to as a "hard sci-fi" project may seem a bit out of left field. The decision, as it turns out, was a wise one. Cordero brings a well-tuned human element to this space exploration drama that succeeds on the strength of the performances and interactions between characters. Though the storytelling gets more than a bit mushy in the editing room, ultimately Europa Report gets it right and provides a very...

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

Award-winning Ecuadorian filmmaker Sebastián Cordero is a master of contained, psychological thrillers and a lifelong science fiction fan. His first English-language film, Europa Report, is a unique documentary-style sci-fi thriller that follows an ill-fated mission to Jupiter’s icy moon Europa to investigate the possible existence of alien life within our solar system. Opening August 2nd, the film features an impressive international cast that includes Daniel Wu, Sharlto Copley, Christian Camargo, Karolina Wydra, Michael Nyqvist, Anamaria Marinca, Embeth Davidtz, Isiah Whitlock, Jr., and Dan Fogler. In our exclusive interview, Cordero talked about his early interest in sci-fi, how Crónicas led to directing this, how casting director Avy Kaufman opened up a lot of possibilities, how he consulted with the Jet Propulsion Lab and Space X on the ship’s design and ensured the film was grounded in realistic science, his collaboration with Dp Enrique Chediak and production designer Eugenio Caballero...

Europa Report, a feature film by Ecuadorian director, Sebastián Cordero, was so impressive. On a personal note (not to brag…), my niece is exploring alien life in the form of starfish at the Stanford Marine Station in Monterey as the subject of her Nasa- funded PhD program, so this movie about exploring alien life in a watery environment touches close to home for me. In addition, I am very interested in Ecuador as a filmmaking country (or a non-filmmaking country) whose revenues from homegrown cinema has grown 300% in 2012, so I did something I rarely undertake, I interviewed the filmmaker.

Sebastián Cordero was in L.A. for ten days after attending Comic-Con and stayed through last night's Kcrw Special L.A. Screening at the Landmark Theater on Pico Blvd. Today he left for NYC. Magnet Releasing will release the film theatrically on August 2 and it is available now on VOD.

Europa Report opens this Friday, August 2, 2013 in Los Angeles at the Sundance Sunset in West Hollywood, D.C. at the E Street Cinema in Washington, and New York at the Cinema Village this Friday and will be followed by a national roll-out. See playdates here.

Attending Comic-Con was a great experience for Sebastián. He says that the L.A. Times coverage describes the experience very well and definitely gave the film a boost in fandom. The panel at Comic-Con's largest venue was unique for Sebastián, an Ecuadorian whose two films, the 2004 Cronicas produced by Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo del Toro, Isabel Dávalos, and Bertha Navarro, and Rabia have created their own exclusive cult fan clubs. Rabia (Isa:Wild Bunch), a Spanish-Colombian coproduction premiered in 2009 at the Toronto Film Festival. The 2004 film Cronicas caused quite a stir among the acquisitions community and the cognoscenti of genre-art house films. It won the Sundance/ Nhk International Filmmakers Award in 2002, premiered in Cannes' Un Certain Regard, played Toronto, San Sebastian, Sundance and Rotterdam, sold worldwide and was picked up for U.S. by Chris Blackwell's Palm Pictures, thus confirming its cult status. His earlier film Ratas, Ratones, Rateros premiered in Venice in 1999, received over 12 international awards and played in more than 50 film festivals and Pescador, a Colombian-Ecuadorian coproduction won acting and directing awards at the Guadalajara Film Festival in 2012.

The Europa Report team's Comic-Con presentation included scientists from Jpl which lent real-life credentials to the film as they discussed the movie in front of 6,000 interested people who knew very little about the film until then. The mythology of Europa is well known to sci–fi fans from its prominence in Stanley Kubrick's classic 2001: A Space Odyssey and its sequel 2010: Odyssey Two, but the general public is not aware of it. The movie in fact seems poised somewhere between Nasa and Star Trek.

The dreamy calmness of professionals in an extraordinary mix of talents in the movie itself mirrors the mix of talents that went into the making of this piece of cinema. No wonder it was previewed at Comic-Com. It seemed incongruous to the mega-size this event has become. It would be nice to know that it was the sleeper hit of Comic-Con and of the summer season. We shall see as it opens this week. Even if it proves too intellectual for the masses, its credit to Team Sebastian Cordero will stand the test of time. It takes a filmmaker from Eucador to probe our collective curiosity about life on Europa, the moon of Jupiter most likely to contain life.

While I do not agree 100% with the review by Carlos Aguilar in Filmophilia today, I find his review the most intelligent of all I have read to date.

Europa Report could be called a Latino film which illustrates the draw Hollywood independent filmmaking holds on filmmakers from our South American continent. Reading the bios of the production team and the bios of the cast further illuminates this luminescent film, put together primarily by men but casting both the main interlocutor and the chief of the mission as women: Embeth Daviitz who plays Dr. Unger, the chief of the mission was the Jewish maid who survives both the abuse and attraction of Ralph Fiennes' sadistic commander 'Goeth' in Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List and costars with Gabriele Byrne in In Treatment, was in Mad Men and Californication.

How did producer Ben Browning find you after he developed the script?Ben had seen Rabia and Cronicas…both were very different from this, dealing with social issues, told as social realism, but Rabia is 90% told while the protagonist is hiding in a house, where the claustrophobia and tension might be points of reference for this film.

You usually make films about social issues, what was it about this film that attracted you? I am an actor's director. I need a good story and a good script but one major aspect of this film for me was its six characters. It was a challenge to put together a great cast and give them one space in which to act. I liked the story and the real science behind it. There have been no significant manned explorations of space since the Apollo expeditions in the 70s. I did lots of research, and we had great science advisors.

I was an unusual choice, but I felt an immediate connection to the project.

You seem to have gathered an award winning production team for casting, cinematography, production design, music and sound design.I had a great team. It is my first English language film in Hollywood. My cinematographer, Enrique Chediak, and production designer, Eugenio Caballero, have worked with me on three of my films.

The production designer was excited to design a realistic space ship. Enrique liked the found footage idea which was still high tech, it did not have the degraded handheld effect you see in the current run of horror films. I had been unsure of his reactions to such limitations in the project, but he actually liked them. He built a 360 degree set with eight cameras shooting continuously. It was very immersive. The cinematographer also liked the challenge.

(Editor: Production designer, Eugenio Caballero, won the Academy Award for his work on Pan's Labyrinth. Enrique Chediak was named on Daily Variety's "10 Cinemagraphers to Watch" in 1999 and has not disappointed with his credits which include Danny Boyle's 127 Hours.)

What about the cast of international actors?Casting international actors was also exciting. They are not not huge stars but they are the top thespians in their countries.

(Sydney, the blogger here: Wednesday's news that casting directors will get their own branch in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, puts this film's casting director, Avy Kaufman, in line for an Oscar for sure.)

Producer Tod Browning interjects here that casting actors from all over the world was also a key part of the film's financing plan. "Each of these actors brought value in territories we were able to pre-sell based on their involvement. Michael [Nyqvist] and Anamaria [Marinca] are very popular in Europe and Daniel Wu is a major star in Asia which allowed us to secure Chinese distribution up front", Browning says. (The international sales agent is Nick Meyers' Sierra Affinity.)

Back to Sebastian: When Michael Nyqvist (who played Andrei Blok) came on board, that made the project attractive to others. I wanted him, not just because of his work in the Millennium series, but because of his other work with Lukas Moodyson (Together).

Anamaria Marinca (who played Rosa Dasque), the actress from Romania's 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days, (which won the Palme d'Or at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival) was not an obvious choice and I was unsure of what her reaction would be, but she said, Are you kidding? She said she loved having such an offer. No one ever offered her a role in a science fiction film before.

What about you? Do you like the lure of Hollywood? Do you want to make more films here?I am torn between two worlds.

I want to continue in both places. I enjoy Hollywood but I know, during the time of Cronicas there was a moment when I was being offered projects but in the end, nothing happened, and I understand the process now. Here when a project falls apart, all the work you have put into it is for nothing - it might waste six months of intense work. In Ecuador I have confidence that any film I am working on will eventually be made.

But I am also interested in working in the U.S. There are a lot more resources here, but it must be good project. I am looking for projects here, but I generate my own material in Ecuador. Here, when a project falls apart here all the work is for nothing.

I am now working on a film to shoot early next year in Ecuador, Sin muertos, no hay carnaval, which literally means Without the Dead, There is No Carnival. However, its English language working title is Such is Life in the Tropics. It is about property management, and more specifically about a squater as told from many perspectives. Its strong script is written by the actor in Cronicas who is also a producer in another film.

Thank you Sebastian. I wish you great success with this film and with your career. And I thank Ben Browning for undertaking this exciting project and bringing it to life.

Sebastian Cordero spent his childhood in Ecuador where he was born, his teenage years in Paris and his college years in Los Angeles, where he studied at USC's Filmic Writing program. He seems to be building a team much the way Clint Eastwood has. And like Clint Eastwood, the lure of Hollywood with its ease of procuring resources and the necessary filmmaking tools is tempered by the continuous lower budgeted filmmaking using international Iberoamerican coproductions to finance the films.

About Wayfare Entertainment:

In May 2013 New York-based Wayfare Entertainment announced its rebranding as Start Motion Pictures. Parent company Start Media LLC is unifying its branding and operations as its portfolio of entertainment and media holdings grows. Wayfare Entertainment was set up five years ago by Ben Browning and Start Media CEO Michael Maher and has produced and fully financed films that have grossed over $130 million worldwide. Wayfare’s past films include Universal’s Sanctum produced with James Cameron, the Focus Features’ drama It's Kind Of A Funny Story, Neil Jordan’s Ondine, and Sebastian Cordero's space thriller Europa Report to be released by Magnolia Pictures in summer 2013 and being sold internationally by Nicolas Meyer's Sierra Affinity.

Upcoming Wayfare projects include an adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book for Disney; the recently announced Passengers, to star Keanu Reeves and Reese Witherspoon; and a development slate including Josh Zetumer’s Villain, an adaptation of Matt Westrup’s award winning creature short The Gate and the Princess Diana conspiracy thriller Inquest. With a slate like this, it is no wonder Comic-Con was interested in showcasing Europa Report.

Start Media is a privately held media company with interests in exhibition, publishing, and technology. Start Media is acquiring and building content-driven companies well positioned to capitalize on value dislocations emerging from the rapid evolution of media and media consumption. In late 2012 Start Media partnered with exhibitor Digiplex Destinations, an industry pioneer and champion of digital conversion and alternative cinema content, to aggressively grow the Digiplex footprint to 1000 screens in the top 100 markets. The acquisition of UltraStar Cinemas earlier this year was the first acquisition of the partnership. Wayfare’s staff, upcoming film slate and film library will be folded into Start Motion Pictures, which will continue normal business operations producing and financing feature films. Browning will be the President of Start Motion Pictures.

Deep space thrillers tend to sidestep logic in favor of nightmarish dread. Last year's summer hit "Prometheus" featured an impossible near future in which travel to extrasolar planets was an easily obtainable goal and envisioned a complex world of predatory aliens and zombie viruses. By contrast, Sebastián Cordero's "Europa Report" is practically a documentary, presenting a chilling space mission gone wrong in fairly believable terms. Using the familiar approach of found footage to chronicle an ill-fated mission to Jupiter's icy moon Europa, Cordero's movie has many of the same ingredients found in "Prometheus" and precedents like "Alien," but roots them in a realistic science basis. The result is both subdued by the standards of the genre and more intriguing because of its window into an event possibly closer than it looks. As with "Prometheus," Cordero's story involves a wealthy company's decision to finance a deep space search for life,...

Do you think the found footage format is tapped? Do you think you’ve seen it all? You’ve got to check out Sebastián Cordero’s “Europa Report.” The film focuses on a mission to Europa, a moon of Jupiter with the potential to sustain alien life. The trip to the Galilean moon is long, but successful with the five-person shuttle team making it to their destination in one piece. However, upon getting closer to their target zone, one technical malfunction opens the floodgates to a variety of unexpected discoveries and serious problems, too, one of which takes quite the toll on Karolina Wydra’s character, the mission’s marine biologist. After hitting Hall H [ Read More ]

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The first clip has arrived for the sci-fi thriller Europa Report, starring Sharlto Copley, Michael Nyqvist, Christian Camargo and Daniel Wu.

Europa Report follows a contemporary mission to Jupiter's moon Europa to investigate the possible existence of alien life within our solar system. When unmanned probes suggest that a hidden ocean could exist underneath Europa's icy surface and may contain single-celled life, Europa Ventures, a privately funded space exploration company, sends six of the best astronauts from around the world to confirm the data and explore the revolutionary discoveries that may lie in the Europan ocean. After a near-catastrophic technical failure that leads to loss of communication with Earth and the tragic death of a crewmember, the surviving astronauts must overcome the psychological and physical toll of deep space travel, and survive a discovery on Europa more profound than they had ever imagined.

Europa Report comes to theaters August 2nd,...

Cut off from contact with Earth, one crew member dead and bound for unknown territory: Jupiter's moon of Europa, where ice and potential life may exist.

The six astronauts at the core of Sebastián Cordero's new independent sci-fi adventure "Europa Report" have some big challenges ahead of them, but even greater feats of derring-do were performed by the cast and crew during our visit to the set in December 2011. It was Day 16 of a very brisk 18-day shoot at the newly christened Cine Magic Stages in Riverfront Studios at the edge of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and some scary stuff was afoot.

1. A Spaceship in Brooklyn

This is not something you see every day, but the filmmakers built this three-story marvel from scratch. We enter it via a climb-up on a gantry that was, by the way, not secured to anything, making it the wobbliest, scariest steps any of us had ever experienced.

Ever since that horrendous excuse for a film Apollo 18, I’ve seriously soured on the whole “found footage” horror aspect being used in space. Seriously, alien rocks and sleeping astronauts? Thankfully I don’t have to launch into another rant about underutilized “found footage” astronomical horrors though, because Europa Report was an intelligently planned-out slow burn thriller which utilized every bit of claustrophobic atmosphere and focused on the unknown for an infinitely more enjoyable experience. Focusing on the unknown through man’s always increasing curiosity, the horrors came from the boundaries we’re willing to push in order to make that next great discovery – not some baddie in a rubber suit running around munching on crew members.** Please note spoilers will follow!**

In the not so distant future, a team of astronauts embark on a mission to not only travel farther into deep space than anyone before them, but...

Deep space thrillers tend to sidestep logic in favor of nightmarish dread. Last year's summer hit "Prometheus" featured an impossible near future in which travel to extrasolar planets was an easily obtainable goal and envisioned a complex world of predatory aliens and zombie viruses. By contrast, Sebastián Cordero's "Europa Report" is practically a documentary, presenting a chilling space mission gone wrong in fairly believable terms. Using the familiar approach of found footage to chronicle an ill-fated mission to Jupiter's icy moon Europa, Cordero's movie has many of the same ingredients found in "Prometheus" and precedents like "Alien," but roots them in a realistic science basis. The result is both subdued by the standards of the genre and more intriguing because of its window into an event possibly closer than it looks. As with "Prometheus," Cordero's story involves a wealthy company's decision to finance a deep space search for life,...

Many films have tackled the question of whether we’re alone in the universe, but instead of having looming space ships hover over earth or astronauts coming into contact with terrifying beings from other planets, Europa Report presents the much more likely concept of signs of life on one of Jupiter’s moons. The Europa Report was a mission that brought together an elite group of international scientists, engineers, and a pilot who wanted to go further than anyone had before to explore that moon and see if there were signs of life developing on (or under) the surface. When those in charge of the mission on the ground report that the exploratory crew went missing for nearly a year after all communication suddenly went dark, the mystery of what happened up there finds the spotlight. The narrative then switches perspective to the ship where those on board decide to continue with the mission, even...

According to the first trailer for Sebastián Cordero’s “Europa Report”, things go very wrong and the characters become S.O.L. as a result, though you wouldn’t know that if you only saw this new extended 2-minute clip from the movie. I’m guessing this is the calm before the storm. Hopefully there is a storm or else this will be a very dull movie, and no one wants that. Take a gander, take a ganderers. A unique blend of documentary, alternative history and science fiction thriller, Europa Report follows a contemporary mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa to investigate the possible existence of alien life within our solar system. When unmanned probes suggest that a hidden ocean could exist underneath Europa’s icy surface and may contain single-celled life, Europa Ventures, a privately funded space exploration company, sends six of the best astronauts from around the world...

Ecuadorian filmmaker Sebastián Cordero has a handful of titles on his directing resume, the best known probably 2004's John Leguizamo-starring non-comic journalist drama Cronicas. All of his films have been in Spanish and none venturing into what we would commonly call "genre cinema." Therefore, the decision to hire Cordero for what has repeatedly been referred to as a "hard sci-fi" project may seem a bit out of left field. The decision, as it turns out, was a wise one. Cordero brings a well-tuned human element to this space exploration drama that succeeds on the strength of the performances and interactions between characters. Though the storytelling gets more than a bit mushy in the editing room, ultimately Europa Report gets it right and provides a...

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

Title: Europa Report Magnet Director: Sebastián Cordero Screenwriter: Philip Gelatt Cast: Michael Nyqvist, Embeth Davidtz, Daniel Wu, Anamaria Marinca Screened at: Review 1, NYC, 6/12/13 Opens: August 2, 2013, on demand June 27, 2013 They say that traveling is broadening, yet most people in the world may have never left their villages, let alone their countries . Do you remember how you felt the first time you went a couple of hundred miles outside your neighborhood? If you’re urban, you recall the first time you saw cows in a huge, empty field. If you’re from a small town, you’re amazed at the sights and sounds of New York. If you’ve [ Read More ]

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2013 is the year of such films like Joseph Kosinski.s Oblivion, Sebastián Cordero.s Europa Report and Alfonso Cuarón.s Gravity, which proves that space travel is back to hovering around the forefront of the American psyche. (And that.s not even bringing up J.J Abrams projects.) Science and space funding will take a big hit next year, so it.s a good time to appreciate Nasa for the amazement they.ve instilled in us over the years. With that out of the way, now we can talk about the people behind the scenes that allowed parts of that amazement to exist. Deadline reports Warner Bros. tapped U.K. transplant Richard Cordiner to write a screenplay based on Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo, written by Nicholas de Monchaux, which tracks the unlikely source for the spacesuits of the Apollo program. Spacesuit tells the unique true story of how a ...

The first trailer for Europa Report has been launched onto the Internet, and the film looks quite promising. Shot in half documentary style and half narrative, the movie follows a near-future mission to Jupiter’s moon, Europa, in search of extraterrestrial life. From the trailer, the film looks to be of extremely high quality and you can’t help but notice the score by composer Bear McCreary (Battlestar Galactica, Walking Dead, Eureka). Its nice to see a smaller-scale science fiction movie released this summer, one that seems realistic — and harrowing. Sebastián Cordero directs and Sharlto Copley stars along side Michael Nyqvist, Christian Camargo, Daniel Wu, Anamaria Marinca, Isiah Whitlock Jr. And Karolina Wydra. Europa Report comes to theaters August 2nd, 2013. Watch the trailer below. Enjoy!

Back in November last year, we saw a very intriguing first teaser trailer for The Europa Report, a sci-fi thriller movie led by District 9’s Sharlto Copley.

At the time, we weren’t sure exactly when to expect it to hit theatres. But with Magnet since setting the film’s release date for this summer, hitting VOD in June and theatres in August, the first full-length trailer has been released, and it has us even more intrigued.

A unique blend of documentary, alternative history and science fiction thriller, Europa Report follows a contemporary mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa to investigate the possible existence of alien life within our solar system. When unmanned probes suggest that a hidden ocean could exist underneath Europa’s icy surface and may contain single-celled life, Europa Ventures, a privately funded space exploration company, sends six of the best astronauts from around the world...