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Through the story of the religious leader Papá Liborio, Nino Martínez Sosa’s 2021 film Liborio deftly contends with the cultural, spiritual, and political forces of a colonized Dominican Republic. After establishing a Black, self-sufficient community in the rural hills of the San Juan province of the Dominican Republic, Liborio and his followers endured pressures and pushback from the government and occupying U.S Marine forces. The dramatic changes that took place in the D.R. during the early twentieth century revolve around the struggle for independence and power.

Ahead of the film’s screening from February 24-28 at NYC’s Mishkin Gallery, I spoke to Sosa about what it was like to research and shoot this film in the remote mountain villages where Liborism is still practiced today, the effect of colonialism throughout the Caribbean, and how cinema can be a tool for inspiring empathy and change.

The Film Stage:...

Sales talks to commence at EFM later this month.

Berlin-based sales company Pluto Film Distribution Network has acquired worldwide sales rights to Panamanian-Costa Rican director Kattia G. Zúñiga’s feature directorial debut Sister & Sister (Las Hijas), which gets its world premiere at SXSW next month.

Pluto Film will launch sales at EFM later this month on the story, which stars newcomers Ariana Chaves Gavilán and Cala Rossel Campos as sisters who travel from Costa Rica to Panama during the summer holidays in search of their absent father.

As the girls deal with tensions that arise between them, they find space to explore their desires,...

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.

Clean (Paul Solet)

Hard-edged, old-fashioned, and anchored by a sturdy movie star performance from Adrien Brody, Clean plays well as a socially-tinged vigilante thriller. Directed by Paul Solet (from a script he co-wrote with Brody), the film moves fast and rises above certain genre tropes. Brody plays Clean, a garbage man seeped in the sins of his past. In the opening minutes, he goes about his day: driving his early morning route before retiring to his industrial dwelling wherein he retrieves abandoned machines from a junkyard and brings them back to life. The resurrected results he sells to local pawnbroker Kurtis. – Dan M. (full review)

Where to Stream: VOD

The Fallout (Megan Park)

Quite literally saved by her little sister Amelia, school...

German sales company Pluto Film is under new ownership following its sale by founders and former CEOs Heino Deckert and Torsten Frehse to Daniela and Benjamin Cölle.

Deckert and Frehse, who established the Berlin-based shingle in 2015, are stepping down to focus on the activities of their respective companies, the Leipzig-based production shingle Maja.de and Berlin film distributor Neue Visionen.

The new husband and wife team will head Pluto Film as co-CEOs, with Daniela Cölle also serving as head of acquisitions. Cölle has worked at the company since its launch, initially as festival manager.

“We are very thankful to Torsten and Heino for trusting in us as new owners and CEOs,” she said. “We believe in engaging global cinema by emerging talents, both arthouse and cross-over. We are devoted to bringing quality feature films to the international market and worldwide audiences.”

Benjamin Cölle previously worked as a creative producer and...

Mubi is kicking off the new year with a selection of our 2021 highlights, including some of which haven’t picked up proper distribution yet. Most notably, their own release, Alexandre Koberidze’s dazzling What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?, will premiere along with a New Voices in Georgian Cinema series. Also arriving is Salomé Jashi’s Taming the Garden, Ana Katz’s The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be Quiet, Alex Camilleri’s Luzzu, and Nino Martínez Sosa’s Liborio.

As part of a series of first films, they’ll also feature works from Janicza Bravo, Noah Baumbach, Garrett Bradley, Lucile Hadzihalilovic, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, Terry Gilliam, and more. A double bill of Federico Fellini classics, Nights of Cabiria and The White Sheik, will also come to the platform.

Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.

January 1 | Kicking & Screaming | Noah Baumbach | First Films First

January...

The story of a Swiss banker traveling Argentina during the junta, “Azor” takes place in the cloistered world of private banking. A world one is often born into, with special codes of conduct and dialect, private bankers prefer to operate out of public view – that’s why the banks endure and build fortunes over centuries while their criminal clients may rise and fall. Azor itself is a code word meaning “to not say too much” or “to keep one’s cards close,” a trait that the film and its protagonist so excel at, viewers will be kept guessing until the last moment.

Read More: ‘Liborio’: Nino Martínez Sosa’s Debut Is A Moving Drama About Belief [Nd/Nf Review]

Yvan de Wiel (Fabrizio Rongione) is a third-generation Swiss banker traveling to Argentina for the first time after the disappearance of his partner, Rene Keys.

Continue reading ‘Azor’: Andreas Fontana’s Debut...

“Liborio” invites viewers to the birth of a religion and asks them if they would believe. Based on a historical figure, albeit one with the dimensions of a folk hero, “Liborio” is set in the countryside of the Dominican Republic in the early 20th century. After being lost in a torrential storm and thought dead, a man (Vicente Santos) is found alive days later. He informs his community he has been to heaven and returned with a message to save the people. He is reborn as Liborio.

Summer 2021 Preview: Over 50 Movies To Watch

While his resurrection occurs earlier in his story, Liborio is a remarkably Christ-like figure whose profile in his community grows with a series of miracles, such as saving a child. Liborio preaches a simple and positive creed—out with the evil and in with the good—to his rural followers. He is a benevolent leader, never trying to fight,...

Depending on the storyteller, the early 20th century folk hero Olivorio Mateo (the Papá Liborio of the title), was a Creole saint or a dangerous cult leader. His origins are inauspicious: a farmer thought to be dead after a hurricane in San Juan de la Maguana in the Dominican Republic. After a Novena, he miraculously returns, claiming that he was in heaven and sent back to Earth by God.

Nino Martínez Sosa’s lush, beguiling Nd/Nf selection Liborio recounts his influence––but not with the focused purpose or literary density of a biopic. Despite an otherworldly and ominous prologue of his origins, Sosa’s filmmaking approach largely sidesteps a version of his truth, favoring both over the shoulder angles in its visual language and a historically informed, but cryptic structure.

After his return, Liborio’s reputation bloomed and he became the center of attention for his home village––a...

Directors included Ismaël and Youssef Chebbi, Nino Martínez Sosa, Karen Cinorre and Juja Dobrachkous.

“Fearless” filmmakers are forging a path to get international production back on its feet, according to a panel of Tiger Competition directors at International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR).

“I don’t think [the pandemic] will affect it at all – I think we’re going to be reaching out across the seas forever,” said US director Karen Cinorre, whose debut feature Mayday received its international premiere at IFFR following its worldwide launch at Sundance. “And I don’t see it stopping films today.

“My team [on Mayday] is travelling as we...

Set in turn-of-the-century Dominican Republic, “Liborio” received its world premiere at International Film Festival Rotterdam this week in the Tiger Competition.

The directorial feature debut of Madrid-based Dominican-born film editor Nino Martínez Sosa, the Spanish-language film tells the true story of Olivorio Mateo, a peasant who disappears into a hurricane and returns, it is claimed, with the power to cure the sick and take away evil.

The film takes place as the Caribbean Island was attempting to solidify its independence as well as fighting occupation by the U.S. Marines. During this time Mateo, known to his worshipers as “Papá Liborio” became a symbol of hope and freedom.

The feature, which is being repped by sales agent Pluto Film, is also produced by Sosa and producing partner Fernando Santos Diaz, whose credits include the acclaimed Dominican film “Cocote” – another tale of religious conflict in the Dominican Republic, which also shares many of the same cast,...

Rolling off a strong year for Scandinavian filmmaking, the virtual 44rd edition of the Goteborg Film Festival will kick off with Zaida Bergroth’s “Tove,” which will compete alongside Thomas Vinterberg’s “Another Round” and Ninja Thyberg’s “Pleasure,” among other Nordic pics.

Telling the story of one of Finland’s most beloved and inspiring artists, “Tove” broke box office records in Finland last year in spite of the pandemic, and now ranks as the highest grossing Finnish film in the last 40 years.

“Tove,” which is also Finland’s Oscar candidate, will be one of the seven films vying for the Dragon Award Best Nordic Film. The lineup comprises “Another Round,” one of the most prominent titles in Cannes 2020’s official selection, and “Pleasure,” which is set to world premiere at Sundance, as well as Ronnie Sandahl’s “Tigers,” Lisa Jespersen’s “Persona Non Grata,” Itonje Søimer Guttormsen’s “Gritt...

Looking for VeneraThe first titles for the International Film Festival Rotterdam's hybrid multi-part 50th edition program have been revealed. Under new festival director Vanja Kaludjercic, the newly-organized and extended IFFR 2021 will feature a new program structure, with competition sections to be presented between 1 – 7 February. The festival will resume again between 2 – 6 June with Bright Future (the festival's existing section dedicated to emerging film talent) and what will be the festival's latest and largest section, Harbour. In February the festival will also celebrate the 75th anniversary of Amsterdam's Eye Filmmusuem, while in June IFFR's own 50th year will be celebrated with a special anniversary program. Tiger COMPETITIONAgate mousse (Selim Mourad)Bebia, à mon seul désir (Juja Dobrachkous)Bipolar (Queena Li)Black MedusaA Corsican Summer (Pascal Tagnati)The Edge of Daybreak (Taiki Sakpisit)Feast (Tim Leyendekker)Friends and Strangers (James Vaughan)Gritt (Itonje Søimer Guttormsen)Landscapes of Resistance (Marta Popivoda)Liborio (Nino Martínez Sosa...

The Rotterdam International Film Festival (IFFR) has unveiled the line-up for its 50th edition, with the Mads Mikkelsen-starring Riders Of Justice set to open the fest.

You can see the full line-up below. The event has had to change its traditional format for 2021 due to ongoing pandemic disruption. It will now run as a two-stage event, initially with a hybrid showcase of films February 1-7, followed by a physical event June 2-6.

The flagship Tiger Competition has confirmed 16 titles, 14 of which are world premieres. There are a further 15 titles in the Big Screen competition, which looks to bridge the gap between popular and arthouse cinema, while the non-competitive Limelight section will feature 13 titles, most of which have played other festivals, such as Magnus von Horn’s Sweat and Jasmila Žbanić’s Quo Vadis, Aida?.

Anders Thomas Jensen’s dark comedy Riders Of Justice will be having its international premiere...

The 50th anniversary event will take place in February and June.

Danish director Anders Thomas Jensen’s comedy Riders Of Justice starring Mads Mikkelsen will open the 50th International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR). The festival is taking place as multi-part event from February to June 2021, with the first part running as hybrid festival from February 1-7. Organisers hope it will culminate in a physical event from June 2-6, 2021.

Some 60 titles spanning the Tiger Competition, Big Screen Competition and its Ammodo Tiger Shorts and Limelight sections are screening in February.

The festival’s flagship Tiger Competition will showcase 16 titles, which will...

Anders Thomas Jensen’s action comedy “Riders of Justice,” starring Mads Mikkelsen, will open the 50th International Film Festival Rotterdam. The festival will be staged in two parts this year: the first, in a hybrid format, running Feb. 1-7, and the second, hopefully a physical event, June 2-6. The awards ceremony will take place on Feb. 7.

In “Riders of Justice,” Mikkelsen plays Markus, a military man who returns home to look after his daughter Mathilde following his wife’s death in a train accident. At first it looks like she was the victim of a tragic piece of bad luck, but then mathematics geek Otto (Nikolaj Lie Kaas), a fellow passenger on the train, shows up with his two eccentric colleagues, Lennart (Lars Brygmann) and Emmenthaler (Nicolas Bro), and floats the theory of a possible murder conspiracy. The film plays in the Limelight section.

Jensen is Denmark’s top screenwriter,...