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What begins as a portrait of Argentinian art collective Mondongo snowballs into Mariano Llinás’s infuriatingly brilliant farrago of colour, conflict and existential crisis

About as inside-baseball for visual arts as you can get, Mariano Llinás’s three-part portrait of Argentinian art collective Mondongo is knackering, infuriating and, infuriatingly, often brilliant – especially in its more sincere second instalment. The film nominally tries to document Mondongo’s 2021 Baptistery of Colours project, in which the artists catalogued the chromatic spectrum with plasticine blocks inside a dodecahedron chapel. But it quickly snowballs into Llinás’s own scattershot inquiry into colour and portraiture, a tone poem that ceaselessly interrogates its own tones, a crisis of faith about representation, and – as he falls out with artists Juliana Laffitte and Manuel Mendanha – a droll depiction of a director’s nervous breakdown.

As Laffitte lets fly at him at one point, Llinás can never resist the urge...

Mining the same harrowing history as his Chilean and Latin American contemporaries (more recently El Conde) — from Argentina to Uruguay, Paraguay and beyond, Felipe Gálvez confronts the enduring shadow of Augusto Pinochet during his end days. Deadline reports that the filmmaker will direct Impunity, a spy thriller set in the late 1990s around the arrest of dictator Augusto Pinochet. Gálvez has quite the international producer backing for the sophomore film. We can’t wait for casting news.

Adapted by Gálvez, Mariano Llinás (must see 2018’s La Flor) and re-teaming with The Settlers scribe Antonia Girardi, this is based on the book 38 Londres Street by Philippe Sands, it follows an ex-spy hired to prevent the escape of the Chilean dictator after his capture in London unleashes geopolitical unrest.…...

Exclusive: Chilean writer-director Felipe Gálvez, whose debut feature The Settlers premiered in Cannes in 2023, has set his second feature film as Impunity, a spy thriller set in the late 1990s around the arrest of dictator Augusto Pinochet.

The film, which is based on the upcoming book 38 Londres Street by Philippe Sands, follows an ex-spy hired to prevent the escape of the Chilean dictator after his capture in London unleashes geopolitical unrest. Pinochet was indicted for human rights violations committed in Chile by former Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón before he was arrested in 1998 at the London Bridge hospital. He was held under house a rest for a year and a half before being released by the UK government in 2000.

Impunity is adapted by Gálvez, Mariano Llinás and Antonia Girardi and is produced by international outfit Rei Pictures and Quiddity in the UK, along with co-producers Les Films du Worso in Paris,...

“Focus the text” commands a translation app pop-up at the mid-point of Matías Piñeiro’s new experimental essay film You Burn Me. It’s a mantra that the Argentinian filmmaker has taken to heart. Using Sea Foam, a chapter from Cesare Pavese’s book Dialogues with Leucò, as a creative catalyst, Piñeiro envisions audiovisual dialogues between characters (Sappho and Britomartis), between actresses (María Villar and Gabriela Saidón), between filmmaker and text. As pertinent pages and mnemonic games unfold, repeat, and recontextualize, the spectatorial thrill of Godard’s Goodbye to Language comes to mind. This a formally bold, playful, reinvigorating work––a love letter to language both verbal and visual.

After a warmly received North American premiere at last year’s New York Film Festival, You Burn Me opens in the U.S. in limited theatrical release this week from Cinema Guild. I first saw the film last June, when it had a U.

Following Hermia & Helena and Isabella, Matías Piñeiro’s new film You Burn Me playfully, gorgeously adapts “Sea Foam,” a chapter in Cesare Pavese’s Dialogues with Leucò. Centered around fictional dialogue between the ancient Greek poet Sappho and the nymph Britomartis, Piñeiro’s latest is a feat of effervescent poetic beauty, melding poignant words with stunning images to a dizzying, transcendent effect. With the Berlinale and NYFF selection picked up by Cinema Guild for a release beginning next week, we’re pleased to exclusively debut the first trailer.

You Burn Me will open on Friday, March 7 at New York’s Anthology Film Archives, accompanied by a special series curated by Matías himself, including works by Michelangelo Antonioni, Danièle Huillet & Jean-Marie Straub, Mariano Llinas, and more. For those in Los Angeles, don’t miss the LA premiere on March 15 at American Cinematheque as part of a series featuring films by the director.

In this episode, we discuss cinema as an intense personal drive. Lila Avilés is a Mexican director who debuted in 2018 with La camarista, a film selected for the Toronto, San Sebastian, BFI and Morelia festivals. It was also nominated for the Goya Awards and received nine nominations and one Ariel Award.In 2023, she premiered her second feature film, Totem, as part of the Official Competition at the Berlinale, where it won the Ecumenical Jury Award. Totem was subsequently selected for festivals such as San Sebastian, Toulouse and Telluride. With acute sensitivity, her films expose the vitality, narrative richness and intimacy of minimal universes.On the other hand, Laura Citarella is an Argentine director and producer, co-founder of El Pampero Cine, one of the most prolific production companies in Argentina. Her work has been presented and awarded at festivals such as Rotterdam, Locarno, Venice and Cannes Directors’ Fortnight. She has produced...

The Gold Bug.To get to know El Pampero Cine, it would be best to start with their contradictions. Equally screen maximalists and minimalists, they have made some of the biggest small films of the past two decades: consider the ambitious, narrative-hopping epics for which they’re best known, such as La flor and Trenque Lauquen. The collective is impressive as much for the way they finance yearslong productions on shoestring budgets as for their expansive, Borgesian storytelling. Working largely with consumer-grade equipment and refusing most public financing, the spirit of El Pampero Cine is one of limitless creative possibility and roguish independence.Founded in 2002, the group consists of Mariano Llinás, Laura Citarella, Alejo Moguillansky, and Agustín Mendilaharzu, all of whom direct their own projects and work on each other’s in various creative roles. The group came together after the production of Llinás’s first feature, Balnearios (2002), in order to distribute that film,...

Every year, apart from its commitment to experimental forms, it’s Marseille’s very social contradictions that are most striking about the Festival international de cinéma de Marseille, or FIDMarseille. This is a film festival experience marked by the most ghastly signs of inequality, which one necessarily stumbles upon while schlepping from cinema to cinema: destitution, dillapitation, vandalism, garbage, class divisions. White people in air-conditioned screening rooms versus the racialized locals in the sorching heat outside. The city’s dilapidated walls are plastered with posters about the upcoming elections and Gaza.

It isn’t without interest, then, that some of the most memorable films from this year’s selection come from a context of institutional devastation, albeit from the other side of the world. That is, South America, where times of prosperity and democracy are like interludes between one coup d’état or authoritarian delirium and the next. Perhaps FIDMarseille...

Films by Pierre Creton, Ghassan Salhab and Mariano Llinás are among the line-up of the FIDMarseille international film festival in France (June 25-30).

The international competition features 13 world premieres and one international premiere, including Night Is Day from Lebanese filmmaker Salhab which chronicles the uprising in Lebanon.

French filmmaker Creton, who won the Sacd prize for best French-language feature at last year’s Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, co-directs with Vincent Barré on 7 Walks With Mark Brown, described as an essay on attention and friendship.

Also in competition is Kunst De Farbe from Argentina, 1985 screenwriter Llinás exploring themes of music, painting and cinema.

Chilean filmmaker Felipe Gálvez’s “The Settlers” is an incredible film by any measure. Still, it’s even more astonishing to consider when you see it as his directorial debut, which he wrote as well, with Antonia Girardi in collaboration with Mariano Llinás.

A stunning revisionist Western about colonialism, “The Settlers” is set In Chile in 1901, where three horsemen are paid to protect a vast estate.

Continue reading ‘The Settlers’ Director Felipe Gálvez On The Movies That Changed My Life at The Playlist.

Rodrigo Moreno's The Delinquents is screening exclusively on Mubi in many countries.The Delinquents.Words have no owner. They simply are. They live in the speakers of a language, but no one has possession of a verb or a noun. If anyone can come close to such ownership, it is an artist, who puts the word in a complex combination that is theirs alone. A filmmaker's material is not words—though some might say a shot is its equivalent—but rather the world. Through framing, cutting, and duration, the director makes a movie their own, yet what is shot does not obey the will of the filmmaker. The material of the world is the filmmaker's lyrics, and the world does not belong to them.The arrangement and rearrangement of material—whether of words or of the world when it is filmed—into new works of art can be linked...

Laura Citarella’s lengthy romantic conundrum refuses to tie up its many loose ends but her film-making language ensures that cult status beckons

Laura Citarella’s movie is a coolly unhurried four hours-plus, split into two parts of around two hours each; it is from the same producer, in fact, as Argentinian auteur Mariano Llinás’s legendary 13-and-a-half hour film La Flor. Compared with that, Trenque Lauquen – whose title means “round lake” and is a city in Buenos Aires province – is a mere cine-haiku; but it is still a domestic epic, a giant puzzle, a whopping solutionless mystery and a meandering shaggy dog story with a hint of Borges or As Byatt’s Possession. And Citarella might have mixed these influences with Lynch or even David Robert Mitchell’s divisive noir Under the Silver Lake. Yet for all its deadpan charm, there is something here which I couldn’t quite make friends with,...

Anti-colonialist western will receive North American premiere at TIFF.

Felipe Gálvez’s Cannes Un Certain Regard Fipresci winner The Settlers has been selected as Chile’s Oscar submission.

‘The Settlers’: Cannes Review

The anti-colonialist western will receive its North American premiere at TIFF next month and will play in the Main Slate at New York Film Festival.

The Settlers takes place in Chile at the start of the 20th century as a wealthy landowner hires three horsemen to mark the perimeter of his property and open a path across Patagonia to the Atlantic Ocean. The expedition, comprising a young Chilean mestizo,...

Chile on Wednesday named the anti-colonialist Western The Settlers from first-time feature filmmaker Felipe Gálvez as its official entry for Best International Feature at the 2024 Academy Awards.

The film coming off a Fipresci Prize win at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, where it played in Un Certain Regard, joins a list of entrants that includes Smoke Sauna Sisterhood (Estonia), The Teachers’ Lounge (Germany), Concrete Utopia (South Korea) and Thunder (Switzerland), as previously announced.

Following forthcoming screenings at the Toronto Film Festival and the New York Film Festival, the pic will be released theatrically in North America by Mubi, which also holds distribution rights for the UK, Latin America, Turkey, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Benelux, and India, and will unveil further details as to its release plans at a later date.

Written by Gálvez and Antonia Girardi, in collaboration with Mariano Llinás, The Settler is set in Chile at the beginning of the 20th century,...

Chilean filmmaker Felipe Gálvez, whose debut feature “The Settlers” premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, has signed with CAA for representation.

Set in 1901, “The Settlers” centers on Segundo, a mixed-race Chilean, who rides south on an expedition led by a former Boer War English captain and an American mercenary to fence off land granted to Spanish landowner José Menéndez. Their mission soon turns into a “civilizing” raid. Based on true events, the Western exposes a particularly brutal period of Chile’s colonial history and the genocide of Indigenous tribes.

“I love to be controversial,” Gálvez told Variety about the uncomfortable questions the film poses about his country’s past. “If something is controversial, it’s a good sign. It means it’s interesting. I am trying to provoke with my film, because this conversation is far from over.”

Gálvez directed and co-wrote the film with Antonia Girardi, in collaboration with Mariano Llinás,...

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.

Global distributor, streamer and production company Mubi has acquired Felipe Gálvez’ “The Settlers,” which bowed on Tuesday at the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard section.

Mubi has acquired the film for North America, U.K., Latin America, Turkey, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Benelux and India. Mubi will release the film theatrically in the U.S., U.K., and additional territories with release plans to be revealed soon.

“The Settlers” is set in Chile at the beginning of the 20th century. A wealthy landowner hires three horsemen to mark out the perimeter of his extensive property and open a route to the Atlantic Ocean across vast Patagonia. The expedition, composed of a young Chilean mestizo, an American mercenary, and led by a reckless British lieutenant, soon turns into a ‘civilizing’ raid.

“If something is controversial, it’s a good sign. It means it’s interesting. I am trying to provoke with my film,...

Mubi has picked The Settlers, the latest pic from Chilean filmmaker Felipe Gálvez for North America, the UK, Latin America, Turkey, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Benelux, and India.

The pic debuted in the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard section last night. Mubi has said it will release the film theatrically in the U.S., UK, and additional territories with release plans to be announced.

Set in Chile at the beginning of the 20th century, The Settlers follows a wealthy landowner who hires three horsemen to mark out the perimeter of his extensive property and open a route to the Atlantic Ocean across vast Patagonia. The expedition, composed of a young Chilean mestizo, an American mercenary, and led by a reckless British lieutenant, soon turns into a “civilizing” raid.

The deal was negotiated with mk2. Producers include Giancarlo Nasi, Benjamín Domenech, Santiago Gallelli, Matías Roveda, Emily Morgan, Thierry Lenouvel,...

Arthouse streamer Mubi has picked up Felipe Gálvez’ Chilean revisionist Western The Settlers for North America and multiple international territories, including the U.K., Latin America, Turkey, German-speaking Europe, Italy, Benelux and India one day after the film’s premiere in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section. Mubi plans to release the film theatrically in the U.S. and U.K. as well as select other international territories.

Set against the backdrop of early 20th-century Chile, The Settlers revolves around a wealthy landowner’s attempt to set the boundaries of his vast property and forge a route to the Atlantic Ocean through the expansive Patagonia region. Accompanied by a young Chilean mestizo, an American mercenary, and a daring British lieutenant, the expedition takes an unexpected turn, evolving into a “civilizing” raid on the locals.

In our review of the film, The Hollywood Reporter called The Settlers a “provocative look at Chile’s colonial past.

Further winners included Paul B. Preciado’s French documentary ‘Orlando, My Political Biography’.

There Is A Stone by Japanese filmmaker Tatsunari Ota and From You by Korea’s Shin Dongmin were awarded the top prizes at South Korea’s Jeonju International Film Festival on Wednesday (May 3).

There Is A Stone took the grand prize in the international competition, which included an award of KW20m. The meditative drama, which premiered at Tokyo Filmex before screening at the Berlinale in February, follows a woman and man who meet by a river and pass the time together before twilight.

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Santiago Miter’s political thriller Argentina, 1985, and the Colombian series News of a Kidnapping, created by Andrés Wood and Rodrigo García, swept the top awards at the tenth Platino Awards Saturday evening.

Miter’s film took home six gongs, including Best Ibero-American Fiction film, Best Screenplay for co-writers Mitre and Mariano Llinas, Best Actor for Ricardo Darín, and the Audience Award.

The film is the tale of Argentinian lawyers Julio Strassera and Luis Moreno Ocampo, who bravely prosecuted members of the country’s former bloody military dictatorship. Under the regime, from 1976 to 1983, an estimated 30,000 people disappeared. The pic debuted in Competition at Venice, where it picked up the Fipresci prize, and was Argentina’s entry for the international Oscar race.

News of a Kidnapping (Noticia de un kidnapping) dominated the TV section taking four awards, including Best Miniseries or Series, Best Series Creator, and Best Actress in a Series or mini-series for Cristina Umaña.

Utama wins first awards for a Bolivian film.

In a one-two for Amazon’s original film and TV businesses Santiago Mitre’s courtroom drama Argentina, 1985 took five top honours at the 2023 Platino Awards on Saturday night (April 22), while News Of a Kidnapping from Andrés Wood and Rodrigo García claimed four.

Amazon Studios’ Argentina, 1985 won best Ibero-American fiction film, best actor for Ricardo Darín, best screenplay for co-writers Mitre and Mariano Llinas, best art direction, and film & education in values awards.

Satuday’s triumph here at Madrid’s Ifema Municipal Palace follows Oscar and Bafta nominations and the Goya for best Iberoamerican film.

Utama wins first awards for a Bolivian film.

Santiago Mitre’s courtroom drama Argentina, 1985 from Amazon Studios took five top honours at the 2023 Platino Awards at Madrid’s Ifema Municipal Palace on Saturday night (April 22), while stablemate Prime Video’s News Of a Kidnapping from Andrés Wood and Rodrigo García claimed four.

Oscar- and Bafta-nominated Argentina, 1985 premiered in Competition at Venice last year and added to an awards haul that also earned recognition at the Goya awards, among others.

Mitre’s latest film won best Ibero-American fiction film, best actor for Ricardo Darín, best screenplay co-written by Mitre and Mariano Llinas,...

Argentina, 1985 Review — Argentina, 1985 (2022) Film Review, a movie directed by Santiago Mitre, written by Mariano Llinas, Martin Mauregui and Santiago Mitre and starring Ricardo Darin, Peter Lanzani, Norman Briski, Laura Paredes, Susana Pampin, Francisco Bertin, Carlos Portaluppi, Alejo Garcia Pintos and Alejandra Flechner. Filmmaker Santiago Mitre tells a very powerful story in [...]

Continue reading: Film Review: Argentina, 1985 (2022): Lawyers Take On a Historic Case in a Tense, Well-Acted Dramatic Film...

The shortlist of 15 films to vie for a Best International Feature Film Oscar nomination is set to be announced Wednesday. In all, films from 92 countries are eligible this year, and as we regularly see, they offer up an embarrassment of riches. For the first time in a while, however, there doesn’t appear to be a hands-down clear frontrunner.

Below, we take a closer look at the potential candidates for the early cut. They include prizewinners from Berlin to Cannes to Venice and myriad other festivals.

Deadline, through its various Contenders events as well as separate interviews, has spoken with filmmakers behind many of the entries while each of the titles on the main list below has been reviewed by Deadline’s critics as we continue to grow our focus on international films.

The round-up here takes slightly different form from years past, providing a snapshot before we go deeper...

During the early morning of March 24, 1976, a radio and TV broadcast informed the Argentinian people that their country was now under rule of Joint Chiefs General of the Armed Forces, who had overthrown Isabel Perón’s government. Less than a week later Jorge Rafael Videla named himself president, announcing the beginning of one of the deadliest military dictatorships in history. By the time democracy was restored and elections were held again it was 1983; more than 30,000 people had disappeared.

A return to democracy, however, assumed that the reign of violence and fear Argentineans lived under for almost a decade had been just another government. Normalcy was expected as President Raúl Alfonsín took over. But can a country be healed if justice isn’t served? That depends on your idea of justice—or so is the thesis of Santiago Mitre’s Argentina, 1985, which chronicles events surrounding what became known as the Trial of the Juntas,...

The British Independent Film Awards (BIFAs) have revealed the nomination longlists for Best Feature Documentary and Best International Independent Film categories. In addition, BIFA’s Raindance Discovery Award longlist has also been unveiled.

Of the 15 films longlisted for Best Feature Documentary, eight are directed by women. The 17 films longlisted for Best International Independent Film have already won top prizes from this year’s premier international festivals.

The final five nominations in each category will be announced in early November and winners will be revealed at the 25th annual BIFA ceremony on Dec. 4.

Best International Independent Film Sponsored By Champagne Taittinger

“Alcarràs” – Carla Simón, María Zamora, Stefan Schmitz, Tono Folguera, Sergi Moreno

“All The Beauty And The Bloodshed” – Laura Poitras, Howard Gertler, Nan Goldin, Yoni Golijov, John S. Lyons

“Argentina, 1985” – Santiago Mitre, Mariano Llinás, Axel Kuschevatzky, Federico Posternak, Agustina Llambi Campbell, Ricardo Darín, Santiago Carabante, Chino Darín, Victoria Alonso

“Broker” – Kore-eda Hirokazu,...

Laura Paredes in Trenque Lauquen.Fittingly for a film tracking a botanist along her quest for an ultra-rare flower, Laura Citarella’s Trenque Lauquen unfurls like the network of a rose, each of its myriad tales unveiling and spilling into the next. Stretched across 250 minutes, split into twelve chapters, and divided into two parts, the film is a maze of forking paths, the cinematic equivalent of a short story by Jorge Luis Borges, who hovers above it as an essential touchstone. This is, after all, a Pampero Cine production, the Buenos Aires collective that spawned Mariano Llinás’s 2018 epic La Flor, another sprawling multi-genre pastiche that looked to the rhizomatic writings by Borges and other Río de la Plata scribes for inspiration. Back in 1969, together with director Hugo Santiago and fellow writer Adolfo Bioy Casares, Borges co-wrote Invasión, a portrait of a fictional city, Aquileia, under an endless siege. Modeled on Buenos Aires,...

Argentina has submitted Santiago Mitre’s political drama Argentina, 1985 to the Best International Film Oscar race.

The drama, which debuted in Competition in Venice, winning the Fipresci prize, is inspired by real-life Argentinian lawyers Julio Strassera and Luis Moreno Ocampo.

Best International Feature Film Oscar Winners

The David and Goliath tale follows how the pair and their young legal team daringly prosecuted members of the former military junta to bring justice to the victims of their deadly regime. Under their rule from 1976 to 1983, an estimated 30,000 people disappeared.

Award-winning actor Ricardo Darin plays Strassera alongside Peter Lanzani as Ocampo with other cast members including

Mitre wrote the screenplay with Mariano Llinás. Producers are Axel Kuschevatzky, Federico Posternak, Agustina Llambi-Campbell, Darín, Mitre, Santiago Carabante, Chino Darín and Victoria Alonso.

Argentina has garnered seven nominations to date for Sergio Renán’s The Truce (1974), Maria Luisa Bemberg’s Camila (1984), Luis Puenzo’s The Official...

Prime Video has released the trailer for Santiago Mitre’s Argentina, 1985 which showcases an intense courtroom drama surrounding the most important trial in the history of 20th century Argentina. Directed by Mitre, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Mariano Llinás, the movie chronicles the story of the historical Trial of the Juntas, a five-month event which took place in 1985, two years after the country’s bloody military dictatorship was replaced by democracy.

Click here to read the full article.

The Trial of the Juntas, Argentina’s reckoning with years of murderous military dictatorship, set a precedent for the nation and the world: It remains the only instance of a public judicial system trying its own country’s former government on such a scale.

Santiago Mitre’s new drama, competing in Venice, examines the landmark case from the perspective of its lead prosecutor, casting the story as that of a bureaucrat rising to a historic moment.

“Inspired by actual events,” the screenplay by Mitre and Mariano Llinás is, like its hero, more methodical than electrifying. Dialing down his natural charisma, Argentine star Ricardo Darín, of the international hit The Secret in Their Eyes and Mitre’s The Summit, delivers a performance of restraint and intense focus as Julio Strassera, a government attorney who masks his very real sense of panic with professional doggedness.

When the colonels enter the courtroom, they clearly think they are in the clear. A military court has spent a year deciding that whatever excesses the Argentinian police, army and whoever else might have committed, these gentlemen were not down in the muck where these things happened, whatever “these things” were. One by one, they rise to announce that, as military men, they do not recognize the authority of the civil court. They are holding back smirks. Perhaps they think they will be free of this nonsense by lunchtime.

Santiago Mitre’s exceptional Venice Film Festival competition political thriller Argentina 1985 pieces together what happened when the fledgling democracy’s justice department was charged with prosecuting nine members of the former junta. Under military rule, which lasted from 1976 to 1983, it was estimated that 30,000 people “disappeared.” Many who did not disappear had survived rape, torture and internment in unspeakable concentration camps.

There...

Rather like the arc of the moral universe, “Argentina, 1985” is long, but bends toward justice. Effectively dramatizing the country’s landmark Trial of the Juntas, history’s first instance of a civilian justice system convicting a military dictatorship, Santiago Mitre’s broad, sprawling, heart-on-sleeve courtroom saga may draw from the same nightmarish period of history that has informed much of Argentine cinema’s most essential, haunting works — from 1985’s Oscar-winning “The Official Story” to last year’s “Azor” — but eschews any subtle arthouse stylings for a storytelling sensibility as robustly populist as anything by Sorkin or Spielberg.

Small wonder, then, that Amazon Studios has boarded a film clearly aiming to be both a domestic smash and an international crossover hit — buoyed by the reliable star power of Ricardo Darín, his signature suaveness tempered by a walrus mustache and boxy ‘80s frames as Julio Strassera, the dogged prosecutor who took on this charged,...

For Argentina’s Santiago Mitre, his courtroom drama “Argentina 1985,” a Golden Lion contender at the 79th Venice Film Festival, is an examination of the machinations of power from within, as were his past four features. But unlike those films, “Argentina 1985” is based on a real event, the trial of Argentina’s military leaders who ruled with brutal impunity until democracy was finally restored in 1983.

The civil trial is considered one of the most significant in modern world history, along with the Nuremberg trials when defeated Nazi leaders were put on the stand. The difference in this David vs. Goliath story is that Argentina’s military junta still had a grip on power when they were taken to court for their crimes.

Structured like a thriller but with some touches of wry humor, “Argentina 1985” is based on the story of lead prosecutors Julio Strassera and Luis Moreno Ocampo, and their young...

Argentina, 1985

Argentina’s Santiago Mitre will have not one, but two films setting sail this year. The long awaited Petite fleur (15 Ways to Kill Your Neighbour) will likely premiere before the ambitious Argentina, 1985 (his fifth feature). A Cannes regular, Mitre was at the Critics’ Week section for Paulina (2015) and moved up the Croisette to premiere The Summit in Un Certain Regard (2017). Before that he had his debut 2011’s The Student preem in Locarno. Co-written by Mariano Llinás, production began in August of last year (obviously in Argentina) with Ricardo Darín returning to the fold – his character prosecutes the heads of Argentina’s bloody military dictatorship.…...

Five Inspirations is a series in which we ask directors to share five things that shaped and informed their film. Andreas Fontana's Azor is exclusively showing on Mubi in many countries starting December 3, 2021 in the series Debuts.Inspiration #1I need to do research to write. During this research I take a lot of pictures. It's my way of finding something. For Azor, I have dozens and dozens of photos that served as references and that I had stuck in a large notebook that I carried with me on the set. Unfortunately this notebook is now stored in a cellar. This photo was taken during a horse race at the San Isidro Hippodrome, Buenos Aires, in 2017.Inspiration #2This book was given to me by Mariano Llinás during one of our meetings to work on the Azor script. It is a biography of one of the darkest, most troubled and ambiguous...

The Parrot and the Swan

“The film is an excuse for a more important thing.”—The Gold BugWatching the films of Alejo Moguillansky can often feel like playing a children's game—the rules are constantly being invented and reinvented on the fly, cinematic conventions are bent into whatever shape produces the most fun. Watching films like The Parrot and the Swan (2013) where the main character is also the film’s boom operator and the film’s soundtrack is tethered to how he moves across the frame, it’s easy to think of the overly playful 1960s work of Jean-Luc Godard wherein the discovery of cinema’s many possibilities becomes the driving reason for the film itself.And, like Godard, this unbridled pursuit of cinematic freedom also comes hand in hand with a sense of political curiosity—namely, in Moguillansky’s case, a Marxist exploration of artistic labor in a capitalist system.

Amazon Studios, La Unión de los Ríos, Kenya Films and Infinity Hill have teamed to produce Argentina’s first Amazon Original film, Santiago Mitre’s “Argentina, 1985,” which looks set to become a banner Argentine big fest title and release in 2022.

Headlining arguably the foremost Argentine stars of their generations – Ricardo Darín and Peter Lanzani (“The Clan”) – the feature film has just started shooting in Argentina.

It focuses on an extraordinary but real life event of which Argentineans can feel proud: the true story of how a public prosector, Julio Strassera, a young lawyer, Luis Morena Ocampo, and their inexperienced legal team dared to prosecute the heads of Argentina’s bloody military dictatorship in a battle against odds and a race against time, braving bomb and death threats.

The so-called Trial of the Juntas is described as the biggest prosecution process for war crimes since the 1946 Nuremberg Trails after WWII.

“Argentina,...

"Act as simple as you can, my dear." Mubi has released an official trailer for an intriguing film titled Azor, which first premiered at the 2021 Berlin Film Festival earlier this year. It's described as a "political thriller" but it's unlike any other political thriller. Yvan De Wiel, a private banker from Geneva, goes to Argentina in the midst of a dictatorship to replace his partner, the object of the most worrying rumours, who disappeared overnight. It's set during a tumultuous time in Argentina in the 1970s, all about the power play of money. "In his remarkably assured debut, Swiss director Andreas Fontana invites us into this seductive, moneyed world where political violence simmers just under the surface." It's co-written by Argentinian filmmaker Mariano Llinás (La Flor), and is "a riveting look at international intrigue worthy of John le Carré or Graham Greene." Starring Fabrizio Rongione, Stéphanie Cléau, Elli Medeiros, and Alexandre Trocki.

The festival seasons have been so crowded—blame a world-ending pandemic that pushes premiere after premiere into the same ten-day spans—that something as uniformly admired as Azor needs a second to breathe. Andreas Fontana’s political thriller, co-written by the brilliant Mariano Llinás (La Flor), immerses us in ’70s Argentina and the backroom dealings of a banker replacing his mysteriously (murderously?) vanished predecessor. As Mark Asch said out of Nd/Nf, “a film of almost Le Carréan subtlety, of oblique plotting, crouching dialogue, and guarded performances masking sinister realpolitik.”

An excellent first trailer has arrived from Mubi, who will release Azor stateside on September 10. On full display is what Asch called its “handsome, in tasteful wood-varnish browns and billiards-felt greens” aesthetic, more than a few shots that merit a rewind and pause, and promise of—dare we say?—dealings deeper than meet the eye.

See our exclusive premiere of...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Marlon Brando and Willy Kurant on the set of The Night of the Following Day (1969). The great Belgian cinematographer Willy Kurant has died. During his illustrious career, Kurant worked on films including Agnès Varda's The Creatures, Jean-Luc Godard's Masculin Feminin, and Orson Welles' The Immortal Story. David Cronenberg has confirmed the title of his next feature film, Crimes of the Future. Sharing the same title as his film from 1970, the film is set to star Kristen Stewart, Lea Seydoux, and Viggo Mortensen.Robert Haller, the Anthology Film Archives Director of Libraries, has also died. As Afa points out in its tribute to Haller, "with 35 years at Anthology all told, only Afa’s founder Jonas Mekas could claim seniority over Haller!⁠⁠" After more than 100 years, Technicolor Post has announced its integration into Streamland Media's postproduction services,...

Following on an initial sale to Mubi for U.S., U.K, Italy, Turkey and India, Brussels-based sales agency Be For Films has clinched its first tranche of sales to international distributors on Berlinale Encounters title “Azor,” the first feature from Swiss talent to track Andreas Fontana.

In new sales, Pamela Leu at Be For Films, part of the pan-European Playtime Group, has closed Spain (Vitrine Filmes), Portugal (Legendmain Filmes), Greece (Cinobo), Cis (Capella Film), China (Huanxi Media Group), Brazil (Vitrine Filmes) and, just this week, Switzerland (Xenix Filmdistribution).

The news deals mean that “Azor” has sold more of less half of the 15 major territories in the world.

“Azor” is produced by Eugenia Mumenthaler and David Epiney from Alina Film and co-produced by France’s Local Films, Argentina’s Ruda Cine and Swiss public broadcaster Rts.

The deals also show “Azor” shaping up as one of the standout Swiss titles...

Petite Fleur (15 Ways to Kill Your Neighbour)

Produced by Didar Domehri

Directed by Santiago Mitre

Written by Mariano Llinás, Santiago Mitre

Starring: Daniel Hendler, Vimala Pons, Sergi López, Melvil Poupaud, Françoise Lebrun, Éric Caravaca

Cinematographer: Javier Julia

Release Date/Prediction: A return to Cannes in the Un Certain Regard section might be in the cards.

…...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Afrofuturism

Curated by Ashley Clark, The Criterion Channel is putting the spotlight on Afrofuturism in a new series exploring, as Ytasha Womack writes, films that “combine elements of science fiction, historical fiction, speculative fiction, fantasy, Afrocentricity, and magic realism with non-Western beliefs.” Along with a handful of shorts, the features include Space Is the Place (1974), Born in Flames (1983), The Brother from Another Planet (1984), Ornette: Made in America (1985), Yeelen (1987), Welcome II the Terrordome (1995), The Last Angel of History (1996), An Oversimplification of Her Beauty (2012), White Out, Black In (2014), Crumbs (2015), Once There Was Brasilia (2017), and Supa Modo (2018).

Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel

City Hall (Frederick Wiseman)

In the opening shot of Frederick Wiseman’s National Gallery,...

Closing out a year in which we’ve needed The Criterion Channel more than ever, they’ve now announced their impressive December lineup. Topping the highlights is a trio of Terrence Malick films––Badlands, Days of Heaven, and The New World––along with interviews featuring actors Richard Gere, Sissy Spacek, and Martin Sheen; production designer Jack Fisk; costume designer Jacqueline West; cinematographers Haskell Wexler and John Bailey; and more.

Also in the lineup is an Afrofuturism series, featuring an introduction by programmer Ashley Clark, with work by Lizzie Borden, Shirley Clarke, Souleymane Cissé, John Akomfrah, Terence Nance, and more. There’s also Mariano Llinás’s 14-hour epic La flor, Bill Morrison’s Dawson City: Frozen Time, Ken Loach’s Sorry We Missed You, Jennie Livingston’s Paris Is Burning, plus retrospectives dedicated to Mae West, Cary Grant, Barbra Streisand, and more.

Check out the lineup below and return every Friday for our weekly streaming picks.

Andreas Fontana’s “Azor,” the latest production between Switzerland’s Alina Film and Argentina’s Ruda Cine, partners on Locarno Golden Leopard winner “Back to Stay,” has scored a world sales deal from Brussels-based Be For Films.

A scathing take on Swiss banks’ shady dealings during Argentina’s Junta dictatorship, “Azor” is one of the 10 Swiss titles featured in Locarno’s The Films After Tomorrow, a competition for movies whose preparation or production has been halted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Written by Fontana, with the collaboration of Mariano Llinás, director of cult Argentine film “Extraordinary Stories,” “Azor” follows Yvan de Wiel, heir to his family bank, who flies to Argentina in late 1980, during its military dictatorship, to track down his banking partner Keys who’s gone missing overnight. He gradually discovers his own bank’s collusion with tax fraud and far more damning financial operations.

“Azor” was inspired by Fontana...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSFor Vogue France, portraits of a stylish Jean-Luc Godard in his Swiss home by Hedi Slimane. The full program for the 2020 Venice Film Festival, now revealed, includes films from Lav Diaz, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Ann Hui, and Chloé Zhao. This year's impressive jury (selected in light of travel restrictions) will include Cate Blanchett, Christian Petzold, Joanna Hogg, and Cristi Puiu. Recommended VIEWINGPresented by the Maysles Documentary Center, "After Civilization" is a series featuring documentaries that "employ speculative techniques to reckon with ecological crisis and the ongoing material violences of dispossession." The films, from John Akomfrah's Afrofuturist essay film The Last Angel of History to Adam Khalil and Zack Khalil's Inaate/Se/ [it shines a certain way. to a certain place/it flies. falls./], are available for free until August 15. Madrid-based La Casa Encendida also has an ongoing screening series, entitled "Some Letters Make the Night Last a Moment Longer.

Mariano Llinás' La Flor is showing July and August on Mubi in the United States.1.In the Argentinian film La Flor (2018), a certain kind of sight and a certain kind of sound predominate—spread right across its roughly thirteen-and-a-half hours and six major parts.First, the sight. There are various directors in cinema history known for their stubborn insistence on using a particular camera lens which becomes their veritable stylistic signature: for example, the 25-millimeter lens for deep focus effect in Jacques Rivette; or the split diopter in Brian De Palma. Mariano Llinás takes the exactly opposite position in La Flor: his lens-weapon of choice is a defiantly shallow one, plunging great expanses of any frame into blur. Sometimes there’s a relatively traditional bit of focus-pulling back and forth between two points in a scene. Far more often, it’s a mise en scène based on characters slowly...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Clemency (Chinonye Chukwu)

From Escape from Alcatraz to Cool Hand Luke to The Shawshank Redemption, cinema is rich with not only prison films focused on the plight of the prisoner, but also depicting wardens in an evil light. Clemency, winner of the Dramatic Grand Jury Prize at Sundance Film Festival, flips the script in both ways, both turning the spotlight on a warden and painting her in an empathetic, complicated light. Led by Alfre Woodard, she gives a riveting, emotional performance as the Bernadine Williams, a woman who is stuck between the demands of her grueling job and a disintegrating marriage, and can’t give her all to both.

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and an archive of past round-ups here.

Emma. (Autumn de Wilde)

Draw the quick conclusion for why I had little desire to note-take during Emma. (stylized with a period; reasons probably unnecessary), but don’t mistake this limited interest as a dismissal of the entire project. And if whatever compliments it can be paid require meager critical insight, these virtues are nevertheless evident: its ensemble cast befit their talky material with total charm; its design elements, a live-or-die component of 19th-century period pieces, are often exquisite; and notwithstanding slightly anemic aspects to its digital palette, this ornate package is photographed with care. – Nick N. (full review)

Where to Stream: Amazon, Google

La Flor...