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Upcoming features by Babak Jalali, Kamila Andini, Martin Koolhoven, Emily Atef, Yann Gonzalez and Diego Lerman are among 67 projects selected for the 12th Venice Gap-Financing Market.

The project incubator which is a component of the Venice Film Festival’s Venice Production Bridge industry program will run from August 29 to 31.

The 67 projects from around the world in the final stages of development and funding have been selected from 330 applications.

They span 40 feature-length fiction and documentary projects, 14 immersive projects, 10 Biennale College Cinema immersive projects and three Biennale College Cinema projects.

Their director-producer teams will participate in one-to-one meetings organized by the Vpb with top industry decision-makers including producers, private and public financiers, banks, distributors, sales agents, TV commissioners, streamers, VoD platforms, institutions and post-production companies.

All meetings will be held at the Venice Production Bridge venues of Hotel Excelsior and Venice Immersive Island.

The full list of feature film projects:

93 – Echo Froma...

Projects from Emily Atef, Babak Jalali, Luis Ortega and Ulrich Seidl are among the 40 films selected for the 12th edition of the Venice Gap-Financing Market (August 29 – 31), taking place during the Venice Film Festivals.

The market is a part of the Venice Production Bridge and provides the 67 projects with the chance to close their intentional financing. This year’s focus is on projects from the UK, Chile and Morocco.

Atef makes her English-language debut with Call Me Queen about a friendship between an Irish journalist in Kenya and a Rwandan woman during the 1990s AIDS crisis. It is produced by Germany...

The Man Who Loved UFOs tells the adventurous story of José de Zer, an Argentine TV journalist in the 1980s driven by obsession to uncover the truth about extraterrestrials. Directed by Diego Lerman, the film centers around a notorious episode from de Zer’s career where he stirred up nationwide interest after investigating alleged UFO sightings in rural Cordoba.

Played captivatingly by Leonardo Sbaraglia, de Zer approaches any strange phenomenon with zealous enthusiasm. When locals pitch him reports of weird activity in the mountains, he eagerly sets off with cameraman Chango to find answers. But de Zer’s methods become increasingly questionable as he begins fabricating evidence to sensationalize the story.

The film explores de Zer’s fixation and whether his experience was real or merely the effects of stress. It also examines how far he went spreading tales for fame and ratings. Was he seeking truth or simply caught...

The Man Who Loved UFOs, directed by Diego Lerman, is based on the true story of the journalist Jose de Zer, who claimed that life beyond Earth was not a figment of imagination. Throughout his career, he tried his level best to substantiate his claims, to find evidence, to prove his theories, but in the end, the world came to know that it was all one big lie. The people who wanted to believe in his narrative still did, but he was not able to provide a single piece of evidence that could substantiate the credibility of his theories. So, let’s find out what happened in the film and if Jose told such lies intentionally or unintentionally.

Spoiler Alert

What happened to Jose in Sanai?

I believe what happened with Jose in Sinai played a key role in shaping his ideology and also making him delusional. It is not...

Biography is undoubtedly one of the most popular genres in existence, because people just love to watch a Wikipedia page come to life in live-action format. But as someone who has flunked his history exams quite a few times, I don’t like a by-the-numbers chronicling of the past. I love biographies that tend to have pizazz, if they have the audacity to be experimental with their storytelling, or if they are centered around a not-so-popular subject matter. Off the top of my head, I can name Schindler’s List, Ford v Ferrari, Elvis (the 2022 one), Rocketman, Jarhead, The Aviator, First Man, Spotlight, Serpico, Spencer, American Animals, Dog Day Afternoon, Tetris, Judas and the Black Messiah, Dolemite Is My Name, and Chopper as some of my favorite biopics. Now, it seemed like The Man Who Loved UFOs was tailor-made for me. It had a peculiar subject matter. The filmmaking looked good.

“The Man Who Loved UFOs” is an Argentine film starring Leonardo Sbaraglia. It is directed by Diego Lerman.

“The Man Who Loved UFOs” is an unconventional and distinctive film that navigates the realms of drama and comedy while humorously posing fundamental questions: Does reality truly exist, or is it merely a construct of language and media fiction?

This film is entertaining, intelligent, and ironic, going far beyond the surface of its narrative. Leonardo Sbaraglia delivers a remarkable performance, embodying a complex and ambivalent character filled with doubts and excesses, yet grounded in reality.

“The Man Who Loved UFOs” is a unique and unusual movie that conveys more through irony than with grandiose effects.

A film that skillfully engages the audience, inviting them to ponder through humor.

The Man Who Loved UFOs – Netflix

Plot

A television presenter who has just experienced an attack is tasked with investigating the remnants of a...

Netflix’s The Man Who Loved UFOs (El Hombre Que Amaba Los Platos Voladores) tells the story of Argentinian TV journalist José de Zer and his cameraman Chango. It is 1986, and they travel to La Candelaria in Córdoba upon receiving “an unusual proposal from two shady characters,” explains a plot synopsis on the website of the San Sebastian Film Festival where the film celebrated its world premiere on Tuesday. “Arriving in the village, there’s nothing much to see, only a scorched field surrounded by hills. What happened next was the work of a genius in the art of exaggeration with a hidden talent: the ability to create the best-known audiovisual recording on the existence of alien presence in the history of Argentinian television.”

Or, as Netflix says in its summary: “What follows is the invention of the most famous alien sightings in the history of Argentine television.”

Yes, the...

Argentina’s embattled film sector took center stage this afternoon at the San Sebastian Film Festival as festival delegates held an official demonstration to highlight the struggles facing the country’s film institutions.

The demonstration was hosted by San Sebastian along with the Argentine Film Academy. Filmmakers from the Argentinian titles in competition at San Sebastian gathered on the stairs of the Kursaal Auditorium, the festival’s main hub, alongside other festival delegates where San Sebastian head José Luis Rebordinos gave a speech.

“Today the San Sebastian Film Festival, as the cultural expression that it is, cannot simply sit back and watch the dismantling of a national film industry by a government which, in addition, justifies a military dictatorship responsible for murdering thousands of people,” Rebordinos said.

The demonstration coincided with the premiere of Argentine filmmaker Diego Lerman’s film El hombre que amaba los platos voladores.

This year’s...

José Luis Rebordinos, director of the San Sebastian Film Festival, has just over a week until opening night when he sits down for an interview with Deadline, and he is still plagued by one niggling organizational issue.

“It’s always so difficult to close the jury,” Rebordinos explains as he rushes out of the room to take a call about his potential jury head.

When he returns, he explains: “A few weeks ago I was speaking with Thierry Fremaux. He said even for him it’s always a problem because jury members have to be at your festival for 10 days, you don’t pay, and it’s complicated because people are often working and when they aren’t, they want to spend time with their families and friends.”

A few days later, the competition jury is finally confirmed, with Spanish filmmaker Jaione Camborda leading alongside Leila Guerriero, Fran Kranz, Christos Nikou,...

In terms of stars — Cate Blanchett, Johnny Depp, Javier Bardem, Tilda Swinton, Pamela Anderson — and auteur power — Pedro Almodóvar, Sean Baker, Costa Gavras, Edward Berger, Mike Leigh, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Joshua Oppenheimer, François Ozon, Lupita Nyong’o, Mohammad Rasoulof, Walter Salles, Maite Alberdi — this year’s San Sebastián Festival promises one of its biggest editions ever.

Yet it’s the Spanish festival’s wealth of new talent and rising names in its industry competitions sets it apart. Here are 10 things to expect from the fest, which runs Sept. 20-28 at the stunning Basque seaside resort:

Blanchett, Almodóvar, Bardem, Depp, Swinton, Anderson

Blanchett, Almodóvar and Bardem will collect career achievement Donostia Awards, with Blanchett talking up Guy Maddin’s Cannes hit “Rumours,” set for U.S. theatrical release via Bleecker Street on Oct. 18; Almodóvar and Swinton will present Venice success “The Room Next Door.” Depp will unveil “Modi,” his second film as a...

In keeping with its historical support of Latin American cinema throughout the years, the San Sebastian International Film Festival will this year make an extra push for Argentina’s cinema industry, which has been in a state of crisis since March after its newly-elected far-right leader Javier Milei moved ahead with plans to withdraw all state funding from its film body, the National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts (Incaa).

The state body backs most Argentinian films, festivals and events – including major Latin American festival Ventana Sur – and the impact the lack of funding will have on the country’s sector will be, according to many industry insiders, devastating.

As a result, San Sebastian is hosting a day of action on September 24 and has teamed up with the Argentine Academy of Cinematography Arts and Sciences and producer Gabriel Hochbaum...

For more than 70 years the San Sebastian International Film Festival has been considered the premiere hub for connecting Europe’s film industry to Latin American cinema and filmmaking talent. The festival has long supported the early works of famed Latin American filmmakers ranging from Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles to Argentina’s Daniel Burman whose respective early works Foreign Land and A Chrysanthemum Bursts in Cincoesquinas both screened at the festival.

In more recent years, Spain’s most prominent festival has made strides in strengthening the special relationship between Europe and Latin America through the creation of sections such as Works in Progress Latam (established in 2002) and its Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum (established in 2012). It was in the former that esteemed Chilean director Sebastián Lelio was given the Wip Latam Award in 2012 for his project Gloria.

“We have a very special relationship with the Latin American market,” says San Sebastian festival director José Luis Rebordinos.

Argentina will be the country of focus at this year’s San Sebastian International Film Festival (Ssiff), with the festival also organising a day of support for Argentinian cinema on September 24.

The festival unveiled its plans in light of what it described as “the dismantling” of the country’s industry and “paralysis of projects and lack of support from the Argentine government”.

The event is a collaboration with producer Gabriel Hochbaum and Argentinian Academy of Cinematography Arts and Sciences, with a special delegation of producers, moviemakers and journalists from the Latin American country in attendance.

The day of solidarity will...

The San Sebastian Film Festival has said it will host a day of action in support of Argentinian cinema during this year’s 72nd edition, which runs September 20-28.

The Spanish festival has teamed with the Argentine Academy of Cinematography Arts and Sciences and producer Gabriel Hochbaum along with Argentinian production companies, filmmakers, and journalists to mount the event.

The solidarity day will take place on September 24, coinciding with the Official Selection premiere of Argentine filmmaker Diego Lerman’s film El hombre que amaba los platos voladores. The festival will also host a cocktail event with the Argentine delegation, who will gather on the Kursaal Auditorium stairs before the screening of Traslados. The non-fiction film directed by Nicolás Gil Lavedra, which will be released in Argentina tomorrow, will have its international premiere in San Sebastian and focuses on the so-called death flights, one of the popular execution techniques used by Argentina’s last military dictatorship.

We Live In Time, the upcoming romance flick starring Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh, will close out the official selection at this year’s San Sebastian Film Festival.

The film will screen out-of-competition and the festival will serve as the romcom’s European Premiere.

The film’s official synopsis reads: Almut and Tobias are brought together in a surprise encounter that changes their lives. Through snapshots of their life together − falling for each other, building a home, becoming a family − a difficult truth is revealed that rocks its foundation. As they embark on a path challenged by the limits of time, they learn to cherish each moment of the unconventional route their love story has taken in this decade-spanning, deeply moving romance.

John Crowley directed the film from a screenplay by Nick Payne. StudioCanal developed the script and produced with Sunny March. Leah Clarke, Adam Ackland, and Guy Heeley are producers,...

Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia’s high-anticipated “The Platform 2,” the Basque director’s follow-up to Netflix mega-hit “The Platform,” will world premiere this September at the San Sebastián film festival, closing its culinary section.

Subject of a high-profile acquisition by Netflix at the 2019 Toronto Film Festival, engineered by CAA Media Finance, XYZ Films and Latido Films, “The Platform” has gone on to shoot to the near top of Netflix’s chart of non-English film hits on record, now featuring as No. 5 with 82.8 million views, thanks to its terrorific mix of futurist dystopian sci-f and redolent social allegory wrapped in a brutal survival thriller. That comes from the set-up: a vertical prison, with hundreds of floors, with every day a stone dumbwaiter descending with food left over from tenants above. Higher-level inmates gorge themselves; those below face starvation, suicide or cannibalism.

That structure looks to be retained in “The Platform 2,” set for release on Netflix on Oct.

Netflix Argentina executives have been promoting the upcoming slate featuring new work from Ricardo Darin, Santiago Mitre, and Juan José Campanella including series adaptations of two of the most iconic graphic novels and comic strips in Latin America.

Leading the new productions at the Made In Argentina showcase unveiled to industry members in Buenos Aires on Monday night was 27 Nights (27 Noches), Daniel Hendler’s adaptation of the family drama novel by Natalia Zito inspired by actual events.

Mitre, who wrote and directed the 2023 Oscar-nominated Argentina, 1985, will serve as producer on 27 Nights.

Campanella, the writer-director of The Secret In Their Eyes...

Netflix has unveiled a deep slate of originals out of Argentina including an animated adaptation of iconic comic strip Mafalda from Oscar-winning director Juan José Campanella. Another adaptation is El Eternauta, based on the graphic novel of the same name. There will also be a local version of dating series Love is Blind and a three-part doc about Argentine soccer star Ángel Di María.

The streamer’s Made In Argentina slate was presented at an event in Buenos Aires and comprised a whopping 19 projects. The standout titles included Mafalda, which has iconic status in Argentina where it ran as a comic strip in various newspapers. Created by cartoonist Quino, it follows the titular little girl and her family and friends.

Campanella, who helmed the Oscar-winning The Secret In Their Eyes (Best Foreign Language Film), will be director, screenwriter and showrunner. Mundoloco CGI, the animation studio he co-founded, is producing the series.

La sección oficial a competición del Ssiff se llena de grandes nombres. © 72Ssiff

Hace unas semanas se dieron a conocer los títulos españoles que competirán por la Concha de Oro en la 72ª edición del Festival de Cine de San Sebastián, que se celebrará del 20 al 28 de septiembre. Éstos son Soy Nevenka, de Icíar Bollaín, El llanto de Pedro Martín-Calero, Los destellos, de Pilar Palomero, y Tardes de soledad, de Albert Serra.

Hoy se han anunciado títulos restantes de la sección oficial a competición del festival, los cuales acompañarán a Bollaín, Martín-Calero, Palomero y Serra en la contienda por el prestigioso galardón. Entre los títulos más destacados encontramos Cónclave, The End, Hard Truths y The Last Showgirl.

Cónclave, de Edward Berger, director de Sin novedad en el frente, se presenta como un fuerte contendiente a la Concha de Oro. Este film tendrá su premiere mundial en el Festival de Cine...

At long last, we now have at least one festival premiere set for one of our most-anticipated films of the year. Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Serpent’s Path, a remake of his superb, bad-vibes 1998 thriller that stars Damien Bonnard, Mathieu Amalric, Ko Shibasaki, and Drive My Car‘s Hidetoshi Nishijima, is now set for a premiere as part of San Sebastián Film Festival’s Official Selection.

Taking place September 20-28, the lineup also features the latest from Edward Berger, Gia Coppola, Costa-Gavras, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Mike Leigh, Diego Lerman, Joshua Oppenheimer, and François Ozon. While we could see Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Serpent’s Path pop up at other fall fests, it’s exciting to know it’s finally seeing the light of day.

Check out the full lineup below.

Bound In Heaven

Xin Huo (China)

Country(ies) of production: China

Cast: Ni Ni, You Zhou

This film narrates the poignant tale of a...

New films from directors Mike Leigh, François Ozon, Edward Berger, Joshua Oppenheimer, and Costa-Gavras will vie for the Golden Shell at this year’s San Sebastian Film Festival. Organizers on Tuesday announced the competition line-up for the 72nd edition of San Sebastian, which runs from September 20-28.

Highlights include Leigh’s hotly-anticipated new film Hard Truths, which will see the iconoclastic British director reunite with his Secrets & Lies star Marianne Jean-Baptiste; and Conclave, Berger’s follow-up to his multiple-Oscar winner All Quiet on the Western Front. The Vatican thriller stars Ralph Fiennes as a cardinal tasked with supervising a conclave following the sudden death of the Pope to choose a successor.

Veteran political filmmaker Costa-Gavras (Missing, Z) returns to San Sebastian with Last Breath, a drama about a palliative care doctor. Ozon will make his sixth appearance in the festival’s official selection with When Fall Is Coming, a French drama starring Hélène Vincent,...

Edward Berger, Mike Leigh and Joshua Oppenheimer titles have joined the competition line-up at the San Sebastian International Film Festival.

Berger heads to San Sebastian with Toronto premiere Conclave, starring Ralph Fiennes, about a cardinal who is tasked following the Pope’s sudden death with supervising the conclave from which his successor will be chosen.

Mike Leigh is appearing in official selection for the first time, with UK-Spain co-production Hard Truths, another Toronto world premiere, starring Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Michele Austin. Leigh portrays the everyday life of a London family, addressing such issues as family relations, mourning and mental health.

Argentina’s Diego Lerman heads back for at least the third time to the San Sebastian Film Festival with his seventh and most ambitious film, “The Man Who Loved UFOs,” which competes in the festival’s official selection.

Loosely inspired by real events and people, the dramedy is set in the summer of 1986, where José de Zer, an entertainment journalist, is covering the theater season in Buenos Aires. He’s approached one day by two individuals who invite him to their pueblo with an odd proposal.

Intrigued, José and his trusted cameraman, Chango, travel to La Candelaria in Córdoba. Upon arriving at the scene – a perfectly round burnt patch in the hills – they find little that makes sense.

What follows is what is deemed the most memorable depiction of alien presence in Argentine TV history. Chango, a Sancho Panza to de Zer’s Don Quixote, follows him faithfully as they...

Marianne Jean-Baptiste in Mike Leigh's Hard Truths Photo: Courtesy of San Sebastian Film Festival San Sebastian Film Festival has announced its Official Selection, which this year will include the latest films from Mike Leigh, Maite Alberdi, Edward Berger, Gia Coppola, Costa-Gavras, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Diego Lerman, Joshua Oppenheimer, Laura Carreira and François Ozon.

They will compete for the Golden Shell at the festival's 72nd edition, which runs from September 20-28.

It will mark the first time Salford-born Leigh will compete at the festival. He brings British-Spanish production Hard Truths, which Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Michele Austin, and depicts the everyday life of a London family, addressing such issues as family relations, mourning and mental health.

Laura Carreira's On Falling concerns the precarity of life for a Portuguese warehouse worker in Scotland Photo: Courtesy of San Sebastian Film Festival Edinburgh-based Portuguese director Carreira, who previously directed acclaimed short films including The Shift,...

Two Netflix Originals and new movies from Mike Leigh, Joshua Oppenheimer, Gia Coppola and Edward Berger will vie for San Sebastian’s top Golden Shell this September.

The festival features a main competition that is stronger than usual on both bigger-name directors and ‘A’ list stars, such as Tilda Swinton in Oppenheimer’s “The End,” Jamie Lee Curtis and Pamela Anderson in Gia Coppola’s “The Last Showgirl” and the ensemble cast of Berger’s “Conclave” that includes Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci and Isabella Rossellini.

Bound for Toronto and Telluride before San Sebastián, Oppenheimer’s “The End” stars Swinton, George MacKay and Michael Shannon in what is described as a post-apocalyptic “Golden Age” musical.

“Conclave,” from “All Quiet on the Western Front director Edward Berger,” is a psychological thriller written by Peter Straughan, based on the 2016 novel of the same name by Robert Harris and starring Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci and John Lithgow.

Iair Said’s debut feature Most People Die On Sundays has been acquired for France by distributor Jhr Films ahead of its world premiere in Cannes’ Acid programme.

The Argentinian comedy drama is already set for release in Latin America via Star+ (Disney+) and in Spain with A Contracorriente Films.

Said’s short Present Imperfect previously competed for the short film Palme d’Or.

Most People Die On Sundays centres on an overweight 30-something who returns to his native Argentina to reconnect with his mother and his Jewish family. There he embarks on a quest across Buenos Aires to quench his anxiety via driving lessons,...

Athens-based boutique film outfit Heretic has two titles in the Cannes Acid (Association for the International Distribution of Independent Cinemas) sidebar.

Heretic’s own Greek production, co-produced with North Macedonia’s List Production, “Kyuka Before Summer’s End,” by debut director Kostas Charamountanis, is the opening film of the Acid program. The film follows a family of three, a single father, Babis, and his twin children on the verge of adulthood, Konstantinos and Elsa, who sail to the island of Poros on the family boat for their holidays. In the midst of swimming, sunbathing and making new friends, Konstantinos and Elsa meet, unbeknownst to them, their birth mother Anna who abandoned them when they were babies. The encounter stirs up long-held feelings of resentment in Babis, resulting in a bittersweet coming-of-age journey.

“Kyuka Before Summer’s End” is produced by Danae Spathara, Giorgos Karnavas and Konstantinos Kontovrakis of Heretic, Greece...

San Sebastian’s pix-in-post showcases have often launched standout movies, such as Sebastian Lelio’s “Gloria,” winner of the Films in Progress Award at the 2012 edition, plus notable directors, such as Jayro Bustamante, whose praised debut “Ixcanul” played at the festival in rough cut in 2015 before winning the Alfred Bauer prize for innovation at 2016’s Berlinale, breaking out handsome sales.

San Sebastian’s 2023 Co-Production Forum registers two trends: Films that are genre pics or enrol genre tropes or genre blend; an exploration of identity.

Thus year’s San Sebastian Wip Latam skews in another direction. “The films and stories are very grounded in reality, either by there hybrid formal move between fiction and non-fiction, their singular take on daily matters or the very social issues they address,” Javier Martín, San Sebastian Latin American delegate, told LatAmCinema.com.

Yet genre surfaces in disparate ways: the mix of coming of age, apocalypse...

The episode features:Rodrigo Sepúlveda (Chile), a writer, director and producer. Sepúlveda directed successful television productions in the ’80s and ’90s, but it wasn’t until 2002 that he made his feature-film debut. Since then, he has cultivated a humanist filmography that examines love and family ties, as well as the prejudices of Chilean society. In 2020, his film My Tender Matador (Tengo miedo, torero) premiered in Venice's parallel section, Giornate degli Autori. A successful adaptation of Pedro Lemebel's novel, the film stars Alfredo Castro in one of his most brilliant and memorable performances. Julieta Zylberberg (Argentina), an actress who has worked for over twenty years in film, series, television and theater. She made her film debut in The Holy Girl (La niña santa), Lucrecia Martel's second feature film.With sobriety and forcefulness, Zylberberg has played characters that reflect great ambiguity. She has starred in films such as Ana Katz...

Also out this weekend: ’Holy Spider’, ’Alice, Darling’ and ’Dreaming Walls’.

Damien Chazelle’s Babylon is the widest new release at the UK-Ireland box office this weekend, playing at 631 sites for Paramount, and hoping to make a dent on Avatar: The Way Of Water’s box office dominance, after five weeks atop the chart for Disney.

It is Chazelle’s widest release in the territory – beating his Oscar-winning musical La La Land, which opened at 606 sites in 2017 for Lionsgate, and took £5.6m at the box office in its opening weekend, plus £943,751 in previews.

Chazelle’s latest paints a hedonistic portrait of 1920s and 1930s Hollywood,...

A highly educated middle class teacher moves to a poor area and transforms the lives of his pupils. It’s a saviour fantasy which crops up quite a bit in cinema, and although it can be nicely done, one might reasonably think that there’s not much mileage left in it story-wise. Here Diego Lerman does something quite different, however, by shifting the focus from the impact on the kids to the changes taking place in the teacher himself.

A former university lecturer, Lucio (Juan Minujín) is recently divorced, trying to patch things up with his daughter, settling into a new home and navigating a complicated relationship with his father, the activist and local hero known as El Chileno (Alfredo Castro). It’s because of his father that the kids in his new class are willing to pay him some attention, but that doesn’t amount to much, at least to begin with.

Juan Minujín as Lucio, hard at work in The Substitute

An Argentinean film which is making waves on the festival circuit around the world, Diego Lerman’s The Substitute follows a teacher, Lucio (Juan Minujín), who finds himself struggling when he moves into a troubled neighbourhood and tests his teaching skills on young people who don’t believe that they have any future worth investing in. Diego has been working hard to promote the film, and is sitting in a café in Madrid when we connect, with the world going by around him. It seems an appropriate setting for a man whose work always has a good deal happening in the background.

This film has a very distinctive visual style, and I ask Diego how important that was in the development of the film and how the story took shape.

“I always think in having an image with layers, different layers,...

A poet in Buenos Aires takes up teaching at a tough school and tries to protect his students in Diego Lerman’s cliched, if well-acted, tale

For all that it’s tremendously shot and vehemently acted, this movie from Argentinian director Diego Lerman – about a substitute teacher – is weirdly unsatisfying in terms of the story it has to tell: contrived, cliched, with secondary characters sketched in and a perfunctory and somewhat truncated car-chase climax.

Lucio (Juan Minujín) is a divorced poet and critic in Buenos Aires who winds up having to take a substitute teaching job in a tough inner-city school teaching literature to glowering kids. Lucio’s dad, nicknamed “The Chilean” and played by the veteran Chilean actor Alfredo Castro, is a local community worker and cafe owner with connections to the mayor. Lucio’s dad is also a fierce enemy of a local drug-dealing mobster called El Perro,...

The recent success of Cannes Directors’ Fortnight urban noir “Ashkal” from helmer Youssef Chebbi, and the 2021 international feature Oscar nomination for the provocative art world drama “The Man Who Sold His Skin” from director Kaouther Ben Hania reignited industry interest in projects from Tunisian directors. The Cairo Film Connection’s work-in-progress section supports this interest by offering the first Arab world look at “Red Path,” the second feature from Tunisian theater and cinema helmer Lotfi Achour (“Burning Hope”). The production is very different in style and genre from those of his aforementioned compatriots.

Inspired by real events and deeply rooted in a particular social context, “Red Path” is set in an extremely poor and isolated region of Tunisia’s northwest where, in 2015, terrorists attacked two young shepherds. They decapitated the older boy and commanded his younger cousin to bring the severed head back to the family as a gruesome message.

Urban Sales has boarded a pair of 3D animated features, “Fox & Hare Save the Forest” and “Into the Wonderwoods” in time for the American Film Market.

Vincent Paronnaud, who directed the prize-winning “Persepolis,” helms “Into the Wonderwoods” alongside Alexis Ducord (“Zombilennium”). Pic is produced by animation banners Je Suis Bien Content (“Persepolis”) and Gaoshan Pictures.

Budgeted at 10 million, “Into the Wonderwoods” is based on a comic book that Paronnaud created under the pseudonym Winshluss.

The family film (pictured) follows 10-year-old Angelo, who dreams of becoming an explorer and a zoologist. When he hits the road with his family to visit his beloved granny, his distracted parents leave him behind at a rest stop. Left to his own devices, Angelo decides to cut through the forest in search of his family. He enters a dark and mysterious world inhabited by strange creatures, some friendlier than others.

Set to premiere in 2024, “Into...

Chliean auteur reunites with screenwriter Steven Knight, Komplizen Film.

Angelina Jolie will portray the legendary opera singer Maria Callas in Maria for Chilean auteur Pablo Larrain, who is reteaming with his Spencer screenwriter Steven Knight.

Larrain’s Fablua Pictures is producing with The Apartment Picture and Komplizen Film, with whom he also partnered on Spencer.

Maria will be based on true accounts and tells the tumultuous and ultimately tragic story of the life of the American-born Greek soprano Maria Callas, “relived and re-imagined” during her final days in 1970’s Paris.

Larrain has come to specialise in intensely personal, interior portraits...

The film has screened at Toronto and San Sebastian

Sovereign has secured UK and Ireland rights to Diego Lerman’s Argentinian thriller The Substitute from Urban Sales.

Set in Buenos Aires, the film follows a substitute teacher who becomes caught in a conflict between a drug gang and one of his students.

‘The Substitute’: San Sebastian Review

After a world premiere at Toronto The Substitute screened in competition in San Sebastian, winning the best supporting actor award for Renata Lerman. She stars with Juan Minujín, Alfredo Castro, Barbara Lennie and Lucas Arrua

The producers are El Campo Cine; Italy...

Colombian filmmaker Laura Mora has clinched the Golden Shell in the main competition of the 70th San Sebastian Film Festival with her latest feature The Kings of the World (Los reyes del mundo).

Billed as a subversive tale of disobedience, friendship, and dignity, the film follows five boys living on the streets of Medellín who set out on a journey in search of the promised land. The film is a Colombian co-production with Luxembourg, France, Mexico, and Norway.

This is the third year running that a film helmed by a woman has taken home the Golden Shell following Dea Kulumbegashvili’s Beginning in 2020 and Alina Grigore’s Blue Moon last year. This is also the first time a Colombian production has picked up San Sebastian’s top prize in the festival’s seven decades.

In other main competition awards, Japanese writer Genki Kawamura picked up the Silver Shell for Best...

Other winners include Genki Kawamura’s ‘A Hundred Flowers’ and China’s ‘A Woman’.

Colombian director Laura Mora’s second film The Kings Of The World has won the Golden Shell award for best film at the 70th edition of the San Sebastian International Film Festival (Ssiff).

Scroll down for full list of winners

A Colombian co-production with Luxembourg, France, Mexico and Norway, the film follows five street kids from Medellin who venture into the countryside in search of the land that one of them inherited. Film Factory Entertainment handles international sales. Mora’s debut was 2017 Toronto and San Sebastian selection Killing Jesus.

Spanish fest has more Latin American films and projects than ever before.

This year’s San Sebastian InternationaI Film Festival has the highest number of Latin American films across its official selection and marketplaces than ever before, according to festival director José Luis Rebordinos.

The line-up includes three titles in official selection: two from Argentinian directors - Manuel Abramovich’s Pornomelancolia and Diego Lerman’s The Substitute – and The Wonder from Chilean director Sebastian Lelio.

“It’s a very good moment for Latin America cinema for both quantity and the high quality of the proposals,” says Rebordinos.

Argentina in focus...

Festival runs October 12-23.

Jafar Panahi’s No Bears, Alice Diop’s Saint Omer, and Sergei Loznitsa’s The Natural History Of Destruction are among the international competitions line-up at the 58th Chicago International Film Festival next month.

This year’s competitions include 10 films receiving their North American premiere and 17 getting their US premiere as the entries vie for the festival’s Gold Hugo award in the categories of international feature, international documentary, and new directors.

The festival runs October 12-23. The full international competition line-ups are below.

Playing in International Feature Competition are: The Beasts (Sp-Fr), Rodrigo Sorogoyen, US premiere; Before,...

Paris-based Urban Sales has boarded Diego Lerman’s “The Substitute” (“El Suplente”) which will have its world premiere at Toronto followed by San Sebastian.

“The Substitute” tells the story of Lucio (Minujín), a prestigious university professor who starts working as a substitute teacher at a high school in the suburbs of Buenos Aires, where he grew up. Through tales, novels and poetry, he tries to distract his class from the harsh reality of their everyday lives. But soon, he must step out of his professional duties when Dylan, one of his students, is threatened by a local drug kingpin.

One of Argentina’s leading filmmakers, Lerman won this year’s Locarno’s Silver Leopard award for “Suddenly.” He’s best known for directing “A Sort of Family” which played at Toronto, won best screenplay at San Sebastian and was acquired by Netflix; as well as “Refugiado” and “Invisible” which played...

The 18th Santiago Int’l Film Festival (Sanfic) is paying tribute to Chile’s most internationally renowned and arguably hardest working actor, the peripatetic Alfredo Castro who will attend Sanfic’s inauguration Aug. 14 to receive his lifetime achievement award and kick off a retrospective of his films.

Also a playwright and theater director, Castro has worked across Europe and Latin America, acting in French, Spanish, Portuguese and a number of accents and dialects from Latin America, including neutral Spanish. “I haven’t worked in English but I certainly hope to one day,” he says. Meanwhile, he has won a boatload of awards from festivals and award events across the world.

Yet, he would also be high up the order of figures who have helped shape Chile’s post-Pinochet film, theater and now TV scene into one of the most vibrant, surprising and constantly questioning of any country in Latin America.

The WhaleWAVELENGTHS - FEATURESConcrete Valley (Antoine Bourges)De Humani Corporis Fabrica (Véréna Paravel, Lucien Castaing-Taylor)Dry Ground BurningHorse Opera (Moyra Davey)Pacifiction (Albert Serra)Queens of the Qing Dynasty (Ashley McKenzie)Unrest (Cyril Schäublin)Will-o’-the-Wisp (João Pedro Rodrigues)Wavelenghths - SHORTSAfter Work (Céline Condorelli, Ben Rivers)Bigger on the Inside (Angelo Madsen Minax)Eventide (Sharon Lockhart)F1ghting Looks Different 2 Me Now (Fox Maxy)Fata Morgana (Tacita Dean)Hors-titre (Wiame Haddad)I Thought the World of You (Kurt Walker)Moonrise (Vincent Grenier)The Newest Olds (Pablo Mazzolo)Puerta a Puerta (Jessica Sarah Rinland, Luis Arnías )The Time That Separates Us (Parastoo Anoushahpour)What Rules the Invisible (Tiffany Sia)Gala PRESENTATIONSAlice, Darling (Mary Nighy)Black Ice (Hubert Davis)The Greatest Beer Run Ever (Peter Farrelly)Butcher’s Crossing (Gabe Polsky)The Hummingbird (Francesca Archibugi)Hunt (Jung-jae Lee)A Jazzman’s Blues (Tyler Perry)Kacchey Limbu (Shubham Yogi)Moving On (Paul Weitz)Paris Memories...

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The 70th San Sebastián Film Festival unveiled its competition line-up Tuesday, with new works from award-winning directors Sebastián Lelio, Hong Sang-soo and Ulrich Seidl in the running for the 2022 Golden Shell.

Chilean filmmaker Lelio, who won an Oscar for best international feature with A Fantastic Woman (2017), will premiere his latest, The Wonder, in San Sebastián. The period drama, based on the Emma Donoghue novel, is set in mid-19th century Ireland and stars Florence Pugh, Ciarán Hinds, Tom Burke and Toby Jones.

The prolific Hong Sang-Soo, who just won the Jury Prize in Berlin in February for The Novelist’s Film, brings his latest minimalist drama, Walk Up, to the Spanish festival. The plot involves a middle-aged film director and his estranged daughter who are being shown around a building owned by an interior designer.

Seidl, the Austrian director who has made a career...

Lelio makes his San Sebastian competition debut with The Wonder starring Florence Pugh.

Films from Sebastián Lelio and Hong Sang-soo are among the new titles to be selected in competition at this year’s San Sebastian Film Festival (September 16-24).

Lelio, whose A Fantastic Woman won the Academy Award for best foreign-language film in 2017, makes his San Sebastian competition debut with The Wonder. Adapted from Emma Donoghue’s novel set in a 19th-century Irish town, it stars Florence Pugh, Ciarán Hinds, Tom Burke, Toby Jones and Niamh Algar.

Cannes and Berlin prize winner Hong San-soo will make his second appearance...

Sebastian Lelio’s “Wonder,” starring “Black Widow’s” Florence Pugh, “Winter Boy” with Juliette Binoche and directors Hong Sang-soo and Ulrich Seidl will compete in main competition at September’s San Sebastian Film Festival, the biggest film event in the Spanish-speaking world.

In “Wonder,” the latest from Academy Award winning director Lelio (“A Fantastic Woman”),Pugh plays an English nurse brought in to the Irish Midlands in 1862 to observe the alleged miracle of girls going months without food.

Binoche co-stars in “Winter Boy,” from resilient French auteur Christophe Honoré who won at Cannes Un Certain Regard with 2019’s “On a Magical Night.” Hong Sang-soo, the prolific South Korean director, will present “Walk Up,” a film which is billed as taking a gently delightful new perspective on themes dear to his poetics.

Seidl’s “Sparta” forms part of a diptych with 2022 Berlin competition contender “Rimini,” both movies turning on men who cannot escape their past.

The San Sebastián Film Festival has revealed the line-up for its latest edition, which is due to unfold from September 16-24.

The festival, which is celebrating its 70th anniversary, will be the European premiere of Chilean filmmaker Sebastián Lelio’s highly-anticipated latest feature The Wonder based on Emma Donoghue’s novel starring Florence Pugh alongside an ensemble cast including Ciarán Hinds, Tom Burke, Toby Jones, Elaine Cassidy, and Niamh Algar.

South Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-soo will also debut his latest offering Top / Walk Up in competition. The film follows the interactions of a middle-aged moviemaker. This will be the South Korean filmmaker’s second participation in the Official Selection.

Other titles due to debut at the festival include French director Christophe Honoré’s new flick Winter Boy, Portuguese director Marco Martins’s Great Yarmouth-Provisional Figures, and veteran Japanese producer Genki Kawamura’s directorial debut A Hundred Flowers.

The latest movie...

After teasing a number of titles in one-off announcements, including Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans, TIFF has now unveiled their full Gala and Special Presentations lineup. Selections include Hong Sangsoo’s second new feature of 2022, Walk Up, plus Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees Of Inisherin, Sarah Polley’s Women Talking, Sam Mendes’ Empire of Light, the Vicky Krieps-led Corsage, Park Chan-wook’s Decision to Leave, the Jennifer Lawrence-led Causeway, Joanna Hogg’s The Eternal Daugther, Mark Mylod’s The Menu, Henry Selick’s Wendell & Wild, Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale, and more.

See the lineup below.

Gala Presentations 2022

*Previously announced

Alice, Darling Mary Nighy | Canada, USA

World Premiere

Black Ice Hubert Davis | Canada

World Premiere

Butcher’s Crossing Gabe Polsky | USA

World Premiere

The Greatest Beer Run Ever Peter Farrelly | USA

World Premiere

The Hummingbird Francesca Archibugi | Italy, France

World Premiere

Hunt Lee Jung-jae | South Korea

North American...

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The 2022 Toronto Film Festival has added world premieres for Tyler Perry’s new Netflix film, A Jazzman’s Blues; Peter Farrelly’s Vietnam War movie The Greatest Beer Run Ever, which stars Russell Crowe and Zac Efron; and the Catherine Hardwicke dramatic thriller Prisoner’s Daughter, starring Kate Beckinsale and Brian Cox.

As TIFF unveiled 18 Gala program titles to screen in Roy Thomson Hall, the festival booked red carpet launches for Hubert Davis’s Black Ice, a documentary about Black hockey players executive produced by Drake; Alice, Darling, director Mary Nighy’s psychological thriller led by Anna Kendrick; Gabe Polsky’s frontier epic Butcher’s Crossing, which stars Nicolas Cage; and Francesca Archibugi’s The Hummingbird, toplined by Nanni Moretti, Berenice Bejo and Pierfrancesco Favino.

Toronto is returning for a 47th edition to run Sept. 8 to 18 that will be in-person, with Hollywood stars on red carpets...