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The Panama Int’l Film Festival (Iff Panama) presented a brief opening ceremony April 4, where Iff Panama board president Pituka Ortega-Heilbron heralded the return of documentary filmmaker Ana Endara to the festival with her fiction feature debut “Beloved Tropic.” (“Querido trópico”).

Said Endara: “’Beloved Tropic’ ‘has been traveling, but no screening will ever be as special as this one, because it’s a homecoming, and home means Panama, and home means the Panama International Film Festival.”

“It’s also special because I’m here with two incredible women who are my creative core, [producer] Isabela Gálvez and [co-writer] Pilar Moreno. And especially because the actresses I had the honor of working with are here, and because so many people contributed to making this film. Making a film takes a lot of people, and that’s what I love most—collaboration. In this room, there are so many people who helped bring this film to life,...

Berlin-based sales agent Pluto Film has boarded “Forever-Forever” (“Nazavzhdy-Nazavzhdy”), Ukrainian filmmaker Anna Buryachkova’s feature directing debut, ahead of its world premiere in Venice Film Festival’s Horizons Extra competition.

After transferring from a downtown high school, Tonia (Alina Cheban) befriends a group of badass youngsters, trying to find protection from the people from her past and a place she truly belongs. They spend time together, roaming around Kyiv’s post-socialist suburbs, having fun and getting in trouble. Soon, Tonia falls in love with Zhurik. When she also falls for Sania (Arthur Aliiev), she finds herself tangled up in an alluring secret love triangle. But Tonia’s painful past still haunts her, challenging this newfound friendship and romance. Will she be able to find her own path or lose herself in this new controversial relationship?

Buryachkova stated: “This film is a love song to the lost teenagers of the late...

Chile’s Santiago International Film Festival (Sanfic) celebrates its 19th edition with a vibrant lineup packed with works from first-time Chilean filmmakers, with six debut features out of nine contenders in the fully in-person festival running August 20-27.

“It was tough. We had at least 30 submissions to the Chilean film selection, which we narrowed down to these nine,” said artistic director Carlos Nuñez, who added that three of them are world premieres.

The selection touts five documentaries – a reflection of the boom in non-fiction filmmaking in recent years. Among them is the poetic “A Brief Space in Time” (“Breve espacio de un tiempo”), which world premieres at Sanfic and turns on a Mapuche couple living off their ancestral Wallmapu land.

Pepe Rovano’s debut docu feature “Bastard, the Inheritance of a Genocide,” also world premiering in Sanfic, revolves around the son of a genocidal criminal who seeks to make reparations...

4Dplex Experiences Added In Cambodia, Thailand

Korean tech firm Cj 4Dplex has struck a deal with Thailand’s Major Cineplex to add two ScreenX locations in Cambodia and Thailand. One will be located at the Aeon Mall Mean Chey, have almost 500 seats and have a 75-foot-wide central screen, making it the largest ScreenX auditorium in Southeast Asia. The other will be at Bangkok’s ICONSiam Mall location, debuting on July 27.

ScreenX is a multi-projection system with an immersive 270-degree field of view. That creates a virtual reality-like setting with cinema quality resolution. Major’s first ScreenX launched in 2022 at its Siam Paragon location in central Bangkok.

“We’ve received amazing reactions and feedback from our moviegoers for ScreenX in Thailand and expect to generate the same response at our Cambodia location,” said Vicha Poolvaraluk, CEO, Major Cineplex.

The two companies previously partnered on 4Dx installations, where viewers experience motion, vibration,...

Wes Anderson’s “Asteroid City,” fresh from its triumphant world premiere at the Cannes fest, opens the 38th Guadalajara Film Festival (Ficg) which touts new sections this year, including a branded series showcase and midnight screenings of Italian fright maestro Dario Argento’s horror films.

Eva Longoria’s feature directorial debut, “Flamin’ Hot,” which had its West Coast premiere at the LA Latino Film Festival (Laliff) May 31, marks its Mexican debut at the fest.

The Series Showcase includes Patricia Martinez’s fact-based “La Narcosatánica,” which will stream on the rebranded Max, and Maite Alberdi’s “Libre de reir,” a Gato Grande production that centers on inmates in a Mexican prison who enroll in a stand-up comedy workshop. Alberdi’s Sundance-winning docu “The Eternal Memory” also vies for a prize in the festival’s documentary sidebar.

According to festival director Estrella Araiza, the festival has recovered its funding and will screen...

Buzz titles include animation ’Dragonkeeper’ and ‘Co-Husbands’.

Mafiz, the industry sector of the Málaga Film Festival, which closed on Sunday March 19, attracted its highest numbers of attendees to date, up 54% on last year.

In total. 1,897 industry players came from 64 countries, with a gender parity of 963 men and 934 women.

International promotion platform Spanish Screenings registered the highest number of participants at 206 buyers and producers. Overall by sector Mafiz attracted 1,095 producers, 206 buyers, 70 festivals delegates, 26 sales agents and 36 exhibitors and local distributors.

The Málaga Festival Fund & Co-Production Event project (Maff) scored 152 attendants and 568 one-to-one meetings around 39 Ibero-American projects.

The response from buyers has...

26th edition wrapped on Sunday.

Estíbaliz Urresola’s 20,000 Species Of Bees and Kattia G. Zúñiga’s Sister & Sister won top awards at 2023 Málaga Film Festival, taking best Spanish film and best Latin American film, respectively, as the Andalusian event closed on Sunday.

In other key awards at the festival’s 26th edition, Gerardo Herrero’s Under Therapy earned a special jury prize director and Matías Bize claimed the best director prize for The Punishment.

20,000 Species Of Bees won the Berlin Silver Bear for best leading performance for young Sofía Otero last month and added the Golden Biznaga for...

Estíbaliz Urresola Solaguren’s celebrated Spanish feature “20,000 Species of Bees” and Kattia G. Zúñiga’s Panamanian drama “Sister & Sister” took the top prizes at the Malaga Film Festival, garnering the Golden Biznagas for Spanish and Latin American pictures respectively.

“20,000 Species of Bees” also won best supporting actress for Patricia López Arnaiz and picked up the Spanish Cinematographic Informers Association’s Feroz Puerta Oscura award. The film’s success follows two awards in Berlin, including a Silver Bear for Sofía Otero for her portrayal of a young girl going through a gender crisis.

For Zúñiga, the Golden Biznaga is sure to help further propel “Sister & Sister,” an autobiographical story about two teenage sisters who travel from Costa Rica to Panama in search of their absent father. Pic drew upbeat reviews in Malaga following on its SXSW world premiere.

Also making waves at the Malaga Festival, which runs...

Madrid, Spain — Industry prizes will be announced on Friday, Festival awards one day later. Yet even by Thursday evening, as this year’s Malaga Festival’s Mafiz-Spanish Screenings headed into its home straits, Spain film and TV industry was sending strong signs of their consolidation as an international market power.

That cut multiple ways. Following, 10 provisional takes on this year’s event:

The Biggest Malaga Ever, By a Head

Final attendance has blasted past last year’s 1,600, in itself a massive hike on years prior, tracking by Thursday at 1,700 attendees from 61 countries at Mafiz, Malaga’s industry arm. The Spanish Screenings alone account for getting on half of those accreditations. “The market’s been very good,” said Vicente Canales at Film Factory. “There’s been enough buyers, spending more time watching Spanish films. At Berlin and Cannes, they just don’t have the time. And Screenings attendance has been high.

Panamanian-Costa Rican director Kattia G. Zúñiga, whose debut feature “Las hijas” (“Sister & Sister”) premieres at the Malaga Film festival, is developing a new feature project about women finding their and a tougher attitude late in life through the power of dance. The project re-teams her with “Las Hijas” producer Alejo Crisóstomo.

“Rabiosas” (“Raging”, their project, follows a group of 55-year-old friends in Panama who decide to take ballet classes together, as they did when they were schoolgirls, in order to cheer up a friend going through a difficult time and also to get out of the routine of daily life. Inspired by their 26-year-old teacher, however, they soon switch to bolder dancing moves.

Their coach encourages them to release their emotions, especially pent-up anger, and not only in the studio but in their regular lives. As their development intensifies, they begin to experience changes in the way they perceive...

The festival opens on March 10 and will include super-sized industry progrramme Mafiz.

The 26th edition of the Malaga Film Festival kicks off today, giving the Spanish and international industry the chance to discover the latest films and talent emerging from the local and Latin America landscapes.

Twenty films will screen in the main competition. They include new films from returning Malaga filmmaker Elena Trapé, who won the best film and best director award in 2018 for The Distances. She’s in competition with a drama called The Enchanced, starring Laia Costa, about a young mother who has recently separated and is missing her young daughter.

"What do you mean 'just skate?'" A fest promo trailer has debuted for an indie film titled Sister & Sister, which is premiering at the 2023 SXSW Film Festival this month. It's the feature debut of Panamanian-Costa Rican filmmaker Kattia G. Zúñiga, telling a very personal story. An intimate and tender tale of sisterhood in the urban tropics, starring newcomers Ariana Chaves Gavilán & Cala Rossel Campos, the film tells the story of Marina and Luna, who travel from Costa Rica to Panama during summer vacation to look for their absent father. They explore new friendships, lovers, desires, as well as the simple joy of just hanging out. The cast also includes Gabriela Man, Fernando Bonilla, Joshua De León, Lía Jiménez, Michelle Quiñones, Angello Morales, and Mir Rodríguez. This is a lovely, upbeat trailer that has strong vibes of nostalgia and the bliss of youthful casualness. Looks like it might be a...

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,...

Festival runs in Austin, Texas, from March 10-19.

Emma Seligman’s Shiva Baby follow-up Bottoms and Jon S. Baird’s Tetris starring Taron Egerton are among the second wave of SXSW unveiled on Wednesday.

Festival organisers announced all selections in Visions, Global presented by Mubi, 24 Beats, and Festival Favorites as well as additions to Headliners, TV Premieres, Narrative and Documentary Spotlight.

New to Headliners are world premieres of Emma Seligman’s Shiva Baby follow-up Bottoms which follows two unpopular queer high school students who start a fight club to have sex before graduation; and Jon S. Baird’s Tetris starring...

Twelve projects have been selected for the two work-in-progress sections.

Organised by Argentina’s national film body Incaa and the Cannes Marché du Film, Latin America’s premiere film market Ventana Sur has announced 12 works-in-progress for this year’s edition (November 28-December 2).

The market’s post-production competition Primer Corte contains three Mexican titles: Goodbye Love from director Indra Villaseñor, about a deported immigrant torn between a drug lord and a peaceful life; Manuela Irene’s summer-set coming-of-age tale Xibalba Monster; and Mexico-Peru co-production The Innocents, a story of sex, rock music and the end of innocence from Germán Tejada, a...