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In “Pepe,” Nelson Carlos De Los Santos Arias tells the story of a very special hippopotamus. Or rather, he allows the hippopotamus to tell the story himself.

“Pablo Escobar brought three hippos to Colombia back in 1981. He was ‘the pioneer’ among drug lords investing in exotic pets. When he had to abandon his mansion [Naples Estate] and flee, there were so many of them. Lions, elephants,” recounts the Dominican director.

But it was the hippos that managed to adapt to their new environment, taking advantage of South American rivers.

“It’s the first wild herd outside of Africa. Initially, there was this alpha male Pablito and Pepe fought him and he lost. He was the first male who left the herd. To the people who saw him, he seemed like a monster!”

Soon, a hunt was well on its way.

“When I finished [previous film] ‘Cocote,’ I was so tired. I went to Colombia,...

Hotel Transylvania 3: A Monster Vacation also set to debut in UK.

After two sizable debuts in consecutive weeks at the UK box office – Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again with £9.7m last week and Incredibles 2 with £9.5m the week before – two more titles will be looking to make a splash this weekend.

Paramount’s Mission: Impossible - Fallout is riding the crest of a wave of positive reviews, with Screen’s own calling it a “thrilling franchise topper”. Despite being the sixth entry in the long-running Tom Cruise-fronted Mission Impossible series, the possibility of franchise fatigue should...

After making the festival rounds at Locarno, Toronto, and New Directors/New Films, “Cocote” finally gets a theatrical release. Nelson Carlo De Los Santos’ crime drama won the top prize in Locarno’s experimental Signs of Life program and has won acclaim everywhere else it’s screened, leading to a pickup by arthouse favorite Grasshopper Film. Watch the new trailer below.

Read More: Locarno in Los Angeles 2018 Announces an Award-Winning Second Edition Led by ‘Mrs. Fang,’ ‘Cocote,’ and More

Offering glimpses of a few key scenes, the trailer sets up the film’s mix of revenge, religion, and ritual: A man’s father has died, and no one who knew him has received closure, and unresolved feelings lead to bad situations.

Here’s the synopsis: “A rapturous crime fable set in the Dominican Republic, Nelson Carlo De Los Santos Arias’ ‘Cocote’ follows Alberto, a kind-hearted gardener returning home to attend his father’s funeral.

Like its seemingly innocuous protagonist, director Nelson Carlo de Los Santos Arias’ “Cocote” straddles two worlds. The film, which follows a Dominican groundskeeper returning to the rural village of his youth following the death of his father, possesses traces of the revenge thriller genre and its requisite narrative beats. However, outside of these moments, “Cocote” is an entirely different beast—a challenging watch that swings from the avant-garde to an ethnographic model of filmmaking.

Panama City — Producer Laura Michalchyshyn attended Iff Panama for a 90-minute panel on The Role of Women in a Globalised World, also featuring the Swedish Film Institute CEO, Anna Serner, Brazilian producer Vania Catani (“The Movie of My Life”), and actresses Laura Gomez (“Orange Is the New Black”) and Judith Rodríguez (“Cocote”). The round table was moderated by fest director, Pituka Ortega Heilbron.

Speaking to Variety after the panel, Michalchyshyn talked about the panel and her current projects, including docu “Bobby Kennedy for President,” directed by Dawn Porter (“Gideon’s Army,” “Trapped”), which will world premiere at Tribeca on April 25. It has its global release on Netflix on April 27.

For the series, Porter relied on rare and never-before-seen archival footage – much of it digitized for the first time. Michalchyshyn’s other recent projects include comedy series “Crawford”, with creator/director Mike Clattenburg, and feature documentary “Momentum Generation,” about the surfing world with the Zimbalist Brothers.

In the beautifully vivid film Cocote, Dominican filmmaker Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias builds on some weighty ideas surrounding Dominican identity. The story is straightforward: Alberto (played by Vicente Santos), a hefty young gardener who works at an upper-class home in Santo Domingo, is called back to his home village after learning his father has been murdered. Once back home, Alberto, who is a devout Evangelical Christian, is confronted by his family’s religion which mixes old African and Taino rites with Catholic traditions. His family—mostly matriarchs—urge him to “solve” the murder of his father but Alberto clashes with his relatives’ religion and struggles with his own internal moral conflicts.But what makes Cocote so unique is not just its portrayal of the often-forgotten communities of Dominican Republic, but its radical use of cinematic language. Skillfully employing a variety of film formats from celluloid to digital, black and white to color,...

The 4th Iff Panama’s Primera Mirada pix-in-post sidebar has selected five features – from Cuba, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Panama – and an omnibus film, “Dias de Luz” (Days of Light), produced by six Central American countries.

The number of films submitted to the Central America and Caribbean sidebar has risen by almost 50% this year – 32 films were submitted in 2015, 46 in 2016, 48 in 2017 and 67 this year.

Sales agents attending the work-in-progress creenings – which run April 9-10 – include FiGa Films, Habanero Film Sales, Weisner Distribution, the Havana Film Festival, Berlinale and OpenReel.

Projects will be screened in exclusive private sessions for sales agents, distributors, and film festival programmers. The jury members are Mexican producer, Laura Imperiale, Panamanian writer, Daniel Domínguez Z., and veteran Peruvian director, Francisco J. Lombardi.

The sidebar is particularly important for the region’s filmmakers who often desperately require post-production completion finance and mentoring advice. Three out of last year’s...

My Own Private HellThe titles for the 47th International Film Festival Rotterdam are being announced in anticipation of the event running January 24 - February 4, 2018. We will update the program as new films are revealed.SIGNATURESInsect (Jan Švankmajer)Asino (Anatoly Vasiliev)Lek and the Dogs (Andrew Kötting)The Bottomless Bag (Rustam Khamdamov)Mrs. Fang (Wang Bing)Readers (James Benning)The Wandering Soap Opera (Valeria Sarmiento, Raúl Ruiz)Lover for a Day (Philippe Garrel)Bright FUTUREThe Flower Shop (Ruben Desiere)Look Up (Fulvio Risoleo)My Friend the Polish Girl (Ewa Banaszkiewicz)Rabot (Christina Vandekerckhove)Respeto (Alberto Monteras II)The Return (Malene Choi Jensen)Windspiel (Peyman Ghalambor)All You Can Eat Buddha (Ian Lagarde)Azougue Nazareth (Tiago Melo)My Own Private Hell (Guto Parente)Ordinary Time (Susana Nobre)3/4 (Ilian Metev)Cocote (Nelson Carlo De Los Santos Arias)Drift (Helena Wittmann)The Wild Boys (Bertrand Mandico)Gutland (Govinda Van Maele)The Watchman (Alejandro Andújar...

Fans of fierce, challenging indigenous cinema rejoice. It’s not every day that you see a film from and depicting the life in the Dominican Republic, let alone one as intriguing as Cocote. Writer/director De Los Santos Arias’ feature debut shines a light on an underrepresented part of the world and casts a truly outlandish spell that confounds and overwhelms. Fair warning: sheer cultural divide would most likely prevent a deeper appreciation of the film, but the authenticity and intensity of its voice alone proves excitingly – if also gruelingly – memorable.

The protagonist Alberto (a brooding, charismatic Vicente Santos) works as a gardener at an über-affluent family in the island state’s capital. This key bit of background information is communicated efficiently through two static shots of a giant, shockingly beautiful swimming pool that more or less bracket the movie. Though seen from afar to take in the royal height...

Below you will find our favorite films of the 42nd Toronto International Film Festival, as well as an index of our coverage.Top Picksfernando F. CROCE1. First Reformed (Paul Schrader)2. Zama (Lucrecia Martel)3. Western (Valeska Grisebach)4. Ex Libris (Frederick Wiseman)5. Faces Places (Agnès Varda, Jr)6. Manhunt (John Woo)7. Jeanette: The Childhood of Joan of Arc (Bruno Dumont)8. Brawl in Cell Block 99 (S. Craig Zahler)9. The Day After (Hong Sang-soo)10. Let the Corpses Tan (Hélène Cattet, Bruno Forzani)Kelley DONG1. Rose Gold (Sarah Cwynar), Strangely Ordinary This Devotion (Dani Restack, Sheilah Wilson Restack)3. Good Luck (Ben Russell)4. Manhunt (John Woo)5. The Third Murder (Hirokazu Kore-eda), Angels Wear White (Vivian Qu)Daniel KASMAN1. Ex Libris (Frederick Wiseman)2. First Reformed (Paul Schrader)3. Zama (Lucrecia Martel)4. Strangely Ordinary This Devotion (Dani Restack, Sheilah Wilson Restack)5. I Love You, Daddy (Louis C.K.)6. Rose Gold (Sarah Cwynar)7. Brawl in Cell Block 99 (S. Craig Zahler)8. below-above (André...

Grasshopper Film has acquired U.S. distribution rights to Cocote, the Dominican Republic-set crime drama that marks the second feature film from Nelson Carlo De Los Santos Arias. The deal was made after the pic had its North American premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, which followed a bow at Locarno. The plan is to release it in theaters next year followed by VOD and home video. The plot centers on an Evangelical Christian and gardener working in the city who returns…...

After winning the top prize at this year’s Locarno International Film Festival’s Signs of Life sidebar section (a program dedicated to “investigating experimental forms of narration and innovations in film language”), Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias’ “Cocote” will next hit Tiff’s similarly ambitious Wavelengths section later this month. Bundled up in a surprisingly staid plot — a man returns home to help bury his father, and family dramas come to a head — is a bold and unnerving drama about personal choice and religious power.

Per the film’s official synopsis, it “is the story of Alberto, an evangelical gardener, returns to his hometown to attend his father’s funeral, killed by an influential man. To mourn the deceased, he is forced to participate in religion celebrations that are contrary to his will and beliefs.”

In our exclusive new trailer, that story is at the fore, but so...

Mrs. Fang director Wang BingBelow you will find the awards for the 70th Locarno Festival, as well as an index of our coverage.AWARDSInternational CompetitionGolden Leopard: Mrs. Fang (Wang Bing) Special Jury Prize: Good Manners (Juliana Rojas, Marco Dutra) Best Direction: F.J. Ossang (9 Doigts) Best Actress: Isabelle Huppert (Madame Hyde) Best Actor: Elliott Crosset Hove (Winter Brothers)Filmmakers of the Present Golden Leopard: ¾ (Ilian Metev) Special Jury Prize: Milla (Valerie Massadian) Prize for Best Emerging Director: Kim Dae-hwan (The First Lap) Special Mentions: Distant Constellation (Shevaun Mizrahi), Damned Summer (Pedro Cabeleira)Signs of Life Best Film: Cocote (Nelson Carlo De Los Santos Arias) Mantarraya Award: Phantasiesätze (Dane Komljen)First Feature Best First Feature: Scary Mother (Ana Urushadze)Art Peace Hotel Award: Meteors (Gürcan Keltek)Special Mention: Those Who Are Fine (Cyril Schäublin)Favorite MOMENTSFestival coverage by Daniel KasmanYacht Strafing, Gym Rivalry, Alcatraz Island: On Jacques Tourneur's Nick Carter, Master...

Cannes titles The Desert Bride and April’s Daughters among 12 titles.

The 65th San Sebastian Film Festival (Sept 22-30) has revealed the 12 titles in its Horizontes Latinos programme, featuring some of the best Latin American films of the year to date.

This year’s selection includes Cannes Un Certain Regard title The Desert Bride (pictured) directed by Cecilia Atán and Valeria Pivato, and Gustavo Rondón’s debut La Familia, which was screened at Cannes Critics’ Week.

Another Un Certain Regard title, Michel Franco’s April’s Daughters, has also been selected. His film After Lucia won the Prize Un Certain Regard in 2012, and his follow-up, Chronic competed for the Palme d’Or and won the best screenplay award at Cannes in 2015.

All 12 feature films compete for the Horizontes Award and its €35,000 ($40,958) prize. The six first and second films in the selection (La Educación De Rey, La Familia, Medea, Arábia, La Novia Del Desierto and Temporada De Caza) are also...

The true highlight of Toronto International Film Festival every year is the Wavelengths program, an expertly curated selection of the most boundary-pushing cinema from around the world. Led in particular by the programming vision of Andréa Picard, also known for her contributions to Cinema Scope since its inception, it acts as its own mini-festival of sorts. We were lucky enough to receive a personal preview of this year’s exciting looking batch of films from her.

Can you talk about some of the pairings; for example Blake Williams’ Prototype with Erkki Kurenneimi’s Florence or Denis Côté’s A Skin So Soft with Kazik Radwanski’s Scaffold?

I’ve always tried to curate the program as much as possible. There are infinite possibilities out there and sometimes I’m not even looking for a theme, but a theme will emerge. Sometimes things lend themselves to make a really great programme.

Update: Audience award winner revealed; Good Manners, Winter Brothers also among winners.

Documentary filmmaker Wang Bing became the fifth director from China in Locarno’s seven-decade history to win the top honour of the Golden Leopard at this year’s edition.

Mrs. Fang, which is the first documentray ever to win the festival’s top prize, follows the last days of a 67-year-old Alzheimer’s patient in southern China.

Previous Golden Leopard winners from China were Hongqui Li with Winter Vacation in 2010 and Xiaolu Guo with She, a Chinese a year before, as well as Shuo Wang with Father in 2000 and Yue Lü with Mr Zhao in 1998.

The decision by the international competition jury, headed by director Olivier Assayas, reflects a trend at international festivals of recent years for documentaries beating out competition from fiction productions.

While the special jury prize went to the Brazilian writing and directing team Juliana Rojas and Marco Dutra’s Good Manners about...

Ben & Joshua Safdie's Good TimeThe lineup for the 2017 festival has been revealed, including new films by Wang Bing, Radu Jude, Raúl Ruiz and others, alongside retrospectives and tributes dedicated to Jean-Marie Straub, Jacques Tourneur and much more.Piazza GRANDEAmori che non sonno stare al mondo (Francesca Comencini, Italy)Atomic Blonde (David Leitch, USA)Chien (Samuel Benchetrit, France/Belgium)Demain et tous les autres jours (Noémie Lvovsky, France)Drei Zinnen (Jan Zabeil, Germany/Italy)Good Time (Ben & Joshua Safdie, USA)Gotthard - One Life, One Soul (Kevin Merz, Switzerland)I Walked with a Zombie (Jacques Tourneur, USA)Iceman (Felix Randau, Germany/Italy/Austria)Laissez bronzer les cadavres (Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani, Belgium/France)Lola Pater (Nadir Moknèche, France/Belgium)Sicilia! (Jean-Marie Straub & Danièle Huillet, Italy/France/Germany)Sparring (Samuel Jouy, France)The Big Sick (Michael Showalter, USA)The Song of Scorpions (Anup Singh, Switzerland/France/Singapore)What Happed to Monday (Tommy Wirkola,...