News

“1976,” the awaited first feature of Chile’s Manuela Martelli, has closed first new major territories for sales company Luxbox before its world premiere in Directors’ Fortnight later this upcoming week.

The film is produced out of Chile by writer-directors Omar Zúñiga (“The Strong Ones”) and Dominga Sotomayor (“Too Late to Die Young”) at auteur-focused Chile-based Cinestación (“Too Late to Die Young”) as well as Alejandra Garcia and Andrés Wood, another celebrated Chilean director (“Violeta Went to Heaven”) at Wood Productions. Nathalia Videla Peña and Juan Pablo Gugliotta at Argentina’s Magma Cine co-produce.

“1976” is set, as its title implies, in 1976, one of the bloodiest years of Augusto Pinochet’s hugely bloody dictatorship. Carmen, the wife of a well-heeled Santiago de Chile doctor heads off to her beach house to supervise its renovation during the holidays.

The local priest appeals to her to help cure a young man who’s escaped from jail.

Nothing happens in James Vaughn’s Friends and Strangers in the same way that nothing happens in the films of Hong Sangsoo. The people navigating this entrancing debut feature (a lively pantheon of Australian twenty-somethings plus the occasional grownup proper) meet and talk; couples come together and drift apart; plans are shared and swiftly abandoned. But even a non-event can have its own sense of happening, and even a maze of chance encounters can reveal its own intelligent design. Populated by young adults fumbling after a coherent identity, Friends and Strangers behaves like them. It is a film of detours, digressions, and everyday surrealism––one that draws its unsettling allure from the angst that comes when you realize the path you’ve walked along isn’t paved anymore, and the future you’re venturing into will be entirely your own making.

At the center of it is Ray (Fergus Wilson). A videographer in his twenties,...

Movistar initiated production in Chile on Jan. 4 on its most ambitious original series to date – about seminal Chilean band Los Prisioneros which hit its heights under one of the bloodiest dictatorships in modern Latin American history, giving voice to unheard youth across the region.

Shown by Movistar exec Joanna Lombardi and produced by Movistar and Parox – the Chilean TV production house behind 2019 MipTV hit “Invisible Heroes,” produced with Finland’s Yle – “Los Prisioneros” will hit Latin American pay TV service Movistar TV and Ott platform Movistar Play during the second semester of 2021.

The punk band saga examines the life of its three members during key moments of their careers. As they become an iconic band whose lyrics defined the sentiments of a Latin American generation, and still today resonate with audiences as the political landscape of today’s uncertain present echoes the era of Los Prisioneros.

Los Prisioneros band members – main lyricist,...

Chilean filmmakers have quietly become a force in international cinema. From Sebastián Lelio’s “Gloria” and its subsequent remake “Gloria Bell” to Dominga Sotomayor Castillo’s groundbreaking “Too Late to Die Young,” the country’s best are reaching success far from home. Now, it’s time for Gaspar Antillo to achieve that same level of notoriety thanks to the film “Nobody Knows I’m Here.”

Read More: ‘Palm Springs’ Trailer: Andy Samberg Stars In Sundance Standout Coming To Hulu

Having previously studied film at the National School of Cinema, director Antillo sets up an interesting first act of his own in this impressive freshman effort.

Continue reading ‘Nobody Knows I’m Here’ Trailer: Jorge Garcia Stars In Gaspar Antillo’s Tribeca Drama at The Playlist.

Following our top 50 films of 2019, we’re sharing personal top 10 lists from our contributors. Check out the latest below and see our complete year-end coverage here.

At the risk of hyperbole, the release year of 2019 is one of the very finest I’ve seen this century, if not of all time. By my count, and bolstered by an incredibly great premiere year in 2018, it featured no less than four bona fide masterpieces, the continued development of many masters of the cinematic medium, and countless pleasures that captivated me throughout the year. Though I wasn’t able to get to all of the films I was hoping to watch before compiling this ultimately preliminary list, these are all utterly remarkable and truly great films.

There’s far too many fantastic films that fall just outside my top fifteen, but here are just a few more notable ones: “I Do Not Care...

A mini Mubi retrospective offers a rare chance to see the work of one of South America’s most exciting young film-makers

You’ve probably noticed that bemoaning the lack of cinema release for certain outstanding films is a recurring theme in this column, so here’s a change of tune. One of the year’s loveliest arthouse releases did in fact get a big-screen UK airing back in the spring, courtesy of plucky indie distributor Day for Night. Still, if you didn’t see or hear of Chilean director Dominga Sotomayor’s richly evocative growing-up study Too Late to Die Young, that’s understandable. It was in a handful of cinemas, and, the market being what it is, didn’t stick around for long.

Thankfully, Mubi.com is offering its subscribers a second chance to catch up with the film, as well as with Sotomayor’s earlier work. Just...

Omar Zúñiga makes feature directorial debut.

Meikincine Entertainment has pre-sold two key territories on gay romance Los Fuertes, the feature directorial debut of Omar Zúñiga from Chilean production house Cinestación.

Rights have gone to Salzgeber for Germany and Austria and Sonata Films for France.

Los Fuertes is a longer version of Zúñiga’s 2015 Berlin Teddy Award-winning short San Cristóbal, and will receive its world premiere in October as the opening night film at Valdivia International Film Festival in Chile.

“It’s a very romantic and authentic love story that takes place in remote southern Chile,” said Zúñiga. “A young man...

Director Dominga Sotomayor’s Too Late To Die Young screens at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (470 East Lockwood) Friday August 30th, Saturday August 31st, and Sunday September 1st. The screenings begin at 7:30 each evening. Facebook invite can be found Here.

Set in 1990 Chile at the end of Pinochet’s reign, Too Late to Die Young focuses on 16-year-old Sofía (Demian Hernández), who, like most leads in coming of age stories, is itching to be a little bit older than what she is. Sofía has a clear, age-appropriate suitor in Lucas (Antar Machado), but she’s drawn to a cool older guy named Ignacio (Matías Oviedo) instead. Director Sotomayor has a keen eye for visuals, calling to mind recent independent touchstones such as Beasts of the Southern Wild.

In Spanish with English subtitles.

Admission is:

$7 for the general public

$6 for seniors, Webster alumni and students from other schools

$5 for Webster...

Santiago, Chile – In the run-up to the upcoming 76th Venice Int’l Film Festival, Paris-based Stray Dogs has closed international sales rights on Chilean drama “Blanco en Blanco,” which holds its world premiere in the festival’s Horizons sidebar.

Filmed last year in the frigid tundra of Chile’s Tierra de Fuego and Spain’s tropical Canary Islands, the anticipated second feature by helmer-scribe Theo Court (“Ocaso”) features Chile’s Alfredo Castro, who starred in 72nd Venice Golden Lion winner “Desde Alla” (“From Afar”) by Lorenzo Vigas. Castro leads an international cast that includes Germany’s Lars Rudolph and Spanish thesp, Lola Rubio.

Set in the early 20th century, the drama centers on a photographer, played by Castro, who heads to Tierra de Fuego where he has been commissioned by a wealthy landowner to cover his wedding.

The photographer discovers that the bride is a mere child and begins to obsessively photograph her in secret.

Dominga Sotomayor’s Too Late To Die Young is a coming-of-age drama that takes place during the halcyon summer of 1990 in Chile, a time when the nation was slowly emerging from the shadows of a violent military regime. Against a changing political climate, the film follows 16-year-old Sofia (Demian Hernández) as she navigates the waters of adolescence and approaching adulthood. A hazy mood piece frequently bathed in pallid sunlight, Too Late To Die Young is deliberately mystifying at times, with Sotomayor choosing to focus on re-creating the hopeful and tentative atmosphere of that period, at the expense of a narrative with more direction. Still, she manages to interweave the teenage growing pains of heartbreak, disappointment and reconciliation with the uncertainty of a post-Pinochet Chile in...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Mihály Schwechtje’s Democracy Work In Progress wins €20,000 Eurimages co-production development award.

Fifteen projects from Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, Hungary, Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey were presented at the Transilvania Pitch Stop (Tps) at the Transilvania International Film Festival (Tiff) in Cluj-Napoca in Romania last week.

The €20,000 Eurimages co-production development award went to Hungarian filmmaker Mihály Schwechtje’s Democracy Work In Progress. The project had been developed at the Nipkow Programme in Berlin last year.

Turkish director Selman Nacar’s Between Two Dawns was awarded €25,000 in postproduction services from Chainsaw Europe. The project is being co-produced by Romania’s Oana Giurgiu of...

The possibility and impossibility of community lies at the heart of Chilean Dominga Sotomayor’s second feature film, Too Late To Die Young, which follows a group of young people living in a community being formed by their parents on the outskirts of Santiago. While the country is undergoing its own transition to democracy from the 17-year dictatorship of General Pinochet and their parents try to build a society that reflects their own values, the teenagers, particularly Sofía (Demian Hernández), seek to find their place in the world, all the while watched by a younger generation of children looking to emulate […]...

The possibility and impossibility of community lies at the heart of Chilean Dominga Sotomayor’s second feature film, Too Late To Die Young, which follows a group of young people living in a community being formed by their parents on the outskirts of Santiago. While the country is undergoing its own transition to democracy from the 17-year dictatorship of General Pinochet and their parents try to build a society that reflects their own values, the teenagers, particularly Sofía (Demian Hernández), seek to find their place in the world, all the while watched by a younger generation of children looking to emulate […]...

The hype machine officially began on Chilean filmmaker Dominga Sotomayor‘s third feature back in August when she won Best Director at Locarno. Since then, she has moved onto prestige fest slots of Tiff and Nyff, but its at Pingyao Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon Intl. Film Festival where I finally saw what all the buzz was about. Humming along to The Bangles’ Eternal Flame, Too Late to Die Young (Tarde para morir joven) taps into that murky area where the heart skips a beat and the awkwardness of being a teen has a head-on collision with irresponsible adults in a very hands off commune and set in 1990, the first couple of months after the 17-year rule of Augusto Pinochet came to an end.…...

A teenager seeks to escape from her remote commune just after the fall of Pinochet in this atmospheric but elusive drama

History provided a resplendent context for simple domestic events in last year’s Latin American standout Roma. But in Dominga Sotomayor Castillo’s Too Late to Die Young – which also features a showpiece New Year’s brushfire – history rises up almost unseen like smoke and hangs in the air around the inhabitants of the Chilean rural commune where this film is set.

It’s set in 1990 just after the fall of the Pinochet dictatorship, and 16-year-old Sofia (Demian Hernández) is seeking a route out of the stifling inertia of the backwoods setup her father has chosen for her. A few ominous incidents – a dead horse poisoning the watercourse, a break-in – hint at the outside world encroaching, but the community’s dope-smoking adolescents barely notice. It’s unclear if anyone,...

Omar Zúñiga Hidalgo’s debut solo feature “Los fuertes” has been picked up by Buenos Aires-based sales agent Meikincine which will represent the film’s rights on the international market.

“Los fuertes” is a celebratory vision of a love between a big city guy and a small town male boatswain on the Chilean coast. When romance blossoms between them, the relationship will force them to face a hostile society and find ways to mature and gain personal independence.

Zúñiga, Dominga Sotomayor and Catalina Marín are co-founders of Cinestación Producciones, the Santiago-based production outfit behind “Los fuertes” and Sotomayor’s own Locarno best director winner “Too Late to Die Young.”

Zúñiga was one of 11 directors who took on one of 11 segments chronicling Pulitzer prize-winning Ck Williams’ life in 2012’s “The Color of Time.” The film featured the likes of James Franco, Mila Kunis, Jessica Chastain and Zach Braff. It is inspired...

Have you ever wondered what are the films that inspire the next generation of visionary filmmakers? As part of our monthly Ioncinephile profile, we ask the filmmaker (this month: Dominga Sotomayor) to identify their all time top ten favorite films. Dominga’s Too Late to Die Young opens May 31 at Film at Lincoln Center in New York, followed by a June 7th release at Laemmle Music Hall in Los Angeles followed by more cities. In no particular order, here are Dominga Sotomayor’s top ten films as of May 2019.

A Swedish Love Story – Roy Andersson (1970)

“For simultaneously being the best first love portrait I had seen, and for the political acidness that only a Roy Andersson could have made.”

A Woman Under the Influence – John Cassavetes (1974)

“For Cassavettes’ control and … to a certain extent, lack of control (same as its protagonist) and perhaps the best portrait of a woman made...

Ioncinema.com’s Ioncinephile of the Month feature focuses on an emerging creator from the world of cinema. This month, we are pleased to introduce filmmaker Dominga Sotomayor and her third feature film Too Late to Die Young (Tarde para morir joven) which debuted at Locarno in 2018 (she won Best Director prize) and it would be featured prominently on the fall festival circuit at Tiff, New York, Viennale and BFI London (we met her at Pingyao Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon International Film Festival back in November). Starring first time actress Demian Hernández, KimStim opens the film on Friday, May 31st at Film at Lincoln Center in New York.…...

Ioncinema.com’s Top 3 Critics’ Picks offers a curated approach to the usual quandary: what would you recommend I see in theaters this month? While dated for a May release, we have a feeling that James Gray’s Ad Astra will shift to a fall date, but not to worry — we have a pair of films that began their film festival life in 2019 with Sundance preemed The Souvenir (A24 – May 17th) and SXSW preemed Booksmart (Annapurna Pictures – May 24th) that are worth the full price of admission and we have an award-winning festival darling of 2018 in Too Late to Die Young (KimStim -May 31st) to complete our trio of suggestions.…...

Madrid — Peru’s La Vida Misma and Paris-based sales agent Luxbox have dropped the first trailer and poster of Melina Leon’s “Canción sin nombre” (“Song Without a Name”), selected this week for the Cannes Festival’s Directors’ Fortnight.

Written by Leon and Michael J. White, “Song Without a Name” sums up some of ambitions and focus of the section under first-time artistic director Paolo Moretti: A first feature, a movie with a strong auteurist voice, and elements of genre in its slow-boiling thriller thrust and dashes of film noir.

“Song Without a Name” is lead produced by La Vida Misma, in co-production with Spain’s Mgc, Peru’s La Mula Producciones and Switzerland’s Bord Cadre, co-producers of “Monos” and “Divine Love,” well received at this year’s Sundance festival, and 2018 Directors’ Fortnight standout “Birds of Passage.”

Sophie Dulac Distribution, the French distributor of Whit Stillman’s “Love & Friendship...

South Korea’s second biggest film festival, the Jeonju International Film Festival, will open its 20th edition with Italian director Claudio Giovannesi’s crime drama “Piranhas.” It will close with “Skin,” an American biographical drama written and directed by Guy Nattiv.

Festival organizers announced their film selection at a live-streamed press conference in Jeonju on Wednesday and dispensed with the traditional second presentation in Seoul. Under the slogan, “Cinema, Liberated and Expressed,” they unveiled a selection comprising 202 feature films and 60 shorts from 56 countries.

The international competition includes “Breathless Animals”by Chinese-American Lei Lei, and Nore Fingshceidt’s “System Crasher,” both of which premiered in Berlin. (“Piranhas”won a silver bear in Berlin for its screenplay.) The competition prizes will be adjudged by a jury headed by Hungary’s Gyorgy Palfi.

The festival will also dedicate a section to the centenary of Korean cinema, another called “Star Wars Archive: Never-Ending Chronology,...

Not to be confused with Dominga Sotomayor’s excellent coming-of-age film Too Late to Die Young arriving at the end of May, Nicolas Winding Refn’s crime drama series Too Old to Die Young will land on Amazon just a few weeks later in June. Starring Miles Teller, Jena Malone, William Baldwin (Silver), Celestino Cornielle (The Fate of the Furious), Nell Tiger Free (Game of Thrones), John Hawkes (Winter Bone), Callie Hernandez (Alien: Covenant), and Babs Olusanmokun (Black Mirror), a new trailer has now premiered.

“For me the biggest change is just the endurance to do what I think of as a ten-hour movie – or a 16-hour movie in the case of Too Old To Die Young,” composer Cliff Martinez told Screen Daily this year. “It’s ten episodes that are around 90 minutes a piece. I warned Nic Winding Refn, you better drink a lot of coffee and get a...

The extraordinary success of Chilean filmmakers will be celebrated in the 2019 Week of Chilean Cinema, which launches in Madrid, then travels to Paris and Berlin. The week offers a larger narrative: the Chileans have won more awards, festival acclaim and global box office in the past decade than any other filmmaking industry in all of Latin America.

Backed by Pablo and Juan de Dios Larraín, Sebastián Lelio and a who’s who of Chilean cineasts who will conduct Q&As after screenings, the Week also celebrates 10 years of CinemaChile, the producer-backed international film-tv promotion org.

Titles will play May 30-June 2 at Madrid’s Golem Cinema arthouse over, then June 5-9 at Cinematheque Française and finally June 19-23 at Berlin’s Babylon Kino, another iconic arthouse. A fourth strand will unspool in a “surprise” city, says CinemaChile executive director Constanza Arena.

Chosen by programmers at the Sundance, Tribeca and Toronto festivals among others,...

Camila José Donoso’s fiction-fact hybrid, “Nona. If They Soak Me, I’ll Burn Them” vies for the Tiger Award at the Rotterdam Int’l Film Festival (Iffr), bearing the distinction of being among two Chilean films out of five pics awarded development funding by Korea’s Jeonju Cinema Project (Jcp) last year. Alejandro Fernandez Almendras’ black and white drama, “The Play” (“Hra”), shot in the Czech Republic, is the second awardee.

Featuring her own eccentric grandmother and mother, “Nona” is Donoso’s most personal project to date. While it is inspired by events, it is comprised of mainly fictional elements. Shot in a diversity of formats including low-resolution video images, home videos and digital images, “Nona” follows a 66-year old retiree whose neighbors in the Chilean coastal town of Pichilemu are driven from their homes after a series of mysterious forest fires erupt not long after she settles there.

Around The World When You Were My AgeThe titles for the 48th International Film Festival Rotterdam are being announced in anticipation of the event running January 23 – February 3, 2018. We will update the program as new films are revealed.Tiger COMPETITIONSons of Denmark (Ulaa Salim)Take Me Somewhere Nice (Ena Sendijarević)Present.Perfect. (Shengze Zhu)Sheena667 (Grigory Dobrygin)Nona. If They Soak Me, I’ll Burn Them (Camila José Donoso)Koko-di Koko-da (Johannes Nyholm)Els dies que vindran (Carlos Marqués-Marcet)Bright Future COMPETITIONAlva (Ico Costa)Chèche lavi (Sam Ellison)De nuevo otra vez (Romina Paula)Doozy (Richard Squires)Dreissig (Simona Kostova)Ende der Saison (Elmar Imanov)Fabiana (Brunna Laboissière)The Gold-Laden Sheep & the Sacred Mountain (Ridham Janve)Heroes (Köken Ergun)Historia de mi nombre (Karin Cuyul)Last Night I Saw You Smiling (Kavich Neang)Lost Holiday (Michael Kerry Matthews/Thomas Matthews)Maggie (Yi Okseop)Mens (Isabelle Prim)No Data Plan (Miko Revereza...

In 2018 we've published 70 interviews whose subjects have ranged from old masters to emerging new voices, and including some unexpected conversations, including those with curators (Dave Kehr of the Museum of Modern Art), as well as archival finds (a 1971 talk with Jerry Lewis).Below you will find an index of our conversations throughout the year, listed in order of publication date.Blake Williams (Prototype)Samira Elagoz (Craigslist Allstars)F.J. Ossang (9 Fingers)Jerry LewisAndré Gil Mata (The Tree)Christian Petzold (Transit)Raoul Peck (Young Karl Marx)Ashley McKenzie (Werewolf)Penelope SpheerisTed Fendt (Classical Period)Dominik Graf (The Red Shadow)Blake Williams ("Stereo Visions")Arnaud Desplechin (Ismael's Ghosts)Ruth Beckermann (The Waldheim Waltz)Nelson Carlos de los Santos Arias (Cocote)Esther GarrelPhilippe Garrel (Lover for a Day)Jonas MekasJohann Lurf (★)Karim Aïnouz (Central Airport Thf)Juliana Antunes (Baronesa)Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra (Birds of Passage)Wang Bing (Dead Souls)Donal Foreman...

Buenos Aires — Oscar-winning Chilean producer Juan de Dios Larraín (“A Fantastic Woman”), Sebastián Freund, co-creator of Chile’s biggest ever B.O. hit, “Stefan vs. Kramer,” and Gabriela Sandoval, co-director of Sanfic, Chile’s biggest film event, Sanfic festival, are joining forces to haul Chile’s much vaunted cinema into the 21st century.

They will be joined by Sergio Gándara, Chile’s top TV producer, Macarena Cardone, from Invercine&Wood, and Gastón Chedufa, from Las Minas.

A hint of their roadmap looks likely to be heard Wednesday evening at Ventana Sur, when Freund and Sandoval deliver a short speech before a CinemaChile cocktail, traditionally a mid-market social milestone at Latin America’s biggest movie-tv market. If it ain’t broke….? Since a new generation of filmmakers, making up the so-called Newest Chilean Cinema – Sebastián Lelio, Alicia Scherson, Matías Bize – burst onto the scene at the 2005 Valdivia Festival, Chilean filmmakers have won...

Portuguese actor Pêpê Rapazote is toplining Argentine helmer-scribe Leonardo Brzezicki’s second feature, “Almost in Love.”

The father-daughter drama is the third collaboration between Argentine shingle Ruda Cine and Rodrigo Teixeira’s Rt Features of Brazil, a co-producer of such stellar titles as “Call Me by Your Name,” “Little Men,” “Patti Cake$” and “Frances Ha.”

Derk-Jan Warrink and Koji Nelissen from Holland’s Keplerfilm have also boarded the film as co-producers.

The co-production comes at a time when Argentina, Brazil and other beleaguered countries in the region are refocusing or cutting back on their support for cinema, if not the arts. Banding together has been the best way for Latino producers to overcome – the hopefully temporary – setback in state funding.

“Almost in Love” follows an angst-ridden father, Santiago, whose emotional crisis is exacerbated by a complex and intense relationship with his teenage daughter who seeks to break free from him.

Madrid — Chilean Manuela Martelli’s “1976,” Argentine Maximiliano Schonfeld’s “Jesús Lopez” and Cuban Marcos Díaz Sosa’s “Obra de choque” have all made the cut of Proyecta, a movie project showcase which represents one of the major innovations at this year’s Ventana Sur, Latin America’s biggest film-tv market and co-production meet.

Though, two weeks and more out from Ventana Sur, buzz still has to build on many new projects in the section, there’s also a good word on Andrew Sala’s “La barbarie,” Natalia Lopez Gallardo’s “Supernova” and Colombian Jennifer Yuribe’s “Sandra” – and curiosity to learn more about Uruguayan Aparicio Garcia’s “Matufia” after his one-of-kind debut earlier this year, the grindhouse rural mobster comedy “La noche que no se repite.”

An initiative of Ventana Sur and the San Sebastian Festival, Proyecta sees four projects segueing from the Basque Festival’s Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum,...

Chicago – Day Six of the 54th Chicago International Film Festival (Ciff) on Monday, October 15th, 2018, features a tribute to the Chicago-born director William Friedkin, two made-in-Chicago films and four films vying in the International Competition.

’Friedkin Uncut’ on Day Six of the 54th Chicago International Film Festival

Photo credit: Chicago International Film Festival/Wanted Cinema

Events It took an Italian director, Francesco Zippel, to do a proper documentary on an American director icon, the Chicago-born William Friedkin. The film is entitled “Friedkin Uncut,” and will be featured along with a Red Carpet event and appearance by the maverick filmmaker himself – who also directed the notable “Socerer” (1977), “Cruising” (1980) and the recent “Killer Joe” (2011) – in a “Tribute to William Friedkin” on Monday. (click here for details).

There will also be a Red Carpet event for the film “What They Had” (see below), with director Elizabeth Chomko and actor Robert Forster.

Film Of...

by Murtada Elfadl

Childhood and adolescent memories are the basis for two films playing at this year’s New York Film Festival. Though they come from different parts of the world, both stories use a distinctive visual style to tell an intimate story of growing up. Dominga Sotomayor based Too Late To Die Young on her experiences growing up in a rural bohemian community of artists in Chile in 1990. English photographer and visual artist Richard Billingham’s Ray & Liz is a portrait of his childhood focusing on his very neglectful parents (yep the titular characters) in a council estate in London, around the same time (late 80s)...

Above: Us poster for The Favourite. Designer: Vasilis Marmatakis.The 56th edition of the New York Film Festival kicks off tonight with the latest by that sly provocateur Yorgos Lanthimos, and my annual round-up of posters for films in the festival kicks off with a slyly provocative poster from Lanthimos’s secret weapon: his longtime poster designer Vasilis Marmatakis. One of two posters by Marmatakis for the film (the other one can be seen here) this one is by far the odder and most subversive.As usual I’ve tried to collect posters for all the films in the festival’s main slate—there are 30 this year—the only two poster-less films being Olivier Assayas’s Non-Fiction and Louis Garrel’s A Faithful Man. Some of these might be familiar from my Cannes round-up, though I’ve tried to post alternatives if they exist. And this year, for the first time,...

San Sebastian — Omar Zúñiga Hidalgo’s debut feature “Los fuertes” screened for the first time to potential industry partners at San Sebastian’s Films in Progress competition this week. Zúñiga’s short “San Cristóbal” took a Teddy Award at the 2015 Berlin Festival.

Zúñiga, Dominga Sotomayor and Catalina Marín are co-founders of Cinestación Producciones, the Santiago-based production outfit behind “Los fuertes” and Sotomayor’s “Too Late to Die Young.”

One of the most promising young director-producers in Chile, Sotomayor took the Best Director Award at Locarno’s main competition this year the Stray Dogs-sold film. A coming of age drama produced by Cinestación, Rt Features, Ruda Cine and Circe Films production. Her debut “Thursday Through Sunday” was a Rotterdam Festival winner in 2012.

“Los Fuertes” is financed through Chile’s Audiovisual Fund, has received development aid from Ibermedia and is backed by the New York University Production Lab.

“‘Los Fuertes’ is a story of love,...

I find myself in Egypt, in an environment filled with contradictions, at the 2nd edition of the Al Gouna Film Festival, an invited guest of Mohammed Atef, one of its programmers and a colleague in the Arab Critics Association of which I am a member.

Held in a highly engineered resort region of Egypt called El Gouna, where hotels, homes, golf courses, many islands, swimming pools, bars and beaches on the Red Sea have been created as an eco-friendly destination aimed to raise awareness on protecting the environment and protecting the stunning coral reefs where we spent hours snorkeling, the Festival has provided us with all the services we could ask for and they are administered by kind, approachable and infinitely patient attendants.

A worldwide mix of international industry executives, fellow writers and journalists have bonded in this environment. After a morning of writing, we go see three films a day,...

Below you will find an index of our coverage from the Toronto International Film Festival (Tiff) in 2018, as well as our favorite films.Top Picksdaniel KASMANFeatures:1. What You Gonna Do When the World's on Fire? (Roberto Minervini)2. High Life (Claire Denis)3. Monrovia, Indiana (Frederick Wiseman)4. Green Book (Peter Farrelly)5. aKasha (hajooj kuka)6. Rojo (Benjamin Naishtat)7. Roma (Alfonso Cuarón)8. Belmonte (Federico Veiroj)9. If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins)10. Hidden Man (Jiang Wen)Shorts:1. Blue (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)2. Arena (Björn Kämmerer)3. Polly One (Kevin Jerome Everson)4. Colophon (Nathaniel Dorsky)5. Please step out of the frame. (Karissa Hahn)6. Wall Unwalled (Lawrence Abu Hamdan)7. Ada Kaleh (Helena Wittmann)8. Alitplano (Malena Szlam)9. Norman Norman (Sophy Romvari)10. Hoarders without Borders, 1.0 (Jodie Mack)Kelley DONG1. "I Do Not Care If We Go Down In History As Barbarians" (Radu Jude)2. High Life (Claire Denis)3. Our Time (Carlos Reygadas)4. Our Body (Han Ka-Ram)5. A Star is Born (Bradley Cooper...

Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Favourite and Marielle Heller’s Melissa McCarthy-starrer Can You Ever Forgive Me? will get Centerpiece slots at next month’s Hamptons Film Festival.

The fest released its full line-up today, adding Steve McQueen’s Widows and the East Coast premiere of Felix Van Groeningen’s Beautiful Boy to the previously announced slate.

Lanthimos’ The Favourite stars Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz and Olivia Colman in the tale of two cousins fighting to be the court favorite of Queen Anne. The film will be the fest’s Friday Centerpiece, while Heller’s Can You Ever Forgive Me? takes the Sunday Centerpiece slot.

The Hamptons fest runs Oct. 4-8.

In addition to the previously announced films, the Narrative Competition films will include the New York Premiere of Yen Tan’s 1985, the U.S. Premiere of Eva Trobisch’s All Good, Ali Abbasi’s Border, the U.S. Premiere of Zsófia Szilágyi’s One Day,...

One of the best discoveries of the year is Dominga Sotomayor’s Chilean drama Too Late to Die Young, which earned the filmmaker a Best Director award at Locarno Film Festival– the first female director to receive the prize. Now, ahead of stopping by Tiff and Nyff, KimStim has picked up the coming-of-age drama and debuted the first trailer.

Leonardo Goi said in his review, “More an episodic tale than a rigidly structured three-act plot, it is an act of recollection, and it unfolds the way memory does: as a series of hazy vignettes, more often than not unconnected to one another. There are moments when we follow Sofía’s driving lessons, others when she captures the kids hanging by the commune’s artificial pool, and others still when she trails behind the adults as they struggle to keep the village alive amid fires and droughts.”

See the trailer below...

The Notebook is covering Tiff with an on-going correspondence between critics Kelley Dong and Daniel Kasman.RomaDear Kelley,I’m excited to be here in Toronto again with you, though admittedly with melancholy feelings, for I must note with broken heart that our comrade Fernando F. Croce, who has been covering the Toronto International Film Festival (Tiff) with me for the last six years, had to cancel his trip last minute. But I very much look forward to you and I continuing the festival correspondence we began together with Fern last year, for this year’s event looks very promising indeed.It’s been an unexpectedly quiet international festival season so far in 2018, with Berlin, Cannes, and Locarno offering softer-than-normal premieres, many of which are now headed to North America.At Tiff from Berlin, we have written on and recommend: Transit (with a director interview), An Elephant Sitting Still. And...

As Chilean filmmakers garner greater international acclaim, (such as Oscar winner Sebastián Lelio and nominee Pablo Larraín), up-and-comer Dominga Sotomayor is proof that the Chilean film boom shows no sign of stopping. The second feature film from the 33-year-old director, “Too Late to Die Young” (“Tarde Para Morir Joven”) has earned comparisons to the work of Lucrecia Martel and “Call Me by Your Name.” It also earned Sotomayor the coveted Best Direction Award from the Locarno Film Festival earlier this year, making her the first woman in the festival’s history to take home the Leopard for directing.

In the festival’s statement awarding the film, the jury wrote that Sotomayor “achieved something that most filmmakers struggle to gain throughout their career: an impressive balance between reality of storytelling and inner capture of psychologies and sensibilities.” In his B+ review of the film, IndieWire’s Eric Kohn called it “a stunning assemblage of small moments.

Irish filmmaker Lenny Abrahamson will chair the jury of this year’s 62nd BFI London Film Festival, it was announced Wednesday. Abrahamson and his panel will oversee an official competition section of 10 titles – half of them directed or co-directed by women – including the world premiere of British filmmaker Ben Wheatley’s “Happy New Year, Colin Burstead” and the latest films from Karyn Kusama, Peter Strickland, Alice Rohrwacher and Zhang Yimou.

“I am delighted to continue my relationship with the BFI London Film Festival,” said Abrahamson, who received an Oscar nomination for best director for his 2015 film “Room.” “It’s an honor to be this year’s jury chair and I very much look forward to deliberating with my fellow jurors on what is sure to be some of the most exciting, thought-provoking and original work in this year’s selection of films.”

The winner will receive the festival’s Bronze Star of London,...

Robert Redford’s The Old Man & The Gun, Nicole Kidman’s Destroyer and Happy New Year, Colin Burstead, Ben Wheatley’s follow-up to Free Fire, are among the titles to play in competition at the London Film Festival.

The 62nd run of the festival has also revealed that Room director Lenny Abrahamson, whose horror adaptation The Little Stranger is released in September, has been named Jury President.

Other titles to play including Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra’s Birds of Passage, Alice Rohrwacher’s Happy As Lazzaro, Peter Strickland’s In Fabric, Sudabeh Mortezai’s Joy, Zhang Yimou’s Shadow, László Nemes’ Sunset and Dominga Sotomayor’s Too Late To Die Young.

Tricia Tuttle, BFI London Film Festival Artistic Director says, “The Lff celebrates the breadth of cinema, and this is crystalized in the ten films competing for Best Film at the 62nd BFI London Film Festival. Representing a tantalizing range of styles,...

Room director Lenny Abrahamson also announced as jury president.

The BFI London Film Festival has revealed the ten films selected for its 2018 competition. The list includes Alice Rohrwacher’s Happy As Lazzaro, which won the best screenplay award at Cannes in May, Laszlo Nemes’s Son Of Saul follow-up Sunset and Ben Wheatley’s latest Happy New Year, Colin Burstead.

Scroll down for the full line-up

Half of the ten films have either a female director or co-director. As well as Rohrwacher’s film, they include Destroyer by Karyn Kusama, Joy by Sudabeh Mortezai, Too Late To Die Young by...

The following essay was produced as part of the 2018 Locarno Critics Academy, a workshop for aspiring film critics that took place during the Locarno Film Festival.

At the 71st Locarno Film Festival this week, several films explored themes of youth through narrative strategies that expand and complicate conventional coming-of-age tales. Chilean director Dominga Sotomayor’s second feature “Too Late to Die Young” is set in a semi-organised and very ramshackle community living in a forest above Santiago in 1990. Based on her own upbringing, the film recreates a dreamlike world of parched trees and Diy cabins.

Images are filtered by smoke and sunshine, and the soundtrack is a nostalgic mix of Mazzy Star and Sinead O’Connor. Its 16-year-old protagonist, appropriately named Sofía, appears wiser and older than her years. The film is on one hand a chronicle of Sofía’s first love, and on the other, an ensemble piece that...

Santiago De Chile — “Too Late to Die Young” (“Tarde Para Morir Joven”), Dominga Sotomayor’s coming-of-age drama, has been picked up by Santiago-based producer-distributor StoryBoard Media, which aims to release the drama in Chile by May next year.

Likened by some to “Call Me Your Name” for its evocative tale, “Too Late to Die Young” snagged Sotomayor a Best Director Leopard at Switzerland’s Locarno Film Festival, the first female director to receive this coveted prize. Paris-based Stray Dogs secured world sales rights to “Too Late to Die Young” in the run-up to Locarno.

The film had its Chilean premiere at the 14th Santiago Intl. Film Festival, where it played to sold-out screenings.

StoryBoard plans to release “Too Late…” in up to 35 commercial and indie screens across Chile, said StoryBoard Media producer and Sanfic industry director, Gabriela Sandoval.

Well aware that Chilean auds rarely turn up for local auteur films,...

A Land Imagined director Yeo Siew Hua Below you will find the awards for the 71st Locarno Festival, as well as an index of our coverage.AWARDSInternational CompetitionGolden Leopard: A Land Imagined (Yeo Siew Hua) Special Jury Prize: M (Yolande Zauberman) Special Mention: Ray & Liz (Richard Billingham) Best Direction: Dominga Sotomayor (Too Late to Die Young) Best Actress: Andra Guti (Alice T.) Best Actor: Ki Joobong (Hotel By the River)Filmmakers of the Present Golden Leopard: Chaos (Sara Fattahi) Special Jury Prize: Closing Time (Nicole Vögele) Prize for Best Emerging Director: Tarik Aktas (Dead Horse Nebula) Special Mention: Fausto (Andrea Bussmann)Rose in Matthieu Bareyre's L'EpoqueSigns of Life Best Film: The Fragile House (Lin Zi) Mantarraya Award: The Glorious Acceptance of Nicolas Chauvin (Benjamin Crotty)First Feature Best First Feature: Alles Ist Gut (Eva Trobisch)Art Peace Hotel Award: Acid Forest (Rugile Barzdziukaite)Special Mention: Erased, Ascent of the...

Madrid — New York-based Visit Films has acquired world sales rights outside Chile and Central America to Costa Rican comedy “Helmet Heads,” Neto Villalobos’ follow-up to first feature “All the Feathers” which, screening at Toronto in 2013 and playing over 30 festivals, established him as one of Central America’s most distinctive auteurs.

Produced by Karina Avellán and Marcelo Quesada for Costa Rica’s Pacífica Grey and Vilalobos, at Sucia Centroamericana, and co-produced by Dominga Sotomayor and Omar Zúñiga for Chile’s Cinestación – which, along with Sotomayor’s own “Too Late to Die Young,” gives the Chilean production house two movies in Discovery – “Helmet Heads” (Cascos Indomables) weighs in as a comedic but loving tribute to friendship and the streets of San José, where it was shot.

That is framed in a coming of age tale of Mancha, so called because of a blotch on his face, who leads a carefree adultescent life,...

Santiago De Chile – When Dominga Sotomayor won an unprecedented best director prize at Switzerland’s Locarno Festival for her coming-of-age drama “Too Late to Die Young,” a big cheer resounded throughout the Chilean film industry.

As the first female director to receive Locarno’s Leopard for Best Direction, Sotomayor represents a growing surge of female talent – both creative and executive – behind the camera in Chile.

Constanza Arena, executive director of Chilean audiovisual promotion org CinemaChile, noted: “I remember that eight years ago, as the head of CinemaChile, the only producers I’d meet with were male.” “Nowadays, I’ve seen a greater parity, especially among the younger professionals aged between 20 and 35 years,” she added.

In CinemaChile’s film catalogue, Arena noted that 20 titles were directed by women, of which eight were fiction and 12 documentary, listing other female directors like Marcela Said, Claudia Huaiquimilla, Marialy Rivas and Maite Alberdi “who have...

The Toronto International Film Festival has added Brady Corbet’s drama “Vox Lux,” starring Natalie Portman and Jude Law, and Neil Jordan’s “Greta,” with Chloe Grace Moretz and Isabelle Huppert.

The festival also announced Tuesday a total of 46 titles in its Discovery program, which is devoted to up-and-coming filmmakers. The festival will screen 255 features and 88 shorts with 138 being world premieres, including “Greta.” The 43rd Toronto International Film Festival will begin on Sept. 6.

“Vox Lux” and “Greta” have been added to the Special Presentations program. “Vox Lux,” which will premiere at the Venice Film Festival, is a musical drama about a woman who achieves success after a tragic childhood. The film also stars Jennifer Ehle, Stacy Martin and Raffey Cassidy. “Greta” stars Moretz as a young woman in New York who befriends a widow, played by Huppert, who has sinister intentions.

The Discovery program includes Belgian director Lukas Dhont’s ‘Girl,...

Toronto International Film Festival (Sept 6-16) has added a world premiere screening of Neil Jordan’s Greta and the North American premiere of Natalie Portman-starrer Vox Lux to its Special Presentations program, which now numbers 24 films.

Jordan’s Greta tells the story of a young New York woman named Frances (Chloë Grace Moretz) who strikes up an unlikely friendship with an enigmatic widow named Greta (Isabelle Huppert). Co-written by Jordan and Ray Wright, pic also stars Colm Feore, Maika Monroe, and Stephen Rea.

In musical drama Vox Lux, Brady Corbet’s second feature as writer-director tracks its heroine’s path from childhood tragedy to a life of fame and fortune. Starring Natalie Portman and Jude Law, the film begins with teenage sisters Celeste (Raffey Cassidy) and Eleanor (Stacy Martin) who survive a violent incident that changes their lives.

Tiff has also revealed the 46 movies taking part in its Discovery lineup for emerging filmmakers.

Brady Corbet’s “Vox Lux,” with Natalie Portman and Jude Law, and Neil Jordan’s “Greta,” with Chloe Grace Moretz and Isabelle Huppert, are among almost 50 films that have been added to the lineup of the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival, Tiff organizers announced on Tuesday.

The two films have been added to the Special Presentations program, with “Greta” having its world premiere at Tiff and “Vox Lux” its Canadian premiere.

“Greta” features Moretz as a young woman in New York who befriends a widow who turns out to have sinister intentions; “Vox Lux” is a musical drama that encompasses the life of a woman who achieves success after a tragic childhood.

Also Read: Natalie Portman Is an Aspiring Pop Star in First-Look at Brady Corbet's 'Vox Lux' (Photo)

Toronto also announced its Discovery program, which is devoted to up-and-coming filmmakers. The 46 films in the lineup come from 37 different countries,...