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by Nathaniel R

"Identifying Features" is available to rent on several services

The nominations for the 63rd annual Ariel Awards (Mexico's Oscars essentially) have been announced. Identifying Features, a drama about a mother travelling across Mexico in search of answers about her son who vanished trying to cross the border made the biggest noise with 16 nominations. In happy news All of the Best Picture nominated films are readily available online to US audiences. We've seen more of the Ariel contenders than usual thanks to their festival appearances and current availability (links in the nomination list if we've written about them). Identifying Features is up against two films we loved, Dance of the 41 and Los Lobos along with Tragic Jungle and a documentary called The Three Deaths of Marisela Escobedo... ...

(Welcome to Pop Culture Imports, a column that compiles the best foreign movies and TV streaming right now.) It’s been a while, but I’m back with the column that you’ve all been waiting for with bated breath. And if you’ve already overcome that one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you shouldn’t be opposed to reading just a […]

The post Pop Culture Imports: ‘Thelma,’ ‘Tragic Jungle,’ ‘Rurouni Kenshin: The Beginning,’ and More appeared first on /Film.

Tragic Jungle Photo: Courtesy of San Sebastian Film Festival When it comes to using a film's landscape as a metaphor, settings don't come more versatile than the jungle. Often used to suggest exoticism to early cinema audiences - and in ways that have not always aged well - the jungle can be a place of mystery, romance or danger and sometimes all three at once. So this week our Streaming Spotlight is taking a trek through some of the best.

Tragic Jungle, Netflix

The jungle has rarely looked more beguiling than it does in Mexican writer/director Yulene Olaizola's historical drama, set deep within the borderlands between Mexico and British Honduras (now Belize) in the 1920s. Olaizola lets the mythical bleed into the real as a woman on the run (Indira Andrewin) encounters a group of rubber harvesters who are attempting to steal their haul. While references to the...

Photo: ‘Tragic Jungle’/Netflix Into The Jungle A recent arrival on Netflix is the Mexican drama-thriller from director Yulene Olaizola, ‘Tragic Jungle’. The film follows Indira Rubie Andrewin as Agnes, an arranged bride, flees her arranged wedding into the Mayan jungle while pursued by her cruel fiancee, portrayed by Dale Carley. In her escape, Agnes stumbles upon a group of men harvesting gum and soon the forces of nature, human beings, and the supernatural all come to a head. The film enjoyed a successful international film festival run in 2020 and looks to have the same reaction from audiences as it releases wide on the world’s largest streaming platform. Related article: A Tribute to Cannes Film Festival: A Celebration of Cinema, Glamour, and Humanity | Statement From Hollywood Insider’s CEO Pritan Ambroase Related article: The Social Media Frenzy Surrounding ‘Knives Out 2’ and What to Expect From the Sequel ‘Tragic Jungle...

You know what everyone could use in the sweltering summer months? A nice, cold glass of…anime. At least that’s the particular theme that comes up in Netflix’s list of new releases for June 2021.

Netflix has been quietly expanding their anime offerings for awhile now but June is a particularly anime-heavy month. The absolutely metal sounding Record of Ragnarok arrives this month. So too do parts 1 and 2 of the newest Sailor Moon film on June 3 and Godzilla Singular Point on June 24.

Read more TV Yasuke Review: Netflix Anime Reclaims The Story of a Black Samurai By Caroline Cao TV Anime For Beginners: Best Genres and Series to Watch By Daniel Kurland

But for those who aren’t ready to dip their toe in the anime pool yet, Netflix has some other originals of note in June. Sweet Tooth, the ambitious comic adaptation starring Will Forte premieres on June 4. Then,...

Ben Sharrock’s “Limbo” was named the best film at the closing event Tuesday of the International Film Festival & Awards Macao. Japanese auteur Koreeda Hirokazu was bestowed with the festival’s Spirit of Cinema honorary award.

The film follows a Syrian refugee in a remote Scottish island as he awaits his asylum application to be processed and his arm to heal allowing him to play his musical instrument. It was previously selected for the Cannes festival.

The IFFAM jury, headed by mainland Chinese director Ning Hao, made a unanimous decision before awarding the $60,000 prize to Sharrock, who also won the best screenplay award. “It was a thought-provoking piece of work, because of its in-depth exploration of society and also the relationship between culture and humanity. Combined with the director’s unique film language and a modern artistic style, it magically blends together and gives the audience unforgettable pleasure and enjoyment of all senses,...

Gerardo Naranjo’s “Kokoloko” took home the Premio Mezcal for best Mexican film at the hybrid 35th Guadalajara Film Festival (Ficg), which wrapped Friday, Nov. 27.

The love triangle drama signals a return to the big screen for Naranjo who has spent nearly a decade after his 2011 hit “Miss Bala” directing episodes of such high-profile series as “Narcos,” “The Bridge” and “Fear the Walking Dead.”

Shot in 16 mm, Naranjo’s drama about a woman caught between two men, one a violent cousin holding her captive, first debuted at Tribeca where lead Noe Hernandez won the Best Actor prize. The Match Factory handles international sales.

Chilean film and TV writer-director-producer Andres Wood won the Best Ibero-American film prize with his political thriller “Spider,” that tracks the disparate fates of right-wing radicals in the early ‘70s, prior to the coup d’état that heralds the military regime of Augusto Pinochet in Chile. Drama...

Under the rhythmic hacking of machetes, the zig-zag gashes in the trees look like wounds, exposing the bark’s red flesh and the raw, bone-white wood within. The men clinging to the trunks with rope slings and crude crampons are chicleros, collecting the bright white sap that oozes from the trees to boil into chicle, a rubbery substance that, back in 1920 when Yulene Olaizola’s bewitching “Tragic Jungle” is set, was used to make chewing gum. Gum is no longer manufactured that way, and British Honduras, where the stealthy, mysterious story takes place, became Belize in 1971, but as far in the past as those events may be, the strange, slow currents of this darkly lyrical drama seem older still — as ancient as the jungle itself, which acts, more than any of the human characters, as the film’s impervious, omniscient protagonist.

Agnes (Indira Rubie Andrewin), a beautiful young English-speaking Belizean woman,...

Viggo Mortensen’s directorial debut “Falling” and the already acclaimed Chinese film “The Cloud in her Room” form part of the 11-title competition section announced by the International Film Festival & Awards Macao. The festival will take place entirely online this year, running Dec. 3-8.

The competition, which focuses on first and second films, also includes: Wang Xiaozhen’s “Love Poem,” which won the top prize at the First International Film Festival this year; Jeonju prize-winner “Black Light,” by Bae Jongdae; Cannes 2020 Label titles “Limbo,” by the U.K.’s Ben Sharrock, “Spring Blossom” by France’s Suzanne Lindon, and “Sweat” by Magnus von Horn; and “Back To The Wharf,” by China’s Li Xiaofeng.

Three other titles joining the competition are: “Servants,” by Ivan Ostrochovsky of the Czech Republic; “Shorta,” by Frederik Louis Hviid and Anders Olholm from Denmark; and “Tragic Jungle,” by Yulene Olaizola, from Mexico.

Prizes will be...

Programme includes competition section of 11 features from first and second-time directors.

The International Film Festival & Awards Macao (Iffam) has confirmed that it is moving online for its fifth edition (December 3-8) and announced its full programme, including an international competition for first and second-time filmmakers.

The competition line-up of 11 features including actor Viggo Mortensen’s directing debut Falling; Cannes 2020 Label titles Limbo, Spring Blossom and Sweat; Jeonju film festival winner Black Light; and Chinese titles Love Poem, which won the top prize at this year’s First International Film Festival, and The Cloud In Her Room, which took the Tiger...

Forced to revamp in the wake of Germany’s second coronavirus lockdown in November, the International Filmfest Mannheim-Heidelberg is taking place online this year as Iffmh Expanded with two-thirds of its original lineup accessible to virtual festgoers.

The 69th edition of the festival, which marks the debut of a new team headed by director Sascha Keilholz, includes new and revised sections, among them On the Rise, the international competition that showcases first to third works by outstanding directors.

Curated by head of program Frédéric Jaeger, this year’s On the Rise competition includes such pics as “Una Promessa,” Gianluca and Massimiliano De Serio’s tale of nightmarish exploitation in southern Italy (pictured); Saskia Walker and Ralf Walker’s German free love drama “Come Closer,” in which the directing duo co-star with Devid Striesow (“I’m Off Then”); Igor Polevichko’s Russian thriller “Get it Right”; Sabrina Doyle’s U.S. relationship drama “Lorelei,...

“Unfortunate you, if you cannot understand the mysteries of the jungle…” There’s a Mayan myth of the “Xtabay,” a female demon said to dwell in the forest who lures men to their deaths with her incomparable beauty. Described as having lustrous, shining black hair that falls to her ankles and wearing a white dress, the […]

The post ‘Tragic Jungle’ Review: A Moody Environmental Fable With Teeth [NYFF 2020] appeared first on /Film.

Lush foliage paves the frames of Mexican director Yulene Olaizola’s entrancing feature “Tragic Jungle.” Backdrop to violence and the supernatural, the eponymous ecosystem traps us in its mystifying maw for an alluring adventure centered on Black and Indigenous characters—an infrequent sight in the country’s filmic output.

Played by first-time Belizean actress Indira Rubie Andrewin, Agnes is a young woman crossing the Hondo River to escape a much older English cacique she’s expected to marry.

Continue reading ‘Tragic Jungle’ Is An Alluring Mexican Adventure Centered On Black & Indigenous People [NYFF Review] at The Playlist.

by Jason Adams

M. Night Shyamalan's name has become synonymous with cinematic puzzlery, but there can be a dulling obviousness to the way he approaches the concept of Mystery, at least in his weakest moments. He genuinely thinks he can explain the unexplainable. His "twists" mostly seem to mash the Unknown into tight little balls we can hold in our hand to exit the theater with. And so it's only the opening passages of his film The Happening, about Mother Nature seeking vengeance against the humans who've abused her so, that retain any sort of power -- Shyamalan spends the remainder of that film piling plot contrivances on top of his original interesting idea until it's the audience who can't breath from the sheer weight of nonsense pouring off the screen.

I'll admit I thought of The Happening while watching the breeze move gently through the rainforest trees of...

The American Film Institute (AFI) has today announced the full lineup of this year’s AFI Fest, including the World Cinema, New Auteurs, and Documentary sections. These titles, including buzzy festival features like “I Carry You with Me,” “Shadow in the Cloud,” “Jumbo,” “Farewell Amor,” “Wander Darkly,” “Tragic Jungle,” “Sound of Metal,” “Wolfwalkers,” “New Order,” and “Hopper/Welles,” join previously announced films, including Julia Hart’s “I’m Your Woman,” which will open the festival, and Errol Morris’ “My Psychedelic Love Story,” which will close it.

This year’s complete AFI Fest program includes 124 titles of which 53 percent are directed by women, 39 percent are directed by Bipoc, and 17 percent are directed by Lbgtq+.

“AFI Fest is committed to supporting diverse perspectives and new voices in cinema and this year is no different,” said Sarah Harris, Director of Programming, AFI Festivals, in an official statement. “While we wish we were able to be together in Hollywood,...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSDisney has announced that Barry Jenkins will helm the live-action The Lion King sequel, which reportedly includes "Mufasa's origin story."Speaking of sequels, Chinese authorities have approved the production of a project written by Wong Kar-wai, curiously titled Chungking Express 2020. The synopsis states that at least a portion of the film will take place in 2036, where "young Xiao Qian and May are unwilling to be held back by genetic partnerings, and insist on finding their own ‘destiny’.”Festival season persists: The Cannes Film Festival will be hosting a three-day "Special Cannes" event in October that will feature the screening of four Official Selections, in-competition short films, and the Cinéfondation’s school films. This year's San Sebastian Film Festival concluded with the sweep of Georgian filmmaker Dea Kulumbegashvili’s debut feature Beginning, which received four of seven jury prizes.

A teaser is meant to, well, tease. Though that definition has changed over the years, as modern teasers have been known to be bonafide trailers that spoil major plot points and leave little to the imagination. That is most definitely not the case for the new teaser for the upcoming festival film, “Tragic Jungle.”

Read More: NYFF 2020: 12 Most Anticipated Films You Need See

With “Tragic Jungle” arriving stateside for its North American premiere at this year’s New York Film Festival, we are thrilled to offer our readers an exclusive look at the first teaser for the beautiful film.

Continue reading ‘Tragic Jungle’ Exclusive Teaser: Yulene Olaizola’s Lush Thriller Is Coming To This Year’s NYFF at The Playlist.

Machetes, myths and murky storytelling all find their way into Tragic Jungle (Selva Trágica), a lushly made if highly enigmatic fifth feature from Mexican writer-director Yulene Olaizola (Fogo) that screened in the main slate of the New York Film Festival after premiering in the Horizons section in Venice.

Gorgeously shot by cinematographer Sofía Oggini, who lensed the award-winning 2018 Cannes film Los Silencios, this minimalist period piece follows several characters wandering the dense tropical forests between Mexico and Belize, a place where man, nature and Mayan folklore fuse together in unsettling ways.

Like the recent South American colonial tales Embrace of the ...

Machetes, myths and murky storytelling all find their way into Tragic Jungle (Selva Trágica), the lushly made, if highly enigmatic, fifth feature from Mexican writer-director Yulene Olaizola (Fogo), which screened in the main slate of the New York Film Festival after premiering in the Horizons section in Venice.

Gorgeously shot by cinematographer Sofía Oggioni, who lensed the award-winning 2018 Cannes film Los Silencios, this minimalist period piece follows several characters wandering the dense tropical forests between Mexico and Belize, a place where man, nature and Mayan folklore fuse together in unsettling ways.

Like the recent South American colonial tales Embrace of the ...

Director Yulene Olaizola might have already worked on a number of films over the course of her still young career, but nothing could prepare the Mexican filmmaker for what she would encounter with her latest, “Tragic Jungle.”

A 1920’s-set, mythology-influenced chase film set on the verdant border between Mexico and Belize, this Mexican-French-Colombian co-production, which premiered in Venice earlier this month before heading to San Sebastian and New York, marked a serious scale-up for the rising director.

“I’ve shot films with crews of only two people, so it’s totally different to do so with sixty people from different countries that speak different languages,” Olaizola tells Variety. “It is exhausting!”

“I think the director has to transmit the right energy to everybody,” she continues. “If the director is tired the rest of the crew will be tired as well. So you always have to be the first one to transmit that energy.

Fluid and far-reaching, the Rio Hondo snakes between Mexico and what was once British Honduras (now Belize). Terrain on both sides is dominated by the dense Mayan rainforest, rendering moot any notion of borders or nation-states. Yulene Olaizola’s mysterious and confounding Tragic Jungle takes place in the year 1920 when this hostile region played host to a bustling gum trade spurred in equal parts by colonialism and capitalism.

In the film’s epic opening scene, a group of Mexican laborers ascend massive Zapote trees and carve out deep track marks allowing white resin to slowly flow down the trunks. One of the workers sends his cryptic thoughts out into the lush environment through voice-over, almost as if he were beginning to realize how these manmade scars could potentially provoke a vengeful mythical response from Mother Nature.

Moments later, a young Belizean woman named Agnes (Indira Rubie Adrewin) dressed entirely in...

Desire doesn’t ask for an explanation, and “Tragic Jungle” (or “Selva Trágica”) doesn’t offer any. On the contrary, seduces you away from the legibility of its premise so gradually that you don’t realize you’ve lost your bearings until it’s already too late and the whole movie has gone mad with at least one kind of lust. Still, it helps to know in advance that this febrile corkscrew into the heart of darkness is loosely based on the Yucatán Mayan myth of Xtabay, a female demon said to lure men to their deaths if they entered her forest; her name is invoked on occasion via the movie’s disembodied voiceover, but proper context is as elusive as a path out of the jungle.

According to a sacred text the Mayans referred to as “Wikipedia,” the legend of Xtabay tells of two beautiful women — often said to...

One intriguing title that has caught our eye on the fall festival slate this year is Tragic Jungle (Selva trágica), the fifth feature from director Yulene Olaizola. Set to premiere this week at Venice Film Festival in the Orizzonti competition, it’ll soon head to the 58th New York Film Festival where it is part of the Main Slate selection. Set in 1920 in the border between Mexico and Belize, the film follows a group of Mexican gum workers who cross paths with Agnes, a beautiful and mysterious Belizean woman. Ahead of the premiere, the first trailer and poster have now arrived.

“The film is set in the early 1920s on the Mexico-Belize border during the years of gum extraction in the region; gum workers penetrated deep into the jungle for as long as eight months at a time,” said the director. “Tragic Jungle takes viewers into this hostile environment, absorbing...

Yulene Olaizola’s “Tragic Jungle,” Natalia Meta’s “The Intruder” and Clarisa Navas’ “One in a Thousand” will compete in the San Sebastian Film Festival’s Latinos Horizontes, a showcase of standout recent movies from Latin America that this year underscores the emergence or consolidation of a new generation of female filmmakers in Latin America.

In all, women direct or co-direct seven of the nine features in Horizontes Latinos, a section which also features two world premieres: “La Verónica,” from Chile’s Leonardo Medel; and “Unlimited Edition,” co-directed by Virginia Cosín, Edgardo Cozarinsky, Santiago Loza and Romina Paula.

Certainly, this year’s San Sebastian makes no claim via its selection to women having suddenly taken over the Latin American industry: Four of the five titles from the region in other sections, including main competition (Argentine Eduardo Crespo’s “Nosotros Nunca Moriremos”) and New Directors (Brazilian João Paulo Miranda’s “Memory House”) are made by men.

While the coronavirus pandemic has canceled major festivals such as Cannes and Telluride, the 2020 Venice Film Festival is moving ahead as planned and will be the world’s first major film festival since Sundance and Berlin at the start of the year. Venice 2020’s main selection will be split into three sections: Venezia 77 (aka the main competition), Out of Competition, and Horizons. The titles selected for the main competition will compete for the Golden Lion, which was awarded last year to Todd Phillips’ “Joker.”

As previously announced, Daniele Luchetti’s drama “Lacci” will open the 77th Venice Film Festival on September 2. The movie is the first Italian title to open Venice in 11 years. The last Italian opener was Giuseppe Tornatore’s “Baarìa” at the 2009 festival. “Lacci” is included in this year’s Out of Competition section. Chloe Zhao’s “The Rider” follow-up “Nomadland” was also confirmed for a world premiere...