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Paris-based Luxbox, a sales company on a multiple standout Spanish-language debuts bowed at big festivals – from “1976” to “20,000 Species of Bees,” “Clara Sola,” “Song Without a Name” and “The Heiresses” – has swooped on international sales rights to “Simon of the Mountain” (“Simon de la Montaña”), in the run-up to the Cannes Film Festival.

The anticipated first feature of Argentina’s Federico Luis, “Simon of the Mountain” was announced Monday as one of seven movies confirmed for main competition at this year’s Cannes Critics’ Week.

Co-written by Federico Luis, the film’s editor Tomás Murphy and Agustín Toscano, helmer of Directors’ Fortnight title “The Snatch Thief” who also figures in the film’s key cast, “Simon of the Mountain” stars Lorenzo “Toto” Ferro, one of Argentina’s most rated young actors after his breakout performances as Argentina’s most notorious serial killer in Cannes 2018 Un Certain Regard player “El Angel...

Natacha Kaganski has joined Luxbox as festivals and acquisitions manager and Solène Colomer has been named sales & marketing coordinator.

Previously, Kaganski spent four years as acquisitions manager at Wild Bunch, where she handled deals for the French and international market as well as coordination for multi-territories deals with the Wild Bunch group, such as Germany, Spain and Italy.

She was involved in films likeVenice winner “Happening” by Audrey Diwan, Gaspar Noé’s “Vortex” or “Leila’s Brothers,” also taking part in first Wild Bunch productions.

Solène Colomer has one year of experience assisting the sales and production teams at Urban Group under her belt. She was involved in “Plan 75” by Chie Hayakawa and “If Only I Could Hibernate” by Zoljargal Purevdash which, as reported by Variety, has already made history in Cannes.

They complete the already existing team with president Fiorella Moretti and Jennyfer Gautier, head of international sales.

“Personally,...

A slate of feature films is currently in development.

UK entertainment and investment company Sovereign has unveiled its new action label, titled Action Xtreme.

The new label will focus on development and creation of action content, with a slate of feature films currently in development.

In a statement, the company said: “Action Xtreme will create content featuring spectacular physical action and stunts, with a targeted focus on grassroots talent growth, development and training, and a remit to develop franchisable content for a worldwide audience.”

The label aims to produce two or three titles a year, with budgets ranging from $1m-$10m,...

‘The Good Boss’ leads Icíar Bollaín’s ‘Maixabel’ and Pedro Almodóvar’s ‘Parallel Mothers’.

The Good Boss, directed by Fernando León de Aranoa and starring Javier Bardem, led the Goya nominations from the Spanish Film Academy with 20 nods, an all-time record.

The satire, also Spain’s entry for the Oscars, is ahead of Icíar Bollaín’s Maixabel and Pedro Almodóvar’s Parallel Mothers, on 14 and eight nominations respectively.

The Good Boss is the fifth highest-grossing film in Spain this year with €2.6m. Written and directed by León de Aranoa, it follows the petty boss of an industrial scales factory, played...

Miracle is Romania’s first entry to a competitive section of Venice in 12 years.

Memento international has boarded sales on New York-based Romanian director Bogdan George Apetri’s third feature Miracle ahead of its world premiere in Venice’s Horizons section in September.

Divided into two chapters, the crime tale opens on a young nun who sneaks out of her isolated monastery to attend to an urgent matter but never makes it back.

The second chapter follows a police detective’s investigation into her fate, which uncovers clues and revelations that lead not only to an unfathomable truth but possibly,...

Radu Jude’s satire won the top prize at the 2021 Berlinale.

Sovereign Film Distribution has secured UK and Ireland rights to Radu Jude’s Romanian irreverent satire Bad Luck Banging Or Loony Porn, which won the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival.

The London-based distributor struck the deal with Athens-based sales agent Heretic Outreach and is planning a theatrical release for the feature.

The latest film from Romanian writer/director Jude stars Katia Pascariu as a school teacher who finds her career and reputation under threat after a personal sex tape is leaked onto the Internet.

Hungarian drama from award-winning filmmaker previously screened at Film Festival Cottbus and Russia’s Sofia International Film Festival.

Sovereign Film Distribution has acquired UK and Ireland rights to Szabolcs Hajdu’s Hungarian drama Treasure City in a direct deal with the filmmakers.

The film received its international premiere at Germany’s Film Festival Cottbus in December and was also selected for Russia’s Sofia International Film Festival.

Sovereign is scheduling a theatrical release in the UK on June 18 and is also making the title available for virtual cinema release, currently closing agreements with several sites.

Treasure City explores the darker side of human relationships,...

It’s no secret that Latino artists are rarely nominated for mainstream accolades. Unless there’s a streaming behemoth supporting a famed director, like “Roma” back in 2018, Latin Americans and American Latinos are routinely shut out of the awards conversation.

Of course, that’s not because there’s a lack of worthy contenders. Among the many factors that keep the projects that do make it to screens in the United States from getting recognition, a crucial one is clear economic disparity in relation to titles with deep-pocketed distributors.

Most of these movies don’t have sizable budgets for marketing campaigns, which makes it difficult for them to get on the radar of awards pundits, the press in general, and, more importantly, Academy voters. Nevertheless, this season, once again, there are plenty of works by or about Latinos that Academy members can and should consider.

Some great documentaries — such as “Mucho Mucho Amor,...

Paris-based Luxbox has scored the worldwide sales rights to Swedish-Costa Rican debut feature “Clara Sola” by Nathalie Álvarez Mesén.

The magical realist tale set in a remote Costa Rican village follows a woman, known for her healing powers, who seeks to break away from the stifling social and religious conventions of her community.

“Clara Sola” has nearly completed its post and will be primed for key festivals. The titular role of Clara is played by award-winning Costa Rican dancer Wendy Chinchilla who makes her film debut.

“Álvarez Mesén’s debut offers an ambitious role to an exceptional actress. Despite her differences, Clara imposes the will of a strong character, in opposition with the conventions and the expectations of her family. These chopped gestures and her impulse turn into a ballet, celebrating a true driving force of life,” said Luxbox co-CEOs Fiorella Moretti and Hédi Zardi.

“It is a privilege to...

Francisco Márquez’s feature premiered at the Berlinale in 2020.

Sovereign Film Distribution has acquird UK and Ireland rights to Francisco Márquez’s Argentinian thriller A Common Crime from Dubai-based Cercamon.

The film premiered in the Panorama at the Berlinale in 2020 and screened at the BFI London Film Festival later in the year.

Sovereign is aiming for a day-and-date release on April 9 if cinemas are open. The distributor is also making the title available for virtual cinema release and is closing agreements with several sites.

The story centres on a teacher, played by played by Elisa Carricajo, who is disturbed one...

For decades, Peru has faced a terrible struggle against human trafficking, with kidnapping of infants spiking in the 1980s. “Song Without A Name,” the Peruvian contender for the Best International Film Oscar, explores that dark period in the country’s history through the eyes of a woman whose newborn child vanishes…along with the clinic the child was taken to.

Director Melina Leon, who is the third Peruvian woman to have her film selected for the Best International Film category, told TheWrap in an interview for its Awards Screening Series that her father, Ismael, inspired her debut work as he was one of the first journalists to investigate the child trafficking rings that had kidnapped thousands of newborns. In 1981, her father’s newspaper, La Republica, first hit newsstands with a front page story on the atrocities.

Leon was just born when her father began his investigative reporting, but when she came of age,...

Shortlists to be announced on February 9.

The Academy on Thursday (January 28) published a list of 93 films eligible for international feature film Oscar category.

Algeria’s Heliopolis, about the brutal suppression by French colonial authorities of an uprising in 1945, is omitted from the list. Screen understands the national selection committee withdrew the submission.

There were also a record number of documentary submissions – 238 compared to the previous high of 170 – in light of amended eligibility rules this season due to the pandemic, and a reduced field of 27 animation contenders.

The shortlists will be announced on February 9. The 93rd annual Academy Awards are scheduled...

It’s been a banner year for Latin American cinema where 18 countries, including newcomer Suriname, have submitted films to vie for the international feature Oscar. Half of this year’s crop are by women, many of them debuts. Several entries focus on the plight of Indigenous people and other marginalized groups.

Despite the region’s chauvinistic societies, female cinematic voices have grown in strength in recent years. Some credit the #MeToo movement for the shift in attitudes and the growing number of femme directors in the region. In Bolivia, 85% of the producers are said to be women.

In some nations, private and public initiatives encourage more aspiring Indigenous and other marginalized filmmakers to create their visions. Mexico’s film institute Imcine, run by filmmaker Maria Novaro and her mostly female team, introduced a film fund for Indigenous and Afro-descendent filmmakers in 2019.

Strong female-led debuts hail from the likes of Peru,...

Peru’s official submission for the ‘Best International Feature’ category at the 93rd Academy Awards in 2021 is Melina Leon’s directorial debut Song Without a Name, which premiered at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival in the Directors’ Fortnight. Beyond being the first Peruvian woman to premiere at the festival in this sidebar, Leon’s striking debut, which revisits a dark period of her country’s past and is informed with semi-autobiographical inspiration, has gone on to play at hundreds of venues on the festival circuit to considerable acclaim. Ioncinema.com had a chance to meet the filmmaker at the 2019 edition of Pyiff (watch here) and here I cap off the final stretch for the film discussing her influences, casting, the considerable amount of time which went into her long-gestating debut, as well as plans for her next project.…...

Sovereign Film Distribution has acquired U.K. and Ireland rights to writer-director Cristi Puiu’s Berlin and Seville winner “Malmkrog” (Manor House).

Puiu won the best director award at the Encounters section of the 2020 Berlin Film Festival, in addition to best screenplay and the Golden Giraldillo Award for best film at the Seville European Film Festival.

An adaptation of Russian philosopher Vladimir Solovyov’s book “Three Conversations,” “Malmkrog” follows a politician, a countess, a general and his wife as they gather over the Christmas holidays in a manor house to discuss death, war, progress and morality. As the debate becomes more heated, cultural differences become increasingly apparent and the mood grows tense.

The film is billed as a unique mixture of “Downton Abbey” and Dostoyevsky, as it recalls the drawing room masterworks of Max Ophüls, and the stark cerebral work of Ingmar Bergman.

The cast includes Frederic Schulz-Richard, Agathe Bosch,...

Following two wins in the past three years, contenders from across the Americas are championing local culture and community.

The lack of physical festivals has not helped any film this year, and the relatively low-key roster from the Americas could have used the opportunity to break out a little-known filmmaker or remind voters of some of the more familiar names in play.

No film from the region made it onto the 10-strong shortlist last season and, despite speculation that some filmmakers might be holding back their latest work for what is hoped will be a return to physical festivals in...

Listen up Oscar fans and international cinema aficioniados. We'd been holding off on this three part deep dive into the list of titles vying for Best International Feature Film until the Academy's announcement. Sadly we hear through the grapevine that they're not actually making this list "official" until very late in January. In other words, less than two weeks after they announce the 90 plus titles, they'll be cutting most of them when the finalist list of ten is announced on February 9th. This is no way to treat the movies, giving them such a tiny window of "official" attention. So we're sharing the list of 93 titles (a record) now and doing our deep dive now... with the caveat that one or two titles might change in late January when the Academy makes this official. If things do change we'll republish the list and the articles then. If they don't, we can just link back.

New Indie

The critically-acclaimed “Aviva” (Outsider/Strand) casts both male and female dancers as both of the romantic leads, throwing out conventions of gender and sexuality in a love story that features some gorgeous choreography. Boaz Yakin’s film was programmed at the 2020 SXSW festival, and the Blu-ray features behind-the-scenes footage of dance rehearsals.

Also available: Stand-up Steve Byrne wrote and directed the comics-on-the-road saga “The Opening Act” (Rlje Films), featuring such industry vets as Jimmy O. Yang, Alex Moffat, Cedric the Entertainer, Bill Burr, and Whitney Cummings; “Buddy Games” (Saban/Paramount) stars Josh Duhamel and Dax Shepard in an ensemble comedy about estranged friends enduring a ridiculous competition for a $150,000 prize; a newly sober carpenter tries to build a home and establish a life in “Major Arcana” (Gde/Kino Lorber).

New Foreign

Melina León’s Cannes fave “Song Without a Name” (Film Movement), about an indigenous woman trying to...

Submissions from Sudan, Latvia, Switzerland and Japan will premiere in January.

Film Movement is to premiere four of this year’s submissions for the best international feature film Oscar on its virtual cinema platform in January.

Films being made available by the North American distributor include Amjad Abu Alal’s You Will Die At Twenty, the first Oscar submission ever from Sudan and winner of a Lion of the Future Award for a debut film at last year’s Venice Film Festival.

The contemporary drama will premiere on January 22 and tells of a young man raised to believe that will...

Chloé Zhao’s “Nomadland” continued its reign this weekend, winning four awards — including best film, director, actress (Frances McDormand) and adapted screenplay — at the Indiana Film Journalists Association Awards.

Zhao won director at all five critics awards handed out in the last week.

Leslie Odom Jr. picked up his first prize for his portrayal of Sam Cooke in Regina King’s “One Night in Miami,” with Chadwick Boseman being named the runner-up in both lead and supporting categories for “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” and “Da 5 Bloods.”

Other winners were also repeats from past critics groups, including Delroy Lindo nabbing best actor for “Da 5 Bloods” and Maria Bakalova taking supporting actress for “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.” Eliza Hittman netted a win for “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” in best original screenplay — the second trophy for the film in that race this season.

The full list of winners and runners-up are below:...

Both films to receive 2021 theatrical release followed by home entertainment, digital.

Film Movement has acquired Dutch genre festival films The Columnist and Tailgate and plans 2021 US theatrical releases for both.

Darkly comedic revenge story The Columnist starring Katja Herbers and played in official selection at Montreal’s Fantasia Fest and London’s FrightFest.

Herbers plays a journalist besieged by trolls who decides to strike back. Ivo van Aart directed from a screenplay by Daan Windhoorst.

Sitges selection Tailgate explores the consequences when a man on a road trip with his family angers a psychopath in a road rage incident.

Lodewijk Crijns...

New releases included ‘Blumhouse’s The Craft: Legacy’ and ‘Mogul Mowgli’.

Rank Film (Distributor) Three-day gross (Oct 30-Nov 1) Total gross to date Week 1 Two By Two: Overboard! (eOne) £190,761 £955,370 2 2 Hocus Pocus (Park Circus) £186,063 £446,287 4 3 Honest Thief (Signature Entertainment) £152,555 £573,597 2 4 The Secret Garden (Sky Cinema/Altitude) £142,101 £615,981 2 5 Tenet (Warner Bros) £98,794 £17.36m 10

Gbp to Usd conversion rate: 1.31

eOne’s Two By Two: Overboard! has floated to the top of the UK box office while a re-release of 1993’s Hocus Pocus scored second place over the Halloween weekend.

The cumulative total for the top five films from October 30 to November 1 was £770,274, which is down on the previous...

Song Without A Name Photo: Beatriz Torres

When her newborn baby is stolen by health workers who pretended they were providing charitable care, Georgina (Pamela Mendoza), an indigenous Peruvian woman living in poverty, is ready to do anything to get her back. The odds are stacked against her until she meets journalist Pedro (Tommy Párraga), who is willing to work with her to expose the truth. This is Song Without A Name (Canción Sin Nombre) and it made a huge splash internationally, making director Melina León the first Peruvian woman ever to have her work screened at Cannes. Last week, as it became available in the UK, I discussed it with Melina, beginning by asking about the true story behind it.

“Yeah, it was inspired by a thing that took place in 1981. It happened to be there, the first major case in the headlines of the newspaper La Republica. And...

France, Italy have shut cinemas already with Germany to follow.

Screen has been covering the films opening in key European territories since July. However, this past week saw cinemas in Italy and France shut down for the coming month; with Germany to follow suit from Monday, November 2.

Below is the current situation for the respective territories.

UK, opening Friday October 30

With other European territories closing, UK releases plough ahead this weekend, albeit with cinemas in Wales and Northern Ireland currently closed under short-term lockdowns, and cinemas in Ireland closed until at least December 2. Scotland will also close its cinemas from...

In today’s Global Bulletin, Argentina restarts production with new health and safety regulations, Sovereign Film Distribution picks up Melina León’s award-winning debut “Song Without a Name,” ITV preps for Black History Month and commissions “The Confessions of Frannie Langton,” and Idfa will honor Gianfranco Rosi.

Shooting

After a shutdown of more than five months, the Argentina government this week presented its “General Protocol for the Prevention of Covid-19 in the Filming and/or Recording of Fiction for Film, Television and Platforms,” where the measures were approved by the country’s Ministry of Culture, allowing production to resume in the country.

More than 20 leading industry organizations aided in compiling the 70-page document and endorsed the final version.

Under the agreed conditions, each production must provide to the Ministry of Culture a shot-by-shot breakdown which will be evaluated to establish if a project can be executed within the new guidelines.

Award-winning Peruvian drama debuted at Cannes.

The UK’s Sovereign Media Group has launched a new distribution arm and has acquired Melina León’s award-winning Peruvian drama Song Without A Name from Luxbox.

Sovereign Film Distribution will be led by managing director Andreas Roald and aims to release five to six titles a year in the UK and Ireland both theatrically and on VoD platforms.

Based in London, it is an offshoot of Sovereign Media Group, founded by Roald and former Merchant Ivory president Donald Rosenfeld. Sister company Sovereign Films is known for productions including Effie Gray, written by and starring Emma Thompson,...

This past May, Melina León made history with her haunting debut feature, Song Without a Name, as the first female Peruvian director to premiere at Cannes. Just this past week, her film’s Asian debut left audiences in tears at Pyiff 2019—where, due to an unfortunate clerical error, León’s Song played out-of-competition. Had she been in the running, she probably would have taken home hardware; but even so, the film’s impact speaks for itself. Song Without a Name, or Canción Sin Nombre, is a heart-rending tale of child trafficking in Peru. An adaptation of real events investigated by León’s journalist father, Leon and co-writer Michael J.…...

Song Without A Name (Cancion sin nombre) Film Movement Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net linked from Rotten Tomatoes by: Harvey Karten Director: Melina León Screenwriter: Melina León, Michael J. White Cast: Pamela Mendoza, Tommy Parraga, Lucio Rojas, Myakol Hernandez, Lidia Quispe Screened at: Critics’ link, NYC, 7/29/20 Opens: August 7, 2020 From the looks of […]

The post Song Without A Name Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

"My baby girl was stolen. I need to file a report." Film Movement has released an official US trailer for the Peruvian film Song Without a Name, originally titled Canción Sin Nombre, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last year. The vintage B&w investigative drama is the feature directorial debut of a Peruvian filmmaker named Melina Leon. It's based on a true account of child trafficking uncovered by journalist Ismael Leon, father of the film's director. Georgina is a young woman from the Andes whose newborn daughter is stolen at a fake health clinic. Her desperate search for the baby leads her to the headquarters of a major newspaper, where she meets Pedro Campos, a lonely journalist who takes on the investigation with her. Starring Pamela Mendoza, Tommy Párraga, Lucio Rojas, Maykol Hernández, and Lidia Quipse. I really dig the look and feel of this, despite the very sad story it's telling.

One of the worst parts about not having a full film festival schedule in 2020, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, is the fact that there will be far fewer surprise standouts that will catch critics and film fans off guard this year. Thankfully, “Song Without a Name” was able to screen during last year’s events and quickly became one of the sleeper hits of the 2019 festival circuit.

Now, in honor of the drama finally being released, we are thrilled to give our readers an exclusive look at the trailer for “Song Without a Name.” As seen in the footage, the black and white drama is a harrowing look at the true story of a pregnant woman in Peru, Georgina, that gives birth to a baby girl but doesn’t even get the chance of holding her baby before the clinic runs off with the child.

Continue reading ‘Song Without A Name...

The big international box office news this week isn’t actually from the weekend — which was again led by Korea and saw continued ups and downs versus last session as moviegoers await new product. Instead, after 100 days of closure, French cinemas re-opened beginning Monday this week, and with at least 40 films programmed for the post-coronavirus walk-up of the nation’s theaters.

Some eager moviegoers didn’t even wait for Monday morning, with about 120 people heading to the 5 Caumartin cinema in the 9th arrondissement of Paris from 12:01Am on June 22 to see a sneak preview of local comedy Les Parfums. The situation was similar in Rennes, where folks also turned up at midnight to see a re-release of the Coen brothers’ The Big Lebowski.

Then from just after 9Am Monday morning, Ugc’s flagship cinema in Paris, Ciné Cité Les Halles, welcomed guests for its first screenings with ticket sales reaching almost normal levels,...

The winners of the International New Talent Competition will be announced online as overseas filmmakers can’t visit Taiwan.

This year’s Taipei Film Festival has confirmed that it will go ahead as scheduled as a physical event from June 25 to July 11, but due to Taiwan’s border restrictions in response to the Covid-19 coronavirus, is not likely to have any international guests.

The festival will open with the world premiere of Ko Chen-nien’s debut feature The Silent Forest, and close with Tsai Ming-liang’s Days, which won the Teddy Jury Award at this year’s Berlin Film Festival.

The Taipei Film Festival will go ahead in June, making it one of the first significant festivals to do so in the post-coronavirus era. While its film selection is international, audiences will be entirely local.

Organizers announced Monday that the festival will open on June 25 with the world premiere of Taiwan-made “Silent Forest.” It will close on July 11, with a screening of “Days,” by Tsai Ming-liang, which appeared in competition in Berlin and earned a special mention in the Teddy section for gay film.

Based on real events, “Silent Forest describes a cruel game in which deaf teenagers discover the last row of the school bus, and how the joy of integrating into a new life instantly becomes fear. Festival organizers called it “one of the most stunning and shocking movies of 2020.”

Berlin, in late February, was one of the last major film festivals to take place before the Covid-...

“Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom” — the story about a young displaced teacher who travels to Bhutan and is taught his own life lessons from the happy and kind locals (including a yak) — won the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature at The Palm Springs International Film Festival (Psiff), it was announced Sunday.

“Gay Chorus Deep South” — a documentary following the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus as the group embarks upon a high-risk tour of the Deep South to spread a message of tolerance — won the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature.

“Parasite” screenwriters Bong Joon Ho and Han Jin Won won the Fipresci Prize for International Screenplay for their tale about two Korean families — one wealthy and one poor — whose live intersect in the most unexpected way.

Among the acting awards, Bartosz Bielenia from “Corpus Christi” and Helena Zengel from “System Crasher” took top honors.

Also Read: Palm Springs: Renée Zellweger,...

Updated with Audience Award winners: The 31st annual Palm Springs Film Festival has named the Bhutan drama Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom the winner of its Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature, and Gay Chorus Deep South its Audience Award for Best Documentary.

The news Sunday comes after the fest yesterday revealed its juried award winners at a luncheon at the Hilton Palm Springs. There, Russian pic Beanpole took the Fipresci prize, while Bong Joon-Ho’s Oscar favorite Parasite copped the Fipresci Screenplay prize.

Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom, from director Pawo Choyning Dorji, was filmed on location at more than 16,000 feet in one of the most remote villages in Bhutan. The pic centers on a young displaced teacher who is taught his own life lessons from the happy and kind locals.

David Charles Rodrigues’ U.S. docu Gay Chorus Deep South follows the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus...

The Palm Springs International Film Festival, which began just after the New Year and wraps January 13, screened 188 films; 51 of them were submitted for the Best International Feature Film Academy Award. The Palm Springs Film Festival prize winners announced Saturday over brunch at the Hilton included a handful of these films. See the full list of winners below. Audience awards will be announced on Sunday.

Fipresci Prize for Best International Feature Film: “Beanpole” (Russia), Director Kantemir Balagov.

Fipresci Prize for Best Actor in a International Feature Film: Bartosz Bielenia from “Corpus Christi” (Poland).

Fipresci Prize for the Best Actress in a International Feature Film: Helena Zengel from “System Crasher” (Germany).

Fipresci Prize for International Screenplay: “Parasite” (South Korea), Screenwriters Bong Joon Ho and Han Jin-Won.

Fipresci Prize for International Screenplay Special Mention: “Antigone” (Canada), Screenwrier Sophie Deraspe.

The Fipresci jury members were film critics Pamela Biénzobas, Alferov Gavrylyshyn, and Tina Hassannia.

The Palm Springs Film Festival has announced its juried winners, with “Beanpole” taking the Fipresci prize for films in the international feature film Oscar submissions program. The documentary award went to “Talking About Trees.”

Acting prizes went to Bartosz Bielenia from “Corpus Christi” for actor and Helena Zengel from “System Crasher” for actress. “Parasite” won the screenplay prize from the Fipresci jury of international film critics.

The festival, held from January 2-13, screened 192 films from 81 countries.

The New Voices New Visions award for first and second time filmmakers went to “Song Without a Name,” while “Monos” received the Ibero-American Award for films from Latin America, Spain or Portugal.

Other prizes included the local jury award to “Adam,” the Young Cineastes Award to “Corpus Christi,” and the Bridging the Borders award to “Advocate.”

The audience prizes will be announced Sunday.

A complete list of winners follows:

Fipresci Prize for Best International...

Paris-based Luxbox has sold more new major territories on Peruvian Melina Leon’s Cannes Directors’ Fortnight hit “Canción sin nombre” (“Song Without a Name”), proving sales hits can come from anywhere., especially when selected for Cannes.

A standout at last year’s strong Ventana Sur Copia Final showcase, “Song Without a Name” has closed Italy with Torino.based Reading Bloom, a classics/contemporary distributor and European pay TV/Svod with HBO Europe.

In further deals, Leon’s feature debut has sold to frequent Luxbox client Mad Distribution for the Middle East and North Africa, classic arthouse distributor Trigon for Switzerland, Belgium’s Mooov, a strong buyer of Spanish productions, fro Benelux, and classic arthouse buyer Danaos for Greece.

Spafax and Skyline have acquired airline rights; other territories are in discussion now, including important Asian markets, said Fiorella Morreti, Luxbox co-founder.

The newly-revealed deals follow on already announced licensing arrangements to Film Movement for the U.

International distribution and sales outfit Kew Media Distribution has upped Graham Begg to the newly-created role of Svp Acquisitions & Business Development. In his position, Begg will oversee a portfolio of acquisitions across scripted, non-scripted, documentary and factual entertainment properties, and will advise on corporate activities and business development. He will also work with the 13 production companies owned by Kew, looking to further exploiting their owned IP globally. Begg joined Kew in 2018 as VP, Business Development and Producer Relations.

The 2019 International Film Festival & Awards Macao (Iffam) has added several titles to its program, including Todd Haynes’ Dark Waters starring Mark Ruffalo and Anne Hathaway, and Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life, which bowed in Cannes and will have its Asian premiere in Macao. Also joining the festival list are Wong Hing-Fan’s Hong Kong drama I’m Living It, Tiago Guedes’ Portuguese feature The Domain (A Herdade), and the newly-restored...

Netflix unveils new Nordic deals at Stockholm’s Industry Days.

Peruvian director Melina Leon’s debut feature Song Without A Name won the bronze horse for best film at the 30th Stockholm International Film Festival. The film, about baby trafficking in 1980s Peru, also won for best cinematography by Inti Briones.

The jury said Song Without A Name (which premiered at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight) is “a visual and challenging portrayal of society characterized by both a low and impactful intensity. A quiet and untamable anger can be sensed below the surface. In this film we meet a director with a sharp,...

Melina León’s insightful visions as well as her DoP impressed the jury, who also honoured actors Nina Hoss and Bartosz Bielenia at the prize ceremony on Friday night. It was “right down to the very last detail” that the main jury of the 2019 Stockholm International Film Festival, producer Erik Hemmendorff together with directors Rojda Sekersöz and Zora Rux, enjoyed the “impactful intensity” of Song Without a Name. Peruvian helmer Melina León’s heartfelt account of the baby-trafficking incidents in her home country in the 1980s won the weighty Bronze Horse for Best Film and also earned DoP Inti Briones the Best Cinematography Award. León, who accepted the award in person at the festive Friday-night closing ceremony, has had a successful run since the premiere of this, her first feature, in the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, with several subsequent festival wins along the way. The Best Director...

New sounds stages were the talk of the festival.

Oliver Laxe’s Fire Will Come picked up two top prizes at the 60th Thessaloniki Film Festival (Oct 31-Nov 10) on Sunday, winning the Golden Alexander worth €15,000 for best film and a best actor award for Amador Arias.

Scroll down for full list of winners

The Spanish film, which won the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at Cannes, centres on a convicted arsonist (Arias) who returns to his family home in rural Galicia. Pyramide International handles world sales.

Maya Da-Rin’s The Fever won the Silver Alexander special jury award, worth €8,000. The drama,...

Oliver Laxe’s “Fire Will Come” won the top prize, the Golden Alexander, at the 60th Thessaloniki Intl. Film Festival on Sunday, as well as the best actor award for Amador Arias, playing an arsonist who returns to his family home in the mountains.

The film, described in its Variety review as “a rustically beautiful rural parable,” played in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard sidebar — where it won the runner-up Jury Prize.

The Special Jury Award, the Silver Alexander, went to Maya Da-Rin’s “The Fever,” which world premiered at Locarno Film Festival. The film explores the complex and tense relationship between indigenous communities in Brazil and Western civilization.

The special jury award for best director, the Bronze Alexander, went to Melina Leon for “Song Without a Name,” which dramatizes a true-life case of Peruvian baby trafficking. The film played in Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes.

Greta Fernandez took the best actress...

A strong selection of Indian films is among the highlights of the 21st Mumbai Film Festival. The festival, which runs Oct. 17-24, announced its lineup on Thursday.

The festival’s Spotlight strand boasts of five world premieres, including Arati Kadav’s much awaited sci-film “Cargo,” actor Seema Bhargava Pahwa’s directorial debut, the family drama “Ram Prasad Ki Tehrvi,” Deepti Gupta’s document of a female artist’s fight for equality in modern India “Shut Up Sona,” Kamal Swaroop’s portrayal of a theatre troupe staging a mythological play “Samudra Manthan” and R.V. Ramani’s “Oh That’s Bhanu.” The strand also includes Goutam Ghose’s “The Wayfarers” that has its world premiere at the Busan International Film Festival.

The Mumbai festival’s India Gold competition features further Busan titles, Gurvinder Singh’s “Bitter Chestnut” and Kislay’s “Just Like That,” and Gitanjali Rao’s hand drawn animation festival favourite...

Films screen on September 10 in Cwc, September 11 in Masters.

Us distributor Film Movement has picked up two films ahead of their anticipated North American premieres in Toronto – Diao Yinan’s gangland noir The Wild Goose Lake and Bertrand Bonello’s horror-fantasy Zombi Child.

The distributor plans to release both theatrically in 2020 followed by home entertainment and digital roll-out.

The Wild Goose Lake, Diao’s follow-up to his 2014 Berlin Golden Bear-winning noir Black Coal, Thin Ice, premiered in Competition in Cannes and screens in Contemporary World Cinema Section on September 10. Hu Ge and Gwei Lun Mei star in the story of...

Santiago, Chile French director Mikhael Hers’ “Amanda” scooped up the Best Int’l Film award Saturday (Aug. 24) at the 15th Santiago Int’l Film Fest (Sanfic), which reported a 20% audience uptick in the past two years and continues to grow its reputation as the most vibrant and prominent film festival in Latin America’s Southern cone.

Hailed by Variety critic Guy Lodge as a “nourishingly classical tear-jerker as well as a glowing valentine to Paris’s endurance in the age of modern terrorism,” Hers’ third feature has been collecting a raft of trophies since its world premiere at Venice last year, including Venice’s Golden Lantern Award as well as the Grand Prix and Best Screenplay awards at Tokyo.

Colombia’s Alejandro Landes, best known for his career-launching drama, “Porfirio,” snagged the best director prize for “Monos,” his apocalyptic vision of a rebel group of teenagers in the jungle, while...

Luxbox represents worldwide rights to first-time feature.

Melina Léon’s Peruvian Cannes Directors’ Fortnight selection and child trafficking drama Song Without A Name (Cancion Sin Nombre) has landed a North American distribution deal with Film Movement.

The Cannes Golden Camera nominee and recent winner of the CineVision Award at the Munich Film Festival will open theatrically towards the end of this year followed by home entertainment and digital release. Film Movement brokered the deal with Luxbox.

Léon’s feature debut is inspired by events in her country in the 1980s, and centres on Georgina (Pamela Mendoza), a young woman from...

In a dingy clinic, a newborn child is whisked away from her exhausted mother, supposedly for routine health checks, and is never returned; in short order, the clinic vanishes into thin air too, leaving the stolen baby’s bewildered, impoverished parents with no recourse. The premise of “Song Without a Name” is at once fact-based and the stuff of shadowed, surreal nightmares, and Peruvian writer-director Melina León’s artfully affecting debut feature splits the difference: Earthy with social detail from a despairing period of Peru’s recent history, it’s also shot, scored and styled like the most beautiful of bad dreams.

The film’s wistful, elegiac tone, immaculate monochrome cinematography and compassionate focus on disenfranchised indigenous women will inevitably prompt surface-level comparisons to Alfonso Cuarón’s “Roma” — which can hardly hurt “Song Without a Name’s” distribution prospects as it embarks upon what will likely be a gilded festival run,...

"We will find her. I promise." Luxbox has debuted a festival promo trailer for Peruvian film Canción Sin Nombre, premiering at the Cannes Film Festival in the Directors' Fortnight sidebar next month. The title translates to Song Without a Name, and the film is the feature directorial debut of a Peruvian filmmaker named Melina Leon. It's based on a true account of child trafficking uncovered by journalist Ismael Leon, father of the film's director. Georgina is a young woman from the Andes whose newborn daughter is stolen at a fake health clinic. Her desperate search for the young child leads her to the headquarters of a major newspaper, where she meets Pedro Campos, a lonely journalist who takes on the investigation. The full cast includes Pamela Mendoza, Tommy Párraga, Lucio Rojas, Maykol Hernández, and Lidia Quipse. This vintage black & white look to this really adds to the storytelling. Will keep...