Alternative Film Guide

World Cinema Clips: In Luis Puenzo’s masterful 1985 political drama La Historia oficial / The Official Story, co-written by Puenzo and Aída Bortnik, Norma Aleandro stars as a teacher who discovers an unsettling connection between her adopted daughter and Argentina’s brutal military dictatorship. Hector Alterio plays the husband with a secret.
In the clip below (in [...]

The 37th International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), which runs between Jan. 23–Feb. 3, has announced the 15 films (see below) vying for the 2008 VPRO Tiger Awards. All entries are first or second features.
The festival will open with the world premiere of Lucía Cedrón’s narrative feature-film debut Cordero de Dios / Lamb of God [...]

The Los Angeles Conservancy will present the 21st Annual Last Remaining Seats series every Wednesday at 8 p.m. from May 23 — June 27, 2007. The series is held at historic movie palaces in the Los Angeles area — the precious few still in existence, that is.
This year, the following film classics will be screened:
North [...]

22nd Mar del Plata Film Festival Awards - 2007
The 22nd Mar del Plata Film Festival Award was held between Mar-8-18, 2007.
The 22nd Mar del Plata Film Festival Award winners were announced on Mar. 18, 2007.
 

Directed by Cesc Gay, Fiction tells the story of a film director who, while resting at a friend’s home in a [...]

The Palm Springs International Film Festival announced its jury and audience winners this past Sunday, Jan. 14.
The New Voices New Visions Grand Jury Prize was given to Rafi Pitts’s Iranian drama Zemestan / It’s Winter, the story of a woman left behind in a small Iranian town after her husband travels abroad looking for work.

The [...]

I’ve finally posted the list of winners at the 10th Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival. The award winners were announced by Edward James Olmos and Marlene Dermer this past Oct. 16.
For a variety of reasons, I skipped this year’s edition of the Latino festival. After the fact, I was sorry I did.
Among [...]

Friday evening at the AFI FEST 06:

At 4:15pm, Roger Michell’s Venus, starring Peter O’Toole — who has been touted for an Oscar win — as an elderly actor (married to Vanessa Redgrave) who befriends the grandniece (Jodie Whittaker) of a fellow veteran actor (Leslie Phillips). Venus was nominated for five British Independent Film Awards: Best [...]

The 2006 Festival of Jewish Cinema, consisting of "contemporary films on Jewish themes from around the world," opens on Nov. 1 in Melbourne.
Among the festival’s entries are Brice Cauvin’s De particulier à particulier / Hotel Harabati, about a French couple (Laurent Lucas and Hélène Fillières) who find themselves involved in a possible Muslim terrorist plot [...]

At a awards ceremony yesterday, Sept. 30, the 54th Donostia-San Sebastián Film Festival’s Golden Shell was given to two films: Niwemang / Half Moon (Iran-Iraq-Austria-France), which also took the International Film Critics’ FIPRESCI Award, and Mon fils à moi / My Son (France).
Directed by Bahman Ghobadi, Half Moon follows an old Kurdish-Iranian musician on his [...]

En el hoyo, Juan Carlos Rulfo’s documentary about construction workers building the second deck of Mexico City’s Periferico freeway, won the Grand Prize at the second Santiago International Film Festival. En el hoyo also took home the Premio Sin Fronteras (Without Borders Award), which guarantees commercial distribution in Chile.
French filmmaker Pascale Breton won the Best [...]

Last Monday, June 26, the Argentinean Film Critics Association gave out the Silver Condor Awards at the Cine Gaumont in Buenos Aires. The top winner of the most prestigious film award in Argentina was the recently deceased Fabián Bielinsky, whose somber psychological thriller El Aura / The Aura won six awards: Best Film, Best Director [...]

Fabián Bielinsky, whose second and final film, El Aura / The Aura, was shown at the Los Angeles Film Festival this past Wednesday, has died of an apparent heart attack.
The Buenos Aires native was best known for his 2000 film Nueve reinas / Nine Queens, a labyrinthine caper thriller starring Ricardo Darín and Gastón Pauls [...]

El Aura / The Aura (2005)
Direction and screenplay: Fabián Bielinsky. Cast: Ricardo Darín, Dolores Fonzi, Pablo Cedrón, Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, Jorge D’Elia<
 
THE OTHER SIDE
I had high hopes for writer-director Fabián Bielinsky’s second feature film, El Aura / The Aura — Argentina’s 2005 submission for the Best Foreign-Language Film Academy Award and the winner [...]

21st Mar del Plata Film Festival Awards - 2006
The 21st Mar del Plata Film Festival Award was held between Mar. 9-19, 2006.
 

Ricardo Benet’s Noticias lejanas / News from Afar tells the story of a man who returns home to confront his past.
 
OFFICIAL COMPETITION
Golden Astor for Best Film: Noticias lejanas (Mexico), by Ricardo Benet
Special Jury [...]

Via AlertNet: A Reuters article by Mary Milliken discusses the new Argentinian film Iluminados por el fuego / Blessed by Fire, which depicts Argentina’s disastrous military campaign to take over the Falkland Islands (known in Argentina as Las Malvinas) from Britain in the early 1980s.
Directed and co-written by Tristán Bauer, and starring the excellent Gastón [...]

Gay Cinema at Cinema Minima. Jordan Hatcher discusses three gay-themed films shown at the Edinburgh Film Festival — Ronda nocturna / Night Watch by Edgardo Cozarinsky, Susan Kaplan’s Three of Hearts, and Henry Corra’s Same Sex America.