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 2008 Tiburon (Calif.) International Film Festival (TIFF), set for March 13–21, will be showcasing more than 225 films from 94 countries.
The festival will open with the US premiere of Miguel Angel Calvo Buttini’s political comedy Dos rivales casi iguales / Twins for President at 7 p.m. at the Playhouse Theater on March 13.
Twins [...]

The second Brazilian production to win the Berlin Film Festival’s Golden Bear, José Padilha’s Tropa de Elite / The Elite Squad, a violent tale about Rio’s special police unit’s fight against slum-based druglords, was a controversial choice for the 2008 festival’s top award. Unlike the previous Brazilian winning entry, the considerably cozier Central Station back [...]

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 [...]

Katharine Hepburn, Barbara Stanwyck, Fred Zinnemann, Fay Wray, Henri-Georges Clouzot, T.E.B. Clarke, Yves Allégret, Dan Duryea, Paula Wessely, Burgess Meredith, John Wayne, Gene Autry, Run Run Shaw, and the list of 2007 centenarians goes on. Some are being celebrated — Katharine Hepburn has just been honored with a DVD box set; Barbara Stanwyck is the [...]

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 [...]

More winners at international film festivals…
I’ve added the list of winners at the 30th São Paulo International Film Festival.
The Best Film Award went to a Brazilian production, O Cheiro do Ralo / Drained, which will be screened at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.
Other winners include Francisco Vargas’s Mexican drama El Violin / The Violin, [...]

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 [...]

A Mexican production and a Mexican-Bolivian co-production were the two top winners at the 32nd Huelva Ibero-American Film Festival, which came to a close at a ceremony in the town of Huelva in southwestern Spain on Nov. 25.
Francisco Vargas Quevedo’s feature-film debut, El violín / The Violin, won the Colón de Oro for Best Feature, [...]

The top winner at the 2006 edition of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, which wrapped today, was Kim Tae-yong’s Korean drama Gajokeui Tansaeng / Family Ties, about different relationships within a dysfunctional family.
In addition to the Golden Alexander Award for Best Film (worth 37,000 euros), Family Ties won a joint Best Actress award (for Moon [...]

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 [...]

Via the Canadian Press: "Canada’s National Film Board is working with both the government and private sector in Brazil on a series of initiatives, including the advancement of digital cinema, documentary co-productions and the training of promising young filmmakers.

"In an agreement signed Thursday, NFB chairman Jacques Bensimon said the [...]

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 [...]

Cinema, Aspirina e Urubus / Cinema, Aspirin and Vultures (2006)
Director: Marcelo Gomes. Screenplay: Marcelo Gomes, Karim Ainouz, and Paulo Caldas. Cast: Peter Ketnath, João Miguel
 

 
DIRT ROAD BUDDIES
Carefully directed by Marcelo Gomes; beautifully photographed by Mauro Pinheiro Jr.; tautly written by Gomes, Karim Ainouz, and Paulo Caldas; and extremely well acted by Peter Ketnath and [...]

If it weren’t enough that his Labor Party is at the core of what may well be the worst corruption scandal in Brazil’s history — and that is saying a lot — Brazilian president Lula (aka Luiz Inácio da Silva) was caught watching a pirated DVD while aboard his private jet during a Moscow-Brasília flight [...]

More "Malditos Filmes Brasileiros!" (Damned Brazilian Movies!) in October, this time at the Cinemateca Brasileira in São Paulo.
Between October 6-9, the Cinemateca will present the series "The Most Important Classics of the Boca do Lixo" ("Boca do Lixo" could be loosely translated as "Trash Alley"), including Rubens da Silva Prado’s 1970 "feijoada" Western Sangue [...]

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 [...]

The film series "Malditos Filmes Brasileiros!" (Damned Brazilian Movies!) continues in September at the Casa França-Brasil in downtown Rio de Janeiro. The theme of the month is the Brazilian "nordestern," also known as the feijoada Western: shoot-em-up flicks shot (no pun intended) in the arid and lawless Brazilian Northeast, where men were born to kill [...]

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.

Tizuka Yamasaki’s film Gaijin - Ama-me Como Sou / Gaijin - Love Me As I Am, won the two top prizes at the 2005 edition of the Gramado Festival of Brazilian and Latin films. Gaijin tells the story of the descendants of Japanese immigrants in Brazil. Gaijin also won the Best Supporting Actress award for Aya Ono and the Best Score award for Egberto Gismonti.

Malditos Filmes Brasileiros! (Damned Brazilian Movies!) a film series currently being presented in Rio de Janeiro. Genres include “feijoada” Westerns, pornochanchadas, science-fiction, horror, and cop thrillers, among them Bacalhau (Bacs), Seduzidas pelo Demonio, and Escalada da Violencia.

The Premiere Brazil series at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art will screen a number of Brazilian films, including Lucia Murat’s Quase Dois Irmaos / Almost Two Brothers, Helena Solberg’s Vida de Menina / Diary of a Provincial Girl, Marcos Prado’s Estamira, and the Carmen Miranda vehicle Alo Alo Carnval, co-directed by Adhemar Gonzaga.

Machuca (2004)
Direction: Andrés Wood. Screenplay: Andrés Wood, Roberto Brodsky, and Mamoun Hassan. Cast: Matías Quer, Ariel Mateluna, Manuela Martelli, Aline Küppenheim, Ernesto Malbran, Tamara Acosta, Francisco Reyes
 
GROWING TRAUMAS
Machuca is a generally well-made, at times moving depiction of a difficult historical period — Chile on the verge of the military coup that deposed Salvador Allende — [...]