“Dive” and “La Jauría” helmer Lucía Puenzo is set to direct gangster epic “The Gunwoman (Pepita’s Legend),” toplining and executive produced by Argentine star Luisana Lopilato, and inspired by the real-life story of Margarita Di Tullio, queen of its Mar del Plata underworld who became the most famous woman in Argentina’s criminal history.
Currently in pre-production, the movie is backed by one of the grandest alliances ever assembled to produce an Argentine feature film, thriller “The Gunwoman” (Pepita’s Legend)” being produced by a consortium led by Argentina’s Zeppelin Studio, headed by Lucas Jinkis. The alliance also takes in Historias Cinematográficas, Erik Barmack’s Wild Sheep Content, Yair Dori, Bar Rimoni, Javier Furgang, 7395 Media and Non Stop Studios.
From initial comments made by Puenzo, referring to “this gigantic story” and given the robust breadth of financing, “The Gunwoman” looks like one of the biggest movies without...
Currently in pre-production, the movie is backed by one of the grandest alliances ever assembled to produce an Argentine feature film, thriller “The Gunwoman” (Pepita’s Legend)” being produced by a consortium led by Argentina’s Zeppelin Studio, headed by Lucas Jinkis. The alliance also takes in Historias Cinematográficas, Erik Barmack’s Wild Sheep Content, Yair Dori, Bar Rimoni, Javier Furgang, 7395 Media and Non Stop Studios.
From initial comments made by Puenzo, referring to “this gigantic story” and given the robust breadth of financing, “The Gunwoman” looks like one of the biggest movies without...
- 11/13/2023
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Buenos Aires-based FilmSharks, led by CEO Guido Rud, has pounced on world sales rights to Lucia Puenzo’s “Los Impactados” on the eve of the American Film Market (AFM) where it will kick off sales.
Delving into the theme of rebirth in the face of profound trauma, “Los Impactados” follows Ada, portrayed by Mariana Di Girólamo (Pablo Larraín’s “Ema” ), whose unusual journey begins when she is struck by lightning, leading her on a fascinating transformation alongside a mysterious doctor, played by Germán Palacios, the lead from “El Último Hereje.” Along the way, she forms a bond with a group of fellow survivors who find themselves increasingly captivated by the power of electricity.
In an earlier interview with Variety, Puenzo, who co-wrote the screenplay with Lorena Ventimiglia, said she was intrigued by “the possibility that something as random as lightning could strike us with the force of a nuclear reactor,...
Delving into the theme of rebirth in the face of profound trauma, “Los Impactados” follows Ada, portrayed by Mariana Di Girólamo (Pablo Larraín’s “Ema” ), whose unusual journey begins when she is struck by lightning, leading her on a fascinating transformation alongside a mysterious doctor, played by Germán Palacios, the lead from “El Último Hereje.” Along the way, she forms a bond with a group of fellow survivors who find themselves increasingly captivated by the power of electricity.
In an earlier interview with Variety, Puenzo, who co-wrote the screenplay with Lorena Ventimiglia, said she was intrigued by “the possibility that something as random as lightning could strike us with the force of a nuclear reactor,...
- 10/31/2023
- by Anna Marie de la Fuente
- Variety Film + TV
Mubi to release in US, Latin America, UK, other regions.
Argentina’s selection committee has submitted Rodrigo Moreno’s Cannes Un Certain Regard entry The Delinquents (Los Delincuentes) as this season’s international feature film contender.
The Delinquents: Cannes review
Mubi acquired rights for North America, UK & Ireland, Latin America, Turkey, Italy, India, and Benelux from Magnolia International.
The Delinquents stars Argentinian actors Daniel Elías, Esteban Bigliardi and Margarita Molfino and follows a Buenos Aires bank employee who dreams up a plan to free himself and his co-worker from the humdrum routine of their working lives.
Laura Paredes, Mariana Chaud,...
Argentina’s selection committee has submitted Rodrigo Moreno’s Cannes Un Certain Regard entry The Delinquents (Los Delincuentes) as this season’s international feature film contender.
The Delinquents: Cannes review
Mubi acquired rights for North America, UK & Ireland, Latin America, Turkey, Italy, India, and Benelux from Magnolia International.
The Delinquents stars Argentinian actors Daniel Elías, Esteban Bigliardi and Margarita Molfino and follows a Buenos Aires bank employee who dreams up a plan to free himself and his co-worker from the humdrum routine of their working lives.
Laura Paredes, Mariana Chaud,...
- 10/2/2023
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
Ahead of its world premiere at this year’s San Sebastian Horizontes Latinos strand, Buenos Aires-based production house Historias Cinematográficas has shared an exclusive first look at the trailer for Lucía Puenza’s energetic new film “Los Impactados,” with Variety.
The film is produced by Pepe Puenzo at Historias Cinematográficas, the Puenzo family production house led by Academy Award winner Luis Puenzo, Academy and Emmy award-winning producer Mark Johnson and Paula Manzanedo in association with Exile Content Studio and Non Stop Studios. Co-produced by Juan de Dios and Pablo Larraín’s indie outfit Fábula, the narrative turns on a study of rebirth after severe trauma.
Written by Puenzo and Lorena Ventimiglia, the singular narrative follows Ada, played by Mariana Di Girolamo who starred opposite Gael Garcia Bernal in Pablo Larraín’s “Ema,” after she’s struck by lightning and on through to her intriguing metamorphosis alongside an enigmatic and experimental doctor,...
The film is produced by Pepe Puenzo at Historias Cinematográficas, the Puenzo family production house led by Academy Award winner Luis Puenzo, Academy and Emmy award-winning producer Mark Johnson and Paula Manzanedo in association with Exile Content Studio and Non Stop Studios. Co-produced by Juan de Dios and Pablo Larraín’s indie outfit Fábula, the narrative turns on a study of rebirth after severe trauma.
Written by Puenzo and Lorena Ventimiglia, the singular narrative follows Ada, played by Mariana Di Girolamo who starred opposite Gael Garcia Bernal in Pablo Larraín’s “Ema,” after she’s struck by lightning and on through to her intriguing metamorphosis alongside an enigmatic and experimental doctor,...
- 9/7/2023
- by Holly Jones
- Variety Film + TV
When she was a teenager in Buenos Aires, Victoria Alonso never imagined being an executive producer at Marvel. And now that she’s spent 17 years at the studio, she could see “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” being nominated for five Oscars — but she never envisioned that in the same year she’d also produce an Oscar-nominated international feature, “Argentina 1985.”
As Marvel’s president of physical production, Alonso spends her days meeting on multiple projects at every stage — from location scouts, casting, and visual development to costumes, visual effects, editing, score, and casting. “Every day is mayhem and a privilege,” said Alonso. “Every day is, ‘What happened now?’ And, ‘Oh my god, that is awesome.’
Alonso always wanted to make her version of Luis Puenzo’s ‘The Official Story,” which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1986. “I’ve made a lot of stories about superheroes,” she said. “And...
As Marvel’s president of physical production, Alonso spends her days meeting on multiple projects at every stage — from location scouts, casting, and visual development to costumes, visual effects, editing, score, and casting. “Every day is mayhem and a privilege,” said Alonso. “Every day is, ‘What happened now?’ And, ‘Oh my god, that is awesome.’
Alonso always wanted to make her version of Luis Puenzo’s ‘The Official Story,” which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1986. “I’ve made a lot of stories about superheroes,” she said. “And...
- 2/17/2023
- by Anne Thompson
- Indiewire
Europe is less dominant this year, with Asia, Latin America and Africa represented.
The Academy’s 2023 international feature film shortlist manages to be both predictable and refreshing at the same time.
It’s predictable in that the 15-strong shortlist contains most of the front runners expected to make it to this stage, including France’s Saint Omer, Austria’s Corsage, Denmark’s Holy Spider, Argentina’s Argentina, 1985, Belgium’s Close, South Korea’s Decision To Leave and Mexico’s Bardo. Among the few surprising omissions are Maryna Er Gorbach’s Ukrainian war drama Klondike and Carla Simon’s Berlinale winner Alcarràs.
The Academy’s 2023 international feature film shortlist manages to be both predictable and refreshing at the same time.
It’s predictable in that the 15-strong shortlist contains most of the front runners expected to make it to this stage, including France’s Saint Omer, Austria’s Corsage, Denmark’s Holy Spider, Argentina’s Argentina, 1985, Belgium’s Close, South Korea’s Decision To Leave and Mexico’s Bardo. Among the few surprising omissions are Maryna Er Gorbach’s Ukrainian war drama Klondike and Carla Simon’s Berlinale winner Alcarràs.
- 12/22/2022
- by Ben Dalton¬Tim Dams¬Charles Gant¬Fionnuala Halligan¬Mona Tabbara¬Ellie Calnan
- ScreenDaily
Spanish Screenings on Tour, video games section among anticipated highlights.
Ventana Sur organisers anticipate a record number of participants to descend on Buenos Aires for the in-person return of Latin America’s leading audiovisual market running November 28–December 2.
This year’s edition is loaded with animation and genre, a profusion of works in progress as well as video game projects and the arrival of Spanish Screenings On Tour.
Ventana Sur is heading towards a record attendance this year as organisers said more than 2,500 participants including 400 from Europe, 100 from North America and 400 from Latin America (excluding Argentina) have registered so far.
Ventana Sur organisers anticipate a record number of participants to descend on Buenos Aires for the in-person return of Latin America’s leading audiovisual market running November 28–December 2.
This year’s edition is loaded with animation and genre, a profusion of works in progress as well as video game projects and the arrival of Spanish Screenings On Tour.
Ventana Sur is heading towards a record attendance this year as organisers said more than 2,500 participants including 400 from Europe, 100 from North America and 400 from Latin America (excluding Argentina) have registered so far.
- 11/27/2022
- by Emilio Mayorga
- ScreenDaily
With human justice absent in the awful political bloodshed in Central America, Guatemalan director Jayro Bustamente finds payback in cinematic fantasy. A crooked government exonerates a genocidal general, but his estate is besieged around the clock by Mayan-Ixil Indio protesters. Into the house comes a new maid — a tiny young woman who may nevertheless wield supernatural powers. The moody art-horror show is as delicate as The Innocents or a Val Lewton chiller — horror once again becomes an excellent means to address political evil. Slow and deliberate, it reverberates with horror history without copying the classics.
La Llorona (2019)
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 1156
2019 / Color / 2:39 widescreen / 96 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date October 18, 2022 / 39.95
Starring: María Mercedes Coroy, Sabrina De La Hoz, Margarita Kenéfic, Julio Diaz, María Telón, Juan Pablo Olyslager, Ayla-Elea Hurtado.
Cinematography: Nicolás Wong
Production Designer: Sebastián Muñoz
Costume Design: Beatriz Lantán
Film Editors: Jayro Bustamante, Gustavo Matheu
Original...
La Llorona (2019)
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 1156
2019 / Color / 2:39 widescreen / 96 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date October 18, 2022 / 39.95
Starring: María Mercedes Coroy, Sabrina De La Hoz, Margarita Kenéfic, Julio Diaz, María Telón, Juan Pablo Olyslager, Ayla-Elea Hurtado.
Cinematography: Nicolás Wong
Production Designer: Sebastián Muñoz
Costume Design: Beatriz Lantán
Film Editors: Jayro Bustamante, Gustavo Matheu
Original...
- 10/22/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
This review originally posted Sept. 3, 2022, for the film’s world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.
Near the rousing climax of Santiago Mitre’s courtroom procedural “Argentina, 1985,” making its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, an affecting phone call between a mother and a son shines as an ideological lighthouse, offering the promise that people’s long-held beliefs can evolve for the better. And if one individual can change, then an entire society can reevaluate its faults to amend them.
This impeccably executed portrait of a country at a crossroads chronicles at length the Trial of the Juntas, a nearly unthinkable opportunity in the mid-1980s for the first government of Argentina’s embryonic democracy to try nine generals and admirals (including dictator Jorge Rafael Videla) for crimes against humanity committed during the military dictatorship in a civil court of law.
Tasked with the titanic task of bringing justice...
Near the rousing climax of Santiago Mitre’s courtroom procedural “Argentina, 1985,” making its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, an affecting phone call between a mother and a son shines as an ideological lighthouse, offering the promise that people’s long-held beliefs can evolve for the better. And if one individual can change, then an entire society can reevaluate its faults to amend them.
This impeccably executed portrait of a country at a crossroads chronicles at length the Trial of the Juntas, a nearly unthinkable opportunity in the mid-1980s for the first government of Argentina’s embryonic democracy to try nine generals and admirals (including dictator Jorge Rafael Videla) for crimes against humanity committed during the military dictatorship in a civil court of law.
Tasked with the titanic task of bringing justice...
- 10/21/2022
- by Carlos Aguilar
- The Wrap
Click here to read the full article.
Argentina has selected Santiago Mitre’s crowd-pleasing courtroom drama Argentina, 1985 as its national contender for the 2023 Academy Awards in the best international feature category.
There are echoes of the Jan. 6 hearings in the film’s true story of the group of heroic lawyers, led by Julio Strassera and Luis Moreno Ocampo, who engaged in a David vs. Goliath battle to try and prosecute the leaders of Argentina’s military for crimes committed during the country’s bloody dictatorship. More than just a legal battle, the outcome of the case will determine how strong Argentina’s nascent democracy can be.
Argentina, 1985 premiered in competition at the Venice Film Festival this year. Starring Ricardo Darín (The Secret In Their Eyes) and Peter Lanzani, Argentina, 1985 is the first Argentina original from Amazon Prime, which will be releasing the film stateside on Oct. 21.
Argentinian films have been...
Argentina has selected Santiago Mitre’s crowd-pleasing courtroom drama Argentina, 1985 as its national contender for the 2023 Academy Awards in the best international feature category.
There are echoes of the Jan. 6 hearings in the film’s true story of the group of heroic lawyers, led by Julio Strassera and Luis Moreno Ocampo, who engaged in a David vs. Goliath battle to try and prosecute the leaders of Argentina’s military for crimes committed during the country’s bloody dictatorship. More than just a legal battle, the outcome of the case will determine how strong Argentina’s nascent democracy can be.
Argentina, 1985 premiered in competition at the Venice Film Festival this year. Starring Ricardo Darín (The Secret In Their Eyes) and Peter Lanzani, Argentina, 1985 is the first Argentina original from Amazon Prime, which will be releasing the film stateside on Oct. 21.
Argentinian films have been...
- 9/27/2022
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The film picked up the critics prize at Venice and the audience award at San Sebastian.
Argentina has submitted Santiago Mitre’s Argentina, 1985 as its entry for the best international feature category for the 2023 Academy Awards (March 12).
‘Argentina, 1985’: Venice Review
The Amazon Original title is based on the real events of Argentina’s 1980s ‘Dirty War’ and follows a group of lawyers who risk everything to take on the heads of the country’s military dictatorship. Ricardo Darín and Peter Lanzani lead the cast.
Argentina, 1985 was selected out 60 other titles by a committee of 250 members.
The film is a...
Argentina has submitted Santiago Mitre’s Argentina, 1985 as its entry for the best international feature category for the 2023 Academy Awards (March 12).
‘Argentina, 1985’: Venice Review
The Amazon Original title is based on the real events of Argentina’s 1980s ‘Dirty War’ and follows a group of lawyers who risk everything to take on the heads of the country’s military dictatorship. Ricardo Darín and Peter Lanzani lead the cast.
Argentina, 1985 was selected out 60 other titles by a committee of 250 members.
The film is a...
- 9/27/2022
- by Ellie Calnan
- ScreenDaily
Argentina has submitted Santiago Mitre’s political drama Argentina, 1985 to the Best International Film Oscar race.
The drama, which debuted in Competition in Venice, winning the Fipresci prize, is inspired by real-life Argentinian lawyers Julio Strassera and Luis Moreno Ocampo.
Best International Feature Film Oscar Winners
The David and Goliath tale follows how the pair and their young legal team daringly prosecuted members of the former military junta to bring justice to the victims of their deadly regime. Under their rule from 1976 to 1983, an estimated 30,000 people disappeared.
Award-winning actor Ricardo Darin plays Strassera alongside Peter Lanzani as Ocampo with other cast members including
Mitre wrote the screenplay with Mariano Llinás. Producers are Axel Kuschevatzky, Federico Posternak, Agustina Llambi-Campbell, Darín, Mitre, Santiago Carabante, Chino Darín and Victoria Alonso.
Argentina has garnered seven nominations to date for Sergio Renán’s The Truce (1974), Maria Luisa Bemberg’s Camila (1984), Luis Puenzo’s The Official...
The drama, which debuted in Competition in Venice, winning the Fipresci prize, is inspired by real-life Argentinian lawyers Julio Strassera and Luis Moreno Ocampo.
Best International Feature Film Oscar Winners
The David and Goliath tale follows how the pair and their young legal team daringly prosecuted members of the former military junta to bring justice to the victims of their deadly regime. Under their rule from 1976 to 1983, an estimated 30,000 people disappeared.
Award-winning actor Ricardo Darin plays Strassera alongside Peter Lanzani as Ocampo with other cast members including
Mitre wrote the screenplay with Mariano Llinás. Producers are Axel Kuschevatzky, Federico Posternak, Agustina Llambi-Campbell, Darín, Mitre, Santiago Carabante, Chino Darín and Victoria Alonso.
Argentina has garnered seven nominations to date for Sergio Renán’s The Truce (1974), Maria Luisa Bemberg’s Camila (1984), Luis Puenzo’s The Official...
- 9/27/2022
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
Feature directorial debutant Andrés Ramírez Pulido attended Croisette with short film Damiana in 2017.
In the run-up to Cannes Paris-based Pyramide International has boarded sales on Cannes Critics’ Week selection The Pack (La Jauria) from Colombian director Andrés Ramírez Pulido.
The Colombia-France co-production marks Pulido’s feature directorial debut after a distinguished track record in short films that saw Damiana premiere in Competition in Cannes in 2017 a year after El Edén played in the Berlinale.
The film centres on Eliú, a country boy incarcerated́ in an experimental juvenile correction centre in the heart of the Colombian jungle after he committed a...
In the run-up to Cannes Paris-based Pyramide International has boarded sales on Cannes Critics’ Week selection The Pack (La Jauria) from Colombian director Andrés Ramírez Pulido.
The Colombia-France co-production marks Pulido’s feature directorial debut after a distinguished track record in short films that saw Damiana premiere in Competition in Cannes in 2017 a year after El Edén played in the Berlinale.
The film centres on Eliú, a country boy incarcerated́ in an experimental juvenile correction centre in the heart of the Colombian jungle after he committed a...
- 4/22/2022
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
Feature directorial debutant Andrés Ramírez Pulido attended Croisette with short film Damiana in 2017.
In the run-up to Cannes Pyramide Films has boarded sales on Cannes Critics’ Week selection The Pack (La Jauria) from Colombian director Andrés Ramírez Pulido.
The Colombia-France co-production marks Pulido’s feature directorial debut after a distinguished track record in short films that saw Damiana premiere in Competition in Cannes in 2017 a year after he took El Edén to the Berlinale.
The film centres on Eliú, a country boy incarcerated́ in an experimental juvenile correction centre in the heart of the Colombian jungle after he committed a...
In the run-up to Cannes Pyramide Films has boarded sales on Cannes Critics’ Week selection The Pack (La Jauria) from Colombian director Andrés Ramírez Pulido.
The Colombia-France co-production marks Pulido’s feature directorial debut after a distinguished track record in short films that saw Damiana premiere in Competition in Cannes in 2017 a year after he took El Edén to the Berlinale.
The film centres on Eliú, a country boy incarcerated́ in an experimental juvenile correction centre in the heart of the Colombian jungle after he committed a...
- 4/22/2022
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
Incaa vice-president Nicolas Battle temporarily assumes reins.
Argentina is expected to send a slimmed-down official presence to the Cannes Marché next month as uncertainty reigns in the wake of the sacking last week of Incaa (National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts) president Luis Puenzo.
Screen understands a delegation of approximately four people will arrive on the Croisette as officials scramble to prepare a schedule and expect to field inquiries from attending local filmmakers and international partners about the country’s national film body. On top of the Puenzo siuation Incaa faces losing a significant portion of its annual funding...
Argentina is expected to send a slimmed-down official presence to the Cannes Marché next month as uncertainty reigns in the wake of the sacking last week of Incaa (National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts) president Luis Puenzo.
Screen understands a delegation of approximately four people will arrive on the Croisette as officials scramble to prepare a schedule and expect to field inquiries from attending local filmmakers and international partners about the country’s national film body. On top of the Puenzo siuation Incaa faces losing a significant portion of its annual funding...
- 4/22/2022
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
Deal cements independence from Eros International.
Following months of speculation The Najafi Companies has closed its acquisition of STX Entertainment.
Robert Simonds will serve as STX chairman and Noah Fogelson, currently president, becomes the new CEO. Adam Fogelson will continue to serve as chairman of the motion picture group, Andrew Warren will continue as CFO, and John Friedberg will continue to run international sales and acquisitions in London.
As Birch Grove LP and 777 Partners provided financing for the deal, which cements STX Entertainment’s independence from Eros International. The Najafi Companies invests across multiple sectors and has “significant” holdings in consumer,...
Following months of speculation The Najafi Companies has closed its acquisition of STX Entertainment.
Robert Simonds will serve as STX chairman and Noah Fogelson, currently president, becomes the new CEO. Adam Fogelson will continue to serve as chairman of the motion picture group, Andrew Warren will continue as CFO, and John Friedberg will continue to run international sales and acquisitions in London.
As Birch Grove LP and 777 Partners provided financing for the deal, which cements STX Entertainment’s independence from Eros International. The Najafi Companies invests across multiple sectors and has “significant” holdings in consumer,...
- 4/22/2022
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
Analyzing the commercial failure of a movie 30 years after its release might not do much, if anything, to offset the film’s financial losses. In the case of Luis Puenzo’s failed big-budget 1992 adaptation of Albert Camus’ “The Plague,” perhaps there’s a streamer presentation that might perform a minor financial resuscitation on its P&l for Canal Plus and Gaumont. But given its subject matter, “The Plague” is more valuable as an instructive story illustrating the maxim, “Timing is everything.”
Puenzo’s sober, subdued take on Camus’ trenchant blend of natural catastrophe and political evil might find a more ready audience today, in this time of a pandemic accompanied by strange global political rumblings. In 1992, only a decade after the AIDS pandemic hit, important filmmakers were just beginning to address the tragic dimensions of the outbreak.
Jonathan Demme’s 1993 multi-Oscar winner “Philadelphia,” was also probably a better match for the times.
Puenzo’s sober, subdued take on Camus’ trenchant blend of natural catastrophe and political evil might find a more ready audience today, in this time of a pandemic accompanied by strange global political rumblings. In 1992, only a decade after the AIDS pandemic hit, important filmmakers were just beginning to address the tragic dimensions of the outbreak.
Jonathan Demme’s 1993 multi-Oscar winner “Philadelphia,” was also probably a better match for the times.
- 1/14/2022
- by Steven Gaydos
- Variety Film + TV
Keep track of all the submissions for best international feature at the 2022 Academy Awards
Entries for the 2022 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.
Scroll down for profiles of each Oscar entry
The 94th Academy Awards will take place on March 27, 2022 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. This is the first time since 2018 that the ceremony will take place in March, having moved to avoid conflicting with the Winter Olympics.
An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture produced outside the US with a predominantly non-English dialogue...
Entries for the 2022 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.
Scroll down for profiles of each Oscar entry
The 94th Academy Awards will take place on March 27, 2022 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. This is the first time since 2018 that the ceremony will take place in March, having moved to avoid conflicting with the Winter Olympics.
An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture produced outside the US with a predominantly non-English dialogue...
- 10/25/2021
- by Ben Dalton¬Mona Tabbara
- ScreenDaily
Organized by the Cannes Festival and Market and Argentina’s Incaa film agency, this year’s Ventana Sur, the biggest film-tv event in Latin America, is rapidly gaining in critical mass.
In one crucial development, Incaa president Luis Puenzo confirmed to Variety that Ventana Sur will coincide with the latest meetings of Caaci, the body of governmental audiovisual authorities in Ibero-America – Latin America, Spain and Portugal – and of its biggest dedicated film fund, Ibermedia.
Both will run parallel to Ventana Sur, which takes place Nov. 29-Dec. 3.
The agenda for Caaci meeting will not have been drawn up. But two issues look inevitably to be on the table, one way or another. One is support measures to aid the recuperation of the region’s film industries. The Covid-19 pandemic hit harder and for longer in Latin America than most parts of the world.
Another is how to ensure a healthy growth...
In one crucial development, Incaa president Luis Puenzo confirmed to Variety that Ventana Sur will coincide with the latest meetings of Caaci, the body of governmental audiovisual authorities in Ibero-America – Latin America, Spain and Portugal – and of its biggest dedicated film fund, Ibermedia.
Both will run parallel to Ventana Sur, which takes place Nov. 29-Dec. 3.
The agenda for Caaci meeting will not have been drawn up. But two issues look inevitably to be on the table, one way or another. One is support measures to aid the recuperation of the region’s film industries. The Covid-19 pandemic hit harder and for longer in Latin America than most parts of the world.
Another is how to ensure a healthy growth...
- 9/24/2021
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Ventana Sur, Latin America’s biggest film-tv market, is adding a video games forum, Las Maquinitas, to its powerful arthouse, genre and animation focuses.
Launching at this year’s Ventana Sur, which runs Nov. 29 to Dec. 3 onsite in Buenos Aires, the video game focus looks set to split two ways, Bernardo Bergeret, Ventana Sur co-executive director, said at the Cannes Marché du Film.
A Let’s Play team will walk delegates through the key steps in video game creation. In parallel, a conference panel series will analyze the reach and potential cross over between the film-tv industries and video game business.
“There are multiple and strong connections between video games and audiovisual industries,” Bergeret said. “Both need scriptwriters, animation, VFX, soundtracks, graphic concepts and art design.”
Ventana Sur aims to pinpoint these aspects, showing its attendees the similarities and differences – video games create a universe as much as linear narratives...
Launching at this year’s Ventana Sur, which runs Nov. 29 to Dec. 3 onsite in Buenos Aires, the video game focus looks set to split two ways, Bernardo Bergeret, Ventana Sur co-executive director, said at the Cannes Marché du Film.
A Let’s Play team will walk delegates through the key steps in video game creation. In parallel, a conference panel series will analyze the reach and potential cross over between the film-tv industries and video game business.
“There are multiple and strong connections between video games and audiovisual industries,” Bergeret said. “Both need scriptwriters, animation, VFX, soundtracks, graphic concepts and art design.”
Ventana Sur aims to pinpoint these aspects, showing its attendees the similarities and differences – video games create a universe as much as linear narratives...
- 7/12/2021
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
On the eve of Annecy’s MIFA market, Argentina’s National Film and Audiovisual Arts Institute (Incaa) has announced that it will launch three regional animation schools as it proclaims animation a strategic growth sector.
Forming part of Incaa’s Enerc federal film school system, currently headquartered in Buenos Aires, the new animation training facilities will be based in Mar del Plata, already home to Latin America’s only “A” grade film festival, as well as Santa Fe’s Rosario and Patagonia’s Comodoro Rivadavia. The film school’s will focus on 3D animation and new technologies.
In a first move, Argentina’s Incaa is setting up a new Animation and New Technologies division, headed by Silvina Cornillón, the driving force behind the explosive growth of Ventana Sur’s Animation! from its launch in 2016. In the space of five editions, organized in collaboration with Annecy’s MIFA market. Animation! has...
Forming part of Incaa’s Enerc federal film school system, currently headquartered in Buenos Aires, the new animation training facilities will be based in Mar del Plata, already home to Latin America’s only “A” grade film festival, as well as Santa Fe’s Rosario and Patagonia’s Comodoro Rivadavia. The film school’s will focus on 3D animation and new technologies.
In a first move, Argentina’s Incaa is setting up a new Animation and New Technologies division, headed by Silvina Cornillón, the driving force behind the explosive growth of Ventana Sur’s Animation! from its launch in 2016. In the space of five editions, organized in collaboration with Annecy’s MIFA market. Animation! has...
- 6/14/2021
- by John Hopewell and Emilio Mayorga
- Variety Film + TV
It looks like no coincidence that two of the biggest announcements concerning celebrated Argentine movie directors and producers this year were their moves into drama series creation. In February, Netflix announced that K & S, producers of “Wild Tales,” “The Clan” and “El Angel,” will produce a series adaptation of legendary Argentine sci-fi graphic novel “El Eternauta,” with Bruno Stagnaro directing.
In March, El Estudio announced two series with another founding father of the New Argentine Cinema, Pablo Trapero: a U.S. series remake
of his movie “Carancho” and bio-series “Galimberti.”
Appointed president of Argentina’s film agency Incaa in December, director Luis Puenzo does enjoy government backing, but he faces a perfect storm.
Even before Covid-19 struck, Argentina sustained crippling inflation: 50% last year and in 2018, plus a plunging peso, which lost 77% of its dollar value from April 2018 and studios’ lock on prime exhibition slots.
Last month, coronavirus had halted some 30 shoots,...
In March, El Estudio announced two series with another founding father of the New Argentine Cinema, Pablo Trapero: a U.S. series remake
of his movie “Carancho” and bio-series “Galimberti.”
Appointed president of Argentina’s film agency Incaa in December, director Luis Puenzo does enjoy government backing, but he faces a perfect storm.
Even before Covid-19 struck, Argentina sustained crippling inflation: 50% last year and in 2018, plus a plunging peso, which lost 77% of its dollar value from April 2018 and studios’ lock on prime exhibition slots.
Last month, coronavirus had halted some 30 shoots,...
- 5/11/2020
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
In this week’s International TV Newswire, Spain’s Laliga announces details of Saturday night’s LALIGASantader Fest; Argentina’s Incaa updates: Red Arrow wheels and deals; and Fremantle’s Dancing Ledge Productions promotes Chris Carey to managing director.
La Liga, Universal Music Team for Laliga Santander Fest
More than fifty artists and high-profile soccer players have united remotely to participate in Laliga Santander Fest, a digital musical festival to be held Saturday night as part of the Spanish soccer league’s La Liga Stay at Home initiative to entertain fans and raise funds for the fight against the spread of Covid-19 while filling the broadcast hole left since the suspension of nearly all live sports worldwide.
The festival will be live broadcast in more than 180 countries simultaneously at 1 p.m. Est via La Liga’s traditional broadcast partners internationally and domestically. It will also be streamed on the league...
La Liga, Universal Music Team for Laliga Santander Fest
More than fifty artists and high-profile soccer players have united remotely to participate in Laliga Santander Fest, a digital musical festival to be held Saturday night as part of the Spanish soccer league’s La Liga Stay at Home initiative to entertain fans and raise funds for the fight against the spread of Covid-19 while filling the broadcast hole left since the suspension of nearly all live sports worldwide.
The festival will be live broadcast in more than 180 countries simultaneously at 1 p.m. Est via La Liga’s traditional broadcast partners internationally and domestically. It will also be streamed on the league...
- 3/27/2020
- by Jamie Lang
- Variety Film + TV
Berlin — Ventana Sur, the biggest film-tv industry event in Latin America – and bulwarked by a hugely popular Cannes Film Week hosted by Thierry Fremaux – has set dates for its 12th edition, and announced a new venue in Buenos Aires.
Running Monday Nov. 30 to Friday Dec. 4, this year’s 12th Ventana Sur will take place in Buenos Aires’ Kirchner Cultural Center (Cck).
Once Argentina’s imposing central post office, built in the Beaux-Arts style of France’s Second Empire – the Cck could sit easily at one end of the Champs Elysées – the building, a cultural center since 2015, will offer Ventana Sur far more space, said the Cannes Film Market’s Jérôme Paillard, Ventana Sur co-director, said at Berlin.
Facilities offered by the Cck include a 1,950-set concert hall and multiple auditoriums. Space, indeed has become major challenge for the event as it has grown dramatically from its foundation by the Cannes Marché du Film,...
Running Monday Nov. 30 to Friday Dec. 4, this year’s 12th Ventana Sur will take place in Buenos Aires’ Kirchner Cultural Center (Cck).
Once Argentina’s imposing central post office, built in the Beaux-Arts style of France’s Second Empire – the Cck could sit easily at one end of the Champs Elysées – the building, a cultural center since 2015, will offer Ventana Sur far more space, said the Cannes Film Market’s Jérôme Paillard, Ventana Sur co-director, said at Berlin.
Facilities offered by the Cck include a 1,950-set concert hall and multiple auditoriums. Space, indeed has become major challenge for the event as it has grown dramatically from its foundation by the Cannes Marché du Film,...
- 2/23/2020
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and an archive of past round-ups here.
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (Marielle Heller)
It sounds almost too perfect: Tom Hanks as Mr. Rogers, the beloved children’s entertainer. Of course, who else could it be, really? It is so seemingly predestined, in fact, that Hanks’s first onscreen appearance as Fred Rogers elicits knowing laughter from the audience. Yes, Tom Hanks playing Mr. Rogers looks and sounds exactly how you would imagine. Marielle Heller’s A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, however, is much more than an obvious biopic. It’s not really a biopic at all. Nor is it a rehash of 2018’s much-heralded documentary profile of Fred Rogers, Won’t You Be MyNeighbor?...
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (Marielle Heller)
It sounds almost too perfect: Tom Hanks as Mr. Rogers, the beloved children’s entertainer. Of course, who else could it be, really? It is so seemingly predestined, in fact, that Hanks’s first onscreen appearance as Fred Rogers elicits knowing laughter from the audience. Yes, Tom Hanks playing Mr. Rogers looks and sounds exactly how you would imagine. Marielle Heller’s A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, however, is much more than an obvious biopic. It’s not really a biopic at all. Nor is it a rehash of 2018’s much-heralded documentary profile of Fred Rogers, Won’t You Be MyNeighbor?...
- 2/7/2020
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Buenos Aires — Argentina’s Lucía Puenzo, one of Latin America’s most sought-after writer-directors, is in talks with Mariana di Girolamo, star of Pablo Larraín’s “Ema,” and Marcelo Alonso for both to star in feature “Impactados.”
Both actors have expressed their interest in appearing in the film, said Puenzo, which she will pitch to potential co-producers at Ventana Sur Proyecta Forum on Dec. 4.
There, it bids fare to be one of the pitching session’s highlights given its pedigree production – Argentina’s Historias Cinematográficas, the Puenzo family production house led by Academy Award-winning Luis Puenzo, Juan de Dios Larraín at Chile’s Fabula and Stéphane Parthenay at France’s Pyramide Productions – and Puenzo’s own caché as one of Latin America’s very few film directors whose films can open theatrically to significant box office outside Latin America.
Di Girolamo and Alonso played in the acclaimed Fabula-Fremantle-produced and Puenzo showrun TV series “La Jauría.
Both actors have expressed their interest in appearing in the film, said Puenzo, which she will pitch to potential co-producers at Ventana Sur Proyecta Forum on Dec. 4.
There, it bids fare to be one of the pitching session’s highlights given its pedigree production – Argentina’s Historias Cinematográficas, the Puenzo family production house led by Academy Award-winning Luis Puenzo, Juan de Dios Larraín at Chile’s Fabula and Stéphane Parthenay at France’s Pyramide Productions – and Puenzo’s own caché as one of Latin America’s very few film directors whose films can open theatrically to significant box office outside Latin America.
Di Girolamo and Alonso played in the acclaimed Fabula-Fremantle-produced and Puenzo showrun TV series “La Jauría.
- 12/4/2019
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Political terror hits home, as a Buenos Aires teacher and housewife discovers that her family life is not only a lie, it’s a lie grounded in government treachery and murder. Forget conspiracy foolishness, for Luis Puenzo’s Oscar-winning tale is based on solid, documented truth, with an American connection. This is one of the first of the modern filmic political exposés from Latin America.
The Official Story
Blu-ray
The Cohen Collection
1985 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 112 min. / La historia oficial / Street Date October 9, 2018 / 25.99
Starring: Héctor Alterio, Norma Aleandro, Chunchuna Villafañe,
Hugo Arana, Guillermo Battaglia, Chela Ruíz.
Cinematography: Félix Monti
Film Editor: Juan Carlos Macías
Original Music: Atilio Stampone, María Elena Walsh
Written by Aída Bortnik, Luis Puenzo
Produced by Marcelo Piñeyro
Directed by Luis Puenzo
In 1986, Luis Puenzo’s film The Official Story won both an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film. A few years earlier, any...
The Official Story
Blu-ray
The Cohen Collection
1985 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 112 min. / La historia oficial / Street Date October 9, 2018 / 25.99
Starring: Héctor Alterio, Norma Aleandro, Chunchuna Villafañe,
Hugo Arana, Guillermo Battaglia, Chela Ruíz.
Cinematography: Félix Monti
Film Editor: Juan Carlos Macías
Original Music: Atilio Stampone, María Elena Walsh
Written by Aída Bortnik, Luis Puenzo
Produced by Marcelo Piñeyro
Directed by Luis Puenzo
In 1986, Luis Puenzo’s film The Official Story won both an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film. A few years earlier, any...
- 10/13/2018
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Screen’s regularly updated list of foreign language Oscar submissions.
Nominations for the 91st Academy Awards are not until Tuesday January 22, but the first submissions for best foreign-language film are now being announced.
Last year saw a record 92 submissions for the award, which were narrowed down to a shortlist of nine. This was cut to five nominees, with Sebastián Lelio’s transgender drama A Fantastic Woman ultimately taking home the gold statue.
Screen’s interview with Mark Johnson, chair of the Academy’s foreign-language film committee, explains the shortlisting process from submission to voting.
Submitted films must be released theatrically...
Nominations for the 91st Academy Awards are not until Tuesday January 22, but the first submissions for best foreign-language film are now being announced.
Last year saw a record 92 submissions for the award, which were narrowed down to a shortlist of nine. This was cut to five nominees, with Sebastián Lelio’s transgender drama A Fantastic Woman ultimately taking home the gold statue.
Screen’s interview with Mark Johnson, chair of the Academy’s foreign-language film committee, explains the shortlisting process from submission to voting.
Submitted films must be released theatrically...
- 9/27/2018
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
Guillermo Del Toro is nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay (with co-writer Vanessa Taylor) for the fantastical love story “The Shape of Water.” Should Del Toro win for his screenplay he would make history as only the fourth Latin American writer to win an Oscar.
Argentinian scribes Aida Bortnik and Luis Puenzo made history as the first Latin Americans to land a writing nomination when they contended for Best Original Screenplay for “The Official Story” (1985). It would take 17 years before there would be more Latin American nominees: Mexican siblings Alfonso Cuaron and Carlos Cuaron were up for Original Screenplay for “Y Tu Mama Tambien” (2002).
Del Toro received his first Oscar nom for Original Screenplay for “Pan’s Labyrinth” (2006), competing against fellow Mexican writer Guillermo Arriaga for “Babel.” But Del Toro’s friend and fellow countryman Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu would beat him to the punch when it came to winning.
Argentinian scribes Aida Bortnik and Luis Puenzo made history as the first Latin Americans to land a writing nomination when they contended for Best Original Screenplay for “The Official Story” (1985). It would take 17 years before there would be more Latin American nominees: Mexican siblings Alfonso Cuaron and Carlos Cuaron were up for Original Screenplay for “Y Tu Mama Tambien” (2002).
Del Toro received his first Oscar nom for Original Screenplay for “Pan’s Labyrinth” (2006), competing against fellow Mexican writer Guillermo Arriaga for “Babel.” But Del Toro’s friend and fellow countryman Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu would beat him to the punch when it came to winning.
- 2/1/2018
- by Amanda Spears
- Gold Derby
On Mubi Off is a column exploring two films: one currently available on Mubi in the United States, and the other screening offsite (in theaters, on VOD, Blu-ray/DVD, etc).On MUBIThe Official Story (Luis Puenzo, 1985)My instinct to stand, whenever possible, slightly outside the zeitgeist leads me to look askew at things like the Academy Awards. To my mind, they're a good excuse to have a party (heavily attended, so I can pay that much less attention to the ceremony itself), though I realize they have a certain fleeting cachet that can boost the prospects of a film or a career. As a metric of quality, however, they're about as worthless as any mass-consensus accolade. I love Oscar-feted films like The Silence of the Lambs and Schindler's List—to name two stopped-clock cases where AMPAS's tastes corresponded to my own—despite and not because of the number of nude...
- 3/7/2016
- by Keith Uhlich
- MUBI
Argentine miniseries from the director of Wakolda screening at Toronto.
Pyramide International has picked up sales on Argentine Lucia Puenzo’s eco-thriller miniseries Cromo ahead of its world premiere in Toronto International Film Festival’s new TV strand Primetime tomorrow (Sept 11).
“We signed it last week after seeing the episodes which will be shown at Toronto. We thought it looked fabulous,” Pyramide chief Eric Lagesse told ScreenDaily.
Episodes one, two and eight will premiere in Tiff’s new Primetime section aimed at cutting-edge projects blurring the boundaries between film and TV.
It is the first time the Paris-based auteur film specialist Pyramide has handled sales on a TV series.
“The wall between cinema and TV is no longer as impermeable as it was in the past,” said Lagesse. “There is still a strong cinematic quality to the look and feel of the series.
“You can tell that it’s made by people with a cinema background who are...
Pyramide International has picked up sales on Argentine Lucia Puenzo’s eco-thriller miniseries Cromo ahead of its world premiere in Toronto International Film Festival’s new TV strand Primetime tomorrow (Sept 11).
“We signed it last week after seeing the episodes which will be shown at Toronto. We thought it looked fabulous,” Pyramide chief Eric Lagesse told ScreenDaily.
Episodes one, two and eight will premiere in Tiff’s new Primetime section aimed at cutting-edge projects blurring the boundaries between film and TV.
It is the first time the Paris-based auteur film specialist Pyramide has handled sales on a TV series.
“The wall between cinema and TV is no longer as impermeable as it was in the past,” said Lagesse. “There is still a strong cinematic quality to the look and feel of the series.
“You can tell that it’s made by people with a cinema background who are...
- 9/10/2015
- ScreenDaily
Section to also include celebrations of Ingrid Bergman and Orson Welles as well as screenings of The Terminator and Jurassic Park 3D.
Costa-Gavras has been named guest of honour at this year’s Cannes Classics section of the Cannes Film Festival (May 13-24).
The Greek-French film director and producer won the Palme d’or with Missing in 1982, was member of the jury in 1976 that crowned Taxi Driver and picked up the award for best director with Section spéciale in 1975.
The filmmaker will be present for a screening of Z, which won the jury prize in 1969, and has had the original negative scanned in 4k and restored frame by frame in 2K, supervised by Costa-Gavras.
Orson Welles
Marking 100 years since the birth of Orson Welles, Cannes will screen restorations of films from the legendary Us actor, director, writer and producer, who died in 1985.
The titles include his staggering debut Citizen Kane (1941), which has received a 4k restoration completed...
Costa-Gavras has been named guest of honour at this year’s Cannes Classics section of the Cannes Film Festival (May 13-24).
The Greek-French film director and producer won the Palme d’or with Missing in 1982, was member of the jury in 1976 that crowned Taxi Driver and picked up the award for best director with Section spéciale in 1975.
The filmmaker will be present for a screening of Z, which won the jury prize in 1969, and has had the original negative scanned in 4k and restored frame by frame in 2K, supervised by Costa-Gavras.
Orson Welles
Marking 100 years since the birth of Orson Welles, Cannes will screen restorations of films from the legendary Us actor, director, writer and producer, who died in 1985.
The titles include his staggering debut Citizen Kane (1941), which has received a 4k restoration completed...
- 4/29/2015
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
Of the films I have seen thus far of the submissions for Academy Award Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, the German film Two Lives and the Argentinean Wakolda whose English title is The German Doctor are the most complex. They are both cross cultural and multilayered.
The Samuel Goldwyn Company was very brave to take U.S. rights to The German Doctor, which deals with Argentinean complicity with the Nazis in a way no one has ever shown before as was the film’s director Lucia Puenzo. The literal ambiguity of director Lucia Puenzo’s earlier debut feature, Xxy, is in this case taken up a notch to a level of moral ambiguity. In this new film the child and her mother are both enchanted by the German Doctor until they understand his complete obsession with something more evil than good.
As in Two Lives, the moral ambiguity that life forces its characters to live is a difficult philosophical subject to convey to the audience. It is discomfiting even as the audience wants to find out what will happen next. Why I mention both of them is that one, they both concern Germany which still today bears witness to a complex and ambiguous state of affairs as it pursues economic policies which are being weighed with two sets of moral measurement and two, they are both submissions of their countries for the AMPAS Oscar race for Best Foreign Language Film Nomination.
But more about Two Lives later.
Firstly, now we will discuss Wakolda, or as it is called in English, The German Doctor which is screening here in Havana where I am writing this.
Lucia Puenzo has directed three films and written five books. Her debut feature, Xxy, which premiered in Cannes Critic’s Week in 2007 was also sold by Pyramide. The Fish Child (2009) premiered at the Berlin Film Festival. Wakolda (2013), is based on her own novel and is her third feature. It continues the themes of sexual identity and duality of the previous two films, exacerbated this time in the relationship of mutual fascination maintained by its protagonists: a girl and German doctor who in 1960 makes her the subject of one of his experiments.
Patagonia, 1960. A German physician meets an Argentinean family and follows them on the long desert road to Bariloche where Eva, Enzo and their three children are going to open a lodge by the Nahuel Huapi Lake. Eva grew up in this German populated town in Argentina with her German family who ran the lodge as a sort of bed and breakfast and she and her husband Enzo are considering making it into a B&B again. This model family reawakens his obsession with purity and perfection, in particular Lilith, a 12 year-old with a body too small for her age.
Unaware of his true identity, they accept the German physician as their first guest. They are all gradually won over by this charismatic man, by his elegant manners, his scientific knowledge and his money, until they discover they are living with one of history’s most abominable criminals.
The film was based on the fifth novel of Lucia Puenza and was written about a year and a half after the novel. Lucia is quoted in Fandor as saying,
“Wakolda fue primero una novela, mi última novela, que escribí un año y medio antes de empezar el guión, y no estaba destinada a ser una película. !Se trataba de un alemán que se escapaba de algo, y mientras escribía se fue transformando en Mengele y en todo ese universo del Angel de la Muerte que trae encima. Yo escucho hablar de él y de muchas otras historias de tantos jerarcas nazis que se evaporaron en nuestro país desde que tengo 15 años, ese tema me horrorizó y me fascinó al mismo tiempo.”
“Wakolda was first a novel, my last novel, which I wrote a year and a half before starting the script, and it was not meant to be a movie. It was about a German who was running away from something. While I was writing, the German became transformed into Mengele and all that is encompassed in the universe of The Angel of Death. I had heard about him and many many other stories of the disappeared Nazis in our country since I was 15 years, I was appalled by the subject and I was fascinated at the same time.”
Historias Cinematographica, the production company of director-producer, Luis Puenzo (Official Story) and the father of Lucia Puenzo is one of Latin America’s busiest film production forces with a slate of five films per year. Here are The German Doctor’s links on IMDbPro and on Cinando.
Historias Cinematographica structured Wakolda as a Spain-France-Norwegian co-production with Argentina. Shot in Spanish and German, Wakolda is Lucia Puenzo’s biggest film to date, given its period setting and her interests as an increasingly mature director. The cinematography is by family member Nicolas Puenzo.
The film was supported by Incaa, Icaa, Aide aux Cinémas du monde, Centre National du Cinéma et de L´image animée, Ministère des Affaires Étrangères (France), Institut Français, Sørfond Norwegian South Film Fund, Programa Ibermedia, and Tve.
Its French coproducer, Pyramide of France, is also the international sales agent. Wanda Vision of Spain is also its Spanish distributor, and Hummelfilm (Gudney Hummelvoll) of Norway came on board as part of the Sorfond Norwegian South Film Fund’s €100,000 grant’s requisite; Stan Jakubowicz, a Venezuelan producer, came in early. Televisión Federal (Telefe) is a co-producer as are Moviecity/ Laptv - Latin American Pay Television, Distribution Company Sudamericana who is the Argentinean distributor as well. It was made in association with P&P Endemol Argentina and Cine.Ar. As a footnote, the ad budget invested by Telefe in its TV campaign was exceptionally large: 893 TV spots broadcast in ten markets in a five weeks span.
When the script was ready, Luis and Lucia Puenzo went to the Berlinale Co-Production Market in February 2011 looking for co-producers and financing.
The eighth Berlinale Co-Production Market (February 13 - 15, 2011) successfully brought the producers and directors of 38 selected film projects from 25 countries together with 450 potential co-production and financial partners. For each of these projects, the Berlinale Co-Production Market’s team arranged numerous thirty-minute one-on-one meetings with interested potential partners. Over 1000 meetings in two days were scheduled based on the needs of the projects and the individual requests of the participants. Meetings were in high demand, and some projects received up to about 80 meeting requests by participants looking for projects.
Among the Official Project Selection were projects by well-known, award-winning directors such as Lucía Puenzo (Xxy and recently The Fish Child- Panorama 2009), Eran Riklis (The Syrian Bride, Lemon Tree), Urszula Antoniak (Nothing Personal) and Seyfi Teoman, whose film Bizim Büyük Çaresizliğimiz (Our Grand Despair) screened in this year’s (2013) Competition.
They applied for Sørfond Norwegian South Film Fund 2012, the Norwegian Film Fund for developing countries where such production is limited by political or economic causes which brought them to their coproducer, Himmelfilm of Norway.
They also received financing from Aide aux Cinemas du Monde 2012, and Programa Ibermedia 2012.
Pyramide of France and Wanda Vision of Spain came on board after Cannes announced its inclusion in Un Certain Regard. Stan Jakubowicz, a Venezuelan producer had been on board earlier.
5 March 2011- Pre-production 12 July 2012 - Filming 17 August 2012 - Post-production 28 April 2013 - Completed 21 May 2013 - Premiered in Cannes Film Festival.
Wakolda rights sold
The film premiered at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard section in May of 2013. It won the Audience Award at St. Peterberg Film Festival and at 2nd Unasur Cine International Film Festival it won awards for Best Feature, Best Director, Best Actress and Best New Actress. It went on to play September 2013 at San Sebastian Film Festival’s Horizontos Latinos section and amid growing speculation that the title would be Argentina’s submission for the foreign language Oscar this year (and it has been so submitted!). Its Isa (international sales agent) and coproducer, Pyramide International continued to make sales to Samuel Goldwyn Films for U.S., in Central and Southern America including to: Argentina (Distribution Company), Australia (Madman Entertainment), Brazil (Imovision and Reserva Nacional Distribuidora De Filmes), Bolivia and Chile (Los filmes De La Arcadia), Colombia (Cine Colombia), the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico (Wiesner Distribution), France - Pyramide Distribution, Greece - Videorama Films, Hungary – Vertigo, , Italy – Academy Two, Peru (Pucp) and Panama and Costa Rica (Palmera International). Spain sold to Nirvana, Switzerland Xenix Filmdistribution Gmbh, Taiwan Swallow Wings Films, Turkey – Medyavizyon, U.K. Peccadillo Pictures, U.S. – Samuel Goldwyn Films. Sarajevo’s Obala Art Centar - Sarajevo Film Festival has acquired the picture for multiple territories including Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia and Montenegro. The film has also sold to Poland (Hagi), Israel (Nachshon Films Ltd) and South Korea (Company L) since Cannes. Laptv has Latin American TV rights.
It will continue to play the festival circuit worldwide until its theatrical and commercial release in 30 + countries.
You can read a review in Screen International: The German Doctor (Wakolda)
Update information as of November 1, 2013:
Wakolda will reach 400,000 spectators by its fifth week on screen, and still has 75 screens. It has maintained an average of almost 100,000 spectators per week. It has been selected by over 50% of the Academy members as the Argentinean submission for both the Oscar and the Goya Awards.
It is important to consider its release was much smaller (72 screens) than films like Séptimo, Corazón de León and Metegol (which released with Disney with 250 screens aprox). Septimo was released by 20th Century Fox, Corazon de León was released by Disney, Metegol by Universal. Wakolda´s average of spectators per copy was higher than all these other films, which allowed distribution to add screens the 2nd week, reaching 85 screens.
It has been sold by Pyramide Films to over 20 territories. In the last weeks, it has been released in Spain (with 40 copies, excellent reviews and an average of over 1,500 euros per copy) and will be released in France with 60 copies, 8 in Paris, on the 6th of November. And in Russia with 40 copies. Until the end of the year it will be released in 15 countries (we can send you detailed territories and companies who bought the rights if needed).
In the U.S., the rights were acquired in Cannes by Samuel Goldwyn Films.
The novel upon which Wakolda is based has also been translated to over fifteen languages. In Germany the novel has been edited by Wagenbach and reedited due to its good sales.
In the last weeks the films was won Awards in Argentina, St. Petersburg, República Dominicana and Tokyo.
It is worth noting that Wakolda was distributed in Argentina by an independent (Bernardo Zupnick’s Distribution Company) while every other successful local film has been distributed by a studio
The German Doctor (Wakolda) Opens in L.A. and N.Y. on April 25th...
The Samuel Goldwyn Company was very brave to take U.S. rights to The German Doctor, which deals with Argentinean complicity with the Nazis in a way no one has ever shown before as was the film’s director Lucia Puenzo. The literal ambiguity of director Lucia Puenzo’s earlier debut feature, Xxy, is in this case taken up a notch to a level of moral ambiguity. In this new film the child and her mother are both enchanted by the German Doctor until they understand his complete obsession with something more evil than good.
As in Two Lives, the moral ambiguity that life forces its characters to live is a difficult philosophical subject to convey to the audience. It is discomfiting even as the audience wants to find out what will happen next. Why I mention both of them is that one, they both concern Germany which still today bears witness to a complex and ambiguous state of affairs as it pursues economic policies which are being weighed with two sets of moral measurement and two, they are both submissions of their countries for the AMPAS Oscar race for Best Foreign Language Film Nomination.
But more about Two Lives later.
Firstly, now we will discuss Wakolda, or as it is called in English, The German Doctor which is screening here in Havana where I am writing this.
Lucia Puenzo has directed three films and written five books. Her debut feature, Xxy, which premiered in Cannes Critic’s Week in 2007 was also sold by Pyramide. The Fish Child (2009) premiered at the Berlin Film Festival. Wakolda (2013), is based on her own novel and is her third feature. It continues the themes of sexual identity and duality of the previous two films, exacerbated this time in the relationship of mutual fascination maintained by its protagonists: a girl and German doctor who in 1960 makes her the subject of one of his experiments.
Patagonia, 1960. A German physician meets an Argentinean family and follows them on the long desert road to Bariloche where Eva, Enzo and their three children are going to open a lodge by the Nahuel Huapi Lake. Eva grew up in this German populated town in Argentina with her German family who ran the lodge as a sort of bed and breakfast and she and her husband Enzo are considering making it into a B&B again. This model family reawakens his obsession with purity and perfection, in particular Lilith, a 12 year-old with a body too small for her age.
Unaware of his true identity, they accept the German physician as their first guest. They are all gradually won over by this charismatic man, by his elegant manners, his scientific knowledge and his money, until they discover they are living with one of history’s most abominable criminals.
The film was based on the fifth novel of Lucia Puenza and was written about a year and a half after the novel. Lucia is quoted in Fandor as saying,
“Wakolda fue primero una novela, mi última novela, que escribí un año y medio antes de empezar el guión, y no estaba destinada a ser una película. !Se trataba de un alemán que se escapaba de algo, y mientras escribía se fue transformando en Mengele y en todo ese universo del Angel de la Muerte que trae encima. Yo escucho hablar de él y de muchas otras historias de tantos jerarcas nazis que se evaporaron en nuestro país desde que tengo 15 años, ese tema me horrorizó y me fascinó al mismo tiempo.”
“Wakolda was first a novel, my last novel, which I wrote a year and a half before starting the script, and it was not meant to be a movie. It was about a German who was running away from something. While I was writing, the German became transformed into Mengele and all that is encompassed in the universe of The Angel of Death. I had heard about him and many many other stories of the disappeared Nazis in our country since I was 15 years, I was appalled by the subject and I was fascinated at the same time.”
Historias Cinematographica, the production company of director-producer, Luis Puenzo (Official Story) and the father of Lucia Puenzo is one of Latin America’s busiest film production forces with a slate of five films per year. Here are The German Doctor’s links on IMDbPro and on Cinando.
Historias Cinematographica structured Wakolda as a Spain-France-Norwegian co-production with Argentina. Shot in Spanish and German, Wakolda is Lucia Puenzo’s biggest film to date, given its period setting and her interests as an increasingly mature director. The cinematography is by family member Nicolas Puenzo.
The film was supported by Incaa, Icaa, Aide aux Cinémas du monde, Centre National du Cinéma et de L´image animée, Ministère des Affaires Étrangères (France), Institut Français, Sørfond Norwegian South Film Fund, Programa Ibermedia, and Tve.
Its French coproducer, Pyramide of France, is also the international sales agent. Wanda Vision of Spain is also its Spanish distributor, and Hummelfilm (Gudney Hummelvoll) of Norway came on board as part of the Sorfond Norwegian South Film Fund’s €100,000 grant’s requisite; Stan Jakubowicz, a Venezuelan producer, came in early. Televisión Federal (Telefe) is a co-producer as are Moviecity/ Laptv - Latin American Pay Television, Distribution Company Sudamericana who is the Argentinean distributor as well. It was made in association with P&P Endemol Argentina and Cine.Ar. As a footnote, the ad budget invested by Telefe in its TV campaign was exceptionally large: 893 TV spots broadcast in ten markets in a five weeks span.
When the script was ready, Luis and Lucia Puenzo went to the Berlinale Co-Production Market in February 2011 looking for co-producers and financing.
The eighth Berlinale Co-Production Market (February 13 - 15, 2011) successfully brought the producers and directors of 38 selected film projects from 25 countries together with 450 potential co-production and financial partners. For each of these projects, the Berlinale Co-Production Market’s team arranged numerous thirty-minute one-on-one meetings with interested potential partners. Over 1000 meetings in two days were scheduled based on the needs of the projects and the individual requests of the participants. Meetings were in high demand, and some projects received up to about 80 meeting requests by participants looking for projects.
Among the Official Project Selection were projects by well-known, award-winning directors such as Lucía Puenzo (Xxy and recently The Fish Child- Panorama 2009), Eran Riklis (The Syrian Bride, Lemon Tree), Urszula Antoniak (Nothing Personal) and Seyfi Teoman, whose film Bizim Büyük Çaresizliğimiz (Our Grand Despair) screened in this year’s (2013) Competition.
They applied for Sørfond Norwegian South Film Fund 2012, the Norwegian Film Fund for developing countries where such production is limited by political or economic causes which brought them to their coproducer, Himmelfilm of Norway.
They also received financing from Aide aux Cinemas du Monde 2012, and Programa Ibermedia 2012.
Pyramide of France and Wanda Vision of Spain came on board after Cannes announced its inclusion in Un Certain Regard. Stan Jakubowicz, a Venezuelan producer had been on board earlier.
5 March 2011- Pre-production 12 July 2012 - Filming 17 August 2012 - Post-production 28 April 2013 - Completed 21 May 2013 - Premiered in Cannes Film Festival.
Wakolda rights sold
The film premiered at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard section in May of 2013. It won the Audience Award at St. Peterberg Film Festival and at 2nd Unasur Cine International Film Festival it won awards for Best Feature, Best Director, Best Actress and Best New Actress. It went on to play September 2013 at San Sebastian Film Festival’s Horizontos Latinos section and amid growing speculation that the title would be Argentina’s submission for the foreign language Oscar this year (and it has been so submitted!). Its Isa (international sales agent) and coproducer, Pyramide International continued to make sales to Samuel Goldwyn Films for U.S., in Central and Southern America including to: Argentina (Distribution Company), Australia (Madman Entertainment), Brazil (Imovision and Reserva Nacional Distribuidora De Filmes), Bolivia and Chile (Los filmes De La Arcadia), Colombia (Cine Colombia), the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico (Wiesner Distribution), France - Pyramide Distribution, Greece - Videorama Films, Hungary – Vertigo, , Italy – Academy Two, Peru (Pucp) and Panama and Costa Rica (Palmera International). Spain sold to Nirvana, Switzerland Xenix Filmdistribution Gmbh, Taiwan Swallow Wings Films, Turkey – Medyavizyon, U.K. Peccadillo Pictures, U.S. – Samuel Goldwyn Films. Sarajevo’s Obala Art Centar - Sarajevo Film Festival has acquired the picture for multiple territories including Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia and Montenegro. The film has also sold to Poland (Hagi), Israel (Nachshon Films Ltd) and South Korea (Company L) since Cannes. Laptv has Latin American TV rights.
It will continue to play the festival circuit worldwide until its theatrical and commercial release in 30 + countries.
You can read a review in Screen International: The German Doctor (Wakolda)
Update information as of November 1, 2013:
Wakolda will reach 400,000 spectators by its fifth week on screen, and still has 75 screens. It has maintained an average of almost 100,000 spectators per week. It has been selected by over 50% of the Academy members as the Argentinean submission for both the Oscar and the Goya Awards.
It is important to consider its release was much smaller (72 screens) than films like Séptimo, Corazón de León and Metegol (which released with Disney with 250 screens aprox). Septimo was released by 20th Century Fox, Corazon de León was released by Disney, Metegol by Universal. Wakolda´s average of spectators per copy was higher than all these other films, which allowed distribution to add screens the 2nd week, reaching 85 screens.
It has been sold by Pyramide Films to over 20 territories. In the last weeks, it has been released in Spain (with 40 copies, excellent reviews and an average of over 1,500 euros per copy) and will be released in France with 60 copies, 8 in Paris, on the 6th of November. And in Russia with 40 copies. Until the end of the year it will be released in 15 countries (we can send you detailed territories and companies who bought the rights if needed).
In the U.S., the rights were acquired in Cannes by Samuel Goldwyn Films.
The novel upon which Wakolda is based has also been translated to over fifteen languages. In Germany the novel has been edited by Wagenbach and reedited due to its good sales.
In the last weeks the films was won Awards in Argentina, St. Petersburg, República Dominicana and Tokyo.
It is worth noting that Wakolda was distributed in Argentina by an independent (Bernardo Zupnick’s Distribution Company) while every other successful local film has been distributed by a studio
The German Doctor (Wakolda) Opens in L.A. and N.Y. on April 25th...
- 4/25/2014
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Fictionalized history in any artistic expression differs from the theories created by revisionists to carve out a narrative that fits their beliefs. Cinematic reinterpretations often, as they should, focus on the characters’ human condition, those emotions or personal plights that never make it to the history books. Audiences and artists are fascinated with the intrigues, romances, and other dramatic situations involving important figures. Despite their unique lives, they are humans beings subjected to the same fears and hopes that everyone else, the historical background just adds to the allure. In these terms is how Argentine director Lucía Puenzo approached her story about a real-life villain and his interactions with the world. Based on the myths and speculation surrounding notorious Nazi physician Josef Mengele, The German Doctor aims to put a face to his evil not in a simplistic manner but with all the complexities that form part of a multifaceted identity. Puenzo shared with us her motivation to write the novel that would turn into this film, the role history played in her creative process, and her opinion on why the myth of a disturbed Nazi doctor is still powerful today.
Read the review Here
Read the Case Study on the film by Sydney Levine
Carlos Aguilar: This story, The German Doctor, existed first as a novel you wrote, and not it is your film. What was the central idea that interested you?
Lucia Puenzo: The novel emerged first as a tale of a family that crossed paths in the desert route with this German man. From the beginning, what interested me this family and the protagonist, the teenage girl, more than Mengele. He is such a powerful character historically, as powerful as Nazism itself, so these subjects always tend to be the protagonists. What I think is that despite this historical references, Wakolda or The German Doctor is a very intimate story. It is the story of a teenage girl and the way she falls in love with a monster. It is the story of a hunt and of a seduction.
Aguilar: What kind of research was involved to develop this novel that needs great historical context?
Lucia: There was a lot of research, years even. It took a year and a half to write the novel, but the research wasn’t the initial thing that occurred to me. In general, even if I’m dealing with a historical subject, I begin with invention rather than investigation, because I need to understand what is going to be the voice or the tone of the story. Whose point of view is it? Who is telling it?“ How is this character telling it? Therefore, I started writing before doing any research to understand the tone of the novel. It was a novel that needed all this information that I started gathering. While I was writing I was reading books on the subjects, meeting with documentarians and historians, all of who provided me with an immense amount of facts that ended up in the novel and eventually the film. An example is the inclusion of Nora Eldoc, the volunteer for the Mossad.
Aguilar: Did you know you wanted to turn this story into a film from the moment you started writing the novel?
Puenzo: At first I didn’t think about it at all, I didn’t write the novel thinking it would become a film. In the case of my second film The Fish Child (El Niño Pez), I had written the novel about 5 years before I made into a film. In the case of The German Doctor I had published the novel a year before I started writing the script, I even had another project to shoot. But I had this idea of the powerful cinematic language from the novel that I couldn’t let go of. When I started writing the script I thought that maybe someone else would direct it, but then I started to fall for it so much that I left the other project and I put all my time on The German Doctor.
Aguilar: It seems as if the chapter in history about the Nazis escaping to South America is often forgotten, or not amply discussed. Were you trying to revisit these events after the war?
Puenzo: Much more than trying to focus on the battlefield of the war, it was the central place that German doctors occupied within Nazism, the omnipotent and insane idea of wanting to generically modify an entire nation. This idea was not on the outskirts of Nazi ideology, it was the heart of movement, that’s what intrigued me. Mengele is the most extreme expression of this idea.
Aguilar: There is a fantastic analogy your film makes between the mass production f porcelain dolls and Mengele’s deranged plans. Did this come from any historical material or was it completely fictional?
Puenzo: That was one of those facts that emerged while I was doing my research. I was reading books about the Nazi presence not only in Argentina, but all over Latin America, and time and after time this information would come up. Mengele had something to do with these types of dolls, the stories say that he made them and gave them away to his friends as symbols of Nazism in exile. They also say this maybe was because he worked at a toy store. There were many of these stories. When I would ask different historians about these, all of them said that it is all part of a myth. There was a myth circulating among many historians that assured them this really happened. However, this is just a myth, no one will ever know for certain, no one ever saw those dolls with certainty, there are no photographs. For me, just the fact that this story exists is such a vicious and poisonous idea. To think he kept on trying to manipulate other bodies is disturbing, so much that I included in the novel and then in the film.
Aguilar: You seem to be attacked to stories about human physiology, not only here, but also with your previous film Xxy, about a hermaphrodite finding her physical and emotional identity.
Puenzo: Evidently this does attract me, if I said no it would be incongruent with the films I’m making [Laughs]. But it is not something I decide consciously. When I wrote Wakolda at first I wasn’t conscious that I was writing about something so close to or that had so many similar elements with Xxy. It was just after I was done writing that I noticed it. I think both teenagers in each film have many similarities, and Mengele is the extreme version of the plastic surgeon in Xxy. Both stories definitely have several ideas connecting them.
Aguilar: You mention that one the ideas that intrigued the most was the family’s vulnerability in particular the parents. Why is that?
Puenzo: The parents intrigued me in a very special way. They remind me of films like Sophie's Choice, how does someone react while having to make such a terrible decision: having a monster in front of you proposing something revolting, but that at the same time it could save your child. The parents in my film had very different perspectives. The mother comes from German parents, and although she doesn’t have an openly Nazi ideology, she was raised in that environment and she ends up trusting this man [Mengele], more than her husband. He is suspicious of the doctor’s motives because he belongs to a different world.
Aguilar: How difficult was it to find the perfect actor to bring Mengele to life and to an extent humanize him?
Puenzo: The casting process was extremely difficult. It was a character that needed the actor to speak Spanish and German, look alike physically, be able to act the part, and it had to be someone we could pay for. Our film required someone that would support the project fully and beyond the financial aspects. Àlex Brendemühl did it with much excitement. I sent him a picture of Mengele, then I called him and I told him they really looked alike and that he had to play this character. He immediately agreed. It was clear from the novel, and now in the film, that we didn’t want to fall in the stereotype of a “simply evil” character. We didn’t want a villain that you can see coming from miles away because he has written on his forehead how bad he is. It wasn’t the case here, because these men were very complex. They were psychopaths that camouflaged and penetrated our societies like in The Plague by Albert Camus, they were in every corner but no one noticed them.
Aguilar: Despite being a film set against the backdrop of important historical events, it still feels very engaging in an intimate way. How has the film been received by audiences?
Puenzo: Absolutely, I think that even though The German Doctor (Wakolda) is placed in a historical context like this, it is a very intimate story. It is basically four characters inside a hotel. That’s how the story is resolved, that’s how the story was conceived, and that was what grabbed me, more than the historical context. The film has been extremely well received around the world. It keeps on going around, opening in different markets, and connecting with the audience. In Argentina it was seen by over 450, 000 spectators, which is way more than anything we could have imagined. It also connected with very young audiences as well, teenagers and people in their 20s, which we also didn’t expect.
Aguilar: When we published our review for the film back when it was in contention for the Academy Award nomination, we received a couple of comments by people claiming that Mengele was still alive hiding somewhere, their claims seems very vivid, but of course surreal. Why do you think these fantastical stories exist?
Puenzo: This is a character that lived 30 years running away from the Mossad, which was always hot on his heels in Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil. They never captured him, and he probably died without ever being found, this lends itself for these kinds of conspiracy theories and myths. We can only hope that he died in a prison like many other Nazis that were extradited, and not at the beach in Brazil. He is a character that lends itself to these intriguing stories because they never found him.
Aguilar: The original title of the film is Wakolda, which if I’m not mistaken comes from the indigenous people of the region, how does it relate to the story?
Puenzo. Yes, it’s a Mapuche name. The Mapuche are our indigenous people from the south, the Patagonia. They are a vey wise and luminous ancient cavitation, which is completely opposite to where Nazism was headed. In the novel, the theme of racial purity and the Nazi obsession with it was much more developed.
Aguilar: How did you work with you young actress, Florencia Bado, who played Lilith, given that this is a rather dark tale in which a strange bond between her and the doctor is formed?
Puenzo: We took very good care of her. She was 12 years old when we shot the film, this is her first movie, and she had never even taken an acting class. María Laura Berch, our casting director, and I, we understood that she needed to be taken care of. She didn’t read the script, her parents read it and agreed for her to be in the film. We told her little by little what the story was about. We made sure that she was comfortable and reassure her that we would take care of her. It was a very happy shoot; we went to film on location in Bariloche. We all stayed together in the same hotel where we filmed.
Aguilar: Luis Puenzo, your father, who won the Academy Award for his film The Official Story, how has he influenced your career as a filmmaker?
Puenzo: I’m completely surrounded, not only my father, but also my three brothers, and Sergio, my husband, all four of them work in film. Some are writers, or directors, or cinematographers, all of them. I’m surrounded by men that make films, so much that at some point I felt there was no more room in the family for another filmmaker. For many years I was only working as novelist or writing screenplays for others to direct. In terms of my father, if you have 4 children that work in film, then there certainly was a happy, positive influence from him because none us became an accountant. [Laughs].
The German Doctor opens in L.A. and New York on April 25th, 2014...
Read the review Here
Read the Case Study on the film by Sydney Levine
Carlos Aguilar: This story, The German Doctor, existed first as a novel you wrote, and not it is your film. What was the central idea that interested you?
Lucia Puenzo: The novel emerged first as a tale of a family that crossed paths in the desert route with this German man. From the beginning, what interested me this family and the protagonist, the teenage girl, more than Mengele. He is such a powerful character historically, as powerful as Nazism itself, so these subjects always tend to be the protagonists. What I think is that despite this historical references, Wakolda or The German Doctor is a very intimate story. It is the story of a teenage girl and the way she falls in love with a monster. It is the story of a hunt and of a seduction.
Aguilar: What kind of research was involved to develop this novel that needs great historical context?
Lucia: There was a lot of research, years even. It took a year and a half to write the novel, but the research wasn’t the initial thing that occurred to me. In general, even if I’m dealing with a historical subject, I begin with invention rather than investigation, because I need to understand what is going to be the voice or the tone of the story. Whose point of view is it? Who is telling it?“ How is this character telling it? Therefore, I started writing before doing any research to understand the tone of the novel. It was a novel that needed all this information that I started gathering. While I was writing I was reading books on the subjects, meeting with documentarians and historians, all of who provided me with an immense amount of facts that ended up in the novel and eventually the film. An example is the inclusion of Nora Eldoc, the volunteer for the Mossad.
Aguilar: Did you know you wanted to turn this story into a film from the moment you started writing the novel?
Puenzo: At first I didn’t think about it at all, I didn’t write the novel thinking it would become a film. In the case of my second film The Fish Child (El Niño Pez), I had written the novel about 5 years before I made into a film. In the case of The German Doctor I had published the novel a year before I started writing the script, I even had another project to shoot. But I had this idea of the powerful cinematic language from the novel that I couldn’t let go of. When I started writing the script I thought that maybe someone else would direct it, but then I started to fall for it so much that I left the other project and I put all my time on The German Doctor.
Aguilar: It seems as if the chapter in history about the Nazis escaping to South America is often forgotten, or not amply discussed. Were you trying to revisit these events after the war?
Puenzo: Much more than trying to focus on the battlefield of the war, it was the central place that German doctors occupied within Nazism, the omnipotent and insane idea of wanting to generically modify an entire nation. This idea was not on the outskirts of Nazi ideology, it was the heart of movement, that’s what intrigued me. Mengele is the most extreme expression of this idea.
Aguilar: There is a fantastic analogy your film makes between the mass production f porcelain dolls and Mengele’s deranged plans. Did this come from any historical material or was it completely fictional?
Puenzo: That was one of those facts that emerged while I was doing my research. I was reading books about the Nazi presence not only in Argentina, but all over Latin America, and time and after time this information would come up. Mengele had something to do with these types of dolls, the stories say that he made them and gave them away to his friends as symbols of Nazism in exile. They also say this maybe was because he worked at a toy store. There were many of these stories. When I would ask different historians about these, all of them said that it is all part of a myth. There was a myth circulating among many historians that assured them this really happened. However, this is just a myth, no one will ever know for certain, no one ever saw those dolls with certainty, there are no photographs. For me, just the fact that this story exists is such a vicious and poisonous idea. To think he kept on trying to manipulate other bodies is disturbing, so much that I included in the novel and then in the film.
Aguilar: You seem to be attacked to stories about human physiology, not only here, but also with your previous film Xxy, about a hermaphrodite finding her physical and emotional identity.
Puenzo: Evidently this does attract me, if I said no it would be incongruent with the films I’m making [Laughs]. But it is not something I decide consciously. When I wrote Wakolda at first I wasn’t conscious that I was writing about something so close to or that had so many similar elements with Xxy. It was just after I was done writing that I noticed it. I think both teenagers in each film have many similarities, and Mengele is the extreme version of the plastic surgeon in Xxy. Both stories definitely have several ideas connecting them.
Aguilar: You mention that one the ideas that intrigued the most was the family’s vulnerability in particular the parents. Why is that?
Puenzo: The parents intrigued me in a very special way. They remind me of films like Sophie's Choice, how does someone react while having to make such a terrible decision: having a monster in front of you proposing something revolting, but that at the same time it could save your child. The parents in my film had very different perspectives. The mother comes from German parents, and although she doesn’t have an openly Nazi ideology, she was raised in that environment and she ends up trusting this man [Mengele], more than her husband. He is suspicious of the doctor’s motives because he belongs to a different world.
Aguilar: How difficult was it to find the perfect actor to bring Mengele to life and to an extent humanize him?
Puenzo: The casting process was extremely difficult. It was a character that needed the actor to speak Spanish and German, look alike physically, be able to act the part, and it had to be someone we could pay for. Our film required someone that would support the project fully and beyond the financial aspects. Àlex Brendemühl did it with much excitement. I sent him a picture of Mengele, then I called him and I told him they really looked alike and that he had to play this character. He immediately agreed. It was clear from the novel, and now in the film, that we didn’t want to fall in the stereotype of a “simply evil” character. We didn’t want a villain that you can see coming from miles away because he has written on his forehead how bad he is. It wasn’t the case here, because these men were very complex. They were psychopaths that camouflaged and penetrated our societies like in The Plague by Albert Camus, they were in every corner but no one noticed them.
Aguilar: Despite being a film set against the backdrop of important historical events, it still feels very engaging in an intimate way. How has the film been received by audiences?
Puenzo: Absolutely, I think that even though The German Doctor (Wakolda) is placed in a historical context like this, it is a very intimate story. It is basically four characters inside a hotel. That’s how the story is resolved, that’s how the story was conceived, and that was what grabbed me, more than the historical context. The film has been extremely well received around the world. It keeps on going around, opening in different markets, and connecting with the audience. In Argentina it was seen by over 450, 000 spectators, which is way more than anything we could have imagined. It also connected with very young audiences as well, teenagers and people in their 20s, which we also didn’t expect.
Aguilar: When we published our review for the film back when it was in contention for the Academy Award nomination, we received a couple of comments by people claiming that Mengele was still alive hiding somewhere, their claims seems very vivid, but of course surreal. Why do you think these fantastical stories exist?
Puenzo: This is a character that lived 30 years running away from the Mossad, which was always hot on his heels in Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil. They never captured him, and he probably died without ever being found, this lends itself for these kinds of conspiracy theories and myths. We can only hope that he died in a prison like many other Nazis that were extradited, and not at the beach in Brazil. He is a character that lends itself to these intriguing stories because they never found him.
Aguilar: The original title of the film is Wakolda, which if I’m not mistaken comes from the indigenous people of the region, how does it relate to the story?
Puenzo. Yes, it’s a Mapuche name. The Mapuche are our indigenous people from the south, the Patagonia. They are a vey wise and luminous ancient cavitation, which is completely opposite to where Nazism was headed. In the novel, the theme of racial purity and the Nazi obsession with it was much more developed.
Aguilar: How did you work with you young actress, Florencia Bado, who played Lilith, given that this is a rather dark tale in which a strange bond between her and the doctor is formed?
Puenzo: We took very good care of her. She was 12 years old when we shot the film, this is her first movie, and she had never even taken an acting class. María Laura Berch, our casting director, and I, we understood that she needed to be taken care of. She didn’t read the script, her parents read it and agreed for her to be in the film. We told her little by little what the story was about. We made sure that she was comfortable and reassure her that we would take care of her. It was a very happy shoot; we went to film on location in Bariloche. We all stayed together in the same hotel where we filmed.
Aguilar: Luis Puenzo, your father, who won the Academy Award for his film The Official Story, how has he influenced your career as a filmmaker?
Puenzo: I’m completely surrounded, not only my father, but also my three brothers, and Sergio, my husband, all four of them work in film. Some are writers, or directors, or cinematographers, all of them. I’m surrounded by men that make films, so much that at some point I felt there was no more room in the family for another filmmaker. For many years I was only working as novelist or writing screenplays for others to direct. In terms of my father, if you have 4 children that work in film, then there certainly was a happy, positive influence from him because none us became an accountant. [Laughs].
The German Doctor opens in L.A. and New York on April 25th, 2014...
- 4/25/2014
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Sydney's Buzz
In Clandestine Childhood (Infancia Clandestina), writer/director Benjamín Ávila drew inspiration from his personal exiled childhood during Argentina's Dirty War as the son of two Montoneros guerillas. The film, which took prizes at both San Sebastian and Havana Film Festivals last year, is set in 1979 during the family's return from Cuba to fight in the Montoneros counteroffensive operation under new assumed identities. Benjamín spoke to LatinoBuzz about what it meant to see memories from his formative years unfold on the big screen.
Clandestine Childhood is being released in NY and CA on Friday, January 11th, 2013.
LatinoBuzz: What did the actors take away from spending several days with former Montoneros?
Benjamín Ávila: I wanted the actors to have the chance to physically live that era. The most complex challenge for an actor is the ability to give dimension to the story from the time that it happened, not from the present. For them it was important to get rid of all the Whys and be able to answer them by themselves. So I decided to have the actors meet a couple of former guerrilla members to do a training drill for two days, the way it was done back then, as well as for them to have a chance to talk and for the actors to be able to ask anything they wanted.
It was very productive because their body changed, as well as their stand before history. It also helped me to confirm some doubts that had arisen during the process of writing the script. And from that moment on, the improvisations we did were very important in defining some scenes of the film. Particularly the argument scene between the grandmother and mother. That improvisation came after the work we did, and some glorious moments emerged as a result, very complex and incorrect that served to give another dimension to the movie.
LatinoBuzz: Was there a particular audience for this film that was most important for you to see it?
Benjamín Ávila: Not really. But firstly, it is a film that I made for my brothers. And for the children of the disappeared and those killed during the last dictatorship in Argentina. They are the primary audience, but the story is not constructed so that only they understand. On the contrary, I wanted the film to move people, to it would provoke feelings and ideas, without sacrificing the cinematic and artistic construction. Luckily, for all the feedback that I receive from the people who have seen it, I think we have achieved that goal. It's a film that provokes many emotions, that endures for days within the people who see it, and that generates the need to reiterate the questions that were supposedly already answered.
LatinoBuzz: When was the first time you realized that 'Infancia Clandestina' was the story you had to tell?
Benjamín Ávila: I always knew it. Since I was 13, I knew I wanted to work in film. I also knew back then that one day I would film my childhood. Somehow I made a tacit commitment at that time with myself, with my family, and with my own story. Therefore it is very important for me to have completed this process. It is a feeling of a debt paid, like I "had to do" this film. It was a duty rather than a necessity. Now that the film is finished I feel a relief, that of mission accomplished. Now I can be at peace.
LatinoBuzz: How much of what was going on were you very much aware of and how did you process that as a young boy?
Benjamín Ávila: My older brother and I were very aware, even though we were 7 and 8 years old at the time. I always think we were like the kids living in the street, who have a very conscious relationship with their environment. We knew what was happening, what we could and could not say. Although we were doing and saying what we were living, we could not have a dialectical discussion nor a real argument. We understood it all.
For us what we lived was not anything special, but it was normal. It was our life. We could not imagine anything different. This is why we were never traumatized. Even nowadays I miss that lifestyle. That clear and powerful bonding we all had. What was traumatizing was everything else: the absence, the persecution, the disappearance of my mother and not knowing anything to this day, not having been raised with my younger brother (Vicky in the movie). It was not until three yeas ago that we started having a life of ordinary siblings. And it cost a lot to have it...
LatinoBuzz: You were a child of Montoneros, so your childhood was unlike many others yet in the film we largely see this sweet portrayal of this blossoming first love between Juan and Maria –just like any teenager experiences. How much of that was Benjamín wishing that childhood was that innocent?
Benjamín Ávila: What you need to understand is that living in hiding was not something different to normality. It had parameters that were unusual, but we lived them like any other, even inside the house. I remember many common and normal family moments. Like waking up too late at night to watch the matches of the national team playing the World Cup youth soccer, Maradona’s first in Japan, and the matches were at 4 or 6 am. I remember going out at 7am in the morning with all the neighbors to celebrate the championship. My mother chastising me because I was late for school, or because I hadn't made my bed. Family barbecues, like any other Sunday, and so on, thousands of memories as normal as any other.
LatinoBuzz: What happened to “María”?
Benjamín Ávila: Maria never existed at that time. I had my Marías, but in other places and other times!
LatinoBuzz: In writing such a personal story what was the hardest thing to
write and did you avoid anything?
Benjamín Ávila: The most difficult part was at the beginning, trying to detach myself from my own history. Because several things were clear to me: the subject of film, that I did not want to be the protagonist of the story, that the most important part was the reconstruction of a routine
that has never been shown but that was not only mine but of many. That's why I took anecdotes and stories from others... Writing the script with Marcelo Muller, a dear Brazilian friend, helped me to achieve that distance I wanted for the construction of the story. With him I was able to rule out what wasn't important to the film’s story even if it was personally very important to me, and so we achieved that distance even though I deepened what remained. It was as if Marcelo pulled out to keep it to the essential, and I pulled inwards to deepen what remained.
LatinoBuzz: Was the casting difficult? Were you looking for yourself in
the Actor?
Benjamín Ávila: The casting of the children was complicated. We did it with María Laura Berch, an incredible casting director specializing in children, and we elaborated a very clear, yet complex, strategy. We saw over 700 children in total for all the roles, and it took us three months as planned.
But most importantly, we wanted to cast very homely, to give the kids the idea of what the shooting was going to be right from the beginning. And as I do my own camerawork every time I film, I decided I was going to shoot the casting so the kids could get used to my presence close to them and behind the camera from the beginning. And it worked really well.
With the adults it was very different. I saw Ernesto Alterio in the TV series "Vientos de Agua" by Campanella miniseries and compared to other roles I've seen him perform, I found the construction of his character wonderful. Something similar happened with Natalia Oreiro, she is very famous in Argentina but because of roles in comedies or romantic comedies, but seeing her in Caetano's "Francia" I noticed a dramatic profile in which I was very interested. With Cesar Troncoso, he was recommended by Luis Puenzo who had worked with him in "Xxy" the film he produced, directed by his daughter Lucía Puenzo. I had seen him in "The Pope's Toilet" and I had loved his role. And it was always a dream that Cristina Banegas play the role of the grandmother, and luckily we did it!
LatinoBuzz: Was seeing the film for the first time like looking at
photographs of your childhood?
Benjamín Ávila: No, this film has a lot of traits that belong to my childhood but they're for the most part, changed or modified. What does happen to me, is that I see through them my own memories. That happens to me, but it's something very intimate. The photos that appear at the end, which are from my family in reality, is the moment that moves me the most as I get haunted by the echoes of that wonderful past that was destroyed at the moment portrayed by the film.
My production company is called Room 1520 in tribute to the last scene of Paris, Texas by Wim Wenders, where the young kid (Hunter) is reunited with his mother after a long time in that same room... My childhood accompanies much of what I do.
LatinoBuzz: How many details from set design and wardrobe to how the actors who played your parents looked and acted did you involve yourself or were you able to separate yourself?
Benjamín Ávila: The shooting process was very intimate, intense and emotional. All of the staff, technicians and actors, we were involved in a special way. I have a way of working which at first puzzled the team. I like getting carried away by what is happening and then decide each scene based on the actors, the set and the light.
I operate the camera, I always do it when I'm the director, and I like to approach it as a documentary, finding the images based on what happens, as it happens. In that sense, each take was a particular universe of its own, unique and not replicable. Of course some takes came out really bad. But others were magical ... and those are the ones remained.
On the third day of filming something happened that made the whole team realize the scope of what we were doing, and from that moment on, everybody trusted my working technique. It happened that we were shooting Juan's (played by Teo Gutiérrez Moreno) first sequence where he burns the photos, near the end of the film. A tough sequence due to the mood that Juan had to reflect (as he just learns that his father was killed and had just hopelessly cried with his mother), and with children you don't work from a rational place but rather from the body directly, something very natural to them. So, I asked Natalia Oreiro to stand off-screen next to me, and that at moment I said 'action', for her to scream inconsolably, begging for help. On the other hand I told Teo that regardless of whatever was happening, he should not take his eyes off the fire, and that he should run out when I called his name. We got ready and at the moment of saying 'action' Natalia started to scream, heart wrenching, and all that I wanted to happen to Teo, started happening to me with the camera on my shoulder. I began to cry inconsolably (if you look carefully at the scene, the camera moves because I'm crying), as if it was an ancestral cry from some other time, and at some point I yelled at Teo and he perfectly did what he had to do, as usual, an he ran. I said 'cut', gave the camera to my assistant and as I was leaving I saw Natalia crying uncontrollably, everyone saw me and realized I was crying. I went to the video assist and as I entered everybody was very excited, they saw me crying. I asked to see the take… At that moment, everybody including actors, technicians and me, realized that we were doing something more than professional, but also very personal.
LatinoBuzz: Were there any films that influenced the look of the film?
Benjamín Ávila: Absolutely. For the tone of the performance and the gaze of the kids, "My Life as a Dog" by Lasse Halstrom. All of Krystof Kieslowski's filmography, and the political view of the films that Ken Loach made in
England such as "Raining Stones", "Riff-Raff" and "Hidden Agenda".
LatinoBuzz: What's the next project?
Benjamín Ávila: I am writing for a TV series of 40 single chapters. Additionally, I am adapting a novel by Elsa Osorio that I've been wanting to do for 12 years. I'm adapting it with her to make a miniseries of 13 chapters. It's about 40 years of history and involves many characters. A different look at the people who survived or were involved in Argentina's dictatorship.
For Screening times in NY and CA visit: http://www.filmmovement.com/theatrical/index.asp?MerchandiseID=314
Like em at: https://www.facebook.com/Infancia.clandestina
Written by Juan Caceres and Vanessa Erazo, LatinoBuzz is a weekly feature on SydneysBuzz that highlights Latino indie talent and upcoming trends in Latino film with the specific objective of presenting a broad range of Latino voices. Follow @LatinoBuzz on twitter.
Clandestine Childhood is being released in NY and CA on Friday, January 11th, 2013.
LatinoBuzz: What did the actors take away from spending several days with former Montoneros?
Benjamín Ávila: I wanted the actors to have the chance to physically live that era. The most complex challenge for an actor is the ability to give dimension to the story from the time that it happened, not from the present. For them it was important to get rid of all the Whys and be able to answer them by themselves. So I decided to have the actors meet a couple of former guerrilla members to do a training drill for two days, the way it was done back then, as well as for them to have a chance to talk and for the actors to be able to ask anything they wanted.
It was very productive because their body changed, as well as their stand before history. It also helped me to confirm some doubts that had arisen during the process of writing the script. And from that moment on, the improvisations we did were very important in defining some scenes of the film. Particularly the argument scene between the grandmother and mother. That improvisation came after the work we did, and some glorious moments emerged as a result, very complex and incorrect that served to give another dimension to the movie.
LatinoBuzz: Was there a particular audience for this film that was most important for you to see it?
Benjamín Ávila: Not really. But firstly, it is a film that I made for my brothers. And for the children of the disappeared and those killed during the last dictatorship in Argentina. They are the primary audience, but the story is not constructed so that only they understand. On the contrary, I wanted the film to move people, to it would provoke feelings and ideas, without sacrificing the cinematic and artistic construction. Luckily, for all the feedback that I receive from the people who have seen it, I think we have achieved that goal. It's a film that provokes many emotions, that endures for days within the people who see it, and that generates the need to reiterate the questions that were supposedly already answered.
LatinoBuzz: When was the first time you realized that 'Infancia Clandestina' was the story you had to tell?
Benjamín Ávila: I always knew it. Since I was 13, I knew I wanted to work in film. I also knew back then that one day I would film my childhood. Somehow I made a tacit commitment at that time with myself, with my family, and with my own story. Therefore it is very important for me to have completed this process. It is a feeling of a debt paid, like I "had to do" this film. It was a duty rather than a necessity. Now that the film is finished I feel a relief, that of mission accomplished. Now I can be at peace.
LatinoBuzz: How much of what was going on were you very much aware of and how did you process that as a young boy?
Benjamín Ávila: My older brother and I were very aware, even though we were 7 and 8 years old at the time. I always think we were like the kids living in the street, who have a very conscious relationship with their environment. We knew what was happening, what we could and could not say. Although we were doing and saying what we were living, we could not have a dialectical discussion nor a real argument. We understood it all.
For us what we lived was not anything special, but it was normal. It was our life. We could not imagine anything different. This is why we were never traumatized. Even nowadays I miss that lifestyle. That clear and powerful bonding we all had. What was traumatizing was everything else: the absence, the persecution, the disappearance of my mother and not knowing anything to this day, not having been raised with my younger brother (Vicky in the movie). It was not until three yeas ago that we started having a life of ordinary siblings. And it cost a lot to have it...
LatinoBuzz: You were a child of Montoneros, so your childhood was unlike many others yet in the film we largely see this sweet portrayal of this blossoming first love between Juan and Maria –just like any teenager experiences. How much of that was Benjamín wishing that childhood was that innocent?
Benjamín Ávila: What you need to understand is that living in hiding was not something different to normality. It had parameters that were unusual, but we lived them like any other, even inside the house. I remember many common and normal family moments. Like waking up too late at night to watch the matches of the national team playing the World Cup youth soccer, Maradona’s first in Japan, and the matches were at 4 or 6 am. I remember going out at 7am in the morning with all the neighbors to celebrate the championship. My mother chastising me because I was late for school, or because I hadn't made my bed. Family barbecues, like any other Sunday, and so on, thousands of memories as normal as any other.
LatinoBuzz: What happened to “María”?
Benjamín Ávila: Maria never existed at that time. I had my Marías, but in other places and other times!
LatinoBuzz: In writing such a personal story what was the hardest thing to
write and did you avoid anything?
Benjamín Ávila: The most difficult part was at the beginning, trying to detach myself from my own history. Because several things were clear to me: the subject of film, that I did not want to be the protagonist of the story, that the most important part was the reconstruction of a routine
that has never been shown but that was not only mine but of many. That's why I took anecdotes and stories from others... Writing the script with Marcelo Muller, a dear Brazilian friend, helped me to achieve that distance I wanted for the construction of the story. With him I was able to rule out what wasn't important to the film’s story even if it was personally very important to me, and so we achieved that distance even though I deepened what remained. It was as if Marcelo pulled out to keep it to the essential, and I pulled inwards to deepen what remained.
LatinoBuzz: Was the casting difficult? Were you looking for yourself in
the Actor?
Benjamín Ávila: The casting of the children was complicated. We did it with María Laura Berch, an incredible casting director specializing in children, and we elaborated a very clear, yet complex, strategy. We saw over 700 children in total for all the roles, and it took us three months as planned.
But most importantly, we wanted to cast very homely, to give the kids the idea of what the shooting was going to be right from the beginning. And as I do my own camerawork every time I film, I decided I was going to shoot the casting so the kids could get used to my presence close to them and behind the camera from the beginning. And it worked really well.
With the adults it was very different. I saw Ernesto Alterio in the TV series "Vientos de Agua" by Campanella miniseries and compared to other roles I've seen him perform, I found the construction of his character wonderful. Something similar happened with Natalia Oreiro, she is very famous in Argentina but because of roles in comedies or romantic comedies, but seeing her in Caetano's "Francia" I noticed a dramatic profile in which I was very interested. With Cesar Troncoso, he was recommended by Luis Puenzo who had worked with him in "Xxy" the film he produced, directed by his daughter Lucía Puenzo. I had seen him in "The Pope's Toilet" and I had loved his role. And it was always a dream that Cristina Banegas play the role of the grandmother, and luckily we did it!
LatinoBuzz: Was seeing the film for the first time like looking at
photographs of your childhood?
Benjamín Ávila: No, this film has a lot of traits that belong to my childhood but they're for the most part, changed or modified. What does happen to me, is that I see through them my own memories. That happens to me, but it's something very intimate. The photos that appear at the end, which are from my family in reality, is the moment that moves me the most as I get haunted by the echoes of that wonderful past that was destroyed at the moment portrayed by the film.
My production company is called Room 1520 in tribute to the last scene of Paris, Texas by Wim Wenders, where the young kid (Hunter) is reunited with his mother after a long time in that same room... My childhood accompanies much of what I do.
LatinoBuzz: How many details from set design and wardrobe to how the actors who played your parents looked and acted did you involve yourself or were you able to separate yourself?
Benjamín Ávila: The shooting process was very intimate, intense and emotional. All of the staff, technicians and actors, we were involved in a special way. I have a way of working which at first puzzled the team. I like getting carried away by what is happening and then decide each scene based on the actors, the set and the light.
I operate the camera, I always do it when I'm the director, and I like to approach it as a documentary, finding the images based on what happens, as it happens. In that sense, each take was a particular universe of its own, unique and not replicable. Of course some takes came out really bad. But others were magical ... and those are the ones remained.
On the third day of filming something happened that made the whole team realize the scope of what we were doing, and from that moment on, everybody trusted my working technique. It happened that we were shooting Juan's (played by Teo Gutiérrez Moreno) first sequence where he burns the photos, near the end of the film. A tough sequence due to the mood that Juan had to reflect (as he just learns that his father was killed and had just hopelessly cried with his mother), and with children you don't work from a rational place but rather from the body directly, something very natural to them. So, I asked Natalia Oreiro to stand off-screen next to me, and that at moment I said 'action', for her to scream inconsolably, begging for help. On the other hand I told Teo that regardless of whatever was happening, he should not take his eyes off the fire, and that he should run out when I called his name. We got ready and at the moment of saying 'action' Natalia started to scream, heart wrenching, and all that I wanted to happen to Teo, started happening to me with the camera on my shoulder. I began to cry inconsolably (if you look carefully at the scene, the camera moves because I'm crying), as if it was an ancestral cry from some other time, and at some point I yelled at Teo and he perfectly did what he had to do, as usual, an he ran. I said 'cut', gave the camera to my assistant and as I was leaving I saw Natalia crying uncontrollably, everyone saw me and realized I was crying. I went to the video assist and as I entered everybody was very excited, they saw me crying. I asked to see the take… At that moment, everybody including actors, technicians and me, realized that we were doing something more than professional, but also very personal.
LatinoBuzz: Were there any films that influenced the look of the film?
Benjamín Ávila: Absolutely. For the tone of the performance and the gaze of the kids, "My Life as a Dog" by Lasse Halstrom. All of Krystof Kieslowski's filmography, and the political view of the films that Ken Loach made in
England such as "Raining Stones", "Riff-Raff" and "Hidden Agenda".
LatinoBuzz: What's the next project?
Benjamín Ávila: I am writing for a TV series of 40 single chapters. Additionally, I am adapting a novel by Elsa Osorio that I've been wanting to do for 12 years. I'm adapting it with her to make a miniseries of 13 chapters. It's about 40 years of history and involves many characters. A different look at the people who survived or were involved in Argentina's dictatorship.
For Screening times in NY and CA visit: http://www.filmmovement.com/theatrical/index.asp?MerchandiseID=314
Like em at: https://www.facebook.com/Infancia.clandestina
Written by Juan Caceres and Vanessa Erazo, LatinoBuzz is a weekly feature on SydneysBuzz that highlights Latino indie talent and upcoming trends in Latino film with the specific objective of presenting a broad range of Latino voices. Follow @LatinoBuzz on twitter.
- 1/9/2013
- by Juan Caceres
- Sydney's Buzz
Film Movement has acquired the debut of Argentinean filmmaker Benjamin Ávila, “Clandestine Childhood” (“Infancia Clandestina”), which screened in the Director’s Fortnight sidebar at Cannes in May. After showings at the San Sebastian and Toronto film festivals, the film will open day and date on VOD and in theaters in New York in November. Based on fact, the Spanish-language drama shows the hidden lives of political militants during the last military dictatorship in Argentina through the eyes of a 12-year-old boy that has just returned from exile with his family. Luis Puenzo produced. Read More: Film Movement Acquires Elie Wajeman's Cannes Drama 'Alyah' “There have been many films made about this time in Argentinean history, but Benjamin Avila’s visceral debut infuses a warmth and humor and overall humanity into this political story that reveal a very personal point of view we have not found before,” said.
- 8/23/2012
- by Jay A. Fernandez
- Indiewire
★★★★☆ The third feature from Chilean director Pablo Larraín, Post Mortem (2010) is a bleak, deeply melancholic portrait of his country of birth, set in the capital city of Santiago during the Pinochet coup d'état of 1973. Comparable with Luis Puenzo's 1985 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar winner The Official Story (La historia oficial), the film focuses on the impact of national socio-political events upon a few select characters amid violent protests and a host of sinister disappearances. Read more »...
- 1/23/2012
- by CineVue
- CineVue
"Mexican character actor Pedro Armendáriz Jr died Monday at the age of 71," reports the AP. "President Felipe Calderon's office issued a statement lamenting Armendáriz's death, calling him 'a great actor who reflected well on Mexico at home and abroad.'… He acted in more than 100 films, including the Mexican hit The Crime of Father Amaro."
Both Armendáriz Jr and his father, Pedro Armendáriz, a star during Mexican cinema's "golden age," portrayed Pancho Villa — the father in several films and Armendáriz Jr in Luis Puenzo's Old Gringo (1989). From the Wikipedia entry: "Interestingly, Pedro Armendáriz Jr also portrayed Pancho Villa's enemy Luis Terrazas in the film And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself opposite Antonio Banderas." The entry notes that both father and son also appeared in James Bond movies: "The elder Armendáriz appeared in From Russia with Love in 1963, while Pedro Jr. appeared in 1989's Licence to Kill."
The Hollywood...
Both Armendáriz Jr and his father, Pedro Armendáriz, a star during Mexican cinema's "golden age," portrayed Pancho Villa — the father in several films and Armendáriz Jr in Luis Puenzo's Old Gringo (1989). From the Wikipedia entry: "Interestingly, Pedro Armendáriz Jr also portrayed Pancho Villa's enemy Luis Terrazas in the film And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself opposite Antonio Banderas." The entry notes that both father and son also appeared in James Bond movies: "The elder Armendáriz appeared in From Russia with Love in 1963, while Pedro Jr. appeared in 1989's Licence to Kill."
The Hollywood...
- 12/27/2011
- MUBI
Buenos Aires -- Just hours away before the Academy's deadline for countries to submit films for Oscar consideration, the Argentine Film Academy announced on Friday that Pablo Trapero's crime thriller "Carancho" was selected as the Argentine candidate to nab a foreign-language Oscar nomination.
The election featured a rather low participation (only 78 of the Academy's 246 members) and resulted in Trapero's thriller winning the slot with 20 votes that placed it over its two main competitors, Mariano Cohn and Gaston Duprat's "The Man Next Door" (13) and Daniel Burman's "Dos hermanos" (10).
Produced by Matanza Cine (Argentina) in association with Patagonik, Ad Vitam Production (France), L90 Producciones (Chile) and Fine Cut (South Korea), "Carancho" faces the difficult challenge of repeating the feat of "The Secret in Their Eyes," the film directed by Argentine Film Academy President Juan Jose Campanella that took home the Oscar in the last edition.
Starring Argentine star Ricardo Darin...
The election featured a rather low participation (only 78 of the Academy's 246 members) and resulted in Trapero's thriller winning the slot with 20 votes that placed it over its two main competitors, Mariano Cohn and Gaston Duprat's "The Man Next Door" (13) and Daniel Burman's "Dos hermanos" (10).
Produced by Matanza Cine (Argentina) in association with Patagonik, Ad Vitam Production (France), L90 Producciones (Chile) and Fine Cut (South Korea), "Carancho" faces the difficult challenge of repeating the feat of "The Secret in Their Eyes," the film directed by Argentine Film Academy President Juan Jose Campanella that took home the Oscar in the last edition.
Starring Argentine star Ricardo Darin...
- 10/2/2010
- by By Agustin Mango
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
This Oscar-winning Argentinian thriller packs emotional punch and a dazzlingly virtuosic narrative
There is usually, and often with justification, serious criticism of the movie voted by the American Film Academy to receive its Oscar for best film in a foreign language. It happened again this year when the international critics' anointed contenders – Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon and Jacques Audiard's A Prophet – were ignored in favour of Juan José Campanella's The Secret in Their Eyes. Well, Haneke's picture is certainly more original and Audiard's altogether harsher, but Campanella's Argentinian thriller is a film of subtlety, distinction and depth that in most other years would have made it appear a very worthy recipient. Moreover, it seems an apt choice to mark what Sight & Sound celebrates on the front page of its September edition as "The Rise and Rise of Latin American Cinema" over the past decade.
The film's...
There is usually, and often with justification, serious criticism of the movie voted by the American Film Academy to receive its Oscar for best film in a foreign language. It happened again this year when the international critics' anointed contenders – Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon and Jacques Audiard's A Prophet – were ignored in favour of Juan José Campanella's The Secret in Their Eyes. Well, Haneke's picture is certainly more original and Audiard's altogether harsher, but Campanella's Argentinian thriller is a film of subtlety, distinction and depth that in most other years would have made it appear a very worthy recipient. Moreover, it seems an apt choice to mark what Sight & Sound celebrates on the front page of its September edition as "The Rise and Rise of Latin American Cinema" over the past decade.
The film's...
- 8/14/2010
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Argentina's victory for best foreign language film at the Academy Awards for The Secret in Their Eyes has reportedly sent the South American country into raptures
The critics may have been expecting a win for Jacques Audiard's A Prophet or Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon, but victory for Argentina's El Secreto de Sus Ojos (The Secret in Their Eyes) in the foreign language section at Sunday night's Oscars has reportedly sent the South American nation into raptures.
The Oscars, broadcast there in the early hours of Monday morning, was yesterday's most-watched television programme, and newspapers scurried to print second editions carrying the country's win on their front pages. Throughout the day, news programmes continued to report on the victory and the reaction to it.
Juan José Campanella's thriller, based on a novel by Eduardo Sacheri, is set in Buenos Aires in 1999. It centres on a retired investigator...
The critics may have been expecting a win for Jacques Audiard's A Prophet or Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon, but victory for Argentina's El Secreto de Sus Ojos (The Secret in Their Eyes) in the foreign language section at Sunday night's Oscars has reportedly sent the South American nation into raptures.
The Oscars, broadcast there in the early hours of Monday morning, was yesterday's most-watched television programme, and newspapers scurried to print second editions carrying the country's win on their front pages. Throughout the day, news programmes continued to report on the victory and the reaction to it.
Juan José Campanella's thriller, based on a novel by Eduardo Sacheri, is set in Buenos Aires in 1999. It centres on a retired investigator...
- 3/9/2010
- by Ben Child
- The Guardian - Film News
New Directors, New Films Festival
NEW YORK -- XXY, an Argentinean film by debuting director Lucia Puenzo, rises to the challenge of its difficult sexual subject matter. The story of a young hermaphrodite who's not sure if she's emotionally a boy or a girl manages to be both raw-edged and moving. The centerpiece of "XXY" is a feral performance by Ines Efron as the confused youth. But supporting characters are all thoroughly nuanced, and this injects a powerful humanism. The result is a tough, engaging, extremely touching work of cinema.
"XXY" has already performed well at festivals, picking up the Critics' Week Grand Prize at Cannes and a well-deserved New Directors Award at Edinburgh. Critical praise should boost chances in upscale art-house cinemas. Film Movement is handling the stateside release May 2.
Alex (Efron), 15, looks like a girl, but was born with both male and female genitalia. Her parents have brought her up as a girl, and her mother has mooted an operation to remove the offending muscle. Alex is starting to believe that she's actually a boy, and her father (Ricardo Darin) is coming around to that conclusion, too. When some family friends arrive at the house, 16-year-old Alvaro (Martin Piroyanski), a teenager with sexual anxieties of his own, forces the issue of Alex's sexual identity.
The creative decision to have Efron play Alex as wild and angry rather than anxious and introspective gives the film dynamism. Alex confronts her problems with her fists, and isn't afraid to externalize her emotions. She doesn't say very much, so her problems and internal conflicts are demonstrated in a very cinematic manner. Rarely has a teenager played a challenging role with such panache and credibility. Piroyanski also performs well as the nerdy, nervous, but emotionally honest foil to Alex's emotions.
Director Puenzo visualizes the fact that Alex is leaning towards male rather than female by showing her taking the masculine role in a sex scene with Alvaro. A nasty attempted rape scene illustrates Alex's vulnerability underneath her tough exterior. But the quiet compassion of friends and family ensures that the film is uplifting rather than depressing.
XXY
Film Movement
A Wanda Vision, Pyramide Prods., and Historias Cinematogrficas production
Sales: Pyramide International
Credits:
Director: Lucia Puenzo
Writer: Lucia Puenzo
Based on a story by: Sergio Bizzo
Producers: Luis Puenzo, Jose Maria Morales
Executive producers: Fernando Sirianni and Miguel Morales
Director of photography: Natashah Braier
Production designer: Roberto Samuelle
Music: Daniel Tarrab
Editors: Alex Zito, Hugo Primero
Cast:
Kraken: Ricardo Darin
Suli: Valeria Bertuccelli
Ramiro: German Palacios
Erika: Carolina Peleritti
Alvaro: Martin Piroyansky
Alex: Ines Efron
Running time -- 91 minutes
No MPAA rating...
NEW YORK -- XXY, an Argentinean film by debuting director Lucia Puenzo, rises to the challenge of its difficult sexual subject matter. The story of a young hermaphrodite who's not sure if she's emotionally a boy or a girl manages to be both raw-edged and moving. The centerpiece of "XXY" is a feral performance by Ines Efron as the confused youth. But supporting characters are all thoroughly nuanced, and this injects a powerful humanism. The result is a tough, engaging, extremely touching work of cinema.
"XXY" has already performed well at festivals, picking up the Critics' Week Grand Prize at Cannes and a well-deserved New Directors Award at Edinburgh. Critical praise should boost chances in upscale art-house cinemas. Film Movement is handling the stateside release May 2.
Alex (Efron), 15, looks like a girl, but was born with both male and female genitalia. Her parents have brought her up as a girl, and her mother has mooted an operation to remove the offending muscle. Alex is starting to believe that she's actually a boy, and her father (Ricardo Darin) is coming around to that conclusion, too. When some family friends arrive at the house, 16-year-old Alvaro (Martin Piroyanski), a teenager with sexual anxieties of his own, forces the issue of Alex's sexual identity.
The creative decision to have Efron play Alex as wild and angry rather than anxious and introspective gives the film dynamism. Alex confronts her problems with her fists, and isn't afraid to externalize her emotions. She doesn't say very much, so her problems and internal conflicts are demonstrated in a very cinematic manner. Rarely has a teenager played a challenging role with such panache and credibility. Piroyanski also performs well as the nerdy, nervous, but emotionally honest foil to Alex's emotions.
Director Puenzo visualizes the fact that Alex is leaning towards male rather than female by showing her taking the masculine role in a sex scene with Alvaro. A nasty attempted rape scene illustrates Alex's vulnerability underneath her tough exterior. But the quiet compassion of friends and family ensures that the film is uplifting rather than depressing.
XXY
Film Movement
A Wanda Vision, Pyramide Prods., and Historias Cinematogrficas production
Sales: Pyramide International
Credits:
Director: Lucia Puenzo
Writer: Lucia Puenzo
Based on a story by: Sergio Bizzo
Producers: Luis Puenzo, Jose Maria Morales
Executive producers: Fernando Sirianni and Miguel Morales
Director of photography: Natashah Braier
Production designer: Roberto Samuelle
Music: Daniel Tarrab
Editors: Alex Zito, Hugo Primero
Cast:
Kraken: Ricardo Darin
Suli: Valeria Bertuccelli
Ramiro: German Palacios
Erika: Carolina Peleritti
Alvaro: Martin Piroyansky
Alex: Ines Efron
Running time -- 91 minutes
No MPAA rating...
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