Walter Salles will be opening up at this year’s Marrakech International Film Festival.
The 68-year-old Brazilian filmmaker, best known for his Golden Bear-winning film Central Station, is among the A-listers taking part in the conversations program for the festival’s upcoming 21st edition.
In all, 18 leading directors, actors, scriptwriters and producers will participate.
Salles is in the middle of a buzzy Oscar campaign for his Best International Feature Film contender I’m Still Here.
Other participating Hollywood A-listers include U.S. director and screenwriter Ava Du Vernay, French Oscar winner Justine Triet and U.S director Tim Burton.
Speakers also include Mohammed Rasoulof, who has Oscar buzz for The Seed Of The Sacred Fig, as well as Canadian director and screenwriter David Cronenberg and U.S. actor-director Sean Penn, who are being feted by the festival with career awards this year.
Moroccan filmmakers Alaa Eddine Aljem, Yasmine Benkiran, Ismaël El Iraki and Kamal Lazraq will be in conversation about their first films.
The Marrakech International Film Festival runs from November 29 to December 7.
Selena Gomez’s latest film could earn an international Oscars nod…
France has selected Jacques Audiard’s Spanish-language musical Emilia Pérez, starring the 31-year-old Mexican American actress/singer, to represent it in the Best International Feature Film category at the 97th Academy Awards.
In addition Gomez, the drama also stars Karla Sofía Gascón, who portrays cartel leader Emilia who enlists the help of unappreciated lawyer Rita (Zoe Saldana) to help her fake her death so she can live authentically as her true self.
It premiered at Cannes, where it earned its four actresses – Gascón, Saldaña, Gomez and Adriana Paz – a collective Best Actress award, and also clinched the jury prize.
The film was selected from a short list of four films which also included swashbuckler The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre de La Patellière and Matthieu Delaporte; French-produced Indian drama All We Imagine as Light by Payal Kapadia and Misericordia by Alain Guiraudie.
This year’s revamped selection committee featured sales agent Carole Baraton, producer Nadim Cheikhroua, Venice Golden Lion winning Happening director and writer Audrey Diwan, distributor, producer and writer Michèle Halberstadt, sales agent Grégoire Melin, actress Clémence Poésy, producer David Thion, producer and distributor Rosalie Varda, producer Wachsberger and director, writer and producer Florian Zeller.
They made the selection after auditioning the sales agents, producers and U.S. distributors of the shortlisted titles on Wednesday morning.
Netflix reportedly swooped on U.S. rights for Emilia Pérez in the wake of its buzzy Cannes world premiere, pledged generous support for the awards campaign.
Pathé released the film theatrically in France on August 21, drawing some 735,000 spectators for a gross of roughly $5.9M. It will receive a limited release on the U.S. ahead of a November 13 launch on Netflix.
France last won the international film Oscar with Régis Wargnier’sIndochine in 1993. Ladj Ly’s Les Misérables was the last French film to make it through to the final nomination stage in 2020.
J.A. Bayona is in the running for a potential Academy Award…
Spain has selected the 48-year-old Spanish filmmaker’s latest film, Society of the Snow as its entry for the Best International Feature Film race at the 2024 Oscars.
The announcement marks the first time a Netflix-backed film has been selected by Spain and the second time J.A. Bayona has made the cut following his 2007 film The Orphanage.
Society of the Snow closed this year’s Venice Film Festival. Based on the book of the same name by Pablo Vierci, first published in 2008, the film charts the story of the 45 people who, on October 13, 1972, boarded Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 from Montevideo to Chile. There were five crew members on board and 40 passengers, including 19 members of the Old Christians Club rugby team. Tragedy struck when the pilot began his descent too early, crashing into the Andes and killing 12 immediately. The survivors clung to the belief that help was coming, but none did. After weeks of hunger, having exhausted everything in the plane’s hold, they were forced to do the unthinkable and eat the flesh of those who had died. The story was told by Frank Marshall in the 1993 film Alive.
Starring in the Spanish-language film are Enzo Vogrincic, Matías Recalt, Agustín Pardella, Esteban Kukuriczka and Tomas Wolf.
The film is produced by Belén Atienza, Sandra Hermida and Bayona. The screenplay comes from Bayona, Bernat Vilaplana, Jaime Marques and Nicolás Casariego from the novel by Pablo Vierci. The director of photography is Pedro Luque.
Last year Spain selected Carla Simón’s Berlinale winner Alcarràsfor the Best International Feature Film race. The film didn’t make the final shortlist.
Ivan Herrera’s latest project is going international…
Ava DuVernay’s Array Releasing has acquired the 45-year-old Dominican filmmaker’s drama Bantú Mamafor distribution in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.
The company will be presenting the film — which has been named as the Dominican Republic’s 2023 entry for the Best International Feature FilmOscar — on select screens and on Netflix beginning on November 17.
Bantú Mama follows a French woman of African descent who manages to escape after being arrested in the Dominican Republic. She finds shelter in the most dangerous district of Santo Domingo, where she is taken in by a group of children. By becoming their protégée and maternal figure, she then experiences an unimaginable change in her destiny.
“We are honored to distribute the Dominican Republic’s official Oscar submission,” said Array President Tilane Jones. “This deeply moving and vividly drawn drama, beautifully directed by Ivan Herrera and co-written with producer Clarisse Albrecht, is a bold vision that we’re thrilled to share with audiences.”
The film had its world premiere at the 2021 SXSW Film Festival, before going on to screen at fests including BFI London Film Festival and Urbanworld.
Herrera, Albrecht, Franmiris Lombert & Nicolas LaMadrid produced the film, which has picked up awards from the Durban Film Festival, Latino and Iberian Film Festival at Yale, 47/Festival de Huelva, Festival de Cine Fine Arts, Nova Frontier Film Festival and Quibdó África Film Festival.
Mexico has selected the 59-year-old Mexican five-time Academy Award winner’sBardoas its official entry for the Best International Feature Film Oscar race.
The immersive work stars Daniel Giménez Cacho as a renowned Los Angeles-based Mexican journalist and documentary filmmaker who, after being named the recipient of a prestigious international award, is compelled to return to his native country, unaware that this simple trip will push him to an existential limit.
The film had its world premiere in its three-hour original version in competition at the Venice Film Festival in early September.
Netflix recently dropped a trailer for the film, which opens theatrically in Mexico on October 27, followed by a limited theatrical release in the U.S., Spain and Argentina on November 4 before rolling out in a global expansion on November 18.
The film will debut December 1 on Netflix.
The work reunites Iñárritu with a number of his longtime collaborators including co-writer Nicolás Giacobone, who also took credits on Birdman and Biutiful.
Bardo — whose full title isBardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths — marks Iñárritu’s first film to be shot in Mexico since Amores Perros, which also represented Mexico at the Academy Awards and was nominated in 2000.
The film also features production design by the designer Eugenio Caballero, who previously won an Academy Award for his work on Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinthand Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma, and costume design by Anna Terrazas (The Deuce, Roma).
Outside of the best international film category and its foreign language predecessor, Iñárritu previously won Oscars for Carne y Arena (2018), The Revenant(2016) and Birdman(2015) and was nominated forBabel(2007).
Mexico has garnered eight nominations to date with Roberto Gavaldón’s Macario (1960), Ismael Rodriguez’sThe Important Man (1961), Luis Alcoriza’s The Pearl Of Tiayucan(1963), Miguel Litten’s Letters Of Marusia(1975), Iñárritu’s Amores Perros (2000), Carlos Carrera’s El Crimen del Padre Amaro(2002), Guillermo Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth(2006) and Iñárritu’s Biutiful(2010).
Cuaron won the country its only Oscar in the category with Roma in 2018.
The 50-year-old Mexican Salvadoran filmmaker’s Prayers for the Stolenhas won the FIPRESCI Prize for Best International Feature Film at the Palm Springs Film Festival, which revealed its juried winners this week despite being forced to cancel its 2022 edition.
It centers on three young girls in a mountain town who take over the houses of those who have fled, dress up as women when no one is watching, and have a hiding place as their mothers train them to flee from those who turn them into slaves or ghosts. Until one day, when one of the girls doesn’t make it to her hideout in time.
The jury awarded it the top prize “for a miraculously vivid portrayal of girlhood under siege told with visual exuberance and powerful intimacy from the ensemble cast.”
The film also took the festival’s Ibero-American Award, the top prize in its Ibero-American sidebar devoted to the best films from Latin America, Spain or Portugal.
Special mentions in the Ibero-American sidebar were given to Anita Rocha da Silveira’s Medusa and Víctor Escribano’s 7 Lives, 7 Lakes.
The Palm Springs Film Festival, which had been scheduled to run January 6-17 before being scrapped amid the latest COVID surge, is considered a must-stop forInternational Feature Oscar contenders, with 36 of the 93 official submissions this year slated for the lineup.
Here’s the full list of winners:
FIPRESCI Prize: Best International Feature Film
Prayers For the Stolen (Mexico)
Directed by Tatiana Huezo
FIPRESCI Prize: Best Actor in an International Feature Film
Amir Jadidi
A Hero (Iran)
FIPRESCI Prize: Best Actress in an International Feature Film
Agathe Rousselle
Titane (France/Belgium)
FIPRESCI Prize: International Screenplay
A Hero (Iran)
Screenplay by Asghar Farhadi
Best Documentary Award
Flee (Denmark)
Directed by Jonas Poher Rasmussen
Special Mention
The Caviar Connection (France)
Directed by Benoît Bringer
New Voices/New Visions Award
Happening (France)
Directed by Audrey Diwan
Special Mention
Wildhood (Canada/Germany)
Directed by Bretten Hannam
Ibero-American Award
Prayers For the Stolen (Mexico)
Directed by Tatiana Huezo
Special Mentions
Medusa (Brazil/USA)
Directed by Anita Rocha da Silveira
7 Lives, 7 Lakes (Spain)
Directed by Víctor Escribano
Local Jury Award
Escape from Mogadishu (South Korea)
Directed by Ryoo Seung-wan.
Special Mention
Mission: Joy – Finding Happiness in Troubled Times (USA)
Directed by Louie Psihoyos, Peggy Callahan
MOZAIK Bridging the Borders Award
A Hero (Iran)
Director Asghar Farhadi
Special Mentions
Fear (Bulgaria)
Directed by Ivaylo Hristov
Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America (USA)
Directed by Emily Kunstler and Sarah Kunstler
Young Cineastes Award
Yuni (Indonesia)
Directed by Kamila Andini
Special Mention Any Day Now (Finland)
Directed by Hamy Ramezan
Natalia Meta is hoping to send an Intruder to the Oscars…
Argentina has selected the Argentinian director’s horror-thriller The Intruder(El Prófugo), as its entry in the Best International Feature Film category for the upcoming Academy Awards.
The film, described as a pyscho-sexual fantastic thriller, debuted at Berlinale last year.
The Intruder stars Érica Rivas, Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, Daniel Hendler, Cecilia Roth, Guillermo Arengo, Agustín Rittano, and Mirta Busnelli
It’s the story of Inés, a young woman who after a traumatic episode during a trip with her partner begins to confuse herself between the real and the imaginary.
Producers on the film are Rei Cine and Picnic Producciones, with co-producers Infinity Hill and Barraca Producciones, in association with Piano, Televisión Federal (Telefe) and Viacom International Studios.
In all, 18 leading directors, actors, scriptwriters and producers will participate.
