Jayro Bustamante could be bringing the horror to the Oscars…
The 43-year-old Guatemalan film director and screenwriter’s politically charged horror film La Llorona, which won the Venice Days sidebar at last year’s Venice Film Festival, is Guatemala’s selection to the 2021 International Oscar race.
It’s the second film by Bustamante to get his country’s Academy Awards submission, after his debut feature Ixcanulin 2015.
His latest film fuses the Latin American Llorona myth and modern reality in an exposé of the genocidal atrocities against the Mayan community in Guatemala.
The plot delves into magical realism as it follows Enrique (Julio Diaz), a retired general who oversaw the Mayan genocide and is haunted by his devastating crimes, and possibly a wrathful supernatural force that is targeting him and his family.
Rigoberta Menchú Tum, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and survivor of the atrocities, also appears in the film.
The film, which had its U.S. bow this year at the Sundance Film Festival ahead of its August 6 premiere on Shudder, currently has a 97% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Guatemala has yet to be nominated for the International Feature Film Oscar.
The 23-year-old Mexican singer-songwriterandmulti-instrumentalist has become the first Latin artist signed to Glassnote Records.
Estrada, who joins the indie label’s roster that includes award-winning artists like Phoenix and Mumford & Sons, signed with Glassnote after a quick visit to New York back in February.
“After meeting the team, and a spontaneous performance, both parties left mesmerized,” according to a statement issued by Glassnote. “She officially joined the Glassnote family shortly after.”
Born and raised in Veracruz, Mexico and inspired by artists like Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan, Estrada began her musical career at a young age experimenting with different instruments — both her parents were luthiers.
“My music is made of who I am,” she says. “When I wasn’t hearing musicians playing snippets of classical pieces to try out the sound of the instruments, I was listening to my parents singing traditional Mexican songs or Latin American popular music. To me, being a singer or composer was just a normal job.”
Her deep and impressive vocals are at the forefront of her coming-of-age, intimate songs that have caught the attention of Natalia Lafourcadeand Mon Laferte, who performed “La Llorona” with Estrada at Mexico City’s Teatro Metropolitan in 2018.
The Glassnote announcement comes ahead of Estrada’s Spanish-language cover of the CHVRCHES hit “Forever,” the Spanish-language “Para Siempre,” released on Friday, August 28. Marchita, her new full-length album, produced by Gustavo Guerrero, will be released by Glassnote Music.
“I’m making the music that I honestly want to do,” says Silvana, who can seem as susceptible to the power of her voice as her audiences are. “I sing my songs and I feel good. And the miraculous thing is that they make the people who hear them feel good too.”
The Guatamalan director’s genocide revenge drama La Llorona, set during the 1960s civil war in his country, has won the Venice Days Director Award, the top nod in Venice’s independently run section.
This is the second feature by Bustamante, who put Guatemalan cinema on the map with his debut, Ixcanul.
The film takes its cue from the acquittal of a former Guatemalan general whose initial sentence is overturned on a procedural pretext. This unleashes a vengeful supernatural spirit upon his household.
Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz presided over the jury formed by 28 young European movie buffs. They praised the film for being “an intimate ghost story told through a vivid female character.”
The award comes with a cash prize of $22,000, which is split equally between the director and the film’s international distributor, in this case Film Factory Entertainment.
The 63rd BFI London Film Festival has unveiled the 10 films set to enter the Official Competition at the fest, with the 42-year-old Guatemalan film director and screenwriter’s La Llorona making the list.
Bustamante’s La Llorona, his third feature film, is hailed as a tale of horror and fantasy, ripe with suspense, and an urgent metaphor of recent Guatemalan history and the country’s unhealed political wounds.
The film stars María Mercedes Coroy, Sabrina De La Hoz and Margarita Kenéfic.
In addition to La Llorona, the films in competition are Thomas Clay’s Fanny Lye Deliver’d, Alma Har’el’sHoney Boy,Isabel Sandoval’sLingua Franca, Oliver Hermanus’ Moffie, Alejandro Landes’ Monos, Małgorzata Szumowska’s The Other Lamb, Haifaa Al Mansour’s The Perfect Candidate, Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor’s Rose Plays Julie and Rose Glass’ Saint Maud.
The Best Film winner will be chosen by the Official Competition Jury, the members of which will be announced in the coming weeks.
Tricia Tuttle, BFI London Film Festival Director said, “Our Official Competition showcases the best in global filmmaking. These filmmakers each have unique and distinctive voices and their films by turns reveal truths about human existence; explore stories we haven’t seen before or examine familiar ones in new ways; address pressing social and political issues, and make audiences feel and think. It’s striking that so many of the filmmakers here are telling strongly political stories, but never dogmatically so. We have selected 11 directors in these ten films who invite viewers to probe and ponder, to be changed – either subconsciously or wildly and irrevocably – by their work.”
The 63rd BFI London Film Festival takes place from Wednesday October 2 to Sunday October 13 2019. The full Festival programme will be announced on Thursday August 29.
Full List:
FANNY LYE DELIVER’D (United Kingdom-Germany, dir-scr. Thomas Clay) Maxine Peake delivers a powerhouse performance as the titular character in Thomas Clay’s intoxicating period drama Fanny Lye Deliver’d, a woman living a humble existence with her puritanical husband John (Charles Dance) and young son Arthur on an isolated Shropshire farm in the 17th Century. The daily routines of this God-fearing family are abruptly interrupted when they discover two strangers hiding in their barn, pleading for help. When the family agrees to take them in, it is not long before their progressive ways begin to cause tensions.
HONEY BOY (USA, dir. Alma Har’el) Alma Har’el collaborates with gifted writer and performer Shia LaBeouf to impressive effect for her first dramatic feature Honey Boy, an artful and soul-baring examination of the lingering effects of emotional abuse. Lucas Hedges plays Otis, an alcoholic with a penchant for fiercely self-destructive behaviour who makes a living starring in action films. When an accident forces him into rehab, he begins to examine his troubled past with his unstable and often emotionally abusive father (LaBeouf, playing a version of his own real-life father).
LA LLORONA(Guatemala-France, dir. Jayro Bustamante) Guatemalan director Jayro Bustamante’s taut genre-bending thriller, La Llorona, sees elderly general Enrique Monteverde tried for a genocide he oversaw three decades earlier, who finds himself haunted by a spectre of his past; La Llorona, the spirit of a woman who has returned to seek justice for the dead. Guatemala’s lengthy Civil War and the mass murder of Mayan civilians provide a powerful historical framework for Bustamante’s third feature. This is a film about secrets and lies, rendered through a breathtaking visual language that melds horror, fantasy and courtroom drama to disarming effect.
LINGUA FRANCA (USA, dir-scr. Isabel Sandoval) In Lingua Franca, Olivia is a Filipino transwoman and undocumented immigrant in Brooklyn, surreptitiously working as a caregiver for Olga, an elderly Russian woman in the early stages of dementia. She spends her time documenting a staged relationship with the man who has agreed to marry her so she can obtain legal status in the US. One day Olivia meets Olga’s grandson Alex, a despondent slaughterhouse worker battling his own inner demons and the pair develop a strong connection. A beautifully performed character study and an incisive critique on race and immigration in modern America, writer/director Isabel Sandoval (who also takes on the role of Olivia) has crafted a deeply moving work of great intimacy and insight.
MOFFIE (South Africa-United Kingdom, dir. Oliver Hermanus) Oliver Hermanus follows The Endless River (LFF 2015) with Moffi, a haunting examination of the violent persecution of gay men under Apartheid. Nicholas (Kai Luke Brummer) has long known he is different, that there is something in him that must stay hidden, denied even. But in South Africa in 1981, all white young men over 16 must serve two years of compulsory military service to defend the Apartheid regime and its culture of toxic racist machismo. When fear pushes Nicholas to accept unspeakable horrors in the hopes of staying invisible, a tender relationship with another recruit becomes as dangerous for them both as any enemy fire.
MONOS (Colombia-Argentina-Netherlands-Germany-Sweden-Uruguay-USA, dir. Alejandro Landes) Alejandro Landes delivers one of the most talked-about films of the year in Monos: a hallucinogenic, intoxicating thriller about child soldiers that has inspired feverish buzz and earned comparisons to Apocalypse Now and Lord of the Flies. High in the mountains of South America, above the billowing clouds but with gunshots heard in the distance, a motley group of child and teenage soldiers train and wait for instruction while in the presence of their American hostage, the Doctora. Despite wearing its influences on its sleeve, the film is a wildly original vision from Landes and screenwriter Alexis dos Santos; the camera prowling over mud and organic decay, cutting swathes through the jungle, all to the strains of Mica Levi’s visceral score.
THE OTHER LAMB (Ireland-Belgium-USA, dir. Małgorzata Szumowska) Małgorzata Szumowska’s (Berlin Jury Prize-winner Mug and LFF 2015’s Body) English-language debut The Other Lamb is a beguiling, genre-tinged examination of life in an otherworldly cult. Selah was born into The Flock, a community of women and girls ruled over by Shepherd, the only male, and a seemingly benevolent but undisputed leader of the strictly regimented and isolated woodland settlement. Selah appears the most perfect of the faithful flock, until unsettling revelations see her devotion shaken. Szumowska offers an eerie ethereal vision that compellingly recalls a range of references, from David Koresh’s Waco, Texas cult to Margaret Atwood’s dystopian science fiction.
THE PERFECT CANDIDATE(Germany-Saudi Arabia, dir. Haifaa Al Mansour) Celebrated Saudi director Haifaa Al Mansour’s The Perfect Candidate is an inspiring drama about Maryam, a highly competent young doctor whose road is paved with compromises and complications – quite literally in the case of a flooded path leading to her clinic, the dangers of which are not taken seriously by local officials. When her attempt to drive to a medical conference is stymied by not having the right papers, she finds her only solution is to sign up to be an electoral candidate, allowing her easy access through road blocks. However, when the responsibility of local politics dawns on her, she ropes in her sisters to challenge Saudi Arabia’s strict social codes and what is expected of a young woman in the country.
ROSE PLAYS JULIE (Ireland-United Kingdom, dir-scr. Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor) Rose Plays Julie is a frank, immersive and gripping feminist drama from Irish directing duo Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor, also known as Desperate Optimists. During a term studying animal euthanasia, veterinary student Rose (Ann Skelly) decides to contact Julie (Orla Brady), the birth mother who gave her up for adoption. But Julie, who is now a successful London-based actress, doesn’t want to know. Undeterred, Rose will not be ignored and curiosity leads her to discoveries that shake the fragile identity she has built for herself. Molloy and Lawlor build a sense of dread inside an exquisite world of immaculate architecture, rendered through an icy performance style and enveloped by a claustrophobic soundtrack.
SAINT MAUD (United Kingdom, dir-scr. Rose Glass) A mysterious nurse becomes dangerously obsessed with saving the soul of her dying patient in director Rose Glass’ divine debut feature, Saint Maud. Having recently found God, self-effacing young nurse Maud, arrives at a plush home to care for Amanda, a hedonistic dancer left frail from a chronic illness. When a chance encounter with a former colleague throws up hints of a dark past, it becomes clear there is more to sweet Maud than meets the eye. Glass’s gothic-tinged psychological drama is by turns insidiously creepy, darkly humorous and heartbreakingly sad; with Jennifer Ehle’s beautifully nuanced performance proving the perfect complement to Morfydd Clark’s star-making turn as the unsaintly Maud.
Patricia Velasquez will be tearing-up theSXSW Film Festival…
The SXSW Film Festival has added the horror film The Curse of La Llorona, starring the 48-year-old Venezuelan actress and model, to its robust lineup.
The film, from New Line, is directed by Michael Chavesand written by Mikki Daughtryand Tobias Iaconis.
In addition to Velasquez, the film stars Linda Cardellini and Raymond Cruz and is based on the real-life Mexican folklore of the ghost of a weeping woman who essentially terrorizes and attempts to take children and scares the hell out of anyone who comes in her way.
The 26th edition of the South by Southwest Conference and Festivalruns March 8-17 in Austin.
She’s already inspired an episode of NBC’s Grimm… And now the notorious La Llorona could be heading to the big screen.
BoulderLight is bringing to life a modern take on the legend of La Llorona (The Weeping Woman), which is widespread in North and South America, in a film called Weep.
Whileplot details are being kept hush-hush, the production company has confirmed that Blood List scribes T.J. Cimfel and David White are penning the screenplay.
Legend has it that a beautiful woman named Maria drowned her children in order to be with the man that she loved, but he spurned her. So the distraught woman drowned herself in a river in Mexico City. Challenged at the gates of heaven as to the whereabouts of her children, the woman isn’t allowed to enter the afterlife until she’s found them. Forced to wander the Earth for all eternity, searching in vain for her drowned children, with her constant weeping giving her the name La Llorona.
In some versions, La Llorona will kidnap wandering children who resemble her deceased kids, or children who disobey their parents. People who claim to have seen her say she appears at night or in the late evenings from rivers or lakes in Mexico. She’s said to cry, “Ay, mis hijos!” which is Spanish for, “Oh, my children!”
“We’re incredibly excited to be bringing this terrifying and rich legend to North American audiences, said the film’s producer J.D. Lifshitz. “David and TJ have helped cook up something truly scary and original, and we hope to thrill fans of the legend as well as garner new ones.
“It’s no big secret that the Hispanic community makes up a substantial portion of moviegoers,” says producer Raphael Margules. “We couldn’t be more enthusiastic about bringing one of the most well-known characters in Hispanic folklore to life on the big screen in a way that both honors ‘La Llorona’ and frightens audiences to their core.
No word on a cast yet, but production on Weep is scheduled to begin this Spring.
This upcoming pre-Halloween weekend is looking pretty grimm for David Barerra…
The Mexican American actor is set to guest star on a NBC’s supernatural crime drama Grimm, which takes place in a world where characters inspired by Grimms’ Fairy Tales exist.
The episode, titled “La Llorona,” is loosely based on the Latin American legend of a woman who drowned her children. According to legend, a beautiful woman named Maria kills her children by drowning them; in order to be with the man she loves. When he rejects her, she kills herself. Challenged at the gates of heaven as to the whereabouts of her children, she isn’t permitted to enter the afterlife until she finds them. So Maria is forced to wander the earth for all eternity, searching in vain for her drowned offspring, with her constant weeping giving her the name La Llorona.
Barrera will portray a resident named Luis Alvarez, whose son is taken by La Llorona.
“The detectives and I spend the rest of the episode searching for him and trying to catch La Llorona,” says Barrera of his guest role. “It’s a really creepy episode, especially if you grew up with the legend of La Llorona.”
The deeper Grimm’s main character Nick (David Giuntoli) digs into the case, the more he realizes the pattern of the kidnapping matches those in the famed “La Llorona” legend, a story with its roots intertwined with his own family’s Grimm history.
Barrera – whose television credits include appearances on Heroes, CSI: Miami, Boston Legal, Medium, Nip/Tuck and 24– enjoyedsharing screen time with his fellow guest star del Castillo.
“Kate was a really nice and approachable person,” says Barrera. “I had met her once before on the set of the PBS series American Family. She was really easy to talk to and is a very talented lady.”
The spooktacular episode featuring Barrera and del Castillo will air 9:00 pm on NBC. Friday, October 26 at 9:00 pm on NBC.
Things are about to get pretty Grimm for Kate del Castillo…
The 39-year-old Mexican actress and telenovela star has signed to guest star on Grimm, NBC’s dark police procedural that takes place in a world in which characters inspired by Grimms’ Fairy Tales exist.
del Castillo will portray a Portland-based detective searching for a child abductor, and that criminal could very well be the legendary La Llorona.
Grimm fans know monsters play a part in each and every episode. And, La Llorona is expected to give the show a Latin twist, by shining a spotlight on one of Latin America’s most famous legends.
According to legend, a beautiful woman named Maria kills her children by drowning them; in order to be with the man she loves. When he rejects her, she kills herself. Challenged at the gates of heaven as to the whereabouts of her children, she isn’t permitted to enter the afterlife until she finds them. So Maria is forced to wander the earth for all eternity, searching in vain for her drowned offspring, with her constant weeping giving her the name La Llorona.
