Cinedigm Acquires U.S Distribution Rights to Vigalondo’s “Open Window”

Posted on April 3, 2014 by Tom Castaneda

Nacho Vigalondo’s first English-language feature film will officially hit U.S. theaters later this year…

Cinedigm has landed the U.S. distribution rights to the 36-year-old Spanish writer/director’s latest film Open Window, which stars Elijah Wood and Sasha Grey.

The film, which premiered recently at SXSW in the Visions section of the film festival, features Wood portraying Nick, who wins an online contest to have dinner with the hottest actress on earth Jill (Grey).

When she cancels, he gets a call from a guy named Chord who offers to make it up to Nick by giving him the tools to spy on Jill from his computer for the rest of the night.

Then the truth begins to reveal itself, with Nick playing a part in a much bigger plan.

“Nacho is one of the most innovative and visionary filmmakers working today. And his talents are once again on full display in this high-tech, action-packed suspense film,” said Vincent Scordino, SVP Theatrical Releasing at Cinedigm.

Vigalondo received an Academy Award nomination and a Best Short Film Award nomination at the European Film Awards for his 2003 short film 7:35 de la Mañana.

He also directed the 2011 film Extraterrestial, a Spanish-language alien invasion horror film that he also wrote.

Cinedigm plans to release Open Window in late summer or early fall 2014.

Luna’s “Chavez” Claims an Audience Award at the South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival

Posted on March 17, 2014 by Tom Castaneda

The future looks like bright for Diego Luna’s biopic on Cesar Chavez…

The 34-year-old Mexican actor-turned-director’s film Chavez about the life of the life of Mexican American labor leader and civil rights activist earned an audience award at the South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival.

Chavez, which stars Michael Peña, America Ferrera, Rosario Dawson and John Malkovich, took home the audience prize in the Narrative Spotlight category.

The film premiered in the Berlinale Special Galas section of the 64th Berlin International Film Festival last month.

Here’s a look at the SXSW Film Festival Audience Award winners:

NARRATIVE FEATURE COMPETITION Audience Award Winner: Before I Disappear Director: Shawn Christensen

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE COMPETITION Audience Award Winner: Vessel Director: Diana Whitten

DOCUMENTARY SPOTLIGHT Audience Award Winner: DamNation Director: Ben Knight & Travis Rummel

NARRATIVE SPOTLIGHT  Audience Award Winner: CESAR CHAVEZ Directors: Diego Luna

VISIONS Audience Award Winner: Yakona Director: Anlo Sepulveda & Paul Collins

MIDNIGHTERS Audience Award Winner: Exists Director: Eduardo Sánchez

EPISODIC Audience Award Winner: Silicon Valley Director: Mike Judge

SXGLOBAL Audience Award Winner: The Special Need Directors: Carlo Zoratti

FESTIVAL FAVORITES Audience Award Winner: The Case Against 8 Director: Ben Cotner & Ryan White

SXSW Film Design Awards  EXCELLENCE IN POSTER DESIGN

Audience Award Winner: Big Significant Things Designer: Corey Holms

EXCELLENCE IN TITLE DESIGN  Audience Award Winner: True Detective Designer: Patrick Clair for Elastic

Rivera’s “Home” to Premiere at the South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival

Posted on February 9, 2014 by Tom Castaneda

Naya Rivera is heading home to Austin this March…

The 27-year-old half-Puerto Rican actress and Glee star’s latest film, Home, will have its world premiere at the South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival (SXSW).

Rivera stars as Vera in the horror thriller, which centers on a realtor who is asked to sell a vacant home. She and her sister ultimately come across the home’s previous tenant: a teenage girl who sold her soul to the devil.

In addition to Rivera, the Nicholas McCarthy-direct film’s cast includes Catalina Sandino Moreno, Ashley Rickards, Wyatt Russell and Ava Acres.

Home has been scheduled in the fesival’s Midnighters section, which is described as scary, funny, sexy, controversial – provocative after-dark features for night-owls and the terminally curious.

The SXSW Film Conference and Festival will run from March 7-15 in Austin, Texas.

Here’s a look at this year’s chosen films in the Midnighters category:

The Guest
Director: Adam Wingard, Screenwriter: Simon Barrett
A soldier on leave befriends the family of a fallen comrade, only to become a threat to all around him when it’s revealed he’s hiding dangerous secrets from his past.
Cast: Dan Stevens, Maika Monroe, Leland Orser, Lance Reddick, Sheila Kelley

13 Sins
Director/Screenwriter: Daniel Stamm, Screenwriter: David Birke
A cryptic phone call sets off a dangerous game of risks for Elliot, a down-on-his luck salesman. The game promises increasing rewards for completing 13 tasks, each more sinister than the last.
Cast: Mark Webber, Rutina Wesley, Devon Graye, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Richard Burgi, Tom Bower, Ron Perlman (World Premiere)

Among The Living (France)
Director/Screenwriter: Julien Maury, Alexandre Bustillo
After horror favorites Inside and Livid, Maury and Bustillo pair up again for a horror-thriller at the cross roads between Stand by Me and Friday the13th. Cast: Anne Marivin, Béatrice Dalle, Francis Renaud, Fabien Jegoudez, Nicolas Giraud (World Premiere)

Exists
Director: Eduardo Sánchez, Screenwriter: Jamie Nash
Five friends on a camping weekend in the remote woods of East Texas struggle to survive against a legendary beast that is stronger, smarter and more terrifying than they would have ever believed exists. Cast: Chris Osborn, Dora Madison Burge, Roger Edwards, Denise Williamson, Samuel Davis (World Premiere)

Starry Eyes
Directors/Screenwriters: Dennis Widmyer, Kevin Kolsch
In the city of dreams, a desperate actress will do whatever it takes for the role of a lifetime… no matter what the cost. Cast: Alexandra Essoe, Amanda Fuller, Fabianne Therese, Noah Segan, Shane Coffey (World Premiere)

Home
Director/Screenwriter: Nicholas McCarthy
When a realtor is asked to sell a vacant home, she and her sister cross paths with its previous tenant: a teenage girl who sold her soul to the devil. Cast: Naya Rivera, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Ashley Rickards, Wyatt Russell, Ava Acres (World Premiere)

Honeymoon
Director/Screenwriter: Leigh Janiak, Screenwriter: Phil Graziadei
Young newlyweds find their honeymoon spiraling mysteriously into chaos.
Cast: Rose Leslie, Harry Treadaway, Ben Huber, Hanna Brown (World Premiere)

Late Phases
Director: Adrián García Bogliano, Screenwriter: Eric Stolze
When deadly attacks from the forests beset a secluded retirement community, it is up to a grizzled veteran to figure what the residents are hiding.
Cast: Nick Damici, Ethan Embry, Erin Cummings, Tom Noonan, Lance Guest (World Premiere)

Oculus
Director/Screenwriter: Mike Flanagan, Screenwriter: Jeff Howard
As children, two siblings witnessed their parents’ harrowing descent into madness and death. Now, as adults, they reunite to expose and destroy the supernatural entity responsible: the Lasser Glass – a legendary mirror their parents owned. Cast: Karen Gillan, Brenton Thwaites, Rory Cochrane, James Lafferty, Katee Sackhoff (U.S. Premiere)

Stage Fright
Director: Jerome Sable
Stage Fright tells the story of a snobby musical theater camp terrorized by a bloodthirsty masked killer who despises musical theatre. “Scream” meets “Glee” in this genre-bending R-rated horror-musical. Cast: Allie MacDonald, Douglas Smith, Brandon Uranowitz, Kent Nolan, Melanie Leishman
(World Premiere)

Velasco Selected for Film Independent’s Directing Lab

Posted on February 10, 2013 by Tom Castaneda

The future looks bright for Aldo Velasco…

The Mexican filmmaker and playwright has been selected by Film Independent as one of the participants for its 12th annual Directing Lab.

The annual program is designed to assist promising directors develop new narrative feature films, improve their craft and advance their filmmaking careers in a nurturing yet challenging environment. The selected filmmakers are provided digital camera and sound packages and a cash stipend to shoot scenes, as well as access to a variety of production resources.

Velasco, born in Guadalajara, Mexico, has seen his short films screened at the Sundance Film Festival, SXSW and Los Angeles Film Festival, among others. In 2009, he received a grant from ITVS (Independent Television Service) to write and direct the short film Tent City for the first season of the online Futurestates series. Aldo is also an editor of feature films. Recently, he edited Chittagong the epic Indian historical drama directed by Bedabrata Pain. He also edited Grace Leeʼs political mock documentary Janeane From Des Moines, which recently premiered at the Toronto Film Festival.

Velasco will work on his project, God Love Stu, true story of Stu Rasmussen, who convinced his conservative hometown in Oregon to elect him as the first transgender mayor in history.

But Velasco isn’t the only Latino selected to the Film Independent’s Directing Lab.

Brazilian-American filmmaker Alex Moratto will take part in the lab. He’s a graduate of the UNC School of the Arts, School of Filmmaking where he was a Kenan Scholar and studied film directing under Peter Bogdanovich. His thesis film The Other Side won the 2010 Jury Award from the Directors Guild of America for Latino filmmaker. Moratto attended Werner Herzogʼs 2010 Rogue Film School Seminar and was the recipient of the 2012 North Carolina Arts Council Artist Fellowship for Screenwriting.

Moratto’s project is the Untitled Amazon Project. When armed loggers threaten to evict their family from their rural home in the Amazon, two brothers smuggle rare lumber in hopes of selling it on the black market for money to save their land.

The lab, which began this week, runs through mid-April.

Rodriguez to Perform on the Festival Circuit

Posted on January 19, 2013 by Tom Castaneda

Call it the second coming of Sixto Rodríguez…

The 70-year-old Mexican-American singer/songwriter, the man at the center of Malik Bendjelloul‘s Oscar-nominated documentary Searching for Sugar Man, has lined up festival dates lined up at Coachella, Glastonbury and Primavera in Spain that will follow tours of South Africa and Australia.

The new dates are part of Rodriguez’s astonishing rediscovery after releasing two albums for Clarence Avant‘s Sussex label in the early 1970s that didn’t sell anywhere except in South Africa where his legend grew along with his record sales.

Bendjelloul’s documentary, which will be released on DVD on January 22, chronicles the myths and realities of Rodriguez’s story and his 1998 concerts in South Africa.

“It’s a different level that we’re at now,” Rodriguez said during a recent visit to Los Angeles to perform on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. “I can’t imagine it getting much busier. This is pretty busy. You gotta stay balanced and normalized, pace yourself. At this late date I have a new perspective on things because of the success of the music now.”

The demand for Rodriguez has picked up dramatically in the last year for Rodriguez, who had done a few club performances per year since 2008 when Light in the Attic re-released his two albums, Cold Facts and Coming From Reality. Rodriguez appeared at film festivals like Sundance and SXSW in early 2012 and performed solo at most of his shows. He has been using various bands to back him since moving up to larger clubs and small theaters in the fall.

“We did 13 dates in the UK, all 3,000-seaters, and when we go back it will be Royal Albert Hall,” Rodriguez says.

60 Minutes, which did a piece on Rodriguez prior to the film opening, has contacted him again about possibly chronicling his tour of South Africa in February.

Besides the Oscar nomination, Searching for Sugar Man is up for BAFTA, Producers Guild and WGA awards. It won the International Documentary Association‘s best feature and best music awards and the National Board of Review named it the best documentary of the season.

Juanes to Launch North American Tour Next May

Posted on November 15, 2012 by Tom Castaneda

Following his highly successful MTV special, Juanes is taking his unplugged show on the road in North America…

The 40-year-old Colombian rockero will be performing in smaller U.S. and Canadian venues next spring.

The U.S. leg of Juanes’ Loud and Unplugged Tour will kick-off on Sunday, May 26 at Humphreys Concerts By the Bay in San Diego. The Colombian singer-songwriter will then continue on to Grand Prairie, Texas; Toronto, and Montreal, and performs at Philadelphia’s historic Trocadero Theatre on June 21. Additional dates in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta, New York and others cities are expected to be announced soon.

The tour follows the success of Juanes MTV Unplugged special, which received five Latin Grammy Award nominations. The Unplugged special, released last May, returned the soul to a spectacular career that Juanes had acknowledged was “at a crossroads.”

“I’m trying to remember who I was,” he said during a Q&A at SXSW last March. “All those dreams and all those ideas I had when I started in music.”

The Loud and Unplugged concerts will echo the intimate yet celebratory tone of the record, on which Juanes is joined by his Latin roots rock band, as well as guests likes tropical music star Juan Luis Guerra, who produced the album, and legendary Spanish balladeer Joaquin Sabina.

Last week, Juanes and Guerra announced that they’ll donate 100% of the proceeds of their previously planned November 24 concert at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn to The American Red Cross to help victims of Hurricane Sandy.

Juanes Concert Dates (and Venues):

May 26: San Diego (Humphrey’s Concerts By the Bay)
June 6: Grand Prairie, TX (Verizon Theatre at Grand Prairie)
June 15: Toronto, (Massey Hall)
June 16: Montreal (Metropolis)
June 21: Philadelphia (Trocadero Theatre)

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Celebrating the Latino Influence

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