Wagner Moura to Star as Paulo Freire in Upcoming Biopic “Angicos”

Posted on May 21, 2023 by Tom Castaneda

Wagner Moura has landed a new role…

The 46-year-old Brazilian actor, director and filmmaker will star in the upcoming biopic Angicos about Brazilian educator and author Paulo Freire.

Felipe Hirsch will write and direct the film.

Angicos begins in the town of the same name in Rio Grande do Norte in 1963, with the mission of educator Freire (Moura) to fight against illiteracy by teaching the entire village of blue-collar, domestic, and cotton farm workers how to read and write in only 40 hours – a seemingly impossible feat.

Funded by President John F. Kennedy to solidify the South American nation as an ally in the Cold War amidst worldwide social and economic tensions, the success of the endeavor resulted in the planned implementation of Freire’s literary system on a nationwide level. However, before long, political uprisings, a military coup and authoritarian local politicians resisted Freire’s education initiative, destroying texts, deeming the curriculum “subversive,” and eventually sending Freire into exile. These events demonstrated the power of literacy and education against autocratic rule – a testament to the significance of Freire’s methods.

“The enchantment amongst the people of Angicos by the battery-powered slide projectors Freire used in his classes is undeniable, especially as they associated the projections with cinema – something rare in their city at this time, as home television sets had not yet arrived,” said Hirsch. “To that end, Angicos doubles as a film about the power of cinema and the power of knowledge.”

Casting is underway for the film’s ensemble, with principal photography beginning in November of this year.

Moura’s previous credits include television appearances in Narcos, Narcos: Mexico and Mr. & Mrs. Smith, as well as film appearances in Wasp Network, The Gray Man and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.

Hirsch is a Brazilian film and theater director and one of the founders of Ultralíricos, a company where he develops award-winning and critically-acclaimed experiential art. He has been named by O Globo newspaper as one of the most influential thinkers in the country. In 2008, he won the Grammy for his work as the director of the show Homage to Tom Jobim.

In 2009, he directed his first feature film, Sunstroke, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival. In 2016, he directed Severina, his second feature film, which made its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival. Most recently, Hirsch developed the stage project Língua Brasileira with singer/songwriter Tom Zé, and also directed the concert special 2022 for HBO Max, featuring Chico Buarque, Caetano Veloso and many other Brazilian musicians.

Figa Films Acquires International Sales Rights to Clara Linhart’s “Os Sapos”

Posted on November 26, 2022 by Tom Castaneda

Clara Linhart’s latest project is hoping to get global distribution…

Figa Films has acquired the international sales rights to Os Sapos (Frogs) by the Brazilian filmmaker.

Linhart’s previous film Domingo, co-directed with Fellipe Barbosa, premiered at the 75th Venice Film Festival in Venice Days.

The Brazilian production centers on a woman, in her late thirties, invited to an old friends’ get together at a country house. She arrives to find there is no get together and is left instead to spend her weekend with two couples in partial crisis.

In her statement about the film director Linhart says, ‘I want the spectators to recognize themselves in these characters or in the situations they experience. I want people to both laugh and cringe because they can relate. I want to use the camera as a microscope capable of visualizing looks, gestures, and whispers that denote desires, fears, and insecurities.”

Paula is played by Thalita Carauta, who put in an award-winning turn in Narcos director Fernando Coimbra’s searing feature debut A Wolf At The Door, a Horizontes Latinos winner at the San Sebastian Film Festival.

Her character carries the audience with her as what could have been an idyllic getaway thrusts demands on her to be an agony aunt, diffuse tension, thwart advances of friendship and more.

‘I am not interested in portraying women as victims and men as monsters, but in identifying complementary neuroses that are common to so many couples,’ says Linhardt.

These goals from the director are complimented by a screenplay from Renata Mizrahi.

FiGa and Linhardt will no doubt be encouraged by jury and audience wins at the pix-in-post strand of the 26th Festival Audiovisual do Mercosul. It’s a festival that has brought success previously, with her first feature, La Manuela, winning the best doc prize there in 2017.

Sandro Fiorin, co-founder of FiGa Films told Variety: “We have admired Clara’s work for a long time and it’s a privilege to collaborate with her and the team in Brazil. Her film, though comedic at moments, feels like a pressure chamber in an idyllic paradise – leaving us totally breathless.”

Produced by Linhardt and Fellipe Barbosa’s label Gamarosa Filmes, Os Sapos received support from Brazil’s main federal government production fund, the Fundo Setorial do Audiovisual. Additional co-production credits go to Canal Brasil and Telecine.

Chile Enters Fernando Guzzoni’s “Blanquita” into Oscars Best International Film Race

Posted on October 8, 2022 by Tom Castaneda

Fernando Guzzoni may be contending for an Academy Award…

Chile has submitted the 39-year-old film director and scriptwriter’s Blanquita as its official entry for the Best International Film race at the Oscars.

Guzzoni’s film explores a real-life child prostitution scandal that rocked the country in the early 2000s.

The film was chosen as Chile’s official entry by members of the Chilean Film Academy, in its third selection since its creation in 2018.

“Once again we are witnessing both the quality and diversity of our cinema, as well as the criteria and commitment of our partners: 70% of them voted in this process, the most participatory since we as an Academy have been in charge of choosing the film that represents Chile at the Oscars”, said the body’s executive director Josefina Undurraga.

Blanquita world premiered in the Horizons section of the Venice Film Festival this year, winning the best screenplay prize for Guzzoni.

Big screen debutant Laura López stars as an 18-year-old resident of a foster home, who is a key witness in a trial against powerful politicians and businessmen implicated in a child sex scandal. As questions are asked, her role in the scandal becomes unclear.

Award-winning veteran actor Alejandro Goic co-stars as a priest who runs the home where the young woman lives. Other cast members include Amparo Noguera, Marcelo Alonso and Daniela Ramirez.

The feature is inspired by the real-life early 2000s Spiniak Case involving a paedophilia ring run by an entrepreneur and sports club owner, which provided services to a number of high-placed politicians and businessmen.

The case divided Chile as it went through the courts, with doubts being cast on the testimony of key witness who was caught up in the ring as a minor and accused two senators of abusing her.

Guzzoni spent a year investigating the case in-depth before writing his screenplay.

“I am very honored that Blanquita is Chile’s representative at the Oscars and grateful for the support of all my colleagues at the Film Academy,” said Guzzoni.

“The film puts forward in a thriller key an urgent issue about impunity and structural injustice in our country, therefore, it combines audience vocation and a story with high social sensitivity,” he continued.

“We believe that the film being awarded in Venice, the great reception from critics and the support of our international partners and distributors will allow us to carry out a campaign that seeks to make Blanquita’s message visible and position the film in the best possible way.”

Blanquita is Guzzoni’s fourth feature after La Colorina, Carne de Perro and Jesús, about a troubled, teenager who turns to violence in search of thrills.

“Blanquita is a powerful and current movie, which should make an impression on the Academy members. I can’t wait for them to see it,” said New Europe CEO Naszewski.

Chile won the Oscar for best international film in 2018 with Sebastían Lelio’s A Fantastic Woman, while Pablo Larrain’s No was nominated for the 2012-13 race and Maite Alberdi’s The Mole Agent was nominated in the Best Documentary category last year.

The deadline for the Best International Film category closed on October 3, with around 85 titles being publicly declared so far. Last year, there were submissions from 93 countries.

Mexico Enters Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s “Bardo” Into Academy Awards’ Best International Feature Film Race

Posted on September 29, 2022 by Tom Castaneda

Alejandro G. Iñárritu is back in the Oscar race…

Mexico has selected the 59-year-old Mexican five-time Academy Award winner’s Bardo as 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 is Bardo, 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 Labyrinth and 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 for Babel (2007).

Mexico has garnered eight nominations to date with Roberto Gavaldón’s Macario (1960), Ismael Rodriguez’s The 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.

Argentina Submits Santiago Mitre’s “Argentina, 1985” into the Oscars’ Best International Film Race

Posted on September 27, 2022 by Tom Castaneda

Santiago Mitre latest film is hopin’ for a little Oscars glory…

Argentina has submitted the 41-year-old Argentine film director and screenwriter’s political drama Argentina, 1985 into the Academy Awards’ Best International Film race.

Mitre’s drama, which debuted in Competition at the Venice Film Festival, winning the Fipresci prize, is inspired by real-life Argentinian lawyers Julio Strassera and

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.

Mitre wrote the screenplay with Mariano Llinás.

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 Story (1985), Carlos Saura’s Tango (1998), Juan José Campanella’s Son Of The Bride (2001), and Campanella’s The Secret In Their Eyes (2009) and Damian Szifrón’s Wild Tales (2014).

Two of them went on to win the Oscar: The Secret In Their Eyes, exploring a crime through the eyes of numerous witnesses, and The Official Story about an upper-middle class woman who comes to suspect that her adopted daughter could be the child of someone who disappeared under the dictatorship.

Alejandro G. Iñárritu Releases New Trailer for His Upcoming Film “Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths”

Posted on September 22, 2022 by Tom Castaneda

Alejandro G. Iñárritu is sharing his Truths…

The 59-year-old Mexican Oscar-winning filmmaker and screenwriter has released a new trailer for his new film Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths.

The trailer is set to the tune of the Beatles classic “I Am the Walrus.”

The new trailer gives viewers a taste of what Venice Film Festival attendees experienced this month.

The film received six minutes of applause in its three-hour world premiere on September 2 in Venice.

The director has cut 22 minutes of the film since then, bringing the runtime to about 2½ hours.

Written by Iñárritu and Nicolás Giacobone, Bardo is billed as a nostalgic comedy set against an epic personal journey. It chronicles the story of a renowned Mexican journalist and documentary filmmaker who returns home and works through an existential crisis as he grapples with his identity, familial relationships, the folly of his memories as well as the past of his country, all the while seeking answers in his past to reconcile who he is in the present.

Mexican actor Daniel Giménez Cacho plays Silverio Gama in Iñárritu’s first film to be shot in Mexico since 2000’s Amores Perros.

The cast also includes Griselda Siciliani, Ximena Lamadrid and Iker Solano and features production design by Eugenio Caballero and costume design by Anna Terrazas.

Bardo 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.

Bobby Cannavale Signs with Creative Artists Agency (CAA)

Posted on September 21, 2022 by Tom Castaneda

Bobby Cannavale is making management moves…

The 52-year-old half-Cuban American actor has signed with Creative Artists Agency (CAA).

Cannavale has moved from WME, after just opening alongside Ana De Armas at the Venice Film Festival in the Andrew Dominik-directed Blonde.

He next will star in Gracie Otto’s Seriously Red, and opposite Robert De Niro in the Tony Goldwyn-directed Inappropriate Behavior.

Cannavale has had memorable turns in projects from Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman to Boardwalk Empire, Motherless Brooklyn, I, Tonya, Ant-Man, The Station Agent and many others.

In television, Cannavale will next star in Ryan Murphy’s limited series The Watcher with Naomi Watts. He was recently seen in Hulu’s limited series Nine Perfect Strangers, alongside Nicole Kidman and Melissa McCarthy. His other TV credits include Homecoming, Angie Tribeca, Mr. Robot, Master of None, Nurse Jackie and Vinyl.

On the stage, Cannavale is a two-time Tony Award-nominee for Mauritius and The Mother F*cher With The Hat. A member of the LAByrinth Theater Company, the New Jersey-born Cannavale last appeared on stage in the 2020 production of Medea at The Brooklyn Academy of Music.

First Trailer Released for Sally Potter’s Short Film “Look at Me,” Starring Javier Bardem

Posted on August 31, 2022 by Tom Castaneda

Javier Bardem is drummin’ along…

The first trailer has been released for Sally Potter’s short film Look at Me, co-starring the 53-year-old Spanish Oscar-winning actor and Chris Rock ahead of its Out Of Competition premiere in Venice.

The film touches on the issue of male anger.

Rock and Bardem play a gala organizer and drummer, respectively. Tensions between the two men are running high ahead of a performance at the gala by the latter, who violently vents his pent-up stress.

Shot three years ago, the work has taken on fresh resonance after Rock received an infamous slap from Will Smith while hosting the 2022 Academy Awards ceremony in March. Rock confirmed on Monday that he turned down an offer from The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) to host the 2023 ceremony.

The 16-minute work, also featuring American tap dancer Savion Glover, originally was conceived as a short story to be embedded within Potter’s 2020 feature The Roads Not Taken, starring Bardem as a writer in the early stages of dementia.

Produced by Christopher Sheppard at Adventure Pictures, it was shot over five days in New York and London in 2019.

“When I got into the cutting room, I saw how dynamic these titans of the entertainment world are together, their volatile, fiery on-screen relationship offset by the rhythms of the brilliant tap-dancer Savion Glover,” explained Potter.

“The destiny of the story was clear: it had nothing to do with the other project. It had to become a short film, a fast-moving portrait of conflict and love. The result is Look at Me.”

The short film’s screening in Venice coincides with the 30th anniversary of the premiere of Potter’s Oscar-nominated breakout second feature Orlando in competition at the festival in 1992.

The U.K.’s Bankside Films has boarded international sales on the short film ahead of its Venice debut.

“The combination of Sally Potter, Chris Rock and Javier Bardem is truly arresting in this mesmerizing short film which audiences are going to be thrilled to discover,” said Bankside co-founder and director Stephen Kelliher.

Bleecker Street will release the film in the U.S. shortly after its Venice premiere, with screenings at the Metrograph in New York alongside Potter’s Orlando as well as a qualifying run at a Laemmle Theatre in Los Angeles.

Look at Me also will be made available on Bleecker Street’s app early in 2023.

“I am thankful to Bleecker Street for taking short films seriously and am thrilled that they will be bringing Look at Me to audiences in cinemas and online at a time when its themes feel so urgent,” said Potter.

Bleecker Street Acquires North American Rights to Michel Franco’s Family Drama “Sundown”

Posted on October 26, 2021 by Tom Castaneda

Things are looking Bleecker for Michel Franco…

Bleecker Street has acquired the North American rights to Sundown, the latest film from the 42-year-old Mexican writer-director.

The film has its world premiere this fall at the Venice Film Festival. A 2022 theatrical release in the U.S. is in the works for the tense family drama.

Tim Roth reunites with Franco (he starred in Franco’s 2015 pic Chronic) to star in Sundown with Charlotte Gainsbourg, Iazua Larios and Henry Goodman.

Roth and Gainsbourg play Neil and Alice, the core of a wealthy British family on vacation in Acapulco with younger members Colin (Samuel Bottomley) and Alexa (Albertine Kotting McMillan) until a distant emergency cuts their trip short. When one relative disrupts the family’s tight-knit order, simmering tensions rise to the fore revealing long-gestating rifts.

“Michel Franco’s film is an incisive look into the human psyche,” Bleecker Street CEO Andrew Karpen said Tuesday. “Tim Roth and Charlotte Gainbourg give such powerful performances you can’t take your eyes off the screen as their stories unfold.”

Pedro Almodóvar’s “Parallel Mothers” to Have Red-Carpet Premiere at This Year’s AFI Fest

Posted on October 15, 2021 by Tom Castaneda

Pedro Almodóvar is bringing his Mother(s) to this year’s AFI Fest.

After opening the Venice Film Festival and continuing on to the New York Film Festival, the 72-year-old Oscar-winning director’s latest film Parallel Mothers will have a red-carpet premiere at this year’s AFI Fest at the TCL Chinese Theatre on Saturday, November 13.

In the movie, two women, Janis and Ana, played by Penelope Cruz and Milena Smit, coincide in a hospital room where they are going to give birth. Both are single and became pregnant by accident. Janis, middle-aged, doesn’t regret it and she is exultant. The other, Ana, an adolescent, is scared, repentant and traumatized. Janis tries to encourage her while they move like sleepwalkers along the hospital corridors. The few words they exchange in these hours will create a very close link between the two, which by chance develops and complicates, and changes their lives in a decisive way.

Cruz won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at Venice. Parallel Mothers to date is 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.

In total, AFI Fest counts 115 titles (48 Features, 1 Episodic, 49 Short Films and 17 Conservatory Showcase Shorts) of which 51% are directed by women, 40% directed by BIPOC filmmakers and 13% are directed by LGBTQIA+ filmmakers. This year’s program represents 50 countries and includes six World Premieres. The festival runs from November 10-14.

“We are excited to celebrate AFI Fest 2021 in person at the historic TCL Chinese theater and showcase both master filmmakers and emerging voices,” said Sarah Harris, Director of Programming, AFI Festivals. “In a time when we need movies more than ever, we look forward to audiences being inspired by the best films from around the world screening at this year’s AFI Fest.”

Returning filmmakers to AFI Fest are Hany Abu-Assad (Huda’s Salon), Andrea Arnold (Cow), Jacques Audiard (Paris, 13th District), Sean Baker (Red Rocket), Michel Franco (Sundown), Miguel Gomes (The Sugua Diaries), Mahamat-Saleh Haroun (Lingui, The Sacret Bonds), Céline Sciamma (Petite Maman), Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Memoria), and Zhang Yimou (One Second).

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