Lourdes Portillo, the Oscar-nominated filmmaker and activist whose films such as “The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo” and “The Devil Never Sleeps” helped elevate Mexican and LGBTQ stories in the global cinema ecosystem, has died at the age of 80, IndieWire has confirmed.
Born in Mexico in 1943, Portillo moved to America with her family as a teenager and began making films at 21 years old. She made her directorial debut with 1979’s “After the Earthquake,” a short film that focused on the experiences of a Nicaraguan refugee building a new life in San Francisco. Over the next four decades, she went on to establish herself as one of global cinema’s most prominent advocates for the Chicano movement and LGBTQ rights, using her documentary and narrative films to highlight the perspectives of marginalized people.
Her 1986 film “The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo,” a documentary about the eponymous Argentine human rights group that...
Born in Mexico in 1943, Portillo moved to America with her family as a teenager and began making films at 21 years old. She made her directorial debut with 1979’s “After the Earthquake,” a short film that focused on the experiences of a Nicaraguan refugee building a new life in San Francisco. Over the next four decades, she went on to establish herself as one of global cinema’s most prominent advocates for the Chicano movement and LGBTQ rights, using her documentary and narrative films to highlight the perspectives of marginalized people.
Her 1986 film “The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo,” a documentary about the eponymous Argentine human rights group that...
- 4/21/2024
- by Christian Zilko
- Indiewire
Germany’s Beta Film is bringing the love story between a Dutch prince and a beautiful Argentinian financier to the Croisette. The world premiere of “Máxima” screens out-of-competition at Canneseries on April 9 after being teased at the London TV Screenings in late February.
The six-hour-long episodes chronicle the whirlwind romance between the Dutch Crown Prince Willem-Alexander, played by Martijn Lakemeier (“Goodbye Stranger”) and bubbly financier Máxima, played by Argentinian breakout Delfina Chaves (“The Secret of the Greco Family”). Directed by Saskia Diesing alongside Joosje Duk and Iván López Núñez, the series is adapted from Dutch journalist Marica Luyten’s biography on Queen Máxima, “Máxima Zorreguieta: Motherland.”
Speaking to Variety ahead of the “Máxima” premiere at Cannes, Chaves says she feels “extremely lucky” for the opportunity to play the titular Queen onscreen, not only because of the role itself but also because of the scale of the production, which saw the...
The six-hour-long episodes chronicle the whirlwind romance between the Dutch Crown Prince Willem-Alexander, played by Martijn Lakemeier (“Goodbye Stranger”) and bubbly financier Máxima, played by Argentinian breakout Delfina Chaves (“The Secret of the Greco Family”). Directed by Saskia Diesing alongside Joosje Duk and Iván López Núñez, the series is adapted from Dutch journalist Marica Luyten’s biography on Queen Máxima, “Máxima Zorreguieta: Motherland.”
Speaking to Variety ahead of the “Máxima” premiere at Cannes, Chaves says she feels “extremely lucky” for the opportunity to play the titular Queen onscreen, not only because of the role itself but also because of the scale of the production, which saw the...
- 4/9/2024
- by Rafa Sales Ross
- 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
Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
All Quiet on the Western Front (Edward Berger)
Though All Quiet on the Western Front aims to show the brute ugliness of war, it has the DNA of a Hollywood movie, and as such seeks to also valorize death and tragedy as a spiritual sacrifice. Its most morally dubious but cinematically appreciative quality is that it’s entertaining to watch. Battles orchestrate violence in ways very similar to the famous beach-storming sequence of Saving Private Ryan. Sweeping tracking shots of soldiers stampeding across a vast canvas of dirt and hills look stunning on a huge screen; too bad this is going straight to Netflix. – Soham G. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
Argentina, 1985 (Santiago Mitre)
During the early morning of March 24, 1976, a...
All Quiet on the Western Front (Edward Berger)
Though All Quiet on the Western Front aims to show the brute ugliness of war, it has the DNA of a Hollywood movie, and as such seeks to also valorize death and tragedy as a spiritual sacrifice. Its most morally dubious but cinematically appreciative quality is that it’s entertaining to watch. Battles orchestrate violence in ways very similar to the famous beach-storming sequence of Saving Private Ryan. Sweeping tracking shots of soldiers stampeding across a vast canvas of dirt and hills look stunning on a huge screen; too bad this is going straight to Netflix. – Soham G. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
Argentina, 1985 (Santiago Mitre)
During the early morning of March 24, 1976, a...
- 10/28/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
During the early morning of March 24, 1976, a radio and TV broadcast informed the Argentinian people that their country was now under rule of Joint Chiefs General of the Armed Forces, who had overthrown Isabel Perón’s government. Less than a week later Jorge Rafael Videla named himself president, announcing the beginning of one of the deadliest military dictatorships in history. By the time democracy was restored and elections were held again it was 1983; more than 30,000 people had disappeared.
A return to democracy, however, assumed that the reign of violence and fear Argentineans lived under for almost a decade had been just another government. Normalcy was expected as President Raúl Alfonsín took over. But can a country be healed if justice isn’t served? That depends on your idea of justice—or so is the thesis of Santiago Mitre’s Argentina, 1985, which chronicles events surrounding what became known as the Trial of the Juntas,...
A return to democracy, however, assumed that the reign of violence and fear Argentineans lived under for almost a decade had been just another government. Normalcy was expected as President Raúl Alfonsín took over. But can a country be healed if justice isn’t served? That depends on your idea of justice—or so is the thesis of Santiago Mitre’s Argentina, 1985, which chronicles events surrounding what became known as the Trial of the Juntas,...
- 10/24/2022
- by Jose Solís
- The Film Stage
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
Orders from Above: Mitre Recounts Landmark Trial in Lengthy Courtroom Procedural
In 1976, Isabel Perón, wife of the deceased Juan Perón, was deposed as the President of Argentina in a coup d’état by the National Reorganization Process, with Jorge Rafael Videla, aka ‘Hitler of the Pampas,’ assuming control of a dictatorship lasting until 1983 when a democratic government was voted into power (several others would serve as interim leaders before democratic control was reestablished). Chile’s dictator, Augustin Pinochet (who was doing them thing at home), along with support from the US championed by Henry Kissinger, approved this movement which resulted in a reign of terror with an estimated 30,000 members of the population disappeared, dismissed by the military junta as a logical response to quashing the stronghold of guerrillas, known as the People’s Revolution Army, by any means necessary.…...
In 1976, Isabel Perón, wife of the deceased Juan Perón, was deposed as the President of Argentina in a coup d’état by the National Reorganization Process, with Jorge Rafael Videla, aka ‘Hitler of the Pampas,’ assuming control of a dictatorship lasting until 1983 when a democratic government was voted into power (several others would serve as interim leaders before democratic control was reestablished). Chile’s dictator, Augustin Pinochet (who was doing them thing at home), along with support from the US championed by Henry Kissinger, approved this movement which resulted in a reign of terror with an estimated 30,000 members of the population disappeared, dismissed by the military junta as a logical response to quashing the stronghold of guerrillas, known as the People’s Revolution Army, by any means necessary.…...
- 9/29/2022
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Argentina’s Gentil Cine and El Borde, Brazil’s Vitrine and Punta Colorada, Spain’s Doxa and French company 4a4 Productions have teamed for Albertina Carri’s seventh feature “White Roses, Fall!,” a gender-themed road-trip where the main characters include a porn filmmaker, a trans grandmother, non-binary grandchildren and lesbian clairvoyant vampires.
“White Roses, Fall!” centers on Violeta, a young film director who once made an exultant lesbian porn movie and is now hired to make a mainstream and ecological porn feature. She struggles with her ideas about genre and gender, which prevent her from shooting. Then she goes on the run with her feature debut’s actresses, finds a singular island and is struck by a new idea–she now wants to make a documentary about new formulas to express love.
Conceived as a collective project, this feature “requires multiple wills and resources. It will be shot in Argentina and Brazil,...
“White Roses, Fall!” centers on Violeta, a young film director who once made an exultant lesbian porn movie and is now hired to make a mainstream and ecological porn feature. She struggles with her ideas about genre and gender, which prevent her from shooting. Then she goes on the run with her feature debut’s actresses, finds a singular island and is struck by a new idea–she now wants to make a documentary about new formulas to express love.
Conceived as a collective project, this feature “requires multiple wills and resources. It will be shot in Argentina and Brazil,...
- 2/16/2022
- by Emilio Mayorga
- Variety Film + TV
Argentine filmmaker Seba De Caro’s latest outing in the horror genre, “El Viejo” (“The Old Man”) taps collective and childhood memories of Argentina’s military dictatorship and the haunted house fable.
“For me, the possibility of narrating a story that pits childhood against the most terrifying past in the history of my country is a unique experience,” he said. “To some extent, it’s my own story,” he told Variety, noting that since he was born in 1975, images of Argentina’s cruel dictatorship under Lt. Gen. Jorge Rafael Videla are embedded among his childhood memories.
“El Viejo” is among six Latin American projects that participate at the Sanfic-Morbido Lab, whose pitching sessions take place March 23. The project is in development and seeks strategic partners.
“El Viejo” turns on an old man who has been pulled out of an asylum by his sons who can’t afford the fees anymore.
“For me, the possibility of narrating a story that pits childhood against the most terrifying past in the history of my country is a unique experience,” he said. “To some extent, it’s my own story,” he told Variety, noting that since he was born in 1975, images of Argentina’s cruel dictatorship under Lt. Gen. Jorge Rafael Videla are embedded among his childhood memories.
“El Viejo” is among six Latin American projects that participate at the Sanfic-Morbido Lab, whose pitching sessions take place March 23. The project is in development and seeks strategic partners.
“El Viejo” turns on an old man who has been pulled out of an asylum by his sons who can’t afford the fees anymore.
- 3/12/2021
- by Anna Marie de la Fuente
- Variety Film + TV
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