Neuigkeiten

A profound and poetic passage and a playful Fitzcarraldo allusion aside, Omniboat: A Fast Boat Fantasia is a shockingly bad picture. Omnibus flicks are only as good as their best passages and as bad as their worst. While the film, made collectively by several talented filmmakers working under the banner of the Borscht Corporation, doesn’t reach a Movie 43-level of obnoxiousness, it comes close in a few sections. Its inclusion in Sundance’s Next category represents a troubling lack of judgment. The category was originally meant for lower-budget indies and emerging talent. Unfortunately, someone’s potentially stunning little indie didn’t make the cut and rather this over-bloated picture featuring several Sundance alumni was accepted instead. At my screening, the film inspired a few more walkouts than Flying Lotus’ nearly pornographic Kuso did last year. Kuso, however, worked while Omniboat was met with much silence when shown to a sober audience at 12:30 pm.

“Essentially, cinema is dead, and this fellowship is bringing it back to life,” went part of the on-stage intro for the showcase screening at this year’s Borscht. “The people that most of you know are old, and we’re young, and I think we’re more exciting.” At the screenings I attended, Borscht co-founders Lucas Leyva and Jillian Meyer repeatedly, shamefacedly noted that they’d started the festival with the intent of never showing the films of anyone over 30—only to, alas, themselves cross that decade […]...

“Essentially, cinema is dead, and this fellowship is bringing it back to life,” went part of the on-stage intro for the showcase screening at this year’s Borscht. “The people that most of you know are old, and we’re young, and I think we’re more exciting.” At the screenings I attended, Borscht co-founders Lucas Leyva and Jillian Meyer repeatedly, shamefacedly noted that they’d started the festival with the intent of never showing the films of anyone over 30—only to, alas, themselves cross that decade […]...

Comprising a portion of our top 50 films of last year, Sundance Film Festival has proven to yield the first genuine look at what the year in cinema will bring. We’ll be heading back to Park City this week, but before we do, it’s time to highlight the films we’re most looking forward to, including documentaries and narrative features from all around the world.

While much of the joy found in the festival comes from surprises throughout the 11 days, below one will find our 20 most-anticipated titles. Check out our picks and for updates straight from the festival, make sure to follow us on Twitter, and stay tuned to all of our coverage here.

20. The Truffle Hunters (Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw)

There will be no shortage of timely, issue-driven documentaries at Sundance Film Festival, as is the case each year, and we’re looking forward to seeing a...

As film nonprofits go, Miami’s Borscht Corp has a different way of doing things. Whether it’s buying a speedboat as the first step in fundraising for a feature, or “canceling” a secret party on social media to throw off the cops, Borscht’s organizational methods are as experimental and visionary as the work it produces. That includes the Borscht Film Festival, a “quasi-yearly” event showcasing films, sculpture, performances, and installations by emerging regional filmmakers.

While Borscht may sound obscure, it lies at the heart of Barry Jenkins’ success. When Borscht co-founder (and “Moonlight” co-producer) Andrew Hevia saw Miami native Jenkins’ first feature, the San Francisco-set “Medicine for Melancholy,” he became determined to bring Jenkins back to Miami to shoot a film. Borscht commissioned a short film from Jenkins, “Chlorophyl,” for the 2011 festival. “That sort of re-awakened [Jenkins] to the city,” said Borscht co-founder Lucas Leyva, an accomplished filmmaker and producer himself.

Direct from Sundance Blogs:

Come Swim

Credit: John GuleserianNight Shift

Credit: Estee OchoaThe Robbery

Credit: Lowell Meyer

Sixty-eight short films will complement the lineup of longer fare at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. The short film slate aligns thematically with other Festival categories, including Midnight and The New Climate, the Festival’s new programming strand highlighting climate change and the environment. The Festival hosts screenings in Park City, Salt Lake City and at Sundance Mountain Resort January 19–29.

The Institute’s support for short films extends internationally and year-round. Select Festival short films are presented as a traveling program at over 50 theaters in the U.S. and Canada each year, and short films and filmmakers take part in regional Master Classes geared towards supporting emerging shorts-makers in several cities. Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Program, supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and in partnership with The Guardian and The New York Times’ Op-Docs,...

With their feature film line-up now set (see here and here), Sundance have unveiled their 2017 short program, which in past years has included such gems as World of Tomorrow, Glove, and Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash. This year’s line-up includes Kristen Stewart‘s Come Swim, featuring a score by St. Vincent, as well as Project X, the latest film from Citizenfour director Laura Poitras.

Check out the full line-up of 68 films below, along with the first look at Stewart’s film.

U.S. Narrative Short Films

American Paradise / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Joe Talbot) — A desperate man in Trump’s America tries to shift his luck with the perfect crime in this story inspired by true events.

Cecile on the Phone / U.S.A. (Director: Annabelle Dexter-Jones, Screenwriters: Annabelle Dexter-Jones, Ellen Greenberg) — Overwhelmed by doubt and confusion after her ex-boyfriend’s return to New York, Cecile embarks on...

Sundance Film Festival just gave attendees 68 new reasons to look forward to the January event with the announcement of their short films program that features several titles for genre fans to keep an eye on, including the creature short feature Kaiju Bunraku, the suburban satanic cult-centric Fucking Bunnies, and the post-apocalyptic Dawn of the Deaf.

We have the official press release below with full details, and stay tuned to Daily Dead for our upcoming coverage of the festival.

Press Release: Park City, Ut — Sixty-eight short films, announced today, will complement the lineup of longer fare at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. The short film slate aligns thematically with other Festival categories, including Midnight and The New Climate, the Festival’s new programming strand highlighting climate change and the environment. The Festival hosts screenings in Park City, Salt Lake City and at Sundance Mountain Resort January 19-29.

The Institute’s support for...

Short film lovers, never fear, the Sundance Film Festival has not forgotten about you. After rolling out their various feature categories, the annual winter festival has now announced their full short film lineup, including narratives, documentaries, animated offerings and midnight chillers. The slate is packed with picks from such diverse filmmakers as Laura Poitras (who will screen her latest, “Project X,” co-directed with Henrik Moltke, at the festival) and Kristen Stewart (who will make her directorial debut with “Come Swim”), along with Annabelle Dexter-Jones, Zachary Zezima, E.G. Bailey and many, many more.

If you’re hoping to find the next big thing in independent filmmaking, start here. Among the shorts the festival has shown in recent years are “World of Tomorrow,” “Thunder Road,” “Whiplash,” “The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom” and “Gregory Go Boom.”

Read More: Sundance 2017 Announces Competition and Next Lineups, Including Returning Favorites and Major Contenders

Mike Plante,...

Last week, we had fun chiming in on how Sundance 2016 might look like with our Sundance predictions list. Our series was exactly one short from the promised 75. We decided to switch things up this year. Our last pick is reserved for what is a next to impossible, needle in the haystack guess at what films might break into the short film sections. Out of the 8000 plus submissions the Sundance Short Film programmers will receive, they’ll end up selecting a little less than a hundred short films. Here are some ideas as to who and what could show up.

The Bulb and The Procedure

No stranger to Park City, Calvin Reeder has supplied the fest with features such as The Oregonian (2011), The Rambler (2013) and could very well bring this Kickstarter pairing to public access television blitz and X-Files love. Production wrapped in August. Actors Linas Phillips and Christian Palmer star.

I’ll be moderating a Q&A tomorrow night, Thursday, October 22, in Miami with three of the city’s most compelling and original filmmakers: Jillian Mayer, Monica Pena and Carla Forte. It’s the closing night of this edition of the Miami Beach Cinematheque’s “Speaking in Cinema” series, and we’ll be discussing the individual works by these directors that have played at this series as well as the filmmakers’ general practice and thoughts on the Miami scene. Filmmaker readers will be familiar with Jillian Mayer’s work as she, along with partner Lucas Leyva, were selected for our 25 New Faces list in 2012. […]...

I’ll be moderating a Q&A tomorrow night, Thursday, October 22, in Miami with three of the city’s most compelling and original filmmakers: Jillian Mayer, Monica Pena and Carla Forte. It’s the closing night of this edition of the Miami Beach Cinematheque’s “Speaking in Cinema” series, and we’ll be discussing the individual works by these directors that have played at this series as well as the filmmakers’ general practice and thoughts on the Miami scene. Filmmaker readers will be familiar with Jillian Mayer’s work as she, along with partner Lucas Leyva, were selected for our 25 New Faces list in 2012. […]...

There are many places to find air conditioning in New York City this weekend, but, if you ask us, you should seek it at the Made in New York Media Center, where Ifp’s Screen Forward is mounting a five-night Borscht Corporation retrospective. Borscht, if you don’t know, is the wildly creative, culturally prescient and litigation-inviting collective of Miami filmmakers (and their friends) who are behind some of today’s best short films and certainly one of our best film festivals. Headed by Lucas Leyva and Jillian Mayer, Borscht produces a semi-annual Miami festival centered around commissioned short films as well as […]...

There are many places to find air conditioning in New York City this weekend, but, if you ask us, you should seek it at the Made in New York Media Center, where Ifp’s Screen Forward is mounting a five-night Borscht Corporation retrospective. Borscht, if you don’t know, is the wildly creative, culturally prescient and litigation-inviting collective of Miami filmmakers (and their friends) who are behind some of today’s best short films and certainly one of our best film festivals. Headed by Lucas Leyva and Jillian Mayer, Borscht produces a semi-annual Miami festival centered around commissioned short films as well as […]...

Two up-and-coming Native talents, Razelle Benally (Navajo/Oglala Lakota) and Randi LeClair (Pawnee) have been selected for the Sundance Institute Native Filmmakers Lab, where the two writers will receive grants for production and targeted support during a residential Lab to prepare for production of their short films.

The Lab takes place in Santa Fe, New Mexico July 10-14. The Lab is a highlight of the Institute’s year-round work with Native American and Indigenous filmmakers and is one of the 24 residential labs the Institute hosts each year to discover and foster the talent of emerging independent artists in film, theater, new media and more recently episodic content.

The Native Filmmakers Lab builds on the Institute’s former NativeLab to include grants to support production of the Fellows’ short films – a first for the Institute’s renowned independent artist Labs. The writers and directors serving as Creative Advisors for this year’s Lab include: Janicza Bravo ("Gregory Go Boom" and "Pauline Alone"), Beck Cole ( "Plains Empty" and "Here I Am" ), Sydney Freeland ("Drunktown's Finest" and "HoverBoard" ), Aurora Guerrero ( "Pura Lengua" and "Mosquita y Mari" ) and Lucas Leyva ( "#PostModem" and "Life and Freaky Times of Uncle Luke" ).

N. Bird Runningwater (Cheyenne/Mescalero Apache), director of the Sundance Institute Native American and Indigenous Program, said, “Our Native Filmmakers Lab responds to the unique need within our community to support Native American artists with grants and mentorship focusing on the crucial phase of producing their films. I am excited to embark on this creative journey with these two bright female directors as they begin the tactical phase of creating their films.”

The Native Filmmakers Lab will be followed by the inaugural Native Writers Workshop, jointly hosted by Sundance Institute and the Institute of American Indian Arts (Iaia). The Workshop will support six emerging Native storytellers who seek to share their voices in film and television: Gabe Abeyta (Taos Pueblo and Navajo from Santa Fe, Nm), Katie Avery (Iñupiaq from Los Angeles, CA), Kelly D'Angelo (Haudenosaunee from Los Angeles, CA), Felicia Nez (Navajo from Albuquerque, Nm), Blue Tarpalechee (Muscogee from Santa Fe, Nm) and Kaherawaks Thompson (St. Regis Mohawks of Akwesasne from Memphis, Tn).

They will be mentored by: Beck Cole (Writer, "Here I Am" and "Black Comedy" ), Jason Gavin (Writer, "Greek, "Friday Night Lights"), Derek Santos Olson (Writer, "Friday Night Lights" ), Sierra Ornelas (Writer, "Selfie" and "Happy Endings" ), Alex Rivera (Writer/Director, "Sleep Dealer" ) and Joan Tewkesbury (Writer, "Nashville" and "Thieves Like Us" ).

True to founder Robert Redford’s original vision, the Institute maintains a strong commitment to supporting Native and Indigenous filmmakers. The Native program has built and sustained a unique support cycle for Indigenous artists through grants, labs, mentorships, a fellowship program at the Sundance Film Festival, and screenings for Native communities to inspire new generations of storytellers. Currently operating programs in the United States, Canada, and formerly New Zealand and Australia, the Institute has established a rich legacy of work by supporting more than 300 Native and Indigenous filmmakers, including Taika Waititi, Chris Eyre, Sterlin Harjo, Billy Luther, Andrew Okpeaha MacLean, Aurora Guerrero, Sydney Freeland and Yolanda Cruz.

There are the two artists/projects selected for the 2015 Native Filmmakers Lab:

"I Am Thy Weapon"

Razelle Benally (Navajo/Oglala Lakota)

A young artistic Navajo woman relives memories of her deceased sister, that in turn help her heal and battle against the modern-day adversities of reservation life.

Razelle Benally is of Oglala Lakota and Navajo blood. Benally’s firsthand experience while filming and traveling with renowned skateboard company Apache Skateboards has helped her hone a self-developed style of editing and directing. She most notably gained acclaim for her short documentary "The Humble," and six-minute experimental piece "Love is a Losing Game." Benally is one of five young women featured in the 2011 documentary, "Apache Chronicle."

She has shown in galleries in Long Beach, CA and in Phoenix, Az. Her films have been shown nationally and internationally at select screenings in Portland, Winnipeg Manitoba Canada, and Sweden. She earned a third place award in the 2007 Aihec Film Festival, and is the 2010 Santa Fe Indian Market jury-awarded winner for Best Documentary in Swaia’s Classification X. Benally is an alumna of the 2012 Sundance Institute Native Filmmakers Lab.

"The Other Side of the Bridge"

Randi LeClair (Pawnee)

After two high school football stars are found dead, decade’s long racial tensions sizzle in a small-town diner.

Randi LeClair is an enrolled member of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma. She graduated from Oklahoma State University with a BA in English (Creative Writing) and is currently a graduate student in the University of Oklahoma’s Master of Professional Writing program. Recently, Randi and her husband, Todd, signed an option agreement for the screen adaptation of Todd’s book, "60 Feet Six Inches and Other Distances from Home: The (Baseball) Life of Mose YellowHorse," which follows the story of Pittsburg Pirates pitcher Mose YellowHorse, the first full-blood American Indian in the major leagues.

In addition to screenwriting, Randi also engages her love of literary fiction and is currently working on a collection of short stories. As well, she also serves as co-editor for "Out of the Stars: An Anthology of Pawnee Writing, Stories, and Art." Her dream is to help bring Native Cinema to the mainstream. She is an alumna of the 2010 Sundance Institute Native Filmmakers Lab.

Razelle Benally and Randi LeClair will take part in the Lab, set to run in Santa Fe, New Mexico, from July 10-14.

Benally (Navajo/Oglala Lakota) attends with I Am Thy Weapon, while LeClair (Pawnee) brings The Other Side Of The Bridge.

The Lab includes grants and tactical support for the production of short films and is a highlight of the Institute’s year-round work with Native American and Indigenous filmmakers.

Writers and directors serving as creative advisors include: Janicza Bravo, Beck Cole, Sydney Freeland, Aurora Guerrero and Lucas Leyva.

The Native Filmmakers Lab will be followed by the inaugural Native Writers Workshop, jointly hosted by Sundance Institute and the Institute of American Indian Arts.

The workshop will support six emerging Native storytellers who seek to share their voices in film and television.

They are: Gabe Abeyta (Taos Pueblo and Navajo from Santa Fe, New Mexico); Katie Avery (Iñupiaq from Los Angeles, California); Kelly...

MTV has a new series sure to give viewers a unique perspective on the city of Miami, Florida. The television network’s niche digital content studio, dubbed (other), released the web series No Seasons on June 11, 2015.

Hosted by local filmmaker and artist Julian Yuri Rodriguez, No Seasons takes viewers into the crazy and weird underbelly of Miami with narrative storytelling and dramatic reenactments. A release calls the series a “a journey full of parties, tattoos, love liaisons, and a monkey – not necessarily in that order. All eight episodes of No Seasons are based on Rodriguez’s actual experiences within this eccentric culture.

MTV’s No Seasons was created by Jillian Mayer and Lucas Leyva. The duo head up the Borscht Corp, which consists of Miami-based artists whose work has appeared in various museums and cultural festivals such as Sundance, SXSW, Slamdance, Guggenheim Museums, and the Museum of Modern Art.

No...

MTV is now piling on the short form digital content game with the release of No Seasons under their MTV (other) brand. Created by Borscht Corp.’s Jillian Mayer and Lucas Leyva, the web series sees Miami-bred Julian Yuri Rodriguez (director of the very entertaining Lake Mahar) spinning stories about his life in the city. Fusing recollections with recreations, No Seasons functions as a gonzo porthole into Rodriguez’s life and relationships. Check out the first in eight episodes above.

MTV is now piling on the short form digital content game with the release of No Seasons under their MTV (other) brand. Created by Borscht Corp.’s Jillian Mayer and Lucas Leyva, the web series sees Miami-bred Julian Yuri Rodriguez (director of the very entertaining Lake Mahar) spinning stories about his life in the city. Fusing recollections with recreations, No Seasons functions as a gonzo porthole into Rodriguez’s life and relationships. Check out the first in eight episodes above.

Representing Latin American, U.S. Latino, and non-Latino artists who explore multicultural relationships from singular perspectives, the films at this year's Sundance Film Festival include an array of stories that showcase the diverse creative voices that exist within the Latino filmmaking community.

This list includes both films that have been created fully or partially by Latin American or U.S. Latino filmmakers, as well as those that deal with themes and ideas relevant to the Latino experience in or outside the Unites States, even if these were not created by Latino artists. The increasing interest in these stories testifies to how rapidly Latinos are becoming constant and strong voices in all areas of the film industry.

In order to highlight as many of these talented creators and films as possible, we’ve created a list that includes all the films at the festival that are helmed by or that incorporate Latino talent and those that focus on a specific aspect pertinent to the Latino community. Some are obvious standouts like Argentina's acclaimed dark comedy "Wild Tales" or Colombia's "Liveforever" from Carlos Moreno.

Then there are those who at first sight might not fit the parameters of what one could think is a Latino film. This is the case of films like Eli Roth's "Knock Knock," which is an English-language horror film whose co-writers, producers, and part of the cast are originally from Chile. There is also " Aloft," a drama in the Spotlight section, which is set between Canada and Minnesota and stars Jennifer Connelly. It was written and directed by Academy Award nominated Peruvian filmmaker Claudia Llosa.

The third case includes those films that deal with subjects that have Latino elements or that explore diversity in the U.S in some way. Examples of these are "The Strongest Man" from Kenny Riches, a film narrated in Spanish by its protagonist "Beef," a charming, yet lost Cuban-American man in Miami; or "Cartel Land" by Matthew Heineman, which focuses on the violence shared between Mexico and U.S due to the drug-fueled chaos that afflicts the region. On a lighter note, there are films like “City of Gold” by Laura Gabbert, in which Los Angeles is seen through its ethnic food and local idiosyncrasies.

In an effort to give exposure to those films in the program that don’t get as much attention, the list below starts with the Shorts Programs and ends with the Dramatic Premieres. Each title is linked to its page on the Sundance website where screening times and locations can be found. Regardless of what films you watch at the festival, it is likely that your eyes will be expose to the work of some amazingly talented Latino filmmaker, writer or actor, or those who appreciate our stories as much as we do.

Shorts

"Spring" (Primavera) - Shorts Program 2

Latino Talent: Dir. Tania Claudia Castillo

Latino Theme: The short was created theough Mexico's renowned Centro de Capacitacion Cinematografica (Ccc), and it focuses on

Elba, an introverted, lonely 14-year-old, who wants to bond with her sister Fernanda before she leaves home.

"Papa Machete" - Shorts Program 3

Latino Theme: Two hundred years ago, Haitian slaves defeated Napoleon's armies with the same tool used to work the land: the machete. "Papa Machete" explores a martial art evolved from this victory through the practice of one of its few remaining masters.

"Making it in America" - Shorts Program 4

Latino Theme: A Salvadoran immigrant who fled to the United States as a teenager is now a single mother striving to build a future for her family in Los Angeles.

"Stop" - Shorts Program 5

Latino Talent: Dir. Reinaldo Marcus Green, Producer Rashaad Ernesto Green, Cinematographer Federico Cesca, Actors J.W. Cortes and Joshua Rivera.

Latino Theme: A young man's livelihood is put to the test when he is stopped by the police on his way home. Although not specific the Latino experience, the subject matter speaks to recent events involving minority groups and the use of excessive force by police

"Palm Rot" - Animation Spotlight

Latino Talent: Dir. Ryan Gillis Lizama

Latino Theme: An old Florida fumigator discovers a mysterious crate in the Everglades that ruins his day.

"The Sun Like a Big Dark Animal" (El Sol Como un Gran Animal Oscuro) - Animation Spotlight

Latino Talent: Directors Ronnie Rivera and Christina Felisgrau, Screenwriter Bernardo Britto, Producer Lucas Leyva

Latino Theme: This is Spanish-language short about a computer and a woman fall in love, only to be torn apart because of their inappropriate feelings for each other.

"{The And} Marcela & Rock" - Documentary Shorts Program 1

Latino Talent: Dir. Topaz Adizes, Assistant Directors Armando Croda and Sebastian Diaz

Latino Theme: Exploring the intimate spaces of modern-day relationships, this is the best couples therapy session you'll ever witness.

Special Events

Sundance Institute Short Film Challenge

Latino Talent: Directors Diego Luna, Gael García Bernal, Marialy Rivas

Latino Theme: Sundance Institute Short Film Challenge presents five winning narrative and documentary short films selected from 1,387 submissions representing 69 different countries.The project was designed to use the transformative power of storytelling to generate discussion, shift perceptions around extreme hunger and poverty, and harness the power of independent film to create a global conversation about these issues.

Sundance Kids

"The Game Maker" (El Inventor de Juegos)

Latino Talent: Dir. Juan Pablo Buscarini

New Frontier

"Liveforever" (Que Viva la Musica)

Latino Talent: Dir. Carlos Moreno, Screenwriters Alberto Ferreras and Alonso Torres, alongside the crew and cast.

Latino Theme: Hovering over the river that segregates Cali, Colombia, into haves and have-nots, a haunting presence identifies a perilous willingness among the populace to do anything that is asked of it. A blonde teenage girl, knowing she must change her life, leaves her well-appointed house and flagrantly gives herself over to this tolerant city, saying "yes" to everything provocative it offers her. Only the music tethers her body and spirit together, even as she reaches for redemption through a bold, delicious, and resplendent self-destruction. Inspired by the 1977 best-selling cult novel by Andres Caicedo.

Park City Midnight

"Knock Knock"

Latino Talent: Screenwriters Guillermo Amoedo & Nicolás López, Producers Miguel Asensio and Nicolás López, Cinematographer Antonio Quercia, Actresses Lorenza Izzo and Ana de Armas

"Reversal"

Latino Talent: Dir. José Manuel Cravioto, Producers Alex Garcia, Rodolfo Marquez and Daniel Posada, Editor Jorge Macaya, Actress Bianca Malinowski

Spotlight

"Aloft"

Latino Talent: Dir. Claudia Llosa

"Wild Tales" (Relatos Salvajes)

Latino Talent: Dir. Damián Szifrón, as well as most of the cast and crew.

Latino Theme: Nominated for the Best Foreign Language Academy Award, this Argentine marvel is conformed of 6 stories about people giving in to their most savage instincts. Forgiveness is out o the question because revenge has never been so deranged and insanely comedic.

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"H."

Latino Talent: Dir. Daniel Garcia

"Nasty Baby"

Latino Talent: Dir. Sebastián Silva, Producers David Hinojosa, Juan de Dios Larraín and Pablo Larraín

Latino Theme: Brooklyn artist Freddy (Sebastian Silva) is baby obsessed. His new project centers around newborns, and he and his boyfriend, Mo, have recruited their best friend, Polly (Kristen Wiig), to help them have a baby. On top of dealing with the stress of opening an art installation and the complications of conceiving a child via artificial insemination, the three begin to be harassed by The Bishop, a mentally ill neighborhood man. An escalating series of incidents threaten to derail the comfortable lives these people have built for themselves.

"Tangerine"

Latino Talent: Actress Kiki Kitana Rodriguez

Latino Theme: It's Christmas Eve in Tinseltown, and Sin-Dee is back on the block. Upon hearing that her pimp boyfriend hasn't been faithful during the 28 days she was locked up, the working girl and her best friend, Alexandra, embark on a mission to get to the bottom of the scandalous rumor. Their rip-roaring odyssey leads them through various subcultures of Los Angeles, including an Armenian family dealing with their own repercussions of infidelity.

"The Strongest Man"

Latino Talent: Actor Robert Lorie

Latino Theme: Beef is a beefy Cuban man who believes that he is The Strongest Man in the World. He doesn’t want children, but he wants to tell his grandchildren about his life as The Strongest Man in the World. His best friend is a slight Korean man named Conan. Conan makes him think about things he normally doesn’t think, like the fact that Beef thinks in Spanish, rather than English. Illy, the adopted daughter of a rich art collector, brings out an anxious side in Beef. But it is when his prized possession—a solid gold BMX bicycle—is stolen from him that Beef finds and loses so much more than he thought he could.

World Dramatic Competition

"The Second Mother"

Latino Talent: Dir. Anna Muylaert and her cast and crew

Latino Theme: Val is the kind of live-in housekeeper who takes her work seriously. She wears a crisp maid's uniform while serving perfect canapés; she serves her wealthy São Paulo employers day in and day out while lovingly nannying their teenage son whom she's raised since toddlerhood. Everyone and everything in the elegant house has its place until one day, Val’s ambitious, clever daughter Jessica arrives from Val’s hometown to take the college entrance exams. Jessica’s confident, youthful presence upsets the unspoken yet strict balance of power in the household; Val must decide where her allegiances lie and what she's willing to sacrifice.

U.S. Documentary Competition

"Cartel Land"

Latino Theme: In the Mexican state of Michoacán, Dr. Jose Mireles, a small-town physician known as "El Doctor," shepherds a citizen uprising against the Knights Templar, the violent drug cartel that has wreaked havoc on the region for years. Meanwhile, in Arizona's Altar Valley—a narrow, 52-mile-long desert corridor known as Cocaine Alley—Tim "Nailer" Foley, an American veteran, heads a small paramilitary group called Arizona Border Recon, whose goal is to halt Mexico’s drug wars from seeping across our border.

"City of Gold"

Latino Theme: As the unabashed cradle of Hollywood superficiality and smoggy urban sprawl, Los Angeles has long been condemned as a cultural wasteland. In the richly penetrating documentary odyssey City of Gold, Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic Jonathan Gold shows us another Los Angeles, where ethnic cooking is a kaleidoscopic portal to the mysteries of an unwieldy city and the soul of America.

"Western"

Latino Theme: In his classic novel A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens famously wrote "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." That line sums up the story ofWestern, the latest film from Bill and Turner Ross, a documentary destined to become a classic itself. Eagle Pass, Texas, and Piedras Negras, Mexico, two towns on opposite sides of the border have shared a harmonious history until the specter of cartel violence threatens to divide them.

U.S. Dramatic Competition

"Me and Earl and the Dying Girl"

Latino Talent: Dir. Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

"Dope"

Latino Talent: Actors Tony Revolori, Michael Flores, Allen Maldonado, Lidia Porto, and Sergio Garcia

Latino Theme: Malcolm is a high school geek with a high-top fade, carefully navigating life in The Bottoms, one of the toughest neighborhoods in Inglewood, California. He and his fellow outcasts share a voracious appreciation for all things '90s hip-hop, opting to sport Cross-Colours and Z. Cavariccis at the risk of being clowned at school. He dreams of attending Harvard, but first he has to make it home every day. When a drug dealer takes a shine to Malcolm and invites him to his birthday party, Malcolm’s crew is swirled into a hilarious blender of offbeat characters and bad choices where redemption can only be found in Bitcoin.

"The Stanford Prison Experiment"

Latino Talent: Dir. Kyle Patrick Alvarez, Actors Moises Arias and Armand Vasquez

Documentary Premieres

"Fresh Dressed"

Latino Theme: With funky, fat-laced Adidas, Kangol hats, and Cazal shades, a totally original look was born—Fresh—and it came from the black and brown side of town where another cultural force was revving up in the streets to take the world by storm. Hip-hop, and its aspirational relationship to fashion, would become such a force on the market that Tommy Hilfiger, in an effort to associate their brand with the cultural swell, would drive through the streets and hand out free clothing to kids on the corner.

Dramatic Premieres

"Experimenter"

Latino Talent: Dir. Michael Almereyda and Actor John Leguizamo

"Last Days in the Desert"

Latino Talent: Dir. Rodrigo García and Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki

"Lila & Eve"

Latino Talent: Producers Tanya Lopez and Priscilla Porianda, Actors Jennifer Lopez, Andre Royo, Marisela Zumbado and Rey Hernandez

Latino Theme: When teenage Stephon is killed in a drive-by shooting, his mother, Lila, slips into a paralyzing grief. She joins a support group for women who have lost children to crime and meets Eve, a woman whose little girl was killed the same night as Stephon. Lila and Eve form a friendship, and Lila begins to crawl out of her depression. She develops a burning desire to find justice for her son, and she presses the authorities for answers, but they are slow-moving and ineffective. It’s Eve who has the idea first—join together, find the drug dealers who shot Stephon dead, and bring them to justice themselves.

The Sundance Institute has announced the six projects set for this year’s New Frontier Story Lab, a hands-on initiative for developing content that converges at the intersection of “film, visual art, media, live performance, music and technology.” The 2014 creative teams and projects are Karim Ben Khelifa and Chloé Jarry (The Enemy), Dandypunk and Darin Basile (Heart Corps), Tracy Fullerton and Lucas Peterson (Walden, A Game), Braden King and Matthew Moore (Weather), Hasan Minhaj and Greg Walloch (Sakoon/Paint The Town) and Navid and Vassiliki Khonsari (1979 Revolution). Previously supported projects include #PostModem (from 25 New Faces Jillian Mayer and Lucas Leyva), Kill […]...

The Sundance Institute has announced the six projects set for this year’s New Frontier Story Lab, a hands-on initiative for developing content that converges at the intersection of “film, visual art, media, live performance, music and technology.” The 2014 creative teams and projects are Karim Ben Khelifa and Chloé Jarry (The Enemy), Dandypunk and Darin Basile (Heart Corps), Tracy Fullerton and Lucas Peterson (Walden, A Game), Braden King and Matthew Moore (Weather), Hasan Minhaj and Greg Walloch (Sakoon/Paint The Town) and Navid and Vassiliki Khonsari (1979 Revolution). Previously supported projects include #PostModem (from 25 New Faces Jillian Mayer and Lucas Leyva), Kill […]...

If you've been to film festival shorts program recently and found yourself watching some sort of weird, wonderful, and wacky short, there is a chance it was brought to you in part by the Borscht Corporation. Perhaps you caught Jillian Mayer & Lucas Leyva's #PostModem at Sundance, Nyff, SXSW, Dallas, Boston Underground, AFI Fest, or one of 30 other festivals it has played in the last year (full list). If not, we've got the full short musical odyssey for you down below. Go watch it! A comedic satirical sci-fi pop-musical based on the theories of Ray Kurzweil and other futurists. It's the story of two Miami girls and how they deal with the technological singularity, as told through a series of cinematic tweets. #PostModem...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

Miami-based filmmakers Jillian Mayer and Lucas Leyva — two of Filmmaker‘s 25 New Faces — have been touring the festival circuit with their short film, #PostModem, which they describe like this: “[It's] a comedic satirical sci-fi pop-musical based on the theories of Ray Kurzweil and other futurists. It’s the story of two Miami girls and how they deal with the technological singularity, as told through a series of cinematic tweets.” For the first time this insanely infectious riff on virality and uploaded consciousness is online. Watch it above, and try to keep its K-Pop-styled song out of your head.

Miami-based filmmakers Jillian Mayer and Lucas Leyva — two of Filmmaker‘s 25 New Faces — have been touring the festival circuit with their short film, #PostModem, which they describe like this: “[It's] a comedic satirical sci-fi pop-musical based on the theories of Ray Kurzweil and other futurists. It’s the story of two Miami girls and how they deal with the technological singularity, as told through a series of cinematic tweets.” For the first time this insanely infectious riff on virality and uploaded consciousness is online. Watch it above, and try to keep its K-Pop-styled song out of your head.

Programme includes David Mackenzie’s Starred Up and Ti West’s The Sacrament.

The International Film Festival Rotterdam (Jan 22 - Feb 2) has added a programme of films focusing on “contemporary survival” to its thematic Signals section.

How to Survive… will feature 12 independent films from around the world range from Spanish survival horror La cueva (In Darkness We Fall) by Alfredo Montero to Jang Cheol-soo’s Korean spy thriller Secretly Greatly, and from Canadian internet found footage documentary Hoax_canular by Dominic Gagnon to Iranian apocalyptic visions in From Tehran to Heaven by Abolfazl Saffary.

It will also feature David Mackenzie’s British prison drama Starred Up, Us director Ti West’s found footage horror The Sacrament, and White Bear, an episode from Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror series that aired in the UK.

In the How to Survive… Clinics, experts will teach visitors forgotten survival skills. In a workshop by Rotterdam-based Wild Vleesch, visitors can learn...

The Sundance Institute has announced the six projects selected for its New Frontier Story Lab, running October 23-28 at the Sundance Resort in Utah. Inspired by the New Frontier section from the Sundance Film Festival , and built on the Institute’s Lab model, the Lab specifically supports artists innovating the art and form of storytelling at the convergence of film, visual art, media, live performance, music and technology.The Lab draws talent and expertise from all of Sundance Institute’s creative programs, including Feature Film, Documentary Film, and the Sundance Film Festival.The creative teams and projects selected for the 2013 New Frontier Story Lab are: #PostModemJillian Mayer and Lucas Leyva#PostModem is a comedic, satirical sci-fi musical set in a future Miami on the brink of the convergence of artificial and human intelligence. In this complex storyworld of live and digital spaces, audiences are immersed in the narrative of a...

The 7th annual Sydney Underground Film Festival, which runs this year on September 5-8 at the Factory Theatre, opens with a real bang when they will screen cult filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky’s latest cinematic odyssey, The Dance of Reality. This is Jodorowsky’s first film in over twenty years and is an imaginative and playful quasi-autobiography.

The rest of the four-day celebration is packed with more film oddities and excursions into surreal and transgressive territory. One particular highlight that is not to be missed is Don Swaynos’ incredibly crowd-pleasing comedy Pictures of Superheroes, about a slacker cleaning woman’s descent into an absurd world she can’t escape. Read the Underground Film Journal’s review of Pictures of Superheroes here.

Other twisted fiction films screening include Drew Tobias’s sick and twisted See You Next Tuesday, Cody Calahan’s apocalyptic Antisocial and Lloyd Kaufman’s highly-anticipated sequel Return to Nuke ‘Em High: Vol.

I’m pretty sure that four years back when Trevor Groth and John Cooper (Sundance programming tandem who overhauled, switched over and re-defined the Spotlight section) knew just how significant the Next section (“less is greater than”) would become in the American independent-filmmaking sphere. Tomorrow, the Sundance Institute debuts its first ever Next Weekend program in Los Angeles and over the course of one weekend, denizens of La will get to experience a slew of films from the 2013 program, including much talked about titles like Hannah Fidell’s A Teacher (pictured above), Eliza Hittman’s It Felt Like Love and Alexandre Moor’s Blue Caprice. More intriguingly, a pair of titles not included in the original fest lineup, like Madeleine Olnek’s The Foxy Merkins and Chadd Harbold’s How to Be a Man make an appearance in the mini-festival event, which we assume were not ready in time to make the initial selection,...

One of the most brilliantly out-there shorts of recent years, Jillian Mayer and Lucas Leyva’s Life and Freaky Times of Uncle Luke has finally made it online, and you’d be a fool not to check it out. It’s the film that put the pair on the map when it played at the festival circuit in 2012, and then later justified their inclusion our “25 New Faces” list last year. Calling the film “both very smart and gleefully nuts,” this is what Scott wrote on Life and Freaky Times of Uncle Luke in his profile of Mayer and Leyva for the …...

The product of the brilliantly inventive and mischievous minds of 2012 “25 New Faces” Lucas Leyva and Jillian Mayer, the animated intergalactic basketball fantasia Adventures of Christopher Bosh in the Multiverse! premiered last December at the Borscht Film Festival. The movie played at the Miami event run by Leyva and Mayer despite the pair having received letters from the NBA and Miami Heat player Bosh — played in the film by another 2012 “New Face,” Terence Nance — demanding the film be suppressed due to “an infringement of [Bosh's] publicity rights, privacy rights, and common law trademark rights.” Now, wonderfully, the film …...

Hot on the heels of their first wave announcement, the amazing crew behind the Stanley Film Festival, which runs at the iconic and historic Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Co May 2-5, has selected The Purge as its opening night film.

Paired with the festival’s opening night “Shining Gala” party, The Purge stars Ethan Hawke, Lena Headey, Max Burkholder, and Edwin Hodge, and is produced by Blumhouse Productions.

“In the near future, a daring new edict keeps the nation safe. Called simply The Purge, it is a 24 hour release from all laws. When vicious outsiders break into an innocent family’s home on the one night that crime is legal each year, everyone will find out how far they would go to protect themselves. “

The festival also announced Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers, a horror comedy about “a couple vacationing in rural England who can't seem to shake the series...

After announcing a solid feature line-up, The Stanley Film Festival has announced their short film screenings and special presentations. They have also revealed that their opening night film will be The Purge:

April 9, 2013 (Denver, Co) – The Stanley Film Festival (Sff), presented by NBC Universal’s Chiller, announced today its Opening Night film, Centerpiece film, special presentations and shorts programs for the inaugural event that will run May 2 – 5, 2013 in Estes Park, Colo. Celebrating the best in independent horror cinema, Sff will showcase a full slate of features, shorts, panels, student competitions and special events – with Festival headquarters set at The Stanley Hotel. The haunted landmark opened in 1909 and was the inspiration for Stephen King’s Overlook Hotel in The Shining.

The Stanley Film Festival opens Thursday, May 2, with a Gala Presentation of Universal Pictures’ The Purge, a speculative thriller directed by James DeMonaco and starring Ethan Hawke, Lena Headey, Adelaide Kane and Max Burkholder.

Next week in Miami, hundreds of bloggers, marketers, corporate brand reps, music and film artists will be checking in at the Eden Roc Hotel to attend Hispanicize, a social media platform for today’s Latino innovators. Now in its 4th year, the marketing, interactive, film and music conference was founded by Manny Ruiz, a PR businessman who adopted the term Hispanicize to signify the transformation and growing impact of Latino culture into traditional American mainstream and who created this convergence to amplify the success of diverse voices in social media.

In part modeled after SXSW and Ted Talks, Hispanicize aims to be a digital multi-media launchpad and idea stimulating conference tailored towards Latinos. The event’s core journalistic DNA is confirmed by guest co-chair, Soledad O Brien, who just signed off on her morning CNN show capping off a decade of reporting for the news outlet. For the second year the South Beach setting will host yacht parties, beachside receptions, breakfast and lunch networking, and 100 plus talks, featuring such entrepreneurs in social media like the Latina Mom Bloggers, panels like How Brands and Agencies are Engaging and Collaborating with Latino Bloggers and Getting on Corporate Boards. The heavily sponsored event, (Procter & Gamble is the presenting sponsor) will include a Diversity Tech Leaders Summit presented by Sprint in which the lesser-known business stories of diverse tech and social media entrepreneurs who are making their marks in digital media will be highlighted.

I have to admit I knew nothing of Hispanicize up until a couple months ago. Curious, I went on the website and I found the lingo a tad superfluous and hyperbolic. Words like iconic and mighty are used to describe the young but clearly flourishing event. Then again, this kind of grandiose speak is typical Public Relations so it makes sense given it is a partnership with Hispanic Public Relations Association (Hpra) and the Public Relations Society of America (Prsa).

I reached out to the founder Manny Ruiz to find out more about the mission of the event and found his enthusiasm and excitement for what he considers a pioneering movement infectious. It’s hard to argue that this mass tech and entertainment crossroads gathering makes for an incredible networking opportunity. Ruiz called it a “Uniting of these industries to create a symphony” and went on to note it is much more powerful for bloggers to converge at the same place with journalists, marketers, digital, music and film innovators then if you had them out there individually and remotely. Before I knew it I was put in touch with with Roman Morales, the Film Showcase Organizer and I came onboard as Programmer for the film component. A big reason I stepped in was because I was particularly attracted to presenting Us independent Latino films to an audience heavy with social media influence and bloggers, to see if it would indeed create a higher level of buzz, publicity and exposure from the community.

Along with a special screening of Filly Brown days before its national theatrical release, this year Hispanicize will screen six features including the high profile sneak preview of The Weinstein Company’s Aftershock, the horror comedy produced and starring Eli Roth, directed by Chilean filmmaker Nicolas Lopez (Que Pena tu Vida, Promedio Rojo). Also, straight from SXSW the music industry and character-driven documentary Los Wild Ones about the Wild Records label and family of Mexican rockabilly acts. With the exception of Aftershock, all the films reflect a taste of the diaspora of unique, bi-cultural Us narratives, and notably are all first features. Three of the films, Blaze You Out, Filly Brown and Mission Park are being distributed by Lionsgate labels Pantelion and Grindstone Entertainment. Meanwhile, seeking distribution is Dreamer written and directed by Salvador born Jesse Salmeron, a poignant and timely story starring and produced by Jeremy Ray Valdez about an upwardly mobile American whose paralyzed by the fear of being deported. Los Wild Ones is also seeking distribution and should find considerable traction within and outside hard core music fan circles.

My personal pride and joy however has to be the shorts film showcase. Portraying visionary quests for identity, love, truth and legacy and created by multicultural emergent voices from San Antonio, Miami, La, NYC, Oaxaca and Puerto Rico. This is the medium in which to find provocative, daring and versatile young generation of fresh voices who you can expect will blow up big soon. To name just a few, the filmmakers include Jillian Mayer and Lucas Leyva of the Borscht corporation, Zoé Salicrup Junco, the filmmaker of Gabi who workshopped her feature script of the short at San Antonio’s CineFestival’s Latino Screenwriters Project, Victor Hugo Duran the Colombia Film grad whose short, Fireworks played at the La Film Festival last year and is currently shooting his first feature in Mexico called La Victoria, and Steve Acevedo, the director of El Cocodrilo which is a powerful and urgent film about a journalist played by Jacob Vargas on the run from narcos, who participated in NBCU Directing Fellowship.

I’ll try not to go all Spring Breaker debauchery when I head to Miami next week. I’m very interested in immersing myself in the Hispanicize program to cover the dialogue and scrutinize the impact so stay tuned for my report.

See below to check out full film list and links. Hispanicize will take place April 9 – 13. For information on how to attend and the schedule click here.

Blaze You Out

(USA, 2013, 90 min)

Writers/Directors: Mateo Frazier, Diego Joaquin Lopez

Cast: Veronica Diaz Carranza, Elizabeth Pena, Q’orianka Kilcher, Mark Adair Rios, Elizabeth Pena

Logline: An unyielding young woman ventures into the ruthless underworld of the town’s heroin trade in order to save her younger sister’s life.

Dreamer

(USA, 2013)

Writer/Director: Jesse Salmeron

Cast: Jeremy Ray Valdez, Isabella Hofmann, Cory Knauf

Logline: Joe Rodriguez is an All American young man. He’s amiable, well educated and attractive. He’s graduated from college and is working and excelling in his field. He’s on his way to achieving the American Dream. That is until his employer discovers his undocumented status and the life he’s worked so hard for begins to crumble around him. He must face the possibility of losing his livelihood, his family and even himself.

Los Wild Ones

(USA, 2013, 95 min)

Director: Elise Salomon Writers: Ryan Brown, Elise Salomon

Featuring Luis Arriaga, Gizzelle, the Rhythm Shakers and more

Logline: Wild Records is an La indie music label comprised of young Hispanic musicians, it is run by Irishman, Reb Kennedy. Wild is an unconventional family, reminiscent of the early days of Sun Records, all of its musicians write and perform 50s Rock ‘n Roll. If Wild is going to continue to grow and reach broader audiences, its current business model will cease to work.

Aftershock

(USA, 2012, 90 min)

Director: Nicolás López

Writers: Guillermo Amoedo, Nicolás López and Eli Roth

Cast: Andrea Osvart, Ariel Levy, Eli Roth

Logline: In Chile, a group of travelers who are in an underground nightclub when a massive earthquake hits quickly learn that reaching the surface is just the beginning of their nightmare.

Mission Park

(USA, 2013, 120 min)

Writer/Director: Bryan Ramirez

Cast: Jeremy Ray Valdez, Walter Perez, Fenanda Romero, Joseph Julian Soria, William Rothaar, Jesse Borrego

Logline: Four friends from the rough side of town grow apart when two are consumed by a life of crime, and the other two become FBI agents sent deep undercover – to bring down those childhood friends.

Shorts Film Showcase~

#Postmodem

(USA, 2012, 13 mins)

Writers/Directors: Lucas Leyva, Jillian Mayer

Cast: Jillian Mayer, Kayla Delacerda, Amy Seimetz, Arly Montes, Jesse Miller, Shivers Thedog

Logline: A comedic, satirical, sci-fi pop musical based on the theories of Ray Kurzweil and other futurists, #PostModem is the story of two Miami girls and how they deal with technological singularity, as told through a series of cinematic tweets.

@borschtcorp

Fireworks

(USA, 2012, 11 mins)

Director: Victor Hugo Duran

Writer: Kevin James McMuillin

Cast: Roger Cruz, Alberto Castañeda, Irene Sorto, Azucena Benitez, Edgar Vanegas, Julio Duran, Victor Hugo Duran, Kevin James McMullin

Logline: During the Fourth of July in South Los Angeles, a teenage boy and his brother scour the neighborhood for fireworks in order to win the admiration of a girl.

Twitter: @victorhugoduran

Clara Como El Agua

(USA, 2012 10 min)

Writer/Director: Fernanda Rossi

Cast: Kathiria Bonilla León, Sixta Rivera, Rubén Andrés Medina, Alfonso Peña Ossoria, Stephanie Quiles Reyes, Eyra Aguero

Logline: Clara is the only light-skinned and clear-eyed girl in an all-black neighborhood. Teased incessantly, the children claim her unknown father is actually a “gringo” tourist. However, Clara was told a different story, and to find out the truth, she will venture into the magical waters of the bioluminescent bay all on her own.

Echo Bear

(USA, 2012 6min)

Writer/director: Yolanda Cruz

Cast: Joe Nunez, Hugo Medina, Tzina Carmel, Donato López, Lobo Manet

Logline: Bear, a single gay Latino man in L.A.’s Echo Park neighborhood, looks for love online. Fearing traffic, he searches locally, but soon discovers how geographic convenience can turn to heartache overnight.

Vincent Valdez: Excerpts For John

(2012, USA, 12 min)

Directed by Mark and Angela Walley

Logline: Two years in the making, this beautifully shot and perfectly paced short documentary captures the creative process of painter Vincent Valdez, as the artist works on a series of pieces dedicated to a childhood friend John Holt Jr. an Army combat medic who died in 2009 after serving in Iraq.

El Cocodrilo

(2012, 15 min)

Director: Steve Acevedo

Writer: Alfredo Barrios, Jr.

Cast: Jacob Vargas Hugo Medina Shannon Lucio Manuel Uriza

Logline: A Mexican journalist and a cartel assassin collide in a diner, with tragic consequences for both.

Reinaldo Arenas

(USA, 2012, 3:29min)

Writer/director Lucas Leyva

Shark: Alberto Ibarguen Man: Epifanio Leyva

Logline: Told from the point of view of a dying shark, 'Reinaldo Arenas' metaphorically captures the current state of the aging Cuban-American exile community, many of whom have still not come to terms with the Communist Revolution that changed their lives forever. The film culls from various Cuban films and works of literature to create not a singular voice, but a feeling of a particular moment in time

@borschtcorp

Gabi

(2012, USA 20 min)

Writer/Director: Zoe Junco

Cast: Marisé Alvarez , Dalia Davi , Roy Sanchez Vahamonde , Aris Mejias

Logline: A Puerto Rican saying haunts single women in their 30’s: “If such a woman is not married by this time, she must be a slut, a lesbian, or a prude.” This is the story of that woman...

@gabifilm...

Here is a complete listing of the films that were shown/covered by the Ioncinema.com team comprised of Nicholas Bell (Nb), Jordan M. Smith (Js) and Eric Lavallee (El). We’ll be populating this page up until March.

U.S. Dramatic Competition

Afternoon Delight – Jill Soloway: Nb (★★ 1/2): Review

Ain’T Them Bodies Saints – David Lowery: El (★★★ 1/2), Nb (★★★ 1/2): Review // Interview

Austenland- Jerusha Hess: Nb (★): Review

C.O.G.- Kyle Patrick Alvarez: Js (★★ 1/2), Nb (★★ 1/2): Review

Concussion – Stacie Passon: El (★★★), Js (★★★ 1/2), Nb (★★★): Review // Interview

Emanuel And The Truth About Fishes – Francesca Gregorini: Js (★★★), Nb (★★★ 1/2): Review

Fruitvale – Ryan Coogler: El (★★★), Js (★★★★★), Nb (★★★★): Review // Interview // Video

In A World… – Lake Bell: El (★★★): Review

Kill Your Darlings – John Krokidas: El (★★★), Nb (★★★): Review

The Lifeguard – Liz W. Garcia: El (★★ 1/2): Review

May In The Summer...

Jillian Mayer and Lucas Leyva screen their latest short, #PostModem, at the Sundance Film Festival this week, but today they’ve dropped “MegaMega Upload,” the music video that takes over the movie at one point. The filmmakers say of #PostModem, “[it's] a comedic satirical sci-fi pop-musical based on the theories of Ray Kurzweil and other futurists. It’s the story of two Miami girls and how they deal with the technological singularity, as told through a series of cinematic tweets.” I saw the short at Borscht 8 this year; Mayer and Leyva’s lo-fi riff on uploaded consciousness is super smart. Indeed, you …...

Glad you asked. Now that the entire programming slate has been announced for the 2013 edition of the Sundance Film Festival, let’s take a look at the representation of Latinos in the broadest, most diverse sense, because that is what that ill-defined lump category encompasses. {Full disclosure: I work as a Programming Associate for the Festival. These are not reviews but an insider breaking-it-down preview}

At first glance the Latino representation may not seem obvious. Nor may it seem as strong as the films and filmmakers from the African-American and Lgbt community representing, or the record breaking number of female directors’ – each group highly visible by their nature. We may not have a Mosquita y Mari or Filly Brown, two fiction films, which broke out of the festival this past year, but we do have two hugely relevant and urgent documentaries, Narco Cultura which explores the phenomenal music and social culture being shaped and perpetuated by the influence of Mexico’s violent drug cartels, and Who Is Dayani Cristal? an innovative doc-fiction hybrid produced by Gael Garcia Bernal that will hopefully re-divert much needed attention back to the Us/Mexico border. By the way, Who is Dayani Cristal? screens in the high profile Day One slot.

What’s Latino anyway?

I personally embrace the responsibility of changing the conversation as to what constitutes representing American Latinos. First, by focusing on both the above-the- line-talent (filmmaker or actor) And storyline/subject. The second part is highlighting the second, third, fourth and so-on generations of filmmakers. What about the filmmakers in the festival like Kyle Patrick Alvarez (C.O.G), Liz W. Garcia (The Lifeguard) and Eduardo Sanchez (S-vhs horror anthology and co-director of the infamous Blair Witch Project)? I don’t know these filmmakers personally so I can’t speak to how they might view their cultural identities and how it informs their work, if at all. But I do believe it is worth pointing out and feeling good about these last names being out there as part of the mainstream fabric. It is similar to how Robert Rodriguez does not identify himself as a Mexican-American yet his last name has been key to driving the younger Latino generation in feeling a proud connection as an American and not just “dash” American.

Chile is still hot

There are three films from Chilean filmmakers. In unprecedented fashion – because that’s how Sundance likes to roll- there is a repeat of last year with two in competition, El Futuro by Alicia Scherson (mostly taking place in Italy) and Magic Fairy by Sebastian Silva, an alumnus who broke out in 2009 with La Nana. In the section Spotlight aka “Movies we love and don’t care if they’ve traveled the festival circuit”, is Pablo Larrain’s No starring Gael Garcia Bernal. Chilean cinema is hot and king of engrossing character-driven fare. What we are seeing is a boom on two fronts; an invigorating new generation of provocateurs (Marialy Rivas’s Young & Wild comes to mind) and a slightly older generation of equally exciting filmmakers who continue to sustain their careers with their distinct voice (like Pablo Larrain along with Andres Wood).

So now lets dive in and look at the list. Loglines copied from official press release – Bold Italics are my comments.

Us Dramatic Competition

Fruitvale / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Ryan Coogler) — The true story of Oscar, a 22-year-old Bay Area resident who crosses paths with friends, enemies, family and strangers on the last day of 2008. Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Octavia Spencer, Melonie Diaz, Ahna O’Reilly, Kevin Durand, Chad Michael Murray.

Puerto-Rican Diaz delivers a fiercely moving performance embodying the girlfriend of Oscar Grant who was with him that fateful day. Diaz is no stranger to the festival. She’s previously been at the festival with four films including seminal indie American Latino story, Raising Victor Vargas 2002 and comedies like Hamlet 2 20008. Why homegirl hasn’t gotten more props for her mad acting skills I don’t know, but this girl is wildly talented and Fruitvale showcases her dramatic chops.

Us Documentary Competition

Narco Cultura / U.S.A. (Director: Shaul Schwarz) — An examination of Mexican drug cartels’ influence in pop culture on both sides of the border as experienced by an La narcocorrido singer dreaming of stardom and a Juarez crime scene investigator on the front line of Mexico’s Drug War.

Absolutely arresting photography that works in giving weight to the violent images the public has become numb from seeing. I predict some of my hard core brown and proud friends might focus and hence diminish this film based on the fact that this bi-cultural, Mexican-American subject is made by non-Latino filmmakers. It could be argued as a valid point. When it comes to documentaries a legit question to make when evaluating is “What makes This person the right one to tackle This subject? What is their connection?” Let’s watch it to find out, then give consideration to what other docs are currently out there on this same timely topic made by Latinos, and without bias regard their depth and artistic merit.

World Cinema Dramatic Competition

Crystal Fairy / Chile (Director and screenwriter: Sebastián Silva) — Jamie invites a stranger to join a road trip to Chile. The woman’s free and esoteric nature clashes with Jamie’s acidic, self-absorbed personality as they head into the desert for a Mescaline-fueled psychedelic trip. Cast: Michael Cera, Gabby Hoffmann, Juan Andrés Silva, José Miguel Silva, Agustín Silva. World Premiere. Day One Film

This marks Sebastian’s third appearance at the festival following La Nana and Gatos Viejos. Remember what I said about character driven? Silva excels at getting at spilling out the insides of his protagonists.

The Future / Chile, Germany, Italy, Spain (Director and screenwriter: Alicia Scherson) — When their parents die, Bianca starts to smoke and Tomas is still a virgin. The orphans explore the dangerous streets of adulthood until Bianca finds Maciste, a retired Mr. Universe, and enters his dark mansion in search of a future. Cast: Manuela Martelli, Rutger Hauer, Luigi Ciardo, Nicolas Vaporidis, Alessandro Giallocosta. World Premiere

Scherson’s last film, Turistas screened at various film festivals including the Los Angeles Film Festival in 2009. Shot in another country and in a different language, The Future continues the filmmaker’s incisive capturing of the strong female led journey.

World Cinema Documentary Competition

Who is Dayani Cristal? / United Kingdom (Director: Marc Silver) — An anonymous body in the Arizona desert sparks the beginning of a real-life human drama. The search for its identity leads us across a continent to seek out the people left behind and the meaning of a mysterious tattoo. World Premiere. Day One Film

An extraordinary cinematic and symbolic approach to the border crossing genre, this meta reflexive journey retraced by none other than Gael Garcia Bernal imagines the grueling experience of a migrant and who he might have been. Bernal has been lending his star power to the social justice causes that move him and you can tell its genuine.

New Frontier

Halley / Mexico (Director: Sebastian Hofmann, Screenwriters: Sebastian Hofmann, Julio Chavezmontes) — Alberto is dead and can no longer hide it. Before surrendering to his living death, he forms an unusual friendship with Luly, the manager of the 24-hour gym where he works as a night guard. Cast: Alberto Trujillo, Lourdes Trueba, Hugo Albores

As unsettling it is watch, its as deep to ponder, this incredibly-shot first feature had its world premiere at the Morelia Film Festival and its inclusion in the most daring section of the festival speaks to the highly diverse and radical new cinema coming from Mexico.

Spotlight

No / Chile, U.S.A. (Director: Pablo Larraín, Screenwriter: Pedro Peirano) — When Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet calls for a referendum to decide his permanence in power, the opposition persuades a young advertising executive to head its campaign. With limited resources and under scrutiny, he conceives a plan to win the election. Cast: Gael García Bernal, Alfredo Castro, Antonia Zegers, Luis Gnecco, Marcial Tagle, Néstor Cantillana.

There have been many films about the Pinochet regime and its wide-reaching after effects. But none have had as unique an entry point as No. Trust.

Midnight

We Are What We Are / U.S.A. (Director: Jim Mickle, Screenwriters: Nick Damici, Jim Mickle) — A devastating storm washes up clues that lead authorities closer and closer to the cannibalistic Parker family. Cast: Bill Sage, Ambyr Childers, Julia Garner, Michael Parks, Wyatt Russell, Kelly McGillis.

Okay, I only include this because this is based on the Mexican cult hit, Somos Lo que Hay by Jorge Michel Grau. Jim Mickle of Stakeland has promised to “Not Fuck it Up per Twitch interview

To cap off the features; Stalwart Spanish actor Alfred Molina is in Emanuel and the Truth About Fishes by Francesca Gregorini in Us Dramatic Competition, and we have a strong acting splash by Marcus DeAnda, a co-lead in Pit Stop directed by Yen Tan and co-written by David Lowery. The film about two gay working class lovers in small town Texas is in the Next section.

And lets not forget about shorts!

Short Film Competition

Broken Night / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Guillermo Arriaga) — A young woman and her four-year-old daughter drive across desolated hills. Everything looks fine and they seem to enjoy the ride, until an accident sends them into the nightmare of darkness.

Ever since writing and directing team Arriga and Innaritu broke up (Amores Perros, Babel) Arriaga has been trying to make his stamp directing his own material.

The Companion / Peru (Director and screenwriter: Alvaro Delgado-Aparicio) — On the outskirts of Lima, a young prostitute tends to his father, a fallen-from-grace artisan. However, the young man feels that his efforts are never enough. He tries to break free, but his father’s dependence is stronger than his son’s will.

Intriguing and highly atmospheric gem from Peru!

Chicago? Check. Mexicans check! No, but really this intimate glimpse is poetic and moving.

A Story for the Modlins / Spain (Director: Sergio Oksman, Screenwriter: Sergio Oksman) —The tale of Elmer Modlin, who, after appearing in Rosemary’s Baby, fled with his family to a far-off country and shut himself away in a dark apartment for 30 years.

Must see. Fascinating and inventive ‘Found family photos’ yarn.

#PostModem / U.S.A. (Directors and screenwriters: Jillian Mayer, Lucas Leyva) — A comedic, satirical, sci-fi pop musical based on the theories of Ray Kurzweil and other futurists, #PostModem is the story of two Miami girls and how they deal with technological singularity, as told through a series of cinematic tweets.

My favorite locos from Miami. After making the rounds with Life & Freaky Times of Uncle Luke, which played last year, these rump-shakers have been busy with their work in and out of their funky audiovisual collective Borscht Corp.

If you are heading to Park City I highly recommend you register to purchase Advance tickets here. See you on the mountain!

Tons of notable entries from established auteurs, documentarians and the next generation of filmmakers to watch out for are the make-up of Sundance’s 2013 Short Film program. A total of 65 short films were selected from a whopping 8000 plus entries and among the notable names/shorts to look out for we find The Captain – from the Blue Tongue Films gang of Nash Edgerton and Spencer Susser (Hesher) a project penned with Taika Waititi (Eagle vs Shark), Goran Dukic who brought The Wristcutters to the fest several years back, brings us What Do We Have in Our Pockets?, while Damien Chazelle who directed the feature Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench, brings us Whiplash and Guillermo Arriaga (The Burning Plain) let’s us feast on Broken Night.

Andrew Renzi makes it back to back years at the fest, he was invited last year for The Fort (here’s our interview with him) returns with Karaoke!

I must admit that I didn’t have any real expectations about the just-announced shorts lineup at the forthcoming Sundance Film Festival, but this slate looks really strong, a good mixture of familiar names (many with feature experience) and emerging talents. Scanning through the selection, I’m excited to see new works by Cat Candler, Nash Edgerton and Spencer Susser, Guillermo Arriaga, Jillian Mayer, Lucas Leyva (from 2012′s “25 New Faces”), Lauren Wolkstein, Goran Dukic and Damien Chazelle in the U.S. narrative section. And kudos to a “25 New Face” from 2010, Robert Machoian, who has two shorts – Movies Made From Home # 6 …...

I’ve not been posting as regularly recently as much of my focus has been on the redesigned Filmmaker website, which will be launching in the very near future. But, on this quiet Friday afternoon, I thought I’d take the opportunity to provide a few quick updates on the current class of filmmakers in our “25 New Faces,” who are a very productive bunch.

Firstly, New Yorkers should head to MoMA this Sunday, October 28, for The White House Home Movies: Richard Nixon on Super-8, a screening which is part of the 10th MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation. There will be clips from Penny Lane and Brian Frye’s upcoming documentary feature Our Nixon, and Penny and Brian – plus Dwight Chapin, one of the men who shot the Nixon home movies — will be in attendance.

Staying in NYC, Ingrid Jungermann is currently running a Kickstarter campaign for F to 7th,...

AFI Fest 2012 presented by Audi, a program of the American Film Institute, today announced the remaining sections and films that will screen in the festival.s World Cinema, Breakthrough, Midnight and Shorts programs. AFI Fest, which annually presents the best of world cinema in the movie capital of the world, will take place November 1 through 8 at the historic Grauman.s Chinese Theatre, the Chinese 6 Theatres, the Egyptian Theatre and the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.

World Cinema showcases the most anticipated and prize-winning international films of the year, Breakthrough highlights work discovered only through the submission process and Midnight.s selections are always haunting. Both World Cinema and Breakthrough feature a number of films making their North American or U.S. Premieres, including The Angels. Share, Greatest Hits, Laurence Anyways, Nairobi Half Life, Pieta, White Elephant and Zaytoun.

Two of the shorts in competition are from AFI Conservatory.s recent class of...

Today, AFI 2012 announced its complete lineup, after previously debuting its New Auteurs, Young Americans, Galas and Special Screenings we finally get a look at the Midnight, Breakthrough, Shorts, and deliriously good World Cinema Selections.

The Shorts section, with almost too many to count, features new work from Nacho Vigalando, Nicolas Provost, and even Shia Labeouf (Cannes selected), among many others. The four Midnight titles all played in Tiff 2012’s Midnight Madness selection, and here we see John Dies at the End making a stop here after originally premiering at Sundance. They’ve nabbed three North American premieres in their Breakthrough section, including Kid from Fien Troch, Nairobi Half Life from David Tosh Gitonga, and Oh Boy from Jan Ole Gerster. But AFI has managed to really impress with it’s World Cinema selections. Just as they nabbed Cannes premiere Holy Motors for their Special Screenings, they’ve nabbed several high...

The funny thing about film festivals is that there never seems to be enough time to talk about the films you’ve just seen. Distribution strategies, yes, industry gossip, most definitely, but the actual creative decisions and approaches involved in making the films themselves – barely! So the Grand Cinema’s mini-festival celebrating Filmmaker‘s 25 New Faces of Independent Film in Tacoma, Wa, last month felt like a truly rare treat.

Bringing together 14 of the actors and filmmakers or filmmaking teams on the list, including myself and Katherine Fairfax Wright, my directing partner on Call Me Kuchu, The Grand Cinema scheduled five days of screenings that allowed us to leisurely take in and discuss each other’s works.

It was an idyllic long weekend of films, food, lake-side Frisbee, and far too much popcorn, with more than a hint of all the good bits of summer camp (or Woodcraft camp, for...

Here's your daily dose of an indie film in progress; at the end of the week, you'll have the chance to vote for your favorite. In the meantime: Is this a movie you’d want to see? Tell us in the comments. "The Voice Thief" Tweetable Logline: Adan Jodorowsky and Asia Argento team up to create a surreal, psychedelic film featuring dwarves and gold-dripping vaginas. Elevator Pitch: The offspring of Alejandro Jodorowsky and Dario Argento are teaming up to make a film in Miami produced by Borscht Corp. Adan Jodorowsky’s film is a surreal odyssey through Miami’s psychedelic underworld featuring characters such as a prostitute dwarf who lives in the shadow of her mother’s corpse and a giant transvestite that drips gold from its vagina. It's being lensed by Cannes vet Alexis Zabe and produced by Lucas Leyva and Jillian Mayer (Filmmaker Magazine's 25 New Faces of Indie.

For their 5th annual edition, the Minneapolis Underground Film Festival is heating up by returning to the summer after being a winter event for the past three years. The fest will run on Aug. 17-19 with a killer lineup of films from all over the world — most of which probably will not be able to be seen in Minnesota except at this 3-day event.

Plus, there are two programming blocks of short films all made by local filmmakers, including Pam Colby’s Fertile Ashes, Ryan Becken’s Buffalo Shampoo, Janelle Sorenson & Melany Joy Beck’s Bring It 2 Peter, Jl Sosa’s Some of Angela and more.

The feature films screening this year cover an extremely diverse swath of subject matter, from every day people’s murder fantasies fulfilled — cinematically, at least — in Michal Koskowski’s German documentary Zero Killed; a tattoo comes to live to torment its wearer in...

More from the Latino scene from our woman in L.A., free lance festival programmer extraordinaire, Christine Davila, from her blog Chicana from Chicago:

Looking at yesterday’s announcement of Film Independent’s Los Angeles Film Festival reveals a healthy Latino presence among the 62 features and 48 short films in the program. Here’s how I break down the Latino/ Ibero/ U.S. Latino component of the program.

Chile continues to give Argentina a run for its cache of exciting and growing cinematic output from South America with the inclusion of Thursday Til Sunday (Isa & Distributor: FiGa) written and directed by Dominga Sotomayor ♀, in Narrative Competition.

Although the traveling Mexican film festival Ambulante is no longer a program spotlight, Mexican films continue to be a mainstay of the festival. There are four feature-length films and three short films from/about Mexico. In Narrative Competition, The Compass is Carried by the Dead Man (Isa: Kafilms, Argentina) written and directed by Arturo Pons [about a young Mexican aiming for Chicago], and in Documentary Competition, Drought by Everado González (recently awarded Best Documentary at FICG27) . Out of competition is the gorgeously shot documentary, Canícula, and although the funding is mainly stateside, Bernardo Ruiz paints a fascinating portrait of the risky journalistic practice and history of the seminal Tijuana weekly, Zeta in Reportero.

Also of note in the program is that four short films list Cuba as a co-production/origin of country.

But what of the U.S. Latino filmmakers and stories? Last year Los Angeles Film Festival was a great launchpad for Mamitas (Distributor: ScreenMedia, Producer rep: Traction Media), an authentic Chicano portrayal of young love set in Echo Parque written and directed by Nicolas Ozeki (a non-Latino), co-starring fast rising hot talents Veronica Diaz-Carranzo (Blaze You Out) and E.J. Bonilla. The film is currently in theaters now. (Big recommend,theater listings here-go support it!)

The closest we have to representing U.S. Latino in the features section is Four, the feature debut of Joshua Sanchez who hails from Houston, Texas. Based on a Christopher Shinn play, the July 4th-eve-set story is a snapshot of two disparate relationships tensely intertwined and their at-odd dynamics of desire. Coincidentally, E.J. Bonilla also stars (this guy is blowing up!). I would also include as U.S. Latino, Searching for Sugar Man, the documentary by Malik Bendjelloul about singer songwriter Sixto Rodriguez’s fascinating rise and fall into obscurity as a Uj.S. Latino story. As a matter of fact, the film seems to suggest that perhaps Sixto’s Mexican-American identity might have been a reason he was not embraced by the 60s and 70s mainstream. [Per Sydney: The film was snatched up at Sundance by Sony Pictures Classics and by Isa Protagonist who is screening it twice in Cannes.]

As for U.S. Latino shorts, Fireworks written and directed by Victor Hugo Duran, which is also incidentally centered around 4th of July, is an L.A. set story about boys trying to rap on girls.

My favorite Miami based hooligans, Jillian Mayer and Lucas Leyva, keep representing with their fresh and experimental short film, Life and Freaky Times of Uncle Luke. They are part of a collective of go-there filmmakers, Borscht Corp who had four crazy shorts screen at SXSW (and they were a riot to bootie shake dance with at SXSW Film’s Closing Night Party). You must carve out an hour and look at their work on the site (Nsfw!)

And lastly, in front of camera there’s some America Ferrera in Todd Berger’s It’s a Disaster (Isa: Maya), and rising boriqua actress April Hernandez Castillo, of hit webseries East Willy B, Dexter and other TV, is in The History of Future Folk [Per Sydney: one of 7 horror films in the festival, another being It's A Disaster per Dread Central, so take note Latino distributors like Lionsgate because horror films are a favorite of a certain Latino demographic!] by J. Anderson Mitchell and Jeremy Kipp Walker, described as a “sweet sci-fi musical comedy”. Below is the rest of the Latino and Ibero-American (includes Spain and Portugal). Descriptions provided by L.A. Film Festival, and bold cap commentary by me.

Narrative Competition:

o All Is Well – Portugal (Director Pocas Pascoal ♀, Producer Luis Correia Cast Cheila Lima, Ciomara Morais) – Strangers in a strange land, two beautiful Angolan sisters fleeing a civil war in their homeland struggle to survive in Lisbon. Pocas Pascoal’s deeply personal saga shows us the face of exile with quietly stunning power. North American Premiere

o The Compass is Carried by the Dead Man – Mexico (Director/Writer Arturo Pons Producer Ozcar Ramírez González Cast Gael Sanchez Valle, Pedro Gamez, Ana Ofelia Murguía, Eligio Melendez, Luis Bayardo, Marco Perez) – A young man and a dead man journey north through a subtly surreal desert landscape, picking up a wagonful of odd characters as they go in this darkly humorous satire of contemporary Mexico. North American Premiere

o Four – (Director/Writer Joshua Sanchez Producer Christine Giorgio Cast Wendell Pierce, Emory Cohen, Aja Naomi King, E.J. Bonilla) – Over the course of a steamy 4th of July night, a father and daughter, each trapped in loneliness, reach out for sexual connection — he with a self-hating teenage boy, she with a smooth-talking wannabe homeboy — in this psychologically complex, beautifully acted drama. World Premiere

o Thursday till Sunday – Chile (Director/Writer Dominga Sotomayor ♀ Producers Gregorio González, Benjamin Domenech Cast Santi Ahumada, Emiliano Freifeld, Francisco Pérez-Bannen, Paola Giannini) – With uncommon beauty and style, this Chilean road movie finds a family at a crossroads, as the daughter slowly realizes the divide between the adults in the front seat and the kids in back. North American Premiere

Documentary Competition:

o Drought – Mexico (Director Everado González Producer Martha Orozco) – Contrasting the lives of a cattle-ranching community with the arid northeastern Mexican landscape that surrounds them, this cinema vertité documentary paints a poetic portrait of a community on the verge of extinction. Us Premiere

o Sun Kissed – (Directors Maya Stark ♀, Adi Lavy ♀ Producers Jocelyn Glatzer, Maya Stark, Adi Lavy) – With remarkable strength of spirit, a husband and wife examine their lives and why their children and others have been struck with a rare genetic disorder in this powerful portrait of a small Navajo community. World Premiere ~ Okay Not Latino But It'S Native American So I’M Giving It A Shout Since There Are Not Enough Native American Stories.

International Showcase:

o Canícula – Mexico (Director José Álvarez Writers Sebastián Hoffman, José Álvarez Producer Mauricio Fabre Cast Hermelinda Santes, Esteban González, Mario García) – This is a hauntingly beautiful portrait of the rituals and crafts of contemporary Indians in remote Veracruz, who teach their boys to fly. ~ See My Interview With Jose Here.

o The Last Elvis – Argentina (Director Armando Bo Writers Armando Bo, Nicolás Giacobone Producers Steve Golin, Hugo Sigman, Patricio Alvarez Casado, Victor Bo, Armando Bo Cast John McInerny, Griselda Siciliani, Margarita Lopez) – John McInerny gives a staggering performance in this poignant tale of a Buenos Aires Elvis impersonator who only comes alive when he dons the King’s clothes to perform. How can he reconcile his dreams of glory with his dead end factory job and an estranged wife and daughter who can’t live inside his fantasies?

o Neighboring Sounds – Brazil (Director/Writer Kleber Mendonça Filho Producer Emilie Lesclaux Cast Irandhir Santos, Gustavo Jahn, Maeve Jinkings, W.J. Solha) – Kleber Mendonca Filho’s astonishing, suspenseful debut film focuses on one upscale street in the seaside town of Recife, where a private security team is enlisted to protect the residents from crime. By its startling conclusion, you feel you’ve seen all of Brazilian society exposed.

o The Strawberry Tree – Canada/Cuba/Italy (Director/Producer Simone Rapisarda Casanova) – Filmed in a small Cuban fishing village mere weeks before a hurricane decimated the entire region, this stunning documentary unknowingly captures the town’s final days even as it reframes the usual filmmaker-film subject relationship.

Summer Showcase:

o La Camioneta: The Journey of One American School Bus – USA/Guatemala (Director Mark Kendall Producers Mark Kendall, Rafael González, Bernardo Ruiz) – The journey and transformation of a yellow American school bus into a vibrant Central American camionetasensitively reveals both the beauty and violence of everyday life in Guatemala.

o Reportero – (Director Bernardo Ruiz Producers Bernardo Ruiz, Patricia Benabe, Anne Hubbell Featuring Sergio Haro Cordero, Adela Navarro Bello) – A look at the incredible danger facing journalists in Mexico through the eyes of investigative reporter Sergio Haro and other staff at Zeta, the defiant Tijuana-based newsweekly.~ See My Interview With Bernardo Here

o Searching for Sugar Man – (Director/Writer Malik Bendjelloul Producers Simon Chinn, Nicole Stott, George Chignell) – Years after fading into obscurity at home, the music of ’70s U.S. singer/songwriter Rodriguez became an underground sensation in South Africa. Decades after his disappearance, two fans uncover the startling truth behind the legend.

Beyond:

o Juan of the Dead – Cuba (Director/Writer Alejandro Brugués Producers Gervasio Iglesias, Inti Herrera Cast Alexis Días de Villegas, Jorge Molina, Andrea Duro, Andros Perugorría, Jazz Vila, Eliecer Ramírez) – The streets of Havana are alive with the undead in Cuba’s first zombie comedy, a wild and bloody romp that sinks its sharp satirical teeth into the Cuban body politic. Castro may not be amused, but you will be.

Short Film Competition:

Against the Sea (Contra el mar) – Mexico, USA (Director) Richard Parkin

Black Doll (Prita Noire) – Mexico (Director) Sofia Carrillo

Kendo Monogatari – Cuba, Guatemala (Director) Fabián Suárez

Scanning (Ecografía) – Cuba (Director) Aleksandra Maciuszek Mukoid

Life and Freaky Times of Uncle Luke – (Directors) Jillian Mayer, Lucas Leyva ~Crazy Talented! Miami Represent!

Fireworks – (Director) Victor Hugo Duran -

Kendo Monogatari – Cuba, Guatemala (Director) Fabián Suárez

Paraíso – (Director) Nadav Kurtz ~Doc Subject Is About 3 Mexicans

Scanning (Ecografía) – Cuba (Director) Aleksandra Maciuszek Mukoid

Voice Over – Spain (Director) Martín Rosete

For full lineup and more info go to L.A. Film Festival...

The sixth annual Indie Grits Festival, hosted by the Nickelodeon Theatre in Columbia, South Carolina, is actually more than just a film festival. Much, much more. From April 20-28, there will be film screenings, food tastings, bands playing, theater performances, a craft fair, a technology conference and oh so much more.

As for the films, though, every night — and a few afternoons — of Indie Grits is jam-packed with unique and creative independent feature-length movies and short films. Screenings take place at two locations: At the original Nickelodeon theater at 937 Main St. and at the New Nick location just up the road at 1607 Main St.

The fest opens with Bill and Turner Ross’ narrative feature Tchoupatoulis, about three brothers who sneak into New Orleans on their own to witness the visual spectacles the city has to offer; and the documentary Dragons of Jim Green, directed by Randy M. Salo, about a...

The 14th annual Boston Underground Film Festival wrapped up on April 1 with their Bacchus Awards ceremony, named after the fest’s bunny mascot.

The big winners were: Winnipeg filmmaker Steven Kostanski took home the Best of Fest Feature award for Manborg, his over-the-top action and low-fi special effects homage to ’80s direct-to-video movies; while U.S. filmmaker Robert Putka won Best of Fest Short for his provocative tale of young romance, Mouthful, which was positively reviewed on Bad Lit just a few weeks ago.

Jamie Heinrich took home his second ever Bacchus Award, the Most Effectively Effectively Offensive award, for Happily Never After, a feature-length version of the short film that he won the Best of Fest Short Award back in 2010. Another Buff alumni, Richard Bates Jr., won the Director’s Choice Feature award for Excision, another feature-length film adapted from a popular short.

Also, the Runner-Up for the Most...

The 14th annual Boston Underground Film Festival is ready to kick ass and take names on March 29 to April 1 at the Brattle Theatre. And a few of those names will look familiar to Buff fanatics — and underground film fans the world over.

A trio of Buff favorites are returning to the fest with debut feature films after totally killing it with their amazing short films in the past. Jamie Heinrich‘s Happily Never After is a feature-length expansion of the short film that took home the Best of Fest Award in 2010, but with more solid and mature themes as the movie explores the problematic life of a degenerate photographer.

Another former award winner is Richard Bates Jr. who will be screening Excision, another feature-length extension of a short film, this one about a teenage girl who exercises her morbid obsession with surgery every chance she gets.

Steven Kostanski‘s feature...

Robert G. Putka‘s Mouthful and Jared Varava‘s Tumbleweed! are two short films that have been selected to screen at the 2012 SXSW Film Festival, which will run in Austin, TX on March 9-17.

Mouthful is Putka’s second short film, a verbally raunchy comedy starring Eilis Cahill and Conor Casey as a young couple whose relationship becomes strained thanks to an overly frank discussion about their sexual histories. The film was recently reviewed on Bad Lit: The Journal of Underground Film saying “one shouldn’t assume too much how the premise of a young man and woman discussing [male] anatomy will play out.”

Putka has also mounted an IndieGoGo campaign to help fund his filmmaking team’s trip to SXSW and for marketing material, such as posters, T-shirts, press kits and such. If you want to help out, please visit the Mouthful IndieGoGo page.

Tumbleweed! is the latest collaboration between...