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Hot off his searing social indictment “Dreams,” Michel Franco will next produce “Moscas” (“Flies”) for director Fernando Eimbcke.

Now finishing pre-production, with cameras set to roll next month, the project follows an 8-year-old boy and a middle-aged woman as they crisscross contemporary Mexico City. Eimbcke wrote the script with frequent collaborator Vanesa Garnica, and will produce alongside Franco and Eréndira Núñez Larios through their respective Kinotitlán and Teorema banners.

“I’ve known Michel for a long time,” says Eimbcke. “We started out together, making shorts three decades ago, and I’ve learned a lot from him. Our work is very different – and l love that — so after not making a film for 10 years, I wanted to ask how to be more prolific!”

In 2004, Eimbcke broke out of Cannes’ Critics Week with his feature debut, “Duck Season.” Shot in black and white, and set entirely within a Mexico City apartment, the...

At one point in Fernando Eimbcke’s “Olmo” two adolescents are let into a party. Now, this isn’t the party the titular character and his trusty best pal are looking for, but the drinks are flowing, the mood is light and the music sounds good all the same. They decide to stick around – until they turn a corner to find a dead body given pride of place in the middle of the room.

This so-called party is a wake – and the Berlin audience was in stitches.

“Mexicans have a very particular relationship to mortality,” says Eimbcke, who sought to channel that very sensibility into his work. “Humor is the most human way to approach difficult situations — it’s dignifying. And that [light touch] was extremely important for a film that deals with serious themes.”

That instinct acted as a guiding light for the director and his co-writer Vanesa Garnica as they...

At its heart, Olmo is a simple story about immigrants, coming of age, growing up, taking responsibility, love, friendship, a stereo, a barbecue, roller skates, and above all, family.

The latest from director Fernando Eimbcke is not inherently political at all, but this beautifully written and acted period film set in 1979 New Mexico is coming at a perilous time for immigrant families in America, and so it is hard to watch and not get angry at the way their lives are being upended. However, that is not what this one is actually about.

This is the story of just one family, particulary the 14-year old boy, Olmo (Aivan Uttapa). He is much like other kids his age in a Mexican-American family. The parents speak Spanish, Olmo and his friends speak English. His sister Ana (Rosa Armendariz) is obsessed with roller-skating and hanging at the local rink in this struggling town.

Paris- and London-based Film Constellation has boarded international sales on Fernando Eimbcke’s upcoming Berlin Panorama world premiere Olmo from Plan B and Teorema. CAA Media Finance represents North American sales.

Eimbcke and Vanesa Garnica co-wrote the story set in 1979 New Mexico, where 14-year-old Olmo is taking care of his sick father when he would much rather be hanging out with his best friend, Miguel.

When he gets invited to a party by his beautiful neighbour, Nina, Olmo will do whatever he can to get out of his duties, embarking on a journey of mischief and chaos. As the night unfolds,...

You can’t hold someone like Christian Petzold accountable for self-indulgence. Not when he might just be the one he’s so exasperatedly critical of through his barely cryptic, nearly autobiographical critique of a self-absorbed, miserable writer. The overlooked yet strikingly mesmerizing waves of the Baltic Sea are as important to this insufferable individual as the people he’s begrudgingly gracing with his attention in Afire. Is Leon’s character Petzold’s nonchalant, almost suicidally despondent actualization of an overwhelming sense of self-loathing? I’m afraid that’s a state of contemplation I won’t be allowed to accompany you in. But let’s take a stroll through the coarse, sandy terrain of Leon’s mind and see how much of him we can figure out.

Spoilers Ahead

Plot Synopsis: What Happens In The Film?

Had it been for leisure, Leon and Felix would’ve perhaps opted for a retreat...

Love in the time of...forest fires? How's that for a unique spin on Gabriel García Márquez's classic novel? Here we're talking about Christian Petzold's acclaimed new film, Afire, about two couples who fall in love during a summer getaway along the Baltic Sea's coast as Mother Nature slowly scorches the earth around them. Afire succeeds on many levels, so it's no wonder why the film took home the Grand Jury prize at this year's Berlin International Film Festival.

We recently caught up veteran filmmaker Petzold, who also wrote Afire in addition to directing it. He discussed the story's unique origins, teaming up with actress Paula Beer for multiple projects, and what else he's working on.

Ditching Dystopia, Going with Summertime

The Covid-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc across the world. They say you should "write what you know," so it's no wonder these tough times have led to...

Duck Season (2004), Lake Tahoe (2008) and Club Sandwich (2013) Mexican filmmaker Fernando Eimbcke is set to move further up the border with his return to feature fiction filmmaking. Eimbcke has mounted a coming-of-age film that is set in 80’s New Jersey and goes by the titular Olmo. Vanesa Garnica is a co-writer.

Plan B Entertainment’s Academy Award winning producers Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner teamed up with Eréndira Núñez Larios (who we just mentioned might be working on a new Michel Franco project) to produce the mount the project which was originally being eyed for a July shoot but instead will focus on September (possibly further delayed by the strike).…...

Wildfires are a serious threat across the world. U.S. states like Oregon and California seem perpetually threatened. And now, a new German-language film from acclaimed writer-director Christian Petzold is based around a growing forest fire out near the Baltic Sea. But this isn't your typical natural disaster movie. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at this year's Berlinale, Afire is — above all else — a love story. How refreshing that it doesn't fall into the expected Hollywood norms/clichés of heroism, corny speeches and big-budget action sequences, given the threats of engulfing flames. Here's our take on the more realistic depiction of society's response.

A Quiet Contemplation of Love

Summer blockbuster season is upon us, which means a series of loud and bombastic films are now descending upon North America — Mission: Impossible, Oppenheimer, Barbie, and more. The warm weather, however, is also a time for rest and relaxation, so why...

Few movies this year will be as quietly sizzling as German filmmaker Christian Petzold’s “Afire,” a novelistic and sophisticated character study that kindles inside a chamber piece, as languid as a relaxed summer day and as heartbreaking as the end of a short-lived summer love.

The unhurried, romantic undertones of “Afire” are elements we came to expect from Petzold’s recent cinema, through the likes of “Barbara,” “Phoenix,” “Transit,” and “Undine” where affecting melancholy runs freely and cinematically alongside a dose of tragedy. This vibe is more or less the atmosphere of “Afire,” which follows two friends—Thomas Schubert’s grumpily petty novelist Leon and Langston Uibel’s chipper photographer/artist Felix—as they head to Felix’s family summer home by the Baltic coast for a seaside break, and maybe for some inspiration and light work on the side.

You could be forgiven to think you’re perhaps...

Christian Petzold’s latest feature, “Afire,” takes a blacklight to the artistic ego and to the trope of the manic pixie dream girls who supposedly enshrine it.

The invigorated spin on what is typically that sort of character in a movie like “Afire” is realized in this deceptively light, Eric Rohmer-esque affair by Paula Beer. The German director Petzold discovered the 28-year-old German actress with her performance in French filmmaker Francois Ozon’s black-and-white World War I-era drama “Frantz,” for which Petzold supplied German translation services. They’ve since collaborated on postmodern World War II drama “Transit,” water nymph allegory “Undine,” and now this moving and bitterly hilarious film about an insecure, pretentious fiction writer named Leon (Thomas Schubert) and the alluring woman Nadja whom he’s sharing a summer vacation home with.

With Petzold and his former creative partner Nina Hoss on an indefinite and mysterious hiatus as...

A gloomy writer and his friend are trapped with strangers in a Baltic holiday home in Christian Petzold’s tonally wayward tale

Christian Petzold has for years been a titan of German cinema – and the Berlin film festival itself – and his new movie is an odd, quibbling tragicomedy with perhaps a little of Bergman’s Smiles of a Summer Night, avowedly intended as the second part of a trilogy about creativity and love (the first being Undine).

Afire is an approachable and digestible movie in some ways, and I liked the morose, hangdog look conjured by actor Thomas Schubert playing the miserable young writer Leon, who correctly suspects that his new novel, a zeitgeisty relationship comedy called Club Sandwich, is terrible. But in the end I felt that the film fully achieves neither the ostensible comedy of the opening, nor the supposed sadness of its denouement.

The second installment of Infinite Fest, a monthly column by festival programmer and film critic Eric Allen Hatch, author of the recent “Why I Am Hopeful” article for Filmmaker Magazine, tackling the state of cinema as expressed by North American film festivalsPorfirioAs I prepare for my annual pilgrimage to Toronto, I’m thinking about all the great films I’ve seen at Tiff that have vanished.No, I’m not talking about Vincent Gallo’s Promises Written in Water, although we can go there for a minute. Thanks to Tiff 2010, I can count myself among the small number of folks who’ve actually seen it, and will happily verify that it not only exists but also happens to be a stark, deranged, and diabolically solipsistic masterpiece… as, in a way, was the derisive email Gallo wrote in response to my festival invite for the film in the spring of 2011, before...

The 54th International Film Festival of Cartagena de Indias in Colombia has invited me to attend March 13 - 19, 2014.

One of Ficci's main goals is supporting the development of Colombian cinema. With that in mind, the festival will open with the world premiere of Ciudad Delirio, inviting the audience to get to know Cali, the only city in Latin America that loves all Latin American music, a center of creative development for Colombia's cinema, splendidly and authentically presented through the passion and flavor of salsa. Ficci is once again betting on the kind of cinema that speaks locally and globally, cinema that invites, seduces and embraces all kinds of audiences.

Starring Carolina Ramírez , Cauca Valley dancer and actress renown for her performance in soap operas such as La hija del mariachiand La Pola and Spaniard Julián Villagrán, winner of a Goya for his performance in Grupo 7, Ciudad Delirio also features Colombian actors of such caliber as Vicky Hernández Jorge Herrera , Margarita Ortega and John Alex Castillo. Thanks to a world-class team lead by Spanish dancer, choreographer and filmmaker Blanca Li, who has worked for The Berlin State Ballet, Kylie Minogue, Beyoncé and Daft Punk, and by multiple time Salsa World Champion Viviana Vargas, Cartagena will get to experience the madness of one of the most sensual dances on earth.

Ciudad Delirio was produced by Diego F. Ramírez, head of 64-a Films in Colombia, which has produced such films as Perro come perro,Todos tus muertos, Dr. Alemán, En coma, and180 segundos and Spaniard Elena Manrique, founder of Film Fatal and renown for her production of movies such asEl laberinto del fauno (Pan's Labyrinth), El orfanato and Transsiberiano, to name just a few.

For seven weeks during the making of Ciudad delirio, 45 locations in Cali, Colombia and Madrid, Spain were overrun by salsa. More than 3,200 extras from Cauca Valley helped to tell this love story that revolves around the show Delirio, a long-standing cultural tradition in Sultana del Valle.

In Ciudad Delirio, Javier, a shy, reserved Spanish doctor, attends a medical conference in Cali, Colombia. There, through a chance meeting, he shares a magical night with Angie, a dancer and choreographer who dreams of being part of the world's most famous salsa show, Delirio, if only she can pass the audition. Javier and Angie begin an impossible romance full of obstacles, surrounded by salsa, and accompanied by a cast of characters that are as authentic as they are hilarious.

The festival's guest of honor will be the prolific British actor Clive Owen, who is known for his diverse roles in films like Closer Children of Men, and The International . The Latin American premier of his latest film, Guillaume Canet's Blood Ties (2013), will be a highlight of the Friday, March 14th event, taking place at 6:00 pm in the Adolfo Mejía Theater, where, after being presented with the India Catalina prize, the actor will be interviewed by Ficci's director, Monika Wagenberg.

Another special honoree will be Mexican director Alejando Gonazlez Iñárritu, who has garnered international acclaim throughout the years with films such as Amores Perros , 21 Grams , Babel, and Biutiful . Established within the film industry as one of Latin America's most important directors of the new century, Iñárritu is currently in-production for Birdman (2014), a film he wrote and directed starring Emma Stone and Edward Norton . Participants of the 54th Ficci will have the opportunity to attend the Tribute honoring this Academy Award-nominated filmmaker on Sunday, March 16th, as well as his Master class the following day during Salón Ficci – the festival's academic program.

In regards to the festival's line-up, it is interesting to note that several of the filmmakers that will take part in the Dramatic Competition are directors who have participated at Ficci with their previous films and have established themselves in the international festival circuit winning prestigious awards. Others will arrive to Cartagena for the first time with their operas primas.

"2014 promises to be a good year for Iberoamerican cinema and we are proud to feature several of the most recent films of the region in our Official Dramatic Competition, in which half of the chosen movies are Latin American Premieres (movies that come directly to Cartagena after their world premieres at Sundance and Berlin Festivals). Eight of the twelve films in the Colombian Official Competition (known before as Colombia al 100%) are World Premieres. This way, we have managed to achieve the goal we set four years ago: becoming the main national and international launching platform of local films", stated Ficci's Director Monika Wagenberg.

Wagenberg also addressed some chances in the festival's rules that will allow for more experience filmmakers to partake in the event.

"One of the big news of Ficci 54 is that this time we have not limited the Official Dramatic Competition to first, second and third time Ibero-American films. Ending this restriction will make possible for those directors from this region who are producing feature films at a fast pace not, to be excluded from the competition" Wagenberg added.

The Official Dramatic Competition will feature the Latin American premieres The Lock Charmer (El Cerrajero) by Natalia Smirnoff (Argentina), Natural Sciences (Ciencias Naturales) by Matías Lucchesi(Argentina), The Way He Looks (Hoje Eu Quero Voltar Sozinho) by Daniel Ribeiro(Brazil), Celina Murga's Berlin Official Competition, The Three Sides of the River (La tercera orilla) (Argentina), recent Sundance and Rotterdam winner, To Kill a Man (Matar a un hombre) by Alejandro Fernández Almendras (Chile), Mateo, first film by Maria Gamboa (Colombia), and the world premiere of Dust on the Tongue (Tierra en la lengua) by Ruben Mendoza (Colombia).

This section also includes other outstanding films such as Bad Hair (Pelo malo), written and directed by Mariana Rondón (Venezuela) which comes to Ficci after its triumph at the San Sebastián Film Festival; The Mute (El Mudo), directed by brothers Daniel and Diego Vega (Perú), which had its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival and are coming back to Ficci after competing winning Best Director award in 2010; premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival and awarded the Concha de Plata for Best Director in San Sebastián, comes Club Sándwich by Fernando Eimbcke(México), and the 12th film in this section is Root (Raíz) by Matías Rojas Valencia (Chile), the winner of Best Chilean Film winner at the Valdivia Film Festival.

The Official Documentary Competition will showcase the world premieres of El color que cayó del cielo by Sergio Wolf (Argentina) and Heaven or Hell (Infierno o paraíso) de German Piffano(Colombia); as well as the Latin American premiere of The Silence of the Flies (El silencio de las moscas) by Eliezer Arias (Venezuela), Marmato by Mark Grieco (Colombia, USA), and Apples, Chickens and Chimeras (Manzanas, pollos y quimeras) de Inés París (España). The rest of the program includes Argentine Street Years (Años de calle) by Alejandra Grinschpun, I Feel Much Better Now (E-agora? Lembra me) by Joaquim Pinto(Portugal), Naomi Campbel by icolas Videla and Camila José Donoso (Chile), Cesar's Grill (El Grill de Cesar) by Dario Aguirre, I Will Be Murdered (Seré asesinado) by Justin Webster (Spain), Mexican documentary, Elevator (Elevador) by Adrián Ortizl and the most recent work by talented Brazilian documentary film director Maria Ramos , Hills of Pleasures (Morro dos Prazeres).

Lastly, in the Colombian Official Competition we will present the world premieres of Banished (Desterrada) by Diego Guerra, Manos sucias by Joseph Wladyka, Memorias del calavero and Tierra en la lengua by Rubén Mendoza, Monte adentro by Nicolás Macario Alonso, Parador Húngaro by Aseneth Suarez and Patrick Alexander, Infierno o paraíso by Germán Piffano; as well as the Latin American premieres of Inés, memorias de una vida by Luisa Sossa; Gente de papel, con el alma en la selva by Andrés Felipe Vásquez, Mateo by Maria Gamboa, Marmato by Mark Grieco and the Colombian premiere of Mambo Cool by Chris Gude.

‘Bad Hair’ day at San Sebastian Film Festival: Venezuelan film wins Golden Shell (photo: Samuel Lange Zambrano in ‘Bad Hair’) Mariana Rondón’s Bad Hair / Pelo malo won the Golden Shell at the 2013 San Sebastian Film Festival, which wrapped up today, September 28, in northern Spain’s coastal city also known as Donostia (in Basque). The Venezuelan / Peruvian / German co-production tells the story of a nine-year-old boy (Samuel Lange Zambrano) with "bad hair," who decides to have his unruly curls molded pop-singer style (Justin Bieber’s?) for his yearbook picture. His mother (Samantha Castillo), however, is against it — the boy’s new hairdo is just not manly enough. Family conflicts ensue. The San Sebastian Film Festival’s Special Jury Prize went to newcomer Fernando Franco’s Wounded / La herida, a Spanish drama about a 30-year-old ambulance driver whose life falls to pieces as a consequence of her undiagnosed Borderline Personality Disorder.