"Pinta" bien, ¿no?

Sony Bravia commercial @ Yahoo! Video

El director creativo argentino de publicidad Juan Cabral prepara --según dice abajo-- su debut en el largometraje. Seguramente también recuerdan un aviso suyo para Sony en el que enchastraban de pintura una especie de enorme edificio/monoblock. Bueno... ese Juan Cabral. Igual, mi favorito suyo es el del gorila que pueden ver abajo y que acaban de "currarse" en la comedia norteamericana "The Hangover".

Title: "Two/One"
Development(Feature)
Genre : Drama
Country(ies) : ARGENTINA
Language(s) : ENGLISH
Director(s) : Juan CABRAL
Writer(s) : Cabral JUAN
Producer(s) : Costantini EDUARDO (Costa Films)

From Juan Cabral, comes his first feature as a filmmaker to be shot in Oslo and Shanghai in March 2010.

Synopsis
Two men. Living on the exact opposite side of the world. When one sleeps, the other one is awake. But this is no metaphor. They actually dream each other. They are, in some strange way, the same person. They just don’t know it.

Cabral is the creator of the Sony Bravia Campaign Trilogy and the popular Gorilla advert for Cadbury, which was the most awarded spot of 2008. He joined Fallon London in 2003 to manage the Sony and Tate Museum account and has since been appointed partner and creative director at the agency. Boards magazine ranked him as best writer and art director of 2008
and was also named one of the top 10 Directors Worldwide. His accolades include 12 Cannes Lions, the 2008 London Creative Circle President Award, the prestigious D&AD Black Pencil and has won the Channel 4 Film-Four Director’s Cut Award for Best Ad of the last decade.

Cadbury Gorilla Ad @ Yahoo! Video

Garcia nabs stake in Costa Films (Variety)

Mexico’s Alex Garcia has taken a minority stake in Argentina’s Costa Films, helping to build one of Latin America’s first pan-regional film production companies.

Buenos-Aires based Costa, headed by Eduardo Costantini, already teamed with Weinstein Co. in 2006 to create the Latin American Film Co.

Garcia, a partner in the L.A. and Mexico-based Nala Films, which has funding at the multimillion-dollar level, is best-known as a partner in Mexican toon house Anima Estudio and Billy and Fernando Rovzar’s Lemon Films.

Garcia’s investment gives Costa a beachhead in Mexico -- Costantini is working out of Lemon’s offices in Mexico -- plus bridge financing for films. Crucially, it also will help provide cashflow for Costa’s acquisition of a minority stake in an as-yet-undisclosed Brazilian film production house. That deal will be closed shortly, Costantini said.

“The aim is to create a large Latin America producer, based out of the three countries, targeting international markets with the best talent and stories,” Costantini said.

He hopes to produce out of Brazil in 2009, making Portuguese-language arthouse movies as well as international co-productions from Brazil later this year.

“We like Brazilian films,” Costantini said. “Brazil’s Argentina’s neighbor, has really arresting talent, and companies can tap considerable tax breaks,”

The Latin American Film Co. scored last year in co-producing “Elite Squad,” the highest-grossing Brazilian film of 2008 and winner of Berlin’s Golden Bear.

Brazil’s government and film producers have also been negotiating public funding for international co-productions.

A co-producer of Guillermo Arriaga’s “The Burning Plain,” Costa’s also a co-founder and a lead shareholder in VOD Internet site The Auteurs, partnering with Hengameh Panahi’s Celluloid Dreams.

The Costa-Garcia deal comes as Costa is aiming to take The Auteurs to its next level, through ad backing.

Repped at the Berlinale by founder Efe Cakarel, The Auteurs will officially launch at Cannes.

It currently hosts 130 features and boasts 100,000 monthly users. It has closed film deals with Criterion Connection as well as Celluloid Dreams, and is looking for other strategic product pacts, Costantini said.

The Auteurs will team with Brazilian distributors to launch this July in Brazil. It has just inked with Fallon, a U.K. branding and communications company whose clients include NBC, BBC and Sony, to secure advertising and build awareness for the site.

De Berlín a Venecia

Con "Tropa de elite", el productor argentino Eduardo Costantini (h), se llevó un inesperado y sorprendente Oso de Oro en la Berlinale de este año. Ahora, con la segunda película internacional en la que su empresa, Costa Films, aporta los dineros que integran el Latin American Film Fund (con los hermanitos Weinstein como socios), llegó a Venecia. "Variety" anunció hoy que "The Burning Plain", la película que dirige Guillermo "Babel" Arriaga, será parte de la competencia del festival italiano, que comienza el 27 de agosto.

El filme es en inglés, tiene como protagonistas a Charlize Theron y Kim Basinger, y es --aparentemente-- otra enrevesada historia de idas y vueltas entre tiempos y personajes del guionista de "Amores perros". No sé exactamente qué parte de la coproducción tiene Costa Film (en la página de imbd no aparecen), pero por lo que en algún momento me dijo Costantini, sería una parte minoritaria. ¿Será preventa de derechos para América Latina?

Lo cierto es que han invertido en dos películas y las dos entraron en grandes competencias. Será hora de que alguna de las películas nacionales a las que apuestan (¿la nueva de Luis Ortega?) le toque la misma suerte.

Entre los rumores "venecianos" que anuncia "Variety" junto con la confirmación de"The Burning Plain" --y la ya confirmada apertura con "Burn After Reading", de los Coen-- están "Milk", la película de Gus Van Sant que protagoniza Sean Penn como el alcalde gay asesinado Harvey Milk, el thriller de Jon Avnet "Righteous Kill", con la dupla Robert De Niro/Al Pacino, y dos películas rodadas en Italia: "Genoa", de Michael Winterbottom y "Miracle at St. Anna", drama bélico de Spike Lee. El anuncio oficial de la programación compelta se hará el 29 de julio.

Entre los contendientes italianos estarían "Una giornata perfetta", de Ferzan Ozpetek, y "Il Papa di Giovanna", de Pupi Avati. Pero la situación del cine italiano --y de todo el evento, en realidad-- está complicada ya que hay un boicot anunciado por parte de los distribuidores italianos como protesta ante la eliminación de los recortes fiscales a la producción anunciados por el gobierno de Silvio Berlusconi. Y si ellos no aportan las películas que tienen --las italianas y las internacionales--, el festival se verá en un verdadero brete.