Diego Lerman, al Festival de Cannes

Alegria (Joy) de Marina Méliande et Felipe Braganca (Brésil)

All Good Children * d'Alicia Duffy (Ireland - Belgium - France)

Alting bliver godt igen (Everything Will Be Fine) de Christoffer Boe (Danemark-Suède-France)

Año bisiesto * de Michael Rowe (Mexique)

Benda Bilili ! * de Renaud Barret et Florent de la Tullaye (France) (documentaire)

La Casa muda * (The Silent House) de Gustavo Hernandez (Uruguay)

Cleveland Vs. Wall Street de Jean-Stéphane Bron (Suisse - France) (documentaire)

Des Filles en noir de Jean-Paul Civeyrac (France)

Ha'Meshotet * (The Wanderer / Le Vagabond) d'Avishai Sivan (Israël)

Illégal d'Olivier Masset-Depasse (Belgique-Luxembourg-France)

The Light Thief d'Aktan Arym Kubat (Kirghizistan)

Little Baby Jesus of Flandr * (Petit bébé Jésus de Flandr / En waar de sterre bleef stille staan) de Gust Van den Berghe (Belgique)

La Mirada invisible (The Invivible Eye) de Diego Lerman (Argentine-France-Espagne)

Picco * de Philip Koch (Allemagne)

Pieds nus sur les limaces (Lily Sometimes) de Fabienne Berthaud (France)

Le Quattro volte de Michelangelo Frammartino (Italie-Allemagne-Suisse)

Shit Year de Cam Archer (Etats-Unis)

Somos lo que hay * (We Are What We Are) de Jorge Michel Grau (Mexique)

Tiger Factory de Woo Ming jin (Malaisie)

Todos vós sodes capitáns * (Vous êtes tous des capitaines) d'Oliver Laxe (Espagne)

Two Gates Of Sleep * d'Alistair Banks Griffin (Etats-Unis)

Un Poison violent * de Katell Quillevéré (France)

* Film concourant pour la Caméra d'Or / Film competed to the « Caméra d'Or » Prize

>>> SEANCES SPECIALES / SPECIAL SCREENINGS

Stones In Exile de Stephen Kijak (Royaume-Uni) (documentaire)

Boxing Gym de Frederik Wiseman (Etats-Unis) (documentaire)

>>> COURTS METRAGES / SHORT FILMS

Cautare (Quest) de Ionut Piturescu (Roumanie)

Ett tyst barn (A Silent Child) de Jesper Klevenas (Suède)

Licht de Andre Schreuders (Pays-Bas)

Mary Last Seen de Sean Durkin (Etats-Unis)

Petit tailleur de Louis Garrel (France)

Shadows of Silence de Pradeepan Raveendran (France)

Shikasha d'Hirabayashi Isamu (Japon)

Tre ore (Trois heures) de Annarita Zambrano (Italie)

ZedCrew de Noah Pink (Zambie)

Cannes: programación de la Semana de la Crítica

El corto "Cynthia todavía tiene las llaves", de Gonzalo Tobal, se acaba de exhibir en el Bafici

Link

The complete Critics Week lineup follows:

Feature films
“Armadillo,” directed by Janus Metz (Denmark)
“Bedevilled,” directed by Cheol So Jang (South Korea)
“Belle épine,” directed by Rebecca Zlotowski (France)
“Bi, dung so !,” directed by Phan Dang Di (Vietnam - France - Germany)
“The Myth of the American Sleepover,” directed by David Robert Mitchell (U.S.A.)
“Sandcastle,” directed by Boo Junfeng (Singapore)
“Sound of Noise,” directed by Ola Simonsson & Johannes Stjärne Nilsson (Sweden - France)

Short Films
“A distração de Ivan,” directed by Cavi Borges & Gustavo Melo (Brazil)
“Berik,” directed by Daniel Joseph Borgman (Denmark)
“The Boy Who Wanted to Be a Lion,” directed by Alois Di Leo (U.K.)
“Deeper Than Yesterday,” directed by Ariel Kleiman (Australia)
“Love Patate,” directed by Gilles Cuvelier (France)
“Native Son,” directed by Scott Graham (U.K.)
“Vasco,” directed by Sébastien Laudenbach (France)

Special Screenings:

Opening: Feature
“Le Nom des gens,” directed by Michel Leclerc (France)
“Copacabana,” directed by Marc Fitoussi (France)
“Rubber,” directed by Quentin Dupieux (France)

Closing:
“L’Amour-propre,” directed by Nicolas Silhol (France)
“Cynthia todavía tienes las llaves,” directed by Gonzalo Tobal (Argentina)
“Fracture,” directed by Nicolas Sarkissian (France)

"Carlos", de Olivier Assayas, en Cannes

Después de una fuerte disputa interna que los medios franceses dieron a conocer la semana pasada (aparentemente ligada problemas entre los organizadores de Cannes y Canal +), se anunció que la miniserie de 330 minutos (sí, cinco horas y media) de Olivier Assayas sobre el mítico terrorista venezolano Carlos "El Chacal" -titulado "Carlos"- se verá en la sección oficial del festival, pero fuera de competencia.

También se agregó "5 x Favela por nos mesmos", filme brasileño coordinado por Cacá Diegues y dividido en cinco epidodios dirigidos por Manaira CARNEIRO, Wagner NOVAIS, Rodrigo FELHA, Cacau AMARAL, Luciano VIDIGAL, Cadu BARCELOS, Luciana BEZERRA, todos ellos habitantes de favelas cariocas. Esto se verá en un Special Screening.

Y si uno sigue los rumores de la prensa francesa, el anuncio de la película de Trapero en una sección oficial es inminente.

Hoy, más tarde, se anuncia la Semana de la Crítica.

El cine mexicano triunfa en los festivales argentinos

Con el triunfo de "Alamar", México gana por tercera vez en seis años la competencia internacional del Bafici. Antes fueron "Intimidades de Shakespeare y Victor Hugo" (2008) y "En el hoyo" (2006)

Paralelamente, el Festival de Mar del Plata también viene teniendo ganadores mexicanos en los últimos años. En 2009 ganó "Cinco días sin Nora", mientras que "Noticias lejanas" lo ganó en 2006.

Es decir que cinco de los últimos nueve premios a mejor película de festivales argentinos los ganó México, y sin contar "Los bastardos", que ganó la competencia latinoamericana en Mar del Plata 2008.

Encontrar explicaciones es complejo. Tal vez el secreto es que México hace un cine que, sin dejar de presentar una búsqueda artística, es más accesible y produce mayor consenso entre jurados que, por ejemplo, las películas argentinas que suelen generar muchas divisiones, y relaciones de amor-odio.

Nada, sólo eso, que me pareció un dato curioso y que tal vez signifique algo. Qué? No lo sé. ¿A alguien se le ocurre alguna mejor explicación?

Radio Micropsia: Episodio 22

Por Radio Nacional (FM 93.7), domingos de 20 a 22hs.
O por internet, entrando por aquí.

Santiago Loza e Iván Fund, a la larga los que más ganaron en el Bafici (entre los premios de acá y Cannes, salieron hechos) vienen a la radio a las 20 para hablar de "Los labios". Además, un balance nuestro del Bafici y músicas, desde las que alcanzamos a rescatar nosotros ("oldies", mayormente) y lo que prometió Fund anoche, a quien, entre cerveza y cerveza, se lo escuchó decir algo parecido a "Graham Coxon"...

"El secreto de sus ojos" arrancó fuerte en los Estados Unidos

Lo que sigue es de IndieWire, y habla de la muy buena recaudación en diez salas de la película de Juan José Campanella y, de paso, hablando de cosas ligadas a la Argentina, de la película que filmó aquí James Ivory y que también se estreno allí el viernes:

Also opening was “The Secret In Their Eyes,” Juan José Campanella’s film that surprised many by taking the best foreign language film Oscar over “The White Ribbon” and “A Prophet” (oddly enough, all three films are being released through Sony Pictures Classics). “Eyes” grossed $176,389 from its 10 screens, giving it a $17,639 average. That puts the film almost exactly on par with “A Prophet”‘s February debut, where it averaged $18,197 from 9 screens. “A Prophet” just hit $1,805,286 now in its eighth weekend. “Secret” will expand over the next few weeks.

The film that actually scored the highest per-theater-average of the weekend was the single screen debut of James Ivory’s “The City of Your Final Destination.” Starring Anthony Hopkins, Laura Linney and Charlotte Gainsbourg, “City” grossed an impressive $22,000 from its exclusive opening at the Paris in New York. The Screen Media Films-released “City”‘s true fate comes next weekend, when it expands beyond the Paris and into metro NY and LA.

BAFICI: El festival, en veinte películas

Como primero de los cierres del BAFICI, va aquí una lista de las 20 mejores películas que vi, de las que se proyectaron en el festival, en orden de preferencia, sobre 74 largos que vi en total, durante los últimos meses. Y una "yapa"

TOP TEN:

-Hadewijch, de Bruno Dumont

-Police, Adjective, de Corneliu Porumboiu

-Morrer como um homem, de João Pedro Rodrigues

-La bocca del lupo, de Pietro Marcello

-Lourdes, de Jessica Hausner

-La Pivellina, de Rainer Frimmel / Tizza Covi

-Like You Know It All, de Hong Sang-soo

-Viajo porque preciso, volto porque te amo, de Marcelo Gomes y Karim Aïnouz

-Yuki y Nina, de Hippolyte Girardot y Nobuhiro Suwa

-Trash Humpers, de Harmony Korine

TOP 11-20

-Lo que más quiero, de Delfina Castagnino

-Der Räuber (The Robber), de Benjamin Heisenberg

-Go Get Some Rosemary, de Josh & Benny Safdie

-Mary and Max, de Adam Elliot

-Alamar. de Pedro González-Rubio

-36 vues du Pic Saint Loup, de Jacques Rivette

-La Famille Wolberg, de Axelle Ropert

-Bummer Summer, de Zach Weintraub

-The Girl, de Fredrik Edfeldt

-Kinatay, de Brillante Mendoza

TITULOS DESTACADOS DE LA COMPETENCIA ARGENTINA / Sin orden de preferencia:

-Los actos cotidianos, de Raúl Perrone

-Invernadero, de Gonzalo Castro

-Los labios, de Santiago Loza e Iván Fund

-Ocio, de Juan Villegas y Alejandro Lingenti

-El pasante, de Clara Picasso

-Somos nosotros, de Mariano Blanco

Curso de Periodismo y Crítica de cine

PERIODISMO PARA CINE - Dictado por Diego Lerer
Reconocido periodista de Cine. Es editor y crítico del diario Clarín, además vicepresidente de FIPRESCI y presidente de su filial argentina.	Martes 20 y 27 de Abril y 4 de Mayo de 19 a 22hs. Costo del curso $220 $200 Inscripción hasta el 01/04 ·15% de descuento para suscriptores de Haciendo Cine.
FORMAS DE PAGO
1 - Personalmente: En la revista, Castillo 1336 módulo 14ª. Tel: 5291-5787 y 5292-5788. 2 - Por depósito bancario: Consultar belen@haciendocine.com.ar	3 - Inscripción on line, pago en efectivo o tarjeta en un pago: Las clases tienen lugar en Virrey Olaguer y Feliú 2725. Capital.

"Alamar", de Pedro González Rubio, ganadora del BAFICI

· FEISAL- Mención a El vuelco del Cangrejo, de Oscar Ruíz Navia
- Premio a Los labios, de Santiago Loza e Iván Fund

Premio Asociación Cronistas Cinematográficos Argentinos- Premio para Los labios, de Santiago Loza e Iván Fund

Premio ADF
- Premio al DIRECTOR DE FOTOGRAFIA: MAURO PINHEIRO JR. por su trabajo en el film Os famosos e os duendes da morte, de Esmir Filho

Premio SIGNIS
- Mención especial: Alamar, de Pedro González-Rubio
- Premio: La Bocca del lupo, de Pietro Marcello

Premio FIPRESCI
- Premio a Lo que más quiero, de Delfina Castagnino
Premio UNICEF
- Mención para la película Alamar, de Pedro González-Rubio- Premio para La Pivellina, de Tizza Covi y Rainer Frimmel
Competencia Derechos Humanos - Mención para Octubre Pilagá, relatos sobre el silencio, de Valeria Mapelman
- Mención para Petition, de Zhao Liang
- Mención para El Rati Horror Show, de Enrique Piñeyro
- Mejor película Cuchillo de palo, de Renate Costa
Cine del Futuro
- Mención para Sewer, de Sherad Anthony Sanchez
- Mejor Película auspiciado por I.SAT para Morrer como un homem, de João Pedro Rodriguez

Competencia Oficial de Cortometrajes
- Mención: Los árboles se mueven, Sergio. Sí, Christian. De Christian Nunclares y Sergio Subero
- Mejor Cortometraje auspiciado por CIEVYC para Sábado uno, de Ignacio Rogers
- Mejor Cortometraje auspiciado por CIEVYC para Mientras paseo en cisne, de Lara Arellano
- Mejor Cortometraje auspiciado por Kodak para La mia casa, de Marcelo Scoccia
Selección Oficial Argentina- Distinción Mejor Fotografía auspiciado por Kodak para Las pistas – Lanhoyij- Nmitaxanaxac, de Sebastián Lingiardi
- Premio Especial del Jurado auspiciado por Cinecolor y Kodak para Somos nosotros, de Mariano Blanco
- Premio Mejor Director auspiciado por Alta Definición Argentina – Metrovisión, La Burbuja Sonido y el Ministerio de Cultura a través del Fondo Metropolitano de la Cultura, las Artes y las Ciencias para Iván Fund y Santiago Loza por Los labios
-Premio Mejor Película auspiciado por el Ministerio de Cultura a través del Fondo Metropolitano de la Cultura, las Artes y las Ciencias y Hoyts para Invernadero, de Gonzalo Castro


Selección Oficial Internacional
- Distinción a Mejor Película Argentina auspiciado por Fuji y Che Revolution Post Lo que más quiero, de Delfina Castagnino- Mejor Actor para Dragos Bucur por Police, Adjective
- Mejor Actriz para Pilar Gamboa y María Villar por Lo que más quiero
- Premio Especial del Jurado para La bocca del lupo, de Pietro Marcello
- Mejor Director para Corneliu Poromboiu por Police, Adjective
- Mejor Película auspiciado por Z Films y Hoyts para Alamar, de Pedro González-Rubio

BAFICI: Entrevista a Joao Pedro Rodrigues (Clarín)

Link

BAFICI: Minicríticas de competencia

Más minireseñas de películas publicadas en Clarín y, en algunos casos, extendidas y corregidas. Por algún motivo, algunos días los links no aparecen online. Los completaré después.

El rati horror show

Documental (2010) De Enrique Piñeyro (Competencia Argentina)

Piñeyro sigue en la senda de Fuerza Aérea S.A., en otro documental de denuncia. Esta vez se mete de lleno en el caso policial llamado "la Masacre de Pompeya" para revelar los turbios y oscuros manejos de policías y jueces para condenar a un hombre inocente. Y lo hace como le gusta a él: con reconstrucciones, material de archivo, toques de humor y con su ya clásica presencia justiciera delante de cámaras. La denuncia deja en evidencia la corrupción generalizada que envuelve al tema de la seguridad en la Argentina. Piñeyro apunta directo al corazón de las tinieblas. Y casi siempre acierta. D.L.

Bummer Summer

drama EE.UU. (2010) De Zach Weintraub (Comp. Internacional)

El último verano antes de ir a la universidad para un chico que termina el secundario. Una novia perdida, un hermano que vuelve a casa, un recital, un viaje a ninguna parte, un reencuentro: pequeñas apostillas que pintan ese mundo suspendido del fin de la adolescencia. Un filme chico, honesto y logrado que apuesta a la pequeña anécdota y a leves epifanías no alejadas de la nostalgia de los 17 años. D.L.

Cuchillo de palo

Documental (Paraguay, 2009) De Renta Costa (Comp. Internac.)

La cineasta regresa a su país, y confronta a su padre acerca de su tío, quien murió, y era un hombre homosexual. La anécdota sirve para descubrir el durísimo trato que recibieron de parte del gobierno de Stroessner, combinado con secretos familiares. Intimo y personal: un documental sencillo, prolijo y sumamente efectivo. D.L.

Hacerme feriante

Documental (Argentina, 2010) De Julián D'Angiolillo (Comp. Argentina)

El inmenso mundo de la feria de La Salada es visto desde varios puntos de vista en este documental de observación que, si bien tiene demasiados ejes narrativos, logra capturar el complejo mundo de intereses (políticos, sociales, raciales) que recorren este fenómeno que excede lo comercial y que se ha transformado en un modo de vida alternativo. Casi una sociedad dentro de otra. D.L.

Somos nosotros

Drama (Argentina, 2010) De Mariano Blanco (Comp. Argentina)

Tres historias, a lo largo de un día, de adolescentes, skaters, de Mar del Plata, son el centro de este filme de Blanco, de 19 años, en el que las vivencias de estos tres chicos son contadas con planos largos, contemplativos, permitiendo que su estilo de vida, su slang, sus rutinas, salgan a la luz sin estar "tapadas" por los convencionalismos de una trama. Una película fresca y generacional. D.L.

Lo que más quiero

com. dram. Arg. (2010) De Delfina Castagnino (Comp. Int.)

El tono cambiante del filme puede desconcertar: con escenas hechas de planos largos, algunas en tono cómico y otras dramático, Lo que más quiero es la historia de dos amigas que viven sendos duelos -una, romántico; la otra, familiar- y pasan unos días juntas en las afueras de Bariloche. En pocas escenas se pinta con naturalidad la relación entre ellas, a quienes luego se suma un chico. Pilar Gamboa, María Villar y Esteban Lamothe se lucen en esta comedia rodeada de dolor, cercana en espíritu al cine de Eric Rohmer. D.L.

Alamar

DRAMA México (2009) De Pedro González-Rubio (Comp. Intern.)

Como varias películas en competencia, el filme juega en la unión de ficción y documental para contar la historia de un padre y su hijo que viajan a un arrecife de coral para pasar unos días juntos antes de que el niño se vaya a Italia con su madre. Abuelo, padre, hijo y naturaleza comulgarán en esta historia (ficcional) acerca de los lazos familiares que son, también, lazos con el mundo. Una película simple y bella, diáfana y emotiva. D.L.

La bocca del lupo

Drama Italia (2010) De Pietro Marcello (Competencia Internac.)

Un documental que mezcla material de archivo, ficción, lectura de cartas y grabaciones y entrevistas, la opera prima del italiano Marcello es un complejo y notable rompecabezas que arma y desarma una extraña historia de amor entre dos presidiarios y, a la vez, narra a Génova y sus barrios bajos, en un estilo que mezcla al Terence Davies de Of Time and the City con el universo de Pedro Costa. Un filme ambicioso formalmente y a la vez íntimo, emotivo y personal. Una de las joyas del festival. D.L.

El recuento de los daños

Drama De Inés de Oliveira Cézar (Competencia argentina)

Filme sobre el trabajo, combinado con un drama edípico que involucra casos de desaparecidos durante la dictadura, centrado en un hombre que viaja para auditar una fábrica, en un accidente que tiene camino hacia allí y en su relación con la familia dueña del lugar. Estilizado, bello y oscuro, aunque algo falto de impulso dramático y narrativo, El recuento... es un filme de momentos, de reflexión y de tesis. Quizás, es más de lo que puede abarcar, pero eso no quita su apuesta de riesgo. D.L

"El secreto de sus ojos", de Juan José Campanella (más críticas)

Lisa Schwarzbaum/Entertainment Weekly

Having just won the Academy Award as the year's best foreign-language film, The Secret in Their Eyeshas a decent shot at wearing down resistance to subtitled films. Don't be put off. This spellbinder from Argentina will sneak up and floor you. It's that good.

Ricardo Darin is brilliant as Benjamin, a criminal-court investigator who is tormented by the unsolved rape and murder of a young bride in 1974, and by the military junta that devastated his country around the same time. We watch as Benjamin and Sandoval (the superb Guillermo Francella), his alcoholic partner, work with the victim's husband, Ricardo (Pablo Rago), to identify the killer. Photos, especially those revealing the eyes of the killer, play a major role in the discovery. In a thunderously exciting chase scene through a Buenos Aires stadium during a heated soccer match, Benjamin and Sandoval hunt their prey, only to find him given shelter by the corrupt government of the new Argentina.

Now, 25 years later, the retired Benjamin begins writing a novel to resolve his need for closure and his feelings for Judge Irene Menéndez Hastings (Soledad Villamil, fiercely good). Out of a fabric of suspense that would have fascinated Alfred Hitchcock, director Juan José Campanella, best known in the U.S. for his work on Law & Order SVU,House and 30 Rock, weaves a moral fable that manages to pack a powerhouse punch and still be as intimate as a whisper. The highest praise is due Darin and Villamil for letting the unspoken passion between these two characters play out in their eyes. You won't be able to take your own eyes off them, or to get this supremely intelligent and deeply touching thriller out of your head.

PETER TRAVERS/Rolling Stone

Lisa Schwarzbaum/Entertainment WeeklyAs if to guarantee that the title doesn't go to waste, the complicated characters in the sinuous Argentinean thriller The Secret in Their Eyes frequently stare at one another in tight close-ups that encourage the audience to study each actor's expressive orbs for clues: What really happened in a Buenos Aires rape and murder case still unresolved after 25 years? What's going on in the head and heart of a recently retired criminal investigator-turned-novelist (Ricardo Darín) who has been hopelessly in love with his upper-class court colleague (Soledad Villamil) for a quarter of a century? Slipping the action between the past and the present, the movie — handsome and conventional enough to win this year's Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film — also snakes its slow-moving way through genres. As written and directed by Juan José Campanella, The Secret in Their Eyes melds the elements of a whodunit, a mature romance, a damning political commentary, and even a serious buddy movie, as the former investigator works side-by-side with his devoted, alcoholic partner (famed Argentinean comic Guillermo Francella).

The performances are tender, the script elegant, the cinematography (especially during a virtuoso chase scene in a soccer stadium) artful. Listen closely, though, and you can almost hear the reassuring chung-CHUNG that marks the influence of the many episodes of Law & Order on the director's résumé. Organized in a vague approximation of a three-episode L&O marathon, scenes regularly fade to black, then pick up elsewhere. All that's missing are title cards with Argentinean addresses to map the progress as secrets are revealed before our eyes. B

"El secreto de sus ojos", de Juan José Campanella (críticas)

Cold Case, Warm Hearts: Death Leads to Romance

By MANOHLA DARGIS/THE NEW YORK TIMES

The past continually forces its way into the present in “The Secret in Their Eyes,” an attractive, messy drama riddled with violence and edged with comedy that comes with a hint of Grand Guignol, a suggestion of politics and three resonant, deeply appealing performances. Set primarily in contemporary Argentina with intermittent flashbacks to the 1970s when the country was descending into a military dictatorship, the film is by turns a whodunit (and why), a romance and something of a ghost story. A young dead woman lies at the center of the mystery, but she’s scarcely the only thing here haunting the living.

If it takes a while to get a handle on the identity of the dead woman, it’s because she’s initially conjured up in the imagination of Benjamin (Ricardo Darín), a former court investigator. Now retired, Benjamin first encountered the woman years earlier at her home, where her naked body, as is too often true of movie corpses, was decoratively arranged on her death bed. The culprit, at least when it comes to aestheticizing this particular horror, is the writer and director Juan José Campanella, who has a tendency to gild every lily, even a dead one. That inclination explains some of the film’s sudden shifts in mood and outlandish plot twists, both of which can be preposterous but also create tension, surprise and a sense of disquiet that borders on dread.

Benjamin, having decided to write about the dead woman, revisits her murder, a pursuit that leads from the typed page into the offices of a judge and former colleague, Irene (Soledad Villamil). A quarter-century ago, Irene was his much younger supervisor, toiling with him in a warren of book-lined, paper-strewn rooms alongside a boozing, desperate clown, Sandoval (Guillermo Francella). Together the three tried to navigate around a bigger boss, a jaundiced judge, and through a system where the poor were railroaded for crimes they didn’t commit so they could serve the needs of the powerful. One such crime involves the dead woman.

At first, the murdered woman — or rather how Benjamin’s inquiry into her death affects him — brings to mind Otto Preminger’s “Laura.” In that 1944 noir, Dana Andrews plays a detective who, while investigating what he believes is the murder of the title character (Gene Tierney, a natural stiff), falls in love with the victim, or rather her portrait. Benjamin doesn’t fall in love with his dead woman, though the way he looks at her corpse and then her photographs suggests more than he can admit. But this long-gone woman seems to exert a hold on him, possessing him while he pecks out another page, as the camera crawls through the shadows and Mr. Campanella pokes into the past.

Mr. Campanella’s eclectic résumé includes several films made in his native country (“Son of the Bride,” a comedy) and numerous directing gigs for American television shows, including the “Law & Order” franchise. Although he executes some flashy moves in “The Secret in Their Eyes,” routinely calling attention to the camera — as in an aerial shot of a stadium in which the camera appears to descend seamlessly into the roaring crowd before chasing after a single character — it’s the performances that stick with you, along with Sandoval’s booze-soaked melancholia, an occasional scripted eccentricity and the chaos of the increasingly impotent justice system. The scenes between Mr. Darín and Ms. Villamil aren’t subtle (their eyes aren’t especially secretive), but they appealingly convey the warmth of habit and heat of regret.

The intimacy between Benjamin and Irene is lightly handled, as are several comic scenes — including a funny exchange during which Benjamin and Salvador’s amateur sleuthing comes under mocking attack — which show Mr. Campanella at his most nimble. (That adroitness helped the film win this year’s Academy Award for best foreign-language picture.) Less persuasive is his use of the military dictatorship, which takes on ugly human form primarily in the characters of a violent criminal and a bureaucrat who facilitates his brutality. The scenes with these thugs are blunt and effective: the creep-out factor is high. But they also frame the dictatorship in terms of individual pathologies, with little evident politics to make anyone feel uncomfortable as the memories of murder are inevitably turned into smiles.

“The Secret in Their Eyes” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Rape, murder and other brutalities.

Movie review: ‘The Secret in Their Eyes’/LOS ANGELES TIMES

The unsolved murder of a young woman is the root of this haunting, beautifully calibrated Oscar winner from Argentina.

By Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times Film Critic

April 16, 2010

There's something about a haunting mystery being solved by a haunted mind that's particularly seductive. That's just one of the many pleasures of "The Secret in Their Eyes," whose string of knots challenges and charms in a way that make its win of the foreign-language Oscar this year perfectly understandable.

Argentine writer-director Juan José Campanella has given audiences a beautifully calibrated movie in the most traditional sense of the word — the ideal marriage of topic, talent and tone. It's anchored by the unsolved murder of a young wife that won't let former criminal investigator Ben Espósito (Ricardo Darín) rest easy even after 25 years.

In addition to being one of Argentina's best-known filmmakers, Campanella has earned Emmys here, plus attention for directing episodes of "House," "Law & Order Special Victims Unit" and "30 Rock." He brought all that case-solving and comedy experience to bear in adapting the Eduardo Sacheri novel, interweaving the parallel worlds of the personal and the professional as his central character comes to realize that there is much more in his life to resolve than this single case.

The story begins in Buenos Aires in the '70s with the brutal rape and murder of the 23-year-old wife of Ricardo Morales (Pablo Rago), an ordinary young man with an extraordinary love for his wife and the life they were beginning to build. All these years later, Espósito sets about turning the case into a novel in an effort to answer all that remains unanswered.

As the puzzle of the past unfolds in flashbacks, the present reconnects him with his own lost love, Irene (Soledad Villamil), who was his young boss on the case and is now a respected judge with a family; he is just older and alone. But the spark remains, and Campanella strings a tight wire of crackling dialogue between them packed with all the tension and tease of a couple dancing around the edges of a relationship.

The filmmaker is careful not to overuse their substantial chemistry, sprinkling it through the film like a hot spice as Espósito tries to figure out what clues he overlooked years ago. Another key player in this well-cast ensemble is Espósito's partner Sandoval, a sometimes-brilliant investigator forever sidetracked by his love of booze, played with an amusing blend of ironic pathos by famed Argentine comic Guillermo Francella.

Campanella has been clever in using the blueprint of a cold-case procedural to explore a range of emotional themes from love and obsession to justice and retribution, all cast against a dark time of secret police and political intrigues in his native land. The action is moved along as much by patterns of human behavior as by events, and in doing so the filmmaker has given texture and depth to what could otherwise have become a more conventional thriller.

While Espósito sorts through his second thoughts and reconsiderations of decisions he and others made so long ago, director of photography Félix Monti and the production team work to both connect and separate the eras by keeping much of the focus on the faces and, of course, the eyes. When the camera pulls back to let more in, tension usually comes with it, as when Espósito spots the husband in a train station and learns that he spends his days moving from one station to another, hoping to spot the killer who's never been caught.

Darín is captivating as Espósito, and despite the years etched on the actor's face, he still brings his scenes as a much younger Espósito to life. He is the spine of the film, and it is the strength of the connection he builds with each character in turn — the lost love, the drunken partner, the destroyed husband, the killer — that ultimately makes the film a timepiece of precision and artistry. Like the murder at the heart of this tale, "Secret" is bound to linger in the memory for years.

betsy.sharkey@latimes.com

Armando Bo, al Festival de Cannes

Dos guionistas argentinos participan en la competencia oficial de Cannes 2010, el festival de cine más importante del mundo.

"Biutiful", la tan esperada película de Alejandro González Iñárritu (Amores perros, 21 gramos y Babel) protagonizada por Javier Bardem, fue co-escrita por el director mexicano y los argentinos Armando Bo y Nicolás Giacobone.

- El Festival de Cannes se llevará a cabo del 12 al 23 de mayo y tendrá como presidente del jurado a Tim Burton.

“Biutiful” retrata la historia de Uxbal y su lucha por recuperar el equilibrio emocional y espiritual tras un amor roto. Recoge asimismo cómo se ve obligado a luchar por salvaguardar a sus hijos y a hacer las paces con su propio pasado.

Acerca de Armando Bo

Nació en Buenos Aires en 1978. Es considerado uno de los diez mejores directores de cine publicitario del mundo, según el Gunn Report 2010.

En 2006 fundó junto con Patricio Álvarez Casado la productora Rebolucion, considerada una de las mejores productoras de cine publicitario de Iberoamérica. Escribió junto a Alejandro González Iñárritu y Nicolás Giacobone el guión de Biutiful, la nueva película del director mexicano de Amores Perros, 21 gramos y Babel.

También escribió junto a Nicolás Giacobone, El Último Elvis, su primer largometraje como Director, que comienza a filmarse en Julio del 2010.

Acerca de Nicolás Giacobone

Nació en Buenos Aires en 1975.

Escribió el libro Algún Cristo, publicado por Editorial Argenta, y las novelas Detective Pargo y Todos Saben Que Dios No Está Aquí. Además escribió con Alejandro González Iñárritu y Armando Bo el guión de Biutiful, la nueva película del Director Mexicano de Amores Perros, 21 Gramos y Babel. Escribió junto con Armando Bo el guión de El Último Elvis que está actualmente el preproducción.

"Los labios", de Santiago Loza e Iván Fund, en Un Certain Regard del Festival de Cannes

Link

Como notarán, el PDF del festival (en el link y copiado aqui) no aclara donde termina la competencia y donde empieza "Un Certain Regard" (sí, es verdad, hay un sellito arriba, pero me lo morfé). Por otros sitios descubrí que, desde "Blue Valentine", para abajo, es UCR. Por la cantidad de títulos anunciados (sólo 16 en competencia) me da la impresión de que faltan confirmaciones. La película de Trapero, por ahora, no aparece. Deben estar esperando algunas confirmaciones.

Festival Jurys

FEATURE FILM JURY

Tim BURTON, President

Kate BECKINSALE ‐ Actress / United Kingdom

Giovanna MEZZOGIORNO ‐ Actress / Italy

Alberto BARBERA ‐ Director National Museum of Cinema / Italy

Emmanuel CARRERE ‐ Writer ‐ Scripwriter ‐ Director / France

Benicio DEL TORO ‐ Actor / Puerto Rico

Victor ERICE ‐ Director / Spain

Shekhar KAPUR ‐ Director ‐ Actor ‐ Producer / India

CINEFONDATION AND SHORT FILM JURY

Atom EGOYAN, President ‐ Director / Canada

Emmanuelle DEVOS ‐ Actress / France

Dinara DROUKAROVA ‐ Actress / Russia

Carlos DIEGUES ‐ Director / Brazil

Marc RECHA ‐ Director / Spain

UN CERTAIN REGARD JURY

Claire DENIS, President ‐ Director / France

12‐23 MAY 2010

Opening film:

Ridley SCOTT ROBIN HOOD Out of Comp.

2h11

***

Mathieu AMALRIC TOURNÉE 1h51

Xavier BEAUVOIS DES HOMMES ET DES DIEUX 2h00

Rachid BOUCHAREB HORS LA LOI 2h11

Alejandro GONZÁLEZ IÑÁRRITU BIUTIFUL 2h18

Mahamat-Saleh HAROUN UN HOMME QUI CRIE

(A Screaming Man)

1h40

IM Sangsoo HOUSEMAID 1h46

Abbas KIAROSTAMI COPIE CONFORME 1h46

Takeshi KITANO OUTRAGE 2h00

LEE Chang-dong POETRY 2h15

Mike LEIGH ANOTHER YEAR 2h09

Doug LIMAN FAIR GAME 1h44

Sergei LOZNITSA YOU. MY JOY 1h50

Daniele LUCHETTI LA NOSTRA VITA 1h33

Nikita MIKHALKOV UTOMLYONNYE SOLNTSEM 2 2h21

Bertrand TAVERNIER LA PRINCESSE DE MONTPENSIER 2h15

Apichatpong WEERASETHAKUL LOONG BOONMEE RALEUK CHAAT

(Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives) 1h30

***

Derek CIANFRANCE BLUE VALENTINE 1st film 1h34

Manoel DE OLIVEIRA O ESTRANHO CASO DE ANGÉLICA

(Angelica) 1h34

Xavier DOLAN LES AMOURS IMAGINAIRES

(Heartbeats) 1h35

Ivan FUND, Santiago LOZA LOS LABIOS 1h40

Fabrice GOBERT SIMON WERNER A DISPARU… 1st film 1h27

Jean-Luc GODARD FILM SOCIALISME 1h41

Christoph HOCHHÄUSLER UNTER DIR DIE STADT

(The City Below) 1h45

Lodge KERRIGAN REBECCA H. (RETURN TO THE DOGS) 1h15

Ágnes KOCSIS PÁL ADRIENN

(Adrienn Pál) 2h16

Vikramaditya MOTWANE UDAAN 1st film 2h18

Radu MUNTEAN MARTI, DUPA CRACIUN

(Tuesday, After Christmas) 1h39

Hideo NAKATA CHATROOM 1h37

Cristi PUIU AURORA (Aurora) 2h59

HONG Sangsoo HA HA HA 1h56

Oliver SCHMITZ LIFE ABOVE ALL 1h40

Daniel VEGA OCTUBRE 1st film 1h23

David VERBEEK R U THERE 1h27

Xiaoshuai WANG RIZHAO CHONGQING

(Chongqing Blues) 1h46

12‐23 MAY 2010

Out of Competition:

Woody ALLEN YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER 1h38

Stephen FREARS TAMARA DREWE 1h49

Oliver STONE WALL STREET - MONEY NEVER SLEEPS 2h16

Midnight Screenings:

Gregg ARAKI KABOOM 1h28

Gilles MARCHAND L'AUTRE MONDE

(Blackhole)

1h40

Special Screenings:

Charles FERGUSON INSIDE JOB 2h00

Sophie FIENNES OVER YOUR CITIES GRASS WILL GROW 1h40

Patricio GUZMAN NOSTALGIA DE LA LUZ

(Nostalgia For The Light)

1h30

Sabina GUZZANTI DRAQUILA - L'ITALIA CHE TREMA 1h30

Otar IOSSELIANI CHANTRAPAS 2h05

Diego LUNA ABEL 1st film 1h20

BAFICI: Puntajes (27 películas)

Sigo con los puntajes. No es la mejor forma de analizar el festival y sus películas, pero es lo que llego a hacer. Aquí van una serie de títulos que vi en los últimos días previos y durante el BAFICI. No incluyo los títulos que ya aparecían antes en esta entrada (Link), los que están en la entrada anterior de la competencia argentina, y probablemente falten algunos otros reseñados en estos días. Se los puede buscar (si los vi, claro) siguiendo la etiqueta: BAFICI

Película de apertura
-Secuestro y muerte, de Rafael Filippelli (2010, 95'), Argentina (7)

Competencia Internacional

-El ambulante, de Eduardo de la Serna, Lucas Marcheggiano y Adriana Yurcovich (2009, 84'), Argentina (5)
-Lo que más quiero, de Delfina Castagnino (2010, 76'), Argentina (7)
-Cuchillo de palo, de Renate Costa (2010, 95'), España (7)
-La mujer sin piano, de Javier Rebollo (2009, 97'), España / Francia (7)
-Bummer Summer, de Zach Weintraub (2010, 79'), EEUU (8)
-Go Get Some Rosemary, de Josh & Benny Safdie (2009, 100'), EE.UU. (8)
-La quemadura, de René Ballesteros (2009, 65'), Francia / Chile (7)
-La bocca del lupo, de Pietro Marcello (2009, 76'), Italia (9)
-Paraíso, de Héctor Gálvez (2009, 91'), Perú (6)
-Red Dragonflies, de Jiekai Liao (2010, 96'), Singapur (7)

Competencia Cine del Futuro

-I Went to the Zoo the Other Day, de Li Luo (2009, 68'), Canadá / China (4)
-Oxhide II, de Jia Yin Liu (2009, 132'), China (8)
-Sweetgrass, de Ilisa Barbash y Lucien Castaing-Taylor (2009, 191'), EE.UU./UK/Francia (8)

Panorama

-Agua fría de mar, de Paz Fábrega (2009, 83'), Costa Rica / Francia (6)
-A falta que me faz, de Marília Rocha (2009, 85'), Brasil (7)
-La Famille Wolberg, de Axelle Ropert (2009, 82), Francia (8)
-The Girl, de Fredrik Edfeldt (2009, 95'), Suecia (8)
-Norteado, de Rigoberto Perezcano (2009, 94'), México / España (7)

Trayectorias

-In the Shadows, de Thomas Arslan (2010, 85'), Alemania (8)
-A religiosa portuguesa, de Eugène Green (2009, 127'), Portugal/ Francia (7)
-Visitors (Jeonju Digital Project 2009), de Hong Sang-soo / Naomi Kawase / Lav Diaz (2009, 106'), Corea del Sur / Japón / Filipinas (8-4-7)

Lugares

-Let Each One Go Where He May, de Ben Russell (2009, 135') EE.UU. / Surinam (6)

Música

-The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector, de Vikram Jayanti (2008, 102') UK / EEUU (7)

Nocturna

-Kinatay, de Brillante Mendoza (2009, 105') Filipinas / Francia (8)

Forum

-Extreme Private Eros: Love Song Kazuo Hara 1974 95 Japón (7)

Foco Covi & Frimmel

-Babooska Rainer Frimmel / Tizza Covi 2005 100 Austria / Italia (7)

Crítica: "El secreto de sus ojos", de Juan José Campanella (The New Yorker)

By David Denby

In Buenos Aires in 1974, a criminal-court investigator, Benjamin Espósito (Ricardo Darín), arrives at a crime scene bantering and cursing with a colleague, and sees the naked corpse of a beautiful young woman. A conventional Argentine male with a passionate reverence for female splendor, he’s stunned into silence; he appears to take the woman’s violation (she has been raped, beaten, and murdered) as an affront to his personal sense of order. Not only does he relentlessly pursue the killer; he draws close to the woman’s husband, a bank employee named Morales (Pablo Rago), who remains obsessed with his dead wife for the rest of his life. “The Secret in Their Eyes,” which won the Oscar this year for best foreign-language film, is, I suppose, a legal thriller, but it’s powerfully and richly imagined: a genre-busting movie that successfully combines the utmost in romanticism with the utmost in realism—Espósito, it turns out, has a love of his own, which he’s too abashed to act on. A few scenes approach the melodramatic kitsch of a telenovela, but the writer-director, Juan José Campanella, working with the screenwriter and novelist Eduardo Sacheri, sends us deeper into mystery and passion; the movie presses forward with a rhapsodic urgency and with flashes of violence and pungent humor. “The Secret in Their Eyes” is a finely wrought, labyrinthine entertainment whose corners and passageways will be discussed by moviegoers for hours afterward as they exit into the cool night air.

The movie opens in 2000, and Espósito, gray-bearded, is at his desk, writing. It is twenty-five years after the murder, and the investigator, retired yet still fascinated by the case, is assembling his recollections of it. What he writes is played out by the actors, but he angrily throws away each recollection as an inadequate first draft, and that scene disappears from the screen. Campanella is seriously teasing us: Espósito may be dissatisfied with his prose, but what he depicts in these first-draft attempts actually happened (we see the scenes again later, in their proper place in the story). Back in 1974, Espósito chases the killer with the aid of his antic partner, Pablo Sandoval (Guillermo Francella), and their cautious superior, Irene Menéndez Hastings (Soledad Villamil), a judge’s assistant. (In Argentina, judges act like D.A.s, investigating cases and indicting suspects.) Educated in the United States, Irene (as she’s referred to throughout) is a tall, brilliant upper-class beauty with a big head of black hair—think of a young South American Susan Sontag. She’s clearly on her way to the top (by 2000, she’s a powerful judge). Espósito is an intelligent man with penetrating dark eyes, but he’s not a lawyer, and the difference between them in income and status stops him from openly declaring his love for her, which she keeps hinting that she wants. Instead, he worries about Sandoval, an alcoholic genius who rises from the depths of a midday stupor in a bar and pulls together the clues that lead to the identity and the arrest of the murderer. Sandoval is a lovable mess, who, despite his gifts, can’t survive amid the chaos and the repression of Buenos Aires. The movie is haunted by missed opportunities and the meaningless, unhappy passage of time—the underside of obsession.

The murderer is a furtive creep named Gomez (Javier Godino), and what follows his capture is altogether startling. When Espósito, interrogating him, doesn’t get anywhere, Irene takes over. She turns the questioning into a sexual duel, taunting Gomez’s manhood, her words more wounding and more effective than a beating with brass knuckles. Campanella, who works in both the United States and Argentina, has directed numerous episodes of “Law & Order,” but what happens in this scene is not something you’ll see on American television. Irene understands the loathing of women at the heart of Argentine machismo; she plays a sarcastic bitch in order to provoke Gomez’s rage, and enjoys a triumph that pushes feminism beyond a critique of men—beyond ironic mockery, too—into a kind of legal-world performance art.

From scene to scene, the movie has an enormously vital swing to it. Espósito is a knight-errant of the law who seeks justice, and Sandoval is his Sancho Panza, while the judges (apart from Irene) are profane and corrupt political hacks; the back-and-forth among the court workers is juicy and explicit, sometimes hilarious, sometimes sinister, while the atmosphere outside the courts is savage. The dictator Juan Perón dies in 1974, and is succeeded by his wife, Isabel; it’s the time of the death squads, the disappearances, and legal anarchy. Gomez is freed by one of the judges and becomes a bully boy for the new fascist regime. He’s a serious threat to Espósito (Irene is protected by her wealthy family), and a provocation to Morales, the dead woman’s husband. Years go by, and, for most Argentineans, the time between the rule of the Peróns and the rise of democracy may be lost in a way that goes deeper than the lost love of two colleagues. Yet Campanella does no more than hint at the anguished political background of the story; he mostly sticks to his principal players, who are woven together in an increasingly intricate structure, revealed by an inventive and flexible camera. Campanella moves in for prolonged, emotionally wrenching closeups, as in a Garbo drama from the nineteen-thirties. He also does fluent and muscular sweeps: when Espósito and Sandoval first discover Gomez, in a soccer stadium, the camera, exploding with animal energy, pursues him, loses him as he ducks down a ramp, picks him up again. There may be no “signature” shot here, as in the work of an established auteur, but there’s an effortless mastery, from moment to moment, of whatever the dramatic situation requires

BAFICI: Puntajes de la Competencia Argentina

Me miento prometiéndome que esta noche, que mañana, que en un rato, voy a escribir reseñas sobre las películas que voy viendo. Pero no llego, no puedo, no me da el tiempo y cuando lo tengo prefiero hacer otra cosa, como comer o dormir, programas raros si los hay.

Así que, para resumir, un puntaje de las pelis que vi en los últimos días y que no llegué a reseñar aquí. Empezamos por la competencia Argentina.

"El pasante", de Clara Picasso (7)

"Somos nosotros", de Mariano Blanco (8)

"Hacerme feriante", de Julian D'Angiolillo (7)

"Invernadero", de Gonzalo Castro (7)

"Los labios", de Santiago Loza e Ivan Fund (8)

"Ocio", de Juan Villegas y Alejandro Lingenti (7)

"Rodríguez", de Julián Borrell y Demián Santander (6)