"There Be Dragons", de Roland Joffé (fotos del rodaje)

Me pidieron que saque las fotos. Saco las fotos. Lo dejo al criterio de cada uno analizar el asunto...

Se filma hace cuatro semanas en Buenos Aires la controvertida "There Be Dragons", considerada como la película más cara jamás filmada en la Argentina. Dirigida por Roland Joffé y protagonizada por Charlie Cox (a quienes se puede ver conversando en una de las fotos), la película centrada en la vida de José María Escrivá de Balaguer, el fundador de "la obra", incluye en su elenco a Dougray Scott, Wes Bentley y el argentino Lito Cruz (esto es confirmadísimo). Dicen también que actúa la española Belén Rueda, pero eso no lo logré confirmar.

Lo que tampoco se puede confirmar oficialmente, pero cada vez parece más probable (y algunas fuentes dejan entrever que es así), es que buena parte del dinero para financiar la película proviene del propio Opus Dei, que trata así de dar una versión más "amable" de su discutidísima institución, muy criticada desde distintas áreas en sus ocho décadas de existencia. La nota sobre el rodaje sale hoy en "Clarín" (leer y ver las fotos allí).

Lo que ven allí no es otra cosa que la esquina de Caseros y Defensa, en San Telmo (o Barracas, elijan), a unas pocas cuadras de la redacción del diario. Allí están filmando hace unos cuántos días y, como verán los que conocen la zona, han transformado Caseros en una calle de tierra y cambiado la fachada de varios edificios.

Más allá de la información, yo sigo sin entender cómo se filma una película del Opus Dei en Buenos Aires y el INCAA --tan "comprometido", manejado por gente que en los años '70 estaba ubicada en el polo opuesto de esa institución-- hace "la vista gorda" y apoya institucionalmente una película así. No digo que hay que censurarla ni mucho menos, pero al menos me interesaría que se investigue un poco de donde viene el dinero para hacerla.

Alasdair Roberts - Spoils (2009)

Link

Over the past dozen years or so, Alasdair Roberts has quietly maneuvered his way into the light as one of the most salient and sapient folk musicians today. Originally the leader of his own variably-staffed group, Appendix Out, Roberts had the good fortune of counting Will Oldham among his earliest fans, gaining him a much-deserved leg up at Palace Records and, later, Drag City. After three Appendix Out records, four solo, and one super-folk collaboration (the Amalgamated Sons of Rest EP with Will Oldham and Jason Molina), we have arrived at his fifth solo record, Spoils, which easily ranks among his best.The early interplay between the warm tones of piano, bass, and Roberts’ gently jangling guitar in the album’s opening song, “The Flyting of Grief & Joy (Eternal Return)”, lays exquisite groundwork for the other, ‘flashier’ attributes of the album: Its density of lyric delivered through Roberts’ winsome, pastoral Scottish warble, its discerning arrangements flecked with instruments of antiquity (in “Flyting’s” case, harpsichord and viol), and its classicist nature, which we and presumably its author can only experience through the prism of modernity. Of course, it’s a little easier for Roberts, who grew up in rural Scotland and now, even living in Glasgow, remains considerably closer to the ancient and enchanted moors and mountains of his ancestral landscapes. Yet while a primer on Scottish Christian lore and geography might help us stateside xenophobes keep up, the music, the sentiment, and the familiar words between references are more than enough to engage, if not fully ensnare, the listener, sweeping us right “up the shale and down the scree” along with it.

The olden sound and spirit of the album runs reliably throughout, although it’s by no means a purist affair; there are a couple artfully executed seconds of background guitar noise and a bit of synthesizer tucked into the mix, all with great and subtle effect. Though the proof was unnecessary, these higher-tech details do offer some proof of the album’s “grounded-ness” in the midst of such highfalutin additions as 19th century and baroque guitars, dulcimer, and hurdy gurdy (an antiquated sort of mechanical violin with strings “bowed” from underneath by a built-in rotating wheel controlled by a crank). “The Book of Doves” sports the latter three of these instruments for a gorgeously mysterious recounting of the passage through time of a certain medieval manuscript—probably fictional, but with Roberts and his depth of historical fascination, one never knows. Only Roberts, after all, would rhyme “mammon” (a medieval personification of greed) with “Slamannan” (a rural Scottish village roughly 30 miles away from the equally remote one in which the songwriter grew up) with apparent natural ease. The lyrics do also start with a sort of Q&A with the Irish St. Columba, who, in the mid-6th century, waged the Battle of Cúl Dreimhne over a copy he made of a psalter (a volume of Psalms, hymns from which are traditionally played on a harp called a psaltery, which Roberts actually plays in the following song on the album), then as penance, exiled himself to Scotland as a missionary to convert as many people as were killed in the battle. In but four-and-a-half minutes, “The Book of Doves” culminates twice; first in lush, hurdy-gurdied swells like a storm at sea, and again a moment later through the powerful plucked intricacy of classical acoustic guitar interplay. Either one of these moments is easily enough to make any listener feel beckoned toward some ancestral horizon; both make for a brilliant high water mark of the album.

Following “Doves” is another intense passage, “Ned Ludd’s Rant (For a World Rebarbarised)”, a profound and surprisingly disquieting addition that deftly emphasizes the indelible musical bridge between the Old World and its migratory cultural outcroppings in Appalachia and the American West. Featuring Roberts on psaltery and backed by 19th century guitar and viol, it underscores Roberts’ place among current folk peers such as Oldham and fellow high-brow lyricist Joanna Newsom, while the lyrics possibly set him aside, articulating a seriousness of purpose in his use of classical instruments and language. The reference to Ned Ludd signifies an animosity towards modern technology, or industry, and in this case, perhaps also the modern culture that embraces it all so fully. Ludd was the symbolic figurehead of the Luddites, who, during the Industrial Revolution, comprised a social movement against the mechanization that was replacing human labor, costing jobs and other cultural and socioeconomic problems. In the song, the singer seems to take issue with an affliction not necessarily labor-related but more grandiose, lamenting cosmos “desacralized,” observing how “we’ve seen the death of wonder; now we rob grave robbers’ graves and redisplay the plunder…” Its anger builds, culminating in a finger pointed squarely at “you haters, you whores and fornicators: Prepare to be undone.” A stern warning, a startling premonition, an in-character out-lashing of typical Christian doom and guilt (with atypical musical beauty); whatever the case, it rattles the otherwise placid basket of Spoils.

Studious though it helps to be to get to the root of Roberts’ lyric poetry, no OED is necessary for the album’s most immediate beguiler, “You Muses Assist”, with its casually charming flutes and jubilant tune, or to enjoy the jangly, electric rock guitar solo about halfway through “Hazel Forks”—a Palace Records-worthy moment if ever there was one, with a more Scottish-style bridge at the other end. Altogether, Spoils is an album of multifaceted rewards; a beautiful and instantly gratifying listen, at once sparse and full, challenging to the intellect and easy on the ear.
by Howard Wyman crawdaddy.wolfgangsvault

Tom Cruise sí, Cientología no

Supongo que lo sabrán, pero por las dudas lo aclaro: no estoy auspiciado por la Cientología. Si alguno ve a la derecha una publicidad de scientology.org, sepan que nada tengo que ver con eso. Es una de las consecuencias de tener Google Ads. Uno los incluye para ver si puede sacar algún mínimo dinero de este asunto y resulta que no sólo los ingresos son ínfimos, sino que te meten publicidades imposibles, como esta por ejemplo.

Eso nomás. Igual, Tom Cruise me parece un actor de puta madre... (y para seguir con mi obsesión con Michael Mann, lo muestro en una foto de "Colateral")

Richard Kelly on 'The Box': 'It's the most personal film' I've made" (Los Angeles Times)

In his relatively brief career, writer-director Richard Kelly has seen plenty of controversy. His 2001 debut, "Donnie Darko," played the Sundance Film Festival, flopped at the box office and then went on to find a massive and loyal cult audience on home video (not to mention bolster the career of star Jake Gyllenhaal). His follow-up, "Southland Tales," was a wild, sprawling narrative set in a futuristic version of Los Angeles that drew a decidedly mixed reaction when an early cut screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006; it was more than a year later before the movie saw a very limited release in the U.S.

Now, the Virginia-born filmmaker has crafted what might be his most conventional outing yet, the Warner Bros. thriller "The Box." Based on the short story "Button, Button" by Richard Matheson, Cameron Diaz and James Marsden star as a married couple who receive a strange visit from a man, Mr. Steward (Frank Langella) bearing a fairly nondescript-looking contraption. He tells them that if they press the button on top of the unit, they will receive $1 million, but a stranger will die.

Just before Kelly debuted new footage at Comic-Con on Friday, he told Hero Complex contributor Gina McIntyre in an interview that "The Box" is the most personal of all his films. It opens Oct. 30.

What made you want to adapt this particular Richard Matheson short story?

This story just stuck with me. I read it as a kid and I went and optioned it about six years ago from Mr. Matheson himself. I wanted to know who Mr. Steward was. Why does he show up with this button unit? Who does he work for? Why is he doing this to people? What does it all mean? Like a kid in Sunday school, I had all these questions and I felt like I wanted to be the guy to have a crack at answering some of those questions and playing this six-page short story out. The short story is the framework for Act 1, then Act 2 and Act 3 become all about Arthur and Norma [Marsden and Diaz] and their journey of redemption and discovery and salvation, dealing with the consequences of having pushed this button and then discovering why have they been chosen.

How was it to work with material that was originally created by someone else?

This is the first time I've made a film that isn't a 100% original screenplay, but I feel OK with it because it was only six pages long and it was almost begging to be revisited. It's such a tantalizing concept that it sort of deserves feature-length treatment. It warranted that -- if anything I just wanted to make sure to kind of thoroughly investigate the premise and really do it properly. It took a while to figure that out. Sometimes you find that the best way to go about something is to go back to your family. I imagined what if this were my parents. What if my parents got this button unit back in Virginia in 1976 and my dad having worked at NASA. I thought about NASA and the nature of the experiment, the government and everything that exists in that area of Virginia in terms of the CIA, the FBI in northern Virginia, all that infrastructure there. All of a sudden it started to click in my mind and become something really interesting and complex, a big kind of conspiracy.

You were a writer-director and producer on this film. How important is for you to have that kind of creative control?

I'm definitely a control freak. To do your job properly as a director you have to be a control freak, so I'm really happy to be a part of all those processes. If I'm ever lucky enough to find someone else's screenplay that I really identify with and would want to direct, I'm sure I would always do a little bit of rewriting of it, just because that's the nature of my control-freakishness. I'm getting more open to doing other stories and other people's stories, but at the same time I'm writing two original screenplays right now. I feel like I need to be the person controlling the idea.

Will one of those two scripts be your next project?

I hope so. I've got my new script done.

Can you reveal any details about that completed script?

It's a thriller and it's about 35% motion capture. To be able to create a world from scratch is an exciting idea and seeing what all these amazing filmmakers like Jim Cameron and [Robert] Zemeckis and Peter Jackson -- I'd love to be able to use some of the tools that they're pioneering. That would be really exciting for me.

After everything that happened with "Southland Tales," was there less pressure on you with this film?

The third film is maybe a little easier than the second one. I didn't make my life so difficult with this one as to try to do something so incredibly ambitious. "Southland Tales" was a huge challenge. This was also a challenge, but it's a much simpler story with three characters and certainly something that's quite a bit more commercial in terms of a studio being able to market and release it. So there was less pressure in that. It was great to have a studio on board from the beginning. That was a relief.

You didn't have any problems working within the studio system?

It actually was a pretty easy experience making the film with the studio. I actually kind of enjoyed it, just the security of knowing it's going to get release, that you have them have a vested interest from the beginning. I got to make exactly the film I wanted. "Southland Tales" was such an ambitious film, just getting it finished. I knew that after Cannes it was going to be a very small release with no marketing money and I was just grateful that Sony gave me some more money to finish the visual effects. The cut wasn't finished at Cannes. We had so much unfinished visual effects work to make stuff look right. It was frustrating, it was difficult, but I bit off a lot, and it took me a long time to chew it. I'm so proud of what we accomplished with that film. If anything I would love to be able to revisit it down the road, do a director's cut, maybe one day when I'm in my 40s, who knows. It feels good to have the third film done because maybe the first act of my career is sort of over and I can move into the second act. In the same way, "The Box" is my first grownup film. The first two were certainly adolescent in the sense of being really provocative and aggressively unconventional. Now, "The Box" is a much more conventional story, but I will say it still is idiosyncratic. I don't feel like I've sold out or watered myself down. I still feel like it has my sensibility. It's the most personal film of all the three ironically.

-Gina McIntyre

Johnny Depp: "No quiero aburrir al público" (Clarín)

Link (Clarín)

Lightning Dust - Infinite Light (2009)

Link

We are extremely pleased to present the first glimpse of Lightning Dust’s sophomore album for Jagjaguwar, Infinite Light (Released Aug. 4 in the US and Aug. 3 in the UK), an album that ups the ante of the band’s minimalist, self-titled debut and lays to waste any “side project” chatter. There is a light on the other side of the black mountain, and it glows in the hearts of Vancouver duo Amber Webber and Joshua Wells. As Lightning Dust, the pair harness a gentler sound than as founding members of Black Mountain, though this sound is no less loaded with tension and an enviable fluency in the most classic of psych-rock.

While Infinite Light is definitely more layered and lush than previous efforts, Lightning Dust’s minimal aesthetic works well in the economy of musical theater, an influence for the record, wherein each song’s movements aim to be more inspiring than the one before it. And this is suiting in that Infinite Light is a nod to “the light of inspiration” that inspires us to keep dancing, creating and loving in spite of an encroaching darkness. It’s a reminder that what makes the mountains so very, very black is a distant light somewhere on the other side.

First mp3 “I Knew” is a shining example of the fuller, charging sounds of Infinite Light. The song is absolutely shot out of a cannon, driven by the ping/thud pulse and crusty keyboards of Suicide and taken to flight by the Fleetwood Mac chorus your heart belts on the drive home after that first, anxious make-out session. It’s a blazing, triumph of a song that permanently cauterizes any notion of Lightning Dust as a side project.

And be on the lookout for upcoming Lightning Dust tours of North America and Europe in support of Infinite Light.

"Public Enemies", de Michael Mann (IFC Review)

Aparte de dejar aquí esta muy buena crítica sobre la película de Michael Mann (yo, cada día más convencido que es una obra maestra), les recomiendo que le peguen una mirada a los "ensayos" en video que Matt hace para el Museum of the Moving Image y que incluyen un especial en cinco entregas sobre Michael Mann que pueden ver (y/o leer) aquí.

By Matt Zoller Seitz

"The only thing important is where somebody's going." That bit of existential wisdom comes from none other than John Dillinger (Johnny Depp), the soft-spoken, bank-jacking antihero of "Public Enemies," Michael Mann's latest epic about unhappy tough guys doing what they do best. It's offered by way of flirtation, as part of Dillinger's out-of-nowhere and all-out attempt to impress a gorgeous hat-check girl named Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard) -- a pitch of woo so intense, and so divorced from what Billie considers realistic feeling, that it both unsettles and amuses her. "I'm catching up, meeting someone like you," he tells her. "Boy, you're in a hurry," she deadpans. "If you were looking at what I'm looking at," "Public Enemy" Number One informs her, "you'd be in a hurry, too."

In the two-plus weeks since I first saw "Public Enemies," it has lingered in my mind more vividly than almost any Hollywood film of the past couple of years.

On first viewing, I was inclined to call "Public Enemies" minor Mann, a characterization meant not as a putdown, but a simple summary. As anyone who's read me before well knows, I'm a student of the poetic-bombastic filmmaker, whose worst films are more visually arresting and artistically committed than almost any recent Oscar winner I can recall. His films often play like Samuel Fuller by way of Michelangelo Antonioni -- violent tone poems exploring the angst of machismo and the impossibility of deep and lasting connection by way of dreamy montage, hypnotic music and disorienting, off-center compositions. I'm hugely impressed by Mann's formal restlessness, his thematic consistency and his willingness to change up his game over time (moving from the Stanley Kubrick-level anal retentiveness of his work prior to 1999's "The Insider" to a more visually and dramatically loose aesthetic, much of it stemming from his recent conversion to high-definition video and mostly handheld camerawork).

That said, "Public Enemies" initially struck me as a signpost/stopgap feature along the lines of "Collateral," a Michael Mann 101 movie that compressed some of his signature tropes into easily graspable baubles, a work less interesting for its situations and set pieces than for the way in which it seemed to find its director taking stock of recent preoccupations and stylistic tics before moving on. (Conscious callbacks to prior Mann movies abound, such as the mirroring of obsessed cops and robbers, and gestures such as Dillinger somewhat gingerly laying his gun on a tabletop when he enters a hotel-room-as-domestic-sanctuary, and telling bank customers he's after the bank's money, not theirs -- all echoes of key moments in "Heat" and its TV movie inspiration, "L.A. Takedown.") The structure of Mann, Ronan Bennett and Ann Biderman's script is episodic, patchy even. Judged against the norms of modern screenwriting convention, the film doesn't cover much ground; it's episodic in a manner faintly reminiscent of mid-period Oliver Stone (think "Born on the Fourth of July" or "The Doors," films that traded narrative-advancing montage for a spare assortment of protracted, often borderline real-time scenes).

And yet, in the two-plus weeks since I first saw "Public Enemies," it has lingered in my mind more vividly than almost any Hollywood film of the past couple of years -- and I'm convinced that its ostentatiously un-blockbustery tendencies are the source of the movie's vividness. While offering many of the core elements that the marketplace demands (including a badass antihero, a crime-and-violence storyline and a love story), "Public Enemies" gives those same elements short shrift, the better to concentrate on intense but largely unarticulated feelings and psychological states.

My friend Sean Burns, the Philadelphia Weekly film critic, recently noted that Mann's latest movie is a rare summer blockbuster without any establishing shots. That's not strictly accurate (Mann does offer a few sweeping shots of Chicago streets packed with gleaming black cars and the like), but it's true to the spirit of the movie, which is at once intimate and opaque. Like so many Mann movies, "Public Enemies" puts us as close to its main characters' bodies as it can while simultaneously and paradoxically maintaining a respectful, even borderline scientific, detachment. It luxuriates in the present tense, refusing to hang labels on anybody (Mann's heroes rush through backstory monologues and often seem faintly bored by having to provide them) and insisting that we project our personalities and concerns onto Dillinger, G-Man Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) and company.

Contemporary sentiment dismisses such an approach as shallow, flashy, even cold; I prefer to think of it as respectfully rigorous, a means of demanding imaginative involvement from moviegoers that tend to get pissy when movies don't tell them exactly what to think and feel. (It's no accident that one of Mann's signature shots is a close-up taken from just behind a character's ear, the rest of the widescreen frame filled by out-of-focus negative space. It's intimate yet also intentionally off-putting; it denies us a view of the character's face, thereby forcing us to guess what they're thinking and feeling.)

Despite a wealth of period detail and a few thematically apt timeline markers, such as the creation of the modern FBI (characterized here as a power grab by a then-young bureaucrat named J. Edgar Hoover, played by Billy Crudup as a power-hungry suit who uses PR the way Dillinger uses a Tommy gun), this is not the sweeping, “Godfather”-style historical epic promised in trailers and TV ads, nor is it a guns-a-blazin’ action picture. Though the shootout sequences are predictably loud, intense and immersive -- again, shades of “Heat” -- they take a back seat to scene after scene of Dillinger and his opposite, Purvis, just being. I can already hear the majority of viewers who were bored by Mann’s 2006 “Miami Vice” (one of my favorite movies from that year, and probably as close to a hazy-dreamy Wong Kar-wai movie as Hollywood is likely to get) griping that there’s too much talkin’, not enough shootin.’ I wouldn’t presume to claim that “Public Enemies” is as intricately wrought as say, “The Last of the Mohicans” or “Manhunter,” films in which every scene, line, shot and cut is deployed for a singular, clearly defined purpose. The FBI stuff in “Public Enemies,” for instance, is unsatisfying because -- except for Stephen Lang’s rough-hewn right-hand man, who gets the film’s book-closing final scene -- Purvis and the gang of Texas Rangers he brings in as muscle are pretty standard goons-squad cops, humorless brutes with T-square jaws that don’t have a tenth the inner life of Depp’s Dillinger. That might be Mann’s point, but he didn’t need a parallel narrative to make it.

But perfection plus momentum isn’t Mann’s M.O. anymore and hasn’t been for years. He’s gotten looser and more meditative, delivering features that are blurrier than his early work (in the visual and plot sense), yet also more attuned to the fine points of the individual’s engagement with his own public image (a thread that pays off in a brilliant sequence in which Dillinger visits a police station and looks at the organizational chart on the FBI’s squad room wall). His recent films are more attentive to the moment-to-moment shifts in emotion between colleagues, lovers and friends and, above all else, more devoted to making every interaction, every moment of reflection, appear to be happening right now.

These inclinations may explain Mann’s total commitment to video. He’s virtually unique among A-list auteurs shooting in high-def in that not only does he not try to make it look like film, he goes out of his way to call attention to the fact that it’s video. Why? A theory: besides indicating a true artist's respect for the properties of the medium he’s chosen (painters don’t break their backs trying to make watercolor resemble oil paint), Mann is looking to amp up immediacy and shatter the usual subliminal reassurances that we’re watching a movie and it’s not “really” happening. Film is about things that happen to other people, usually people who are a lot richer and prettier than we are. Video is about what happens to us, at a birthday party or memorial service, in line at the bank, on the sidelines at a news event. The video-ness of the video in “Public Enemies” is discombobulating in a good way; when we look at all these handsome men and women in their period clothes, driving their period cars and speaking their period slang, we’re not seeing something that happened long ago, something safely removed from our own experience. It’s happening right now, live, right in front of us. Not many big summer films help us see familiar situations through fresh eyes. “Public Enemies” is one such movie: perhaps not minor Mann at all, but something major, a work that needs to be seen, absorbed and argued about more than once.

Reverend And The Makers - A French Kiss In The Chaos (2009)

Link

Reverend (aka Jon McClure) hails from the musically-renowned land of Sheffield, UK. Before this project he sang for Judan Suki and 1984 finding underground local fame and getting a name for himself. He has already collaborated with Arthur Brown, John Cooper Clarke, Tim Hampton (Bromheads Jacket), Mike Hughes (Trap2), Chris McClure, Laura Manuel (ex Judan Suki), Andy Nicholson (ex Arctic Monkeys), Tom Rowley (Milburn), and Alex Turner (Arctic Monkeys) as well as working with producer Alan Smythe. For live gigs Reverend has assembled ‘The Makers’, a superband of relatively unknown musicians.

Toronto Film Festival 2009: Trailers

Obviamente que hay mejores cosas que estas en Toronto, sólo que los trailers no están online o las películas ya se vieron en Cannes. Acá algunas novedades y, a decir verdad, nada luce demasiado apetecible...

Lone Scherfig's "An Education"



Michael & Peter Spierig's "Daybreakers"



Catherine Corsini's "Partir"



Ricky Gervais' "The Invention of Lying"



Richard Kelly's "The Box"



Nicolas Winding Refn's "Valhalla Rising"



Karyn Kusama's "Jennifer's Body"



Rachel Ward's "Beautiful Kate"

"The Fantastic Mr. Fox", de Wes Anderson (fotos)

"Where the Wild Things Are", de Spike Jonze (trailer & featurette)

"Los condenados" de Isaki Lacuesta, en competencia en San Sebastián

Nunca el cine español fue tan argentino como en la sección oficial de San Sebastián. La película de Lacuesta es una historia sobre dos ex guerrilleros argentinos que se reencuentran después de mucho tiempo (Daniel Fanego y Arturo Goetz), luego está la coproducción de Campanella (ya anunciada) y Ricardo Darín es también protagonista de "El baile de la Victoria", de Fernando Trueba, que va fuera de concurso.

Aquí, la información oficial.

El cine español participará en el Festival de San Sebastián con tres películas a competición en la Sección Oficial (Los condenados, La mujer sin piano y Yo, también) y tres más en Zabaltegi-Nuevos Directores (Màscares, Ori y Zorion Perfektua).

Además, el director Fernando Trueba, ganador del Oscar a la Mejor Película de Habla No Inglesa por Belle epoque (1992), presentará su nueva película, El baile de la Victoria, en la Sección Oficial, fuera de concurso.

Por otra parte, la película El secreto de sus ojos, que también competirá por la Concha de Oro, es una coproducción entre Argentina y España. El secreto de sus ojos es la nueva película de Juan José Campanella, candidato al Oscar a la Mejor Película de Habla No Inglesa por El hijo de la novia (2001), y tiene como protagonistas a los actores Ricardo Darín y Soledad Villamil.

Los condenados es la nueva película del director catalán Isaki Lacuesta, uno de los más alabados talentos del cine español reciente. Con Cravan vs. Cravan (2002), Lacuesta recibió el Premio al Director Revelación y el Premio Gran Angular en el Festival de Sitges, además del Premio Sant Jordi RNE, entre otros muchos galardones. Su segundo largometraje, La leyenda del tiempo (2006), compitió en el Festival de Locarno, y en el Festival de Las Palmas logró el Premio Especial del Jurado y el Premio al Mejor Actor para Israel Gómez. Los condenados es su tercer largometraje.

El madrileño Javier Rebollo compite por segunda vez en la Sección Oficial del Festival de San Sebastián, donde ya estuvo presente en 2006 con Lo que sé de Lola. La película recibió posteriormente el Premio Fipresci de la Crítica en el Festival de Londres, el Premio de Óperas Primas del Festival de Guadalajara, y Rebollo fue nominado al Goya al Mejor Director Novel. En La mujer sin piano, su segundo largometraje, ha contado con la popular actriz Carmen Machi como protagonista.

Yo, también es el primer largometraje de los directores Álvaro Pastor y Antonio Naharro, protagonizado por Lola Dueñas y Pablo Pineda. El madrileño Álvaro Pastor ha dirigido diversos cortometrajes, entre ellos Invulnerable (2005), que recibió más de 30 premios, y Uno más, uno menos (2002), que ha ganado más de 40 premios, y fue codirigido por Antonio Naharro. Por su parte, el albaceteño Antonio Naharro es actor, guionista y director y ha recibido numerosos premios por su interpretación en el corto Invulnerable.

Con Màscares, los directores catalanes Elisabet Cabeza y Esteve Riambau, vuelven a San Sebastián después de haber presentado su primer largometraje, La doble vida del faquir, en Zabaltegi-Especiales en 2005. Màscares es su segundo largometraje y tiene como protagonista al actor José María Pou.

Ori es una coproducción con Georgia y el primer largometraje de ficción del director madrileño Miguel Ángel Jiménez Colmenar, tras el documental Días de El Abanico (2007). Ori ha sido rodada íntegramente en Georgia.

Zorion Perfektua es el primer largometraje para cine del director vizcaíno Jabi Elortegi, realizador de series de televisión de gran éxito como Goenkale y Agitación+IVA. La película, hablada principalmente en euskera, está basada en la novela del mismo título de Anjel Lertxundi, y protagonizada por la popular actriz y presentadora de televisión Anne Igartiburu.

Las tres películas incluídas en la sección Zabaltegi-Nuevos Directores (Màscares, Ori y Zorion Perfektua), así como dos de los títulos de la Sección Oficial, La mujer sin piano y Yo, también, optarán al Premio Kutxa-Nuevos Directores, dotado con 90.000 euros.

El cine español también tendrá presencia en coproducciones con Latinoamérica que se presentarán en la sección Horizontes y en las películas de Made In Spain, que se darán a conocer próximamente.

"Alicia en el país de las maravillas", de Tim Burton (nueva foto)

Para los que ven (o vieron) la primera temporada de la serie "In Treatment", la actriz que encarna a Alicia es la "paciente de los miércoles" del terapeuta que interpreta Gabriel Byrne.

Cronenberg comes on board for DeLillo adaptation Cosmopolis (Screendaily)

David Cronenberg has signed on to bring Don DeLillo’s Cosmopolis to the big screen.

Cronenberg will adapt the screenplay with “a view to eventually direct.”

Paulo Branco is producing the project through his Alfama Films, in a co-production with Cronenberg’s own Toronto Antenna Ltd.

Branco has been developing the project since February, and has put the budget at about $10m-$12m.

DeLillo’s story is about 24 traumatic hours in the life of a 28-year-old materialistic billionaire financier who loses all his wealth.

Branco said a shoot is planned for 2010 in Toronto and New York City, although Toronto Antenna said no timeline is set yet.

Comic-Con: James Cameron gives fans a lengthy look at ‘Avatar’ (Los Angeles Times)

It’s his first commercial film since “Titanic,” and judging by the 25-minute preview unveiled at Comic-Con, James Cameron’s “Avatar” will be every bit the spectacle as his Oscar-winning film from 1997.

The animated “Avatar” is set on a distant, lush planet called Pandora, a super-saturated world filled with 1,000-foot trees, exotic, near fluorescent forests, fearsome predators and an indigenous people known as the Na’vi -- tall, blue humanoids who are peaceful until provoked. The story revolves around the war between the Na’vi and the human military invading their world.

To make the film, Cameron used a new technology that enabled him to super-impose the computer-generated creatures onto his live actors while shooting. He said he wrote the project 14 years ago specifically to push the art of digital 3-D animation. The results, to hear the Comic-Con attendees in Hall H tell it, are stunning.

The audience, many of whom camped alongside the “Twilight” fans for the privilege, were treated to a sequence of scenes condensing the tale: Jake Sully is a paralyzed Marine who volunteers to become an Avatar -- a genetically engineered human/Na’vi hybrid. He suffers several brushes with some dinosaur-types, a violent flirtation with a Na’vi princess, and an even more violent Na’vi rite of initiation.

Cameron will get to test-run the film on an even bigger crowd on Aug. 21, which he’s declared "Avatar Day." The filmmaker announced he’ll be taking over IMAX and 3-D theaters around the world to screen 15 minutes of the film for moviegoers for free.

In introducing the film, Cameron said it was made “for the 14-year-old boy that is very alive and well in the back of my mind.”

But don’t expect a film for kids. In fact, I'd wager “Avatar” is going to be kind of heavy.

“I don’t want to say it’s important, because then it sounds like you’re making a documentary,” Cameron said. But it’s “something with a conscience. In the enjoying of [the film], it maybe makes you think about the way you interact with nature and your fellow man.”

After the screening, it was clear cast members Sigourney Weaver, Zoe Saldana and Stephen Lang had become as immersed and invested in Pandora as the filmmaker himself, speaking of the Na’vi as though they were a historical fact.

A professor at USC worked two years on develop their language, and Saldana said all the actors had to take movement classes to “de-humanize” themselves. She also trained in Wushu, horseback riding, archery and weightlifting to play Na’vi princess Neytiri.

Said Cameron: “We know the ecology and composition of the atmosphere, the geography and species of plants, the culture and the history of the Na’vi people.”

"Los santos sucios", de Luis Ortega (fotos)

Una ciudad en ruinas, trazos del final de una guerra, o tal vez de toda una era. La presencia desafiante de soldados acecha por las calles. Un particular grupo de sobrevivientes se reúne con el fin de escapar.

Rey, un escéptico hombre de negocios caído en desgracia. El Mu do, que ha dejado de hablar por propia decisión, pero que guarda para sí los secretos de la música. Berry, un hombre de rasgos indígenas que vive en la cúpula de una iglesia y que es el tutor de los últimos trazos de un romanti cismo ya perdido. Cielo, un adolescente amoral y paranoico que idolatra a Rey y lo sigue a sol y sombra. Monito, una niña abandonada que vive añorando el amor. Y Brian, un niño aún inocente luego del asesinato de sus padres.

Estos personajes comienzan un viaje que los enfrentará a sus propios temores, sueños, anhelos y miedos, y cuyo final es tan abierto como impredecible.

"Ponyo y el secreto de la sirenita", de Hayao Miyazaki (crítica)

Link (Clarín)

Venice Critic's Week unveils line-up (Variety)

"Metropia", de Tarik Saleh

ROME — The Venice Film Festival's Critics' Week has unveiled its lineup featuring 10 world preems with a largely Eurocentric focus, complemented by two topical Iranian works, and one from South Korea.

Opening the 24th edition of the independently run Lido section dedicated to first works will be Swedish sci-fi animation pic "Metropia" by tyro helmer Tarik Saleh, a former graffiti artist and founder of Stockholm's ultra-indie Atmo Media Network shingle.

Set in an imaginary post-Orwellian 2024, menaced by "a dangerous shampoo seeping into people's thoughts," as section topper Francesco Di Pace put it, the eclectic English-language toon, bowing out-of-competition, is voiced by Vincent Gallo, Juliette Lewis, Udo Kier and Stellan Skarsgard.

Sweden, which is making a strong showing, will also be repped in the Lido crix selection by another Atmo production, Erik Gandini's hot-button docu "Videocracy" on Silvio Berlusconi's launch of trashy TV in Italy and its deeply degrading effect on the country's moral and political fabric.

"Videocracy" is preeming in Venice as a special event in tandem with the Lido's other independent section, the Venice Days, prior to also unspooling in Toronto.

The seven first works in the Lido crix week competish are: Seoul-set "Cafe Noir" by South Korean critic-turned-helmer Chung Sung-il; "A Rational Solution" by Sweden's Jorgen Bergmark, who collaborated with Bent Hamer on "Kitchen Stories"; Gaul's "Domaine" by Patric Chiha about a teenage boy who becomes entangled with his aunt, played by Beatrice Dalle; Italy's "Good Morning Aman," about multi-ethnic Rome, by Italy's Claudio Noce; Gogol-inspired "Kakraki" from Russia's Ilya Demichev; Ireland-set sibling drama "Foxes" from Czech helmer Mira Fornay; and "Tehran," a potentially controversial docu by Nader T. Homayoun about that city's underbelly depicting such scourges as a trade in newborn babies and prostitutes in parks.

The closer, out of competition, will be "Chaleh" by Ali Karim, a drama also hailing from Iran, about an old man scamming for a living on the outskirts of an earthquake-stricken city. Pic was praised by Di Pace as transcending the conventions of most recent Iranian cinema.

Di Pace ascribed the absence of Yank pics in part to what he called "a cookie-cutter tendency in young American cinema," but also to the fact that Toronto, whose dates dovetail with Venice, is demanding world preem exclusivity.

Venice Critics' Week pics will not be judged by a jury, just by votes cast by festgoers. The top prize is worth Euros 5,000 ($7,100), provided by Venice's Veneto region.

All Critics' Week entries will compete alongside titles in the Official Selection for the fest's Golden Lion of the Future, worth $100,000.

The Venice Film Festival runs Aug. 2- Sept. 12. The Lido's official lineup will be announced July 30.

Toronto Film Festival 2009: más anuncios

Nuevos títulos anunciados para Toronto, entre ellos el anuncio oficial de "El secreto de sus ojos", de Juan José Campanella, en la sección Special Presentations, y de "Los santos sucios", de Luis Ortega.

Toronto – The Toronto International Film Festival announces the addition of eight titles to its Special Presentations programming lineup for TIFF09, which runs September 10 to 19, 2009. These include works from Argentina, France, Italy, Japan, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States. These new films join the nineteen previously announced Special Presentations.

SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS

Broken Embraces Pedro Almodóvar, Spain

North American Premiere

Harry Caine, a blind writer, reaches a point when he has to heal his wounds from 14 years ago, when he was still known by his real name, Mateo Blanco, and directing his last movie. As the past is revisited, a story of “amour fou” unfolds, dominated by fatality, jealousy, the abuse of power, treachery and a guilt complex.

An Education Lone Scherfig, United Kingdom

Canadian Premiere

A coming-of-age story about a teenaged girl in 1960s suburban London and how her life changes with the arrival of a playboy nearly twice her age. Torn between her parents’ dream of going to Oxford University and a more tempting kind of life, she must decide if the new path is one that will trap her or set her free.

The Front Line Renato De Maria, Italy

World Premiere

Set during a turbulent period in 1970-80s Italy, the plot centres on passionate couple Sergio and Susanna, who have been living as fugitives. Pursuing an uncompromising cause as members of the notorious Prima Linea, they have become increasingly alienated from the real world. Their luck finally runs out when Susanna is captured and thrown in jail. Putting his life on the line, Sergio embarks on a radical plan.

Glorious 39 Stephen Poliakoff, United Kingdom

World Premiere

This tense conspiracy thriller set on the eve of World War II and based on disturbing real events, focuses on a young woman who stumbles across evidence of a sinister Nazi appeasement plot. As her close friends begin to die in suspicious circumstances, she finds her own life in danger from an increasingly menacing and powerful enemy.

Kamui Yoichi Sai, Japan

World Premiere

A crowd pleasing, sweeping epic brilliantly directed by one of Japan’s finest auteurs, Kamui is the adventurous story of a fugitive ninja played by superstar Kenichi Matsuyama.

Life During Wartime Todd Solondz, USA

North American Premiere

Happiness director Todd Solondz returns with another unsettling dark comedy about sexual obsession between friends, family and lovers struggling to find love, forgiveness and meaning in a war-torn world. Allison Janney and Ciarán Hinds star.

A Prophet Jacques Audiard, France

North American Premiere

A young Arab man, Malik, is sent to a French prison where he is cornered by the leader of the ruling Corsican gang. He is given a number of “missions” to carry out, toughening him up and gaining the gang leader’s confidence in the process. But Malik is brave and a fast learner, daring to secretly develop his own plans.

The Secret of Their Eyes Juan José Campanella, Argentina/Spain

International Premiere

Benjamín Chaparro, a secretary of a court in Buenos Aires, is about to retire and decides to write a novel based on a case that deeply affected him thirty years ago. Chaparro’s tale crosses Argentina’s turbulent years during the 1970s, when nothing was necessarily what it seemed to be.

EXCITING WORKS FROM NEW FILMMAKERS ANNOUNCED FOR DISCOVERY

Toronto – The 34th Toronto International Film Festival announces twenty-one feature films for the Discovery programme, showcasing provocative feature films by new and emerging directors. This is where audiences can find the year’s most exciting debuts as the Festival shines a light on the works of up-and-coming filmmakers.

DISCOVERY

The Angel Margreth Olin, Norway/Sweden/Finland

World Premiere

A young mother (played brilliantly by Maria Bonnevie) struggles with a history of drug abuse in this exquisitely rendered and deeply compassionate piece, the first fiction film from one of Norway’s most respected documentary filmmakers.

Applause Martin Pieter Zandvliet, Denmark

North American Premiere

Paprika Steen delivers a tour-de-force performance in this devastating drama about an alcoholic actress trying to put her life back together.

Bare Essence of Life Satoko Yokohama, Japan

International Premiere

In this original fusion of black comedy, surreal fantasy and feel-good drama about a mentally challenged hero, Japanese heartthrob Kenichi Matsuyama plays a strange farmer who finds an unexpected path to the miracle of love.

Beautiful Kate Rachel Ward, Australia

International Premiere

In order to make peace with his combative, dying father, a writer must return to his childhood home and confront long-suppressed memories of the mysterious deaths of his brother and twin sister.

A Brand New Life Ounie Lecomte, South Korea/France

North American Premiere

An impressive debut by French-Korean filmmaker Ounie Lecomte who, inspired by her childhood, recounts the emotional journey of a little girl abandoned by her father in an orphanage.

The Disappearance of Alice Creed J. Blakeson, United Kingdom

World Premiere

Two ex-cons kidnap a woman, but the tables turn and turn again in this tight, smart tale. This film is a terrific little thriller starring Eddie Marsan, Martin Compston and Gemma Arterton.

Eamon Margaret Corkery, Ireland

North American Premiere

A family holiday brings to a head the destructive love triangle between Eamon, a little boy with behavioural problems, his selfish mother Grace and his sexually frustrated father Daniel.

Every Day Is a Holiday Dima El-Horr, France/Germany/Lebanon

North American Premiere

From Lebanon, this is a striking debut about three women on the road to visit their imprisoned men. Mixing real politics and stark absurdity, El-Horr announces herself as a major new voice in Middle Eastern cinema.

Five Hours from Paris Leon Prudovsky, Israel

World Premiere

In a suburb of Tel Aviv, an Israeli cab driver who longs to fly and a Russian music teacher who is soon to board a plane find out that romance is only a cab ride away.

Heliopolis Ahmad Abdalla, Egypt

World Premiere

An Egyptian art film with some major stars, Heliopolis weaves together portraits from one of Cairo’s most storied neighbourhoods.

The Day Will Come Susanne Schneider, Germany/France

International Premiere

Thirty years after giving her daughter up for adoption to join the terrorist underground in Germany, Judith is tracked down by her now-adult daughter Alice to a vineyard in the Alsace where she is living with a new family and a new identity.

Le Jour où Dieu est parti en voyage Philippe van Leeuw, Belgium

World Premiere

Offering a new take on the Rwandan genocide, acclaimed cinematographer van Leeuw’s directorial debut recreates the first-person experience of one woman as the horror descends.

Last Ride Glendyn Ivin, Australia

International Premiere

A desperate father and his 10-year-old son flee into the wilderness of the desert and the human heart, battling the elements, the past and each other.

My Dog Tulip Paul Fierlinger and Sandra Fierlinger, USA

North American Premiere

Christopher Plummer and Isabella Rossellini voice this vividly animated, touching tale of friendship between an elderly bachelor and his German Shepherd.

My Tehran for Sale Granaz Moussavi, Australia/Iran

International Premiere

Shot underground on location in Tehran, the film tells the story of modern-day Iranian youth struggling for cultural freedom.

Northless Rigoberto Perezcano, Mexico/Spain

World Premiere

Andrés reaches the Mexican border to cross into the United States. As he waits between crossing attempts, he discovers the complicated border world of Tijuana.

La Soga Josh Crook, Dominican Republic/USA

World Premiere

This gritty and gripping drama explores political intrigue, love, death and the power of memory, set in the Dominican Republic.

Shirley Adams Oliver Hermanus, South Africa/USA

North American Premiere

This intimate, precise portrait focuses on a mother in Cape Town, South Africa, whose son is disabled in a neighbourhood shooting.

Toad’s Oil Koji Yakusho, Japan

International Premiere

The story of Takuro Yazawa, a day-trader who claims he can earn hundreds of millions of yen in one day, and those around him as they attempt to cope with the death of his son and somehow find a way to benefit spiritually from the experience.

Together Matias Armand Jordal, Norway

International Premiere

The tragic death of a mother causes her family to shatter when they struggle to cope with the loss.

The Unloved Samantha Morton, United Kingdom

International Premiere

Morton shifts from actor to director in this stark portrait of a young British girl plucked from an abusive family and thrown into the hands of government care.

NEW VANGUARD FILMS ANNOUNCED FOR 2009 FESTIVAL

Toronto – The 34th Toronto International Film Festival adds nine titles to its Vanguard programme.

Works presented under the Vanguard banner are bold films that challenge our social and cultural assumptions. This is where innovative filmmakers tend to blur the distinction between different genres, styles and narrative conventions – and where savvy film-goers can expect a satisfying challenge.

VANGUARD

Accident Soi Cheang, Hong Kong, China

North American Premiere

Gripping and smartly constructed, this unconventional crime thriller/psychological drama, revolves around assassins who commit murder by making perfectly staged crimes look like unfortunate accidents. Produced by Johnnie To.

The Ape Jesper Ganslandt, Sweden

World Premiere

A descent into hell, Jesper Ganslandt’s disturbing and suspenseful second feature begins with a man waking up in unfamiliar surroundings, only to find the life he knew the day before is gone.

Bunny and the Bull Paul King, United Kingdom

World Premiere

Shy Stephen and his totally disordered boozehound of a best friend, Bunny, show us how to embark on an adventure-filled road trip without leaving the room.

The Dirty Saints Luis Ortega, Argentina

World Premiere

Luis Ortega’s apocalyptic third feature follows a group of five survivors as they embark on a journey that will force them to face their fears, dreams and longings in their quest for salvation across the Fijman River.

Enter the Void Gaspar Noé, France/Germany/Italy

North American Premiere

Controversial filmmaker Gaspar Noé (Irreversible) is back with a mind-bending journey that transcends life and death as he follows the exploits of a young American drug dealer living in Japan.

Hipsters Valery Todorovsky, Russia

North American Premiere

In a fantastical 1950s Moscow, straight-laced Mels swaps his drab Communist uniform for a saxophone, pompadour and zoot suit in this vibrant musical that is bursting with razzle and dazzle and of course, rhythm.

The Misfortunates Felix Van Groeningen, Belgium/Holland

North American Premiere

From Belgium comes this rambunctious, vulgar story of a 13-year-old boy growing up in a small village with his father and three uncles, all drunken, incorrigible louts. Yet they are hilarious and they love Roy Orbison.

My Queen Karo Dorothée van den Berghe, Belgium

World Premiere

A young girl witnesses the moral dilemmas of free love when her parents join a squatter community in 1970s Amsterdam.

Spring Fever Lou Ye, China

North American Premiere

A lyrical and audacious portrait of a doomed gay love triangle that spins out of control, Spring Fever is inspired by prohibited Chinese novels from the 1920s and directed by controversial filmmaker Lou Ye.