Guatamalan writer-director Jayro Bustamante had a dream debut with “Ixcanul” in 2015: The richly textured folk drama premiered in Competition at Berlin and won him the Alfred Bauer Prize, before going on to healthy international arthouse exposure. So it’s surprising that Bustamante’s subsequent work, while amply delivering on his first feature’s promise, has been comparatively sidelined in major festival programs. Earlier this year, his superb gay drama “Tremors” was demoted to Berlin’s lower-profile Panorama section; now “La Llorona,” his swift, thrilling, genre-expanding follow-up, has unspooled on the Lido in the external Venice Days sidebar — duly winning the top prize. By any measure, Bustamante’s latest is meaty, adventurous auteur cinema that would be of prime competition standard at any major fest: A nervy alternative horror film in which political ghosts of the past mingle with more uncanny phantoms, it ought to be the filmmaker’s most widely distributed work to date.
- 9/16/2019
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
Close-Up is a feature that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Julio Hernández Cordon's Buy Me a Gun, which is receiving an exclusive global online premiere on Mubi, is showing from July 12 – August 10, 2019 in Mubi's New Auteurs series.Julio Hernández Cordon’s fifth fiction feature, Buy Me a Gun, is a magical-realist story, loosely based on the realities of Mexico’s drug trafficking, in which a group of children navigates an apocalyptic, dystopian world. In the vein of Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012), the film is powered by the underlying idea that children are equipped with all the emotional intelligence and resilience they need—if not to fully understand, then to survive, or to even transcend, the most egregious violence.In the film, a young girl, Huck (Matilde Hernández Guinea), whose sweet, brittle voice guides us throughout in the voiceover, must pretend that she is a boy.
- 7/11/2019
- MUBI
Ela Bittencourt's column explores South America’s key festivals and notable screenings of Latin films in North America and Europe.Murder Me, Monster“Making a film is close to dreaming,” Carlos Reygadas said in his Master Class at the International Film Festival in Rotterdam. “When you’re dreaming, you’re not thinking is this a traveling or a close-up. Film has a unique logic, it’s not logical.” The last phrase is an oxymoron, but filmmakers can surely be both intuitive and calculating. Reygadas envisions entire scenes before filming them, but goes with the flow on the set. And indeed it’s this mix of the planned and the strange, the utterly unpredictable, perhaps even superfluous, that informs some of the best films in this year’s Neighboring Scenes: Latin American Cinema festival.In addition to Reygadas’s pictorially striking Our Time (2018), which opens the festival, daydreams are also palatable...
- 2/20/2019
- MUBI
Los Cabos, Mexico — A mix of traditional pre-colonial and modern, urban-infused storytelling, Julio Hernández Cordón’s “Neza” pitches at this week’s Los Cabos Festival Works in Development, where the filmmaker’s most recent film “Buy Me a Gun” – Director’s Fortnight and San Sebastian Horizontes Latinos competitor – is in competition.
Born in North Carolina but educated at Mexico’s Ccc, Hernández has positioned himself as one of Mexico and Mesoamerica’s most solid filmmakers. In 2007 his feature “Gasolina” won the Filmsin Progress award at San Sebastian and a year later topped the festival’s Horizontes Latinos competition. Since that time, he has pumped out critical and festival acclaimed films regularly, including “Atrás hay relámpagos” – a participant at Rotterdam – and the aforementioned “Buy Me a Gun.”
“Neza” is a modern tale with pre-Spanish roots. It’s the story of a pair of betrayals which become too much for the titular character to bear.
Born in North Carolina but educated at Mexico’s Ccc, Hernández has positioned himself as one of Mexico and Mesoamerica’s most solid filmmakers. In 2007 his feature “Gasolina” won the Filmsin Progress award at San Sebastian and a year later topped the festival’s Horizontes Latinos competition. Since that time, he has pumped out critical and festival acclaimed films regularly, including “Atrás hay relámpagos” – a participant at Rotterdam – and the aforementioned “Buy Me a Gun.”
“Neza” is a modern tale with pre-Spanish roots. It’s the story of a pair of betrayals which become too much for the titular character to bear.
- 11/9/2018
- by Jamie Lang
- Variety Film + TV
After a relatively fallow 2017, European sales companies at Busan’s Asian Film Market, which runs Oct. 6-9, appear to be headed back to the halcyon days of 2016, despite the damp weather conditions. Statistics from European Film Promotion (Efp), a constant presence at the market since 2006 via their Europe Umbrella business hub for European sales companies, tell the tale.Europeans Get Back to Business at the Asian Film Market
At the 2016 market, 27 European companies represented 105 films, of which 48, or 45.71%, were sold across Asia. These included “Night of a 1000 Hours,” sold by Germany’s Picture Tree Intl., and “Porto,” sold by Poland’s New Europe Film Sales. In 2017, 30 companies represented 119 films, of which 47, or 39.49%, were sold to Asian territories, including “Bpm (Beats Per Minute),” sold by France’s Playtime, and “The Insult,” repped by fellow French outfit Alpha Violet.
In 2018, reflecting what has been a strong year for European cinema, there are...
At the 2016 market, 27 European companies represented 105 films, of which 48, or 45.71%, were sold across Asia. These included “Night of a 1000 Hours,” sold by Germany’s Picture Tree Intl., and “Porto,” sold by Poland’s New Europe Film Sales. In 2017, 30 companies represented 119 films, of which 47, or 39.49%, were sold to Asian territories, including “Bpm (Beats Per Minute),” sold by France’s Playtime, and “The Insult,” repped by fellow French outfit Alpha Violet.
In 2018, reflecting what has been a strong year for European cinema, there are...
- 10/5/2018
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
We’re more than 18 months deep into the Trump era, and — for better or worse — the effect of his regime is finally starting to trickle into the movies. From massive franchise blockbusters to righteous historical biopics and even the occasional family comedy, films of all shapes and sizes have been responding to (or even inspired by) the current state of world affairs, reflecting the systemic failures that got us here, and occasionally using their light to guide us through the present darkness.
The defining cinema of the Trump era is likely still to come, but these seven films — including Eugene Jarecki’s “The King,” which opens in theaters today — provide our first indications as to how the movies might process this grim period of American history.
“BlacKkKlansman”
Spike Lee is not a particularly subtle filmmaker, but we are not living in particularly subtle times. If “BlackKklansman” is blunt even by Lee’s standards,...
The defining cinema of the Trump era is likely still to come, but these seven films — including Eugene Jarecki’s “The King,” which opens in theaters today — provide our first indications as to how the movies might process this grim period of American history.
“BlacKkKlansman”
Spike Lee is not a particularly subtle filmmaker, but we are not living in particularly subtle times. If “BlackKklansman” is blunt even by Lee’s standards,...
- 6/22/2018
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
There’s a Fury Road of sorts running through “Buy Me a Gun,” Meso-American filmmaker Julio Hernández Cordón’s orderless, genre-splicing seventh feature, but it’s a bumpy, meandering one; driving along it, you’ll spot “Mad Max’s” desolate, sun-scorched vistas from the windows, passing by at a fraction of the speed. An indeterminately dystopian vision of Mexico in the full control of cartels — whether it’s post-apocalyptic, pre-apocalyptic or merely apocalypse-adjacent is among the many question marks here — the film ostensibly centers on a father and daughter struggling to stick together through a barrage of regimented violence. Yet Hernández Cordón’s narrative is too slender and sluggish to gather much emotional force; wearing such disparate influences as George Miller and Mark Twain brashly on his sleeve, he seems distracted from the task at hand by his smaller, more inventive strokes of world-building. Viewers may follow suit.
Thanks to such well-traveled,...
Thanks to such well-traveled,...
- 5/31/2018
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
At its start, the 2018 Cannes Film Festival wasn’t perceived as a big market for buyers, but many U.S. distributors came home happy: A24 acquired Gaspar Noé’s psychedelic dance thriller “Climax,” and Neon scored fantastical Un Certain Regard winner “Border.” Sony Pictures Classics picked up Lebanese crowdpleaser “Capernaum,” while Magnolia Pictures landed Palme d’Or winner “Shoplifters.” Even Jean-Luc Godard’s unclassifiable experimental essay film “The Image Book” found a home, with Kino Lorber, and the festival closed out with Netflix picking up prize winners “Happy as Lazzaro” and “Girl.”
Still, there were plenty of Cannes highlights that ended the festival with their futures uncertain. Here are some of our favorites that deserve to get out there. So long as buyers are still keen on acquiring foreign language films, they might want to consider these options.
“Asako I + II”
Smart indie distributors should be celebrating the fact that...
Still, there were plenty of Cannes highlights that ended the festival with their futures uncertain. Here are some of our favorites that deserve to get out there. So long as buyers are still keen on acquiring foreign language films, they might want to consider these options.
“Asako I + II”
Smart indie distributors should be celebrating the fact that...
- 5/22/2018
- by Eric Kohn and David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
Ali Abbasi’s Swedish troll love story “Border,” a highlight of this year’s Un Certain Regard at Cannes, has been sold in all major territories by Films Boutique.
“Border” follows a border guard (Eva Melander) who has the ability to smell human emotions and catch smugglers. When she comes across a mysterious man with a smell that confounds her detection, she is forced to confront disturbing insights about herself and humankind. The movie was penned by Abassi, Isabella Eklöf, John Ajvide Lindqvist, a Swedish novelist who is best known for his book “Let the Right One In” which was adapted into a hit movie.
“Border” was acquired by solid distributors across the world, including in France/Switzerland (Metropolitan), Scandinavia (Triart), Japan (Kino Films), China (Lemontree), Russia (Cis Volga), Taiwan (Filmware), Benelux (Filmfreak), Latam (Impacto Cine), Germany/Austria (Wild Bunch Germany), Spain (Karma) and Portgual (Alambique). All remaining territories are currently in negotiations.
“Border” follows a border guard (Eva Melander) who has the ability to smell human emotions and catch smugglers. When she comes across a mysterious man with a smell that confounds her detection, she is forced to confront disturbing insights about herself and humankind. The movie was penned by Abassi, Isabella Eklöf, John Ajvide Lindqvist, a Swedish novelist who is best known for his book “Let the Right One In” which was adapted into a hit movie.
“Border” was acquired by solid distributors across the world, including in France/Switzerland (Metropolitan), Scandinavia (Triart), Japan (Kino Films), China (Lemontree), Russia (Cis Volga), Taiwan (Filmware), Benelux (Filmfreak), Latam (Impacto Cine), Germany/Austria (Wild Bunch Germany), Spain (Karma) and Portgual (Alambique). All remaining territories are currently in negotiations.
- 5/16/2018
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
Located somewhere between “The Florida Project” and “Fury Road,” Julio Hernández Cordón’s precocious and arresting “Buy Me a Gun” is a neo-realist fable that’s seen through the eyes of a child and set in a world ruled by fear. It’s a major work in a minor key, a movie that gracefully straddles the line between the tenuousness of the present day and the violence of the post-apocalyptic thunderdome we’re all racing towards, real and unreal all at once.
We know where the story takes place, but the when of it is pointedly unclear. “Mexico,” the opening text declares. “No precise date. Everything, absolutely everything, is run by the cartels. The population has declined due to the lack of women.” And then we’re dropped into the dark of night. A little girl is locked in a cage, while men with machine guns laugh by a fire in the distance.
We know where the story takes place, but the when of it is pointedly unclear. “Mexico,” the opening text declares. “No precise date. Everything, absolutely everything, is run by the cartels. The population has declined due to the lack of women.” And then we’re dropped into the dark of night. A little girl is locked in a cage, while men with machine guns laugh by a fire in the distance.
- 5/14/2018
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
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