Las Niñas, the debut film of Pilar Palomero, wins 4 Goya Awards and more! →

Huge congratulations are in order for Las Niñas, the debut film of our Pilar Palomero, which has won 4 Goya Awards - for Best Film, Best Debut Film, Best Screenplay and Best Cinematography.

In fact, Las Niñas has been the most awarded film this year in Spain, and since Sept 4th, day of public release, the film is still in cinemas!

-Feroz Awards: Best Drama Film, Best director and best screenplay.

-Gaudí Awards: Best non-catalan film, Best Director and best cinematography.

-Forqué Awards: Best Film.

-The film was premiered at Berlinale Kplus 2020 and won the Golden Biznaga in the Malaga Film Festival.

Pilar is preparing her new film "La Maternal" which will start shooting on October 2021.

Fernando Nogari's music video for Selena Gomez goes viral

Fernando Nogari directed a music video that has gone viral - ‘Baila Conmigo’ - for Selena Gomez & Rauw Alejandro, set in Redonda, Ceara, Brazil - it’s very stylish - as all of Nogari’s works are - he’s a stylish dude!

Watch the official video here: https://youtu.be/h5WN3pkxPF0

Starring: Kibba and Ariane Aparecida Directed by Nogari @fernando.nogari Produced by Iconoclast

Pilar Palomero participated in Berlinale Talents with her new feature screenplay in development →

Pilar Palomero recently participated in Berlinale Talents Script Station with her new feature screenplay in development- La Maternal - Drama, Spain, 100 min

https://www.berlinale-talents.de/bt/talent/pilar-palomero/profile

Gonzalo Escobar Mora's new short film, 'Enthusiasts' premieres at Portland International Film festival →

Shot during the Covid-19 lockdown in Chicago in 2020, with 3 flatmates being the only cast and crew - our Gonzalo Escobar Mora and Emma Rozanski among them - ‘Enthusiasts’ is an interesting examination of ‘making plans’ amidst uncertainty - reflected through the eyes of two artists who are coping with the added uncertainty of making art and sustaining themselves financially into the future, while living in an ultra-consumer-capitalist world. Can you ‘buy’ your way out of the ‘system’?

Film listing: https://cinemaunbound.org/events/enthusiasts/

Synopsis: Uncertainty transpires as a couple navigates their future plans.

Directed by Gonzalo Escobar Mora
United States | 2020
Hybrid, Drama

Screening online Fri, March 5 – Sun, March 14

This short film screens as part of Shorts Block 1

PLEASE VISIT WWW.CINEMAUNBOUND.ORG FOR THE FULL FESTIVAL LINE UP!

Festival Website: https://nwfilm.org/festivals/44th-portland-international-film-festival/

Kaori Od's film Cenote now playing on MUBI →

Kaori Oda's magical film CENOTE, set in Mexico and also co-produced by our Marta Hernaiz-Pidal (along with Bistrik7 collaborator and friend Jorge Bolado), is now playing on MUBI for a limited time as part of their Rotterdam Film Festival selection. If you have yet to see it now is your chance!

WATCH HERE: https://mubi.com/films/cenote

Marta Hernaiz Pidal selected for Cannes Cinéfondation #LaRésidence 2021 →

Congratulations to Marta Hernaiz Pidal for being selected to attend the Cannes Cinefondation Residence in Paris from March 2021, to work on her new feature screenplay. We look forward to seeing how the film develops during her time there!

https://www.cinefondation.com/en/residence/

For its 42nd session #LaRésidence will welcome from March 1st to July 15th directors:

- Lucía Aleñar Iglesias (Spain )

- Behzad Azadi (Iran )

- Marta Hernaiz Pidal (Mexico / Spain )

- Inbar Horesch (Israel )

- Sameh Morsy (Egypt )

- David Vicente (Portugal )

POLKA-DOT by Aleksandra Niemczyk premieres at RENCONTRES INTERNATIONALES MONDE →

Aleksandra Niemczyk’s new short film "Polka-Dot" is premiering now at festival RENCONTRES INTERNATIONALES MONDE and streaming online from today until 6th of December. In the section: "Cinema-Therapy". Cinematography and co-production by our Marta Hernaiz Pidal and Graeme Cole

Starring Tina Keserovic and Thomas Steyaert

Watch here.

RENCONTRES INTERNATIONALES MONDE

Friday, November 13 to Sunday, December 6

POLKA-DOT, 2020, Aleksandra Niemczyk, 10 min

An impressionistic emotional struggle between a girl with a prefabricated heart and a mysterious puppet-master. Inspired by the chapter "The Girl with the Pre-Fabricated Heart" from the surrealist film "Dreams That Money Can Buy" (1947) by avant-gardist and dada artist Hans Richter.

Emma Rozanski and Gonzalo Escobar Mora develop new Colombian feature film project with Torino Film Lab →

Emma Rozanski and Gonzalo Escobar Mora have been selected to participate in the Torino Film Lab NEXT script development workshops in Sep/Oct with Colombian-set Spanish-language feature film EL VAQUERO.

More information about the workshops and a list of the selected projects can be found here: http://www.torinofilmlab.it/training/tfl-extended-2/tfl-next/tfl-next/35-tfl-next-film-development

Torino Film Lab: http://www.torinofilmlab.it/

Las niñas de Pilar Palomero, mejor película española en el Festival de Málaga!

Congratulations Pilar and Team on their festival prize for Las Niñas!

Las niñas

Pilar Palomero | 2020 | España

PRODUCCIÓNInicia Films, Bteam Pictures, Las Niñas Majicas A.I.E
DURACIÓN100 minutos
GUIONPilar Palomero
FOTOGRAFÍADaniela Cajías
MÚSICACarlos Naya

MONTAJE

Sofi Escudé

REPARTO

Andrea Fandos, Natalia de Molina, Zoe Arnao, Julia Sierra, Francesca Piñón

DISTRIBUCIÓN

Bteam Pictures

VENTAS INTERNACIONALES

Film Factory

CONTACTO

info@iniciafilms.com

SINOPSIS

Celia, una niña de once años, estudia en un colegio de monjas en Zaragoza y vive con su madre. Brisa, una nueva compañera, recién llegada de Barcelona, la empuja hacia una nueva etapa en su vida: la adolescencia. En este viaje, en la España de la Expo y de las Olimpiadas del año 92, Celia descubre que la vida está hecha de muchas verdades y algunas mentiras.

圧倒的な映像美、音、言葉で、神秘の泉と古代マヤ族の記憶を手繰り寄せる体感型ドキュメンタリー『セノーテ』小田香監督インタビュー

ハンガリーの巨匠、タル・ベーラ監督が設立したボスニアの映画学校で学び、卒業制作の前作『鉱 ARAGANE』(15)で高い評価を得た小田香監督の最新ドキュメンタリー映画『セノーテ』が、9月19日（土）より新宿 K’s cinema、10月31日（土）よりシネ・ヌーヴォ、今秋出町座、元町映画館他全国順次公開される。　メキシコ、ユカタン半島北部に点在する、セノーテと呼ばれる洞窟内の泉の中、古代マヤ族の文化を継承している村の姿をそれぞれ全く違う質感で見せ、小田監督らしい音へのこだわりも随所に垣間見える。物語を紡ぐのではなく、記憶の断片を集めたような、観る人によって違う印象を覚えるであろう映像詩。泉の水面でしぶきが弾ける様子や、光が届かないような泉の深い場所で大型魚が悠々と泳いでいく姿など、小田監督だからこそ撮れるような感動を呼ぶ映像の数々を浴びるような音とともにぜひ体感してほしい。　見事第一回大島渚賞（ぴあフィルムフェスティバル主催）に輝いた本作の小田香監督にお話を伺った。

https://cinemagical.themedia.jp/posts/9836970/?fbclid=IwAR1cEQvoe3eDHXwNhPcRgTkuPGQW14HYZc-p7xVrVT-sGnGKEZXUhFm7Zto

New trailer for Pilar Palomero's Las niñas

Watch the new trailer for Pilar Palomero's debut feature film, Las niñas, here.

RTVE.es estrena el tráiler de Las niñas, la ópera prima de la cineasta Pilar Palomero: una historia de muchas de las mujeres de hoy, dibujada a través de la educación que recibieron a principios de los 90 en España. Protagonizada por Andrea Fandos y Natalia de Molina.

Las niñas premiered in the 2020 Berlinale.

Ágora de la Ciudad screening a series of Bistrik7 Films throughout 2020

Ágora de la Ciudad, an initiative in collaboration with Ex Convento Betlehemita Centro Cultural in Vera Cruz, Mexico, has been creating an exciting and diverse online screening series, complete with filmmaker interviews, throughout this summer. Many Bistrik7 Films have screened thus far (curated by Gustavo Vega) and there are many more to come throughout the rest of 2020! Other esteemed BIstrik7 colleagues from Film.Factory Sarajevo have also screened.

Keep up to date with the programme here: https://www.facebook.com/AgoraXalapa/

and via @AgoraXalapa

Next up is Gonzalo Escobar Mora’s 2019 Colombian short film, ‘Economia Social’, screening on Friday 14th August, 2020 (details here)

Kaori Oda's ‘Cenote’ in JAPAN CUTS 2020!

‘Cenote’ in JAPAN CUTS 2020!

We will be showing "and" in the experimental spotlight department of Japan Cuts 2020 Online Film Festival this year. We will also participate in panel discussions to talk to all the directors who are participating in the documentary department.

https://japancuts.japansociety.org/film/new-approaches-to-documentary-from-japan/

An interview with Kaori Oda on her new film Cenote via MUBI Notebook →

Fresh from her International Premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Kaori Oda interview with Kaori Oda on her new film Cenote via MUBI Notebook

Read the full interview HERE:

https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/toward-a-common-tenderness-an-interview-with-kaori-oda

Berlinale 2020 - Las Niñas debut feature of Pilar Palomero →

via CineEuropa:

BERLINALE 2020 Generation

Review: Las Niñas

BERLINALE 2020: With sensitivity, Pilar Palomero’s first work recreates the repressive atmosphere which far too many Spanish girls grew up within towards the end of the 20th century

For those more familiar with showy and ultra-fast commercial cinema, Schoolgirls might prove a disappointing watch: the action is minimal, depicting the characters’ day-to-day activities, such as doing homework, painting their lips for the first time or playing during breaktime. But there’s a subtext behind the description of this routine; a background and an intent which reveal a contradictory country which has continued to teach its future women to accept acquired machismo, sexual repression and all-important conformism.

Celia, the film’s protagonist (the magnificent acting revelation Andrea Fandos), is the daughter of a single mother (played by Natalia de Molina). She’s growing up and at the very moment her body begins to change, doubts of every kind start to alter her thinking. She’s no longer comfortable with the lies and silences her mother metes out every time she asks questions, about her origins, for example. The times are changing too, even if her environment – especially the convent school where she’s studying – seems to be doing everything possible to stave off the inevitable. But a new friend will breathe fresh air into her personal prison.

Schoolgirls opens with a magnificent scene, and its closing shot contrasts perfectly with the first. Between the two, we accompany this young woman in her insomnia, doubts and anxieties, with the camera ever glued to Celia’s gaze. And it won’t be hard for those who grew up in the eighties and nineties to recognise themselves or their friends, sisters or neighbours in Schoolgirls’ various scenes.

As we watch the film, titles such as Carlos Saura’s legendary film Cría cuervos or the recent Ojos Negros [+], by the duo Marta Lallana and Ivet Castelo, spring to mind; works which display the same freshness, talent and authenticity as Palomero’s offering. But above all, this director’s first full-length film underscores the crucial point that, much like the course taken by her central character, it has only been through individual rebellion that a generation of women have been able to fully fulfil themselves, and that they are now in a position to question that time which is thankfully in the past.

Schoolgirls is an Inicia Films, BTeam Prods and Las Niñas Majicas A.I.E. production. International sales are entrusted to Film Factory Entertainment.

Graeme Cole's Murmurs available to stream

Available on Vimeo-on-Demand, 14th February 2020. https://vimeo.com/ondemand/murmurs Hana is an ASMR artist, creating intimate videos for millions of online followers – and she hasn’t left her house for 18 months. Ed is a remote security image analyst, and Hana’s first online hook-up. When Ed arrives at Hana’s home, they begin to nurture an awkward togetherness. But for these lonely weirdos, building trust might take more than endless days of cooking and fucking. The VoD version includes the full 72-minute split screen feature film and a bonus shorter, single-screen version for re-watching on smaller devices. Graeme Cole's debut feature film was made under the mentorship of Béla Tarr at the legendary filmmaker's shortlived radical film school, film.factory, in Sarajevo, Bosnia. Mr Cole's regular collaborators Elma Selman (Epizoda ?, Panic & Disgust in the 2015th Year) and Stewart Lockwood (It's Nick's Birthday, UNIVERSAL EAR, and John Cameron Mitchell’s “How to Talk to Girls at Parties”) meet on screen for the first time - quite literally, as the moment the characters meet is the also the first time the actors had ever laid eyes on each other.

The feature-length film.factory project Murmurs is now available to rent or buy via Vimeo On Demand.

The film was created by a small band of film.factory students in Sarajevo in January 2015. It is described as a paranoid rom-com with tingles - referring to the ASMR backdrop to the story. Murmurs was edited and submitted to festivals thanks to a successful Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign. The split-screen chamberplay showed across two screens as part of Mr Cole’s solo exhibition at Slow Film Festival in Mayfield in 2018, but otherwise was cruelly overlooked by festival programmers.

Murmurs
Written & Directed by Graeme Cole

Video | 72'42" | BiH/UK | 2020

Cast

Elma Selman, Stewart Lockwood

Synopsis

Hana is an ASMR artist, creating intimate videos for millions of online followers – and she hasn’t left her house for 18 months. Ed is a remote security image analyst, and Hana’s first online hook-up. When Ed arrives at Hana’s home, they begin to nurture an awkward togetherness. But for these lonely weirdos, building trust might take more than endless days of cooking and fucking.

Gonzalo Escobar Mora's 'Social Economies' to play at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago Sat Feb 1st 8pm →

Next Sat the 1st of February at 8pm, Gonzalo Escobar Mora’s latest film, ‘Social Economies’, plays at the famous Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago as part of the annual Panorama LatinX Festival.

Gonzalo will be there in person for the Q&A along with the other directors.

Synopsis:

SOCIAL ECONOMIES

2019, Gonzalo Escobar Mora, Colombia 22:00 min.

A bag of used clothes. Three women. Their longings, uncertainties, fictions, and realities.

PANORAMA LATINX SHORT FILM SHOWCASE

Filmmakers in person!

The Gene Siskel Film Center’s Panorama Latinx programming and outreach initiative is pleased to announce the second edition of our short film showcase. This year’s edition introduces the works of Chicago-based filmmakers representing Brazil, Colombia, Nicaragua, Peru, Haiti, Puerto Rico and Mexico. Addressing the complexities of our time through different genres and methods of storytelling, the films guide us over the nuances of identity and collectivity in the 21st century. From ecology to social dynamics, the directors present a manifold of practices that point to the relevance of imagination in today’s world. In Spanish and English with English subtitles. DCP and ProRes digital.

THIS YEAR'S JURY

• Marcela Fuentes: Associate Professor at Northwestern University and author of Performance Constellations: Networks of Protest and Activism in Latin America

  Alan Medina: Co-founder of filmfront and Inga.

  Marina Resende: artist, researcher and critic for Hyperallergic and THE SEEN, among others.

Directors Carol Bedoy, Sol y Chaski, Sofia Alfaro, Gonzalo Escobar Mora, Nat Pyper, Milton Guillén, Gustavo Jardim are scheduled to appear for audience discussion

Rozanski's A New Kind of Ray to play at Revolutions per Minute Festival in Boston →

Screening at the radical Revolutions Per Minute Festval in Boston, USA, Emma Rozanski’s 2-channel video installation ‘A New Kind of Ray’ will screen in program 1 - Codes and Archives - on Jan 31st 2020:

RPM Exhibition

Codes and Archives

Jan. 31, 11AM - 22PM

University Hall 4400

http://revolutionsperminutefest.org/

RPM Fest is dedicated to short-form poetic, personal, experimental film, video, VR, expanded cinema and audiovisual performance. We are looking for any work that experiments with the formal possibilities or hybrid form of film, video audiovisual, animation, expanded cinema and VR under 15 minutes. RPM Fest is sponsored by the Art Department and Cinema Studies Program at UMass-Boston.

The upcoming festival runs Jan. 31, Feb. 1st & 2nd, 2020.

Location:

-University Hall 2310 - Dorchester, MA, 02125
-8X77+CM Boston, Massachusetts

RPM 2020 Sponsored By:
Art Department of UMASS Boston
Cinema Studies of UMASS Boston

RPM 2020 Introduction by revolutionsperminutefest.org

At the onset of his landmark essay Towards A Minor Cinema, Tom Gunning quotes Deleuze and Quattari: There is nothing that is major or revolutionary except the minor.

For RPM 2020, we ask, what is “minor cinema” today and what can it do for us, our consumption of media, our relationship with the environment, our world?

For the second year, The Art Department and Cinema Studies Program at UMass Boston continue to host the festival. RPM 2020 received nearly double the amount of submissions compared to our inaugural edition. Drawing on a wide range of techniques and modes of filmmaking, ranging from avant-garde poetics, non-fiction, experimental animations and narratives to dance films, performances, and contemporary art practices, RPM 2020 brings together innovative efforts by over 160 artists, 122 pieces from 32 countries and territories. (Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, China, Colombia, Cezch Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Iran, Italy, Japan, Kosovo, Malaysia, Mexico, Montenegro, Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, United Kingdom, and United States.)

Featuring 107 short films, 5 audio-visual live performances, a documentary feature film, and 9 installations in the exhibition area, the selection of RPM 2020 remains loyal to the experimental spirit and intimacy of personal filmmaking. Among the highlights of the 11 programs of experimental shorts, Let’s Look at Florida (Hogan Seidel) and Porto Landscape (Michael Lyons) speak to our contemporary anxieties over environmental disasters while testing the boundary of the film medium; Toni and Bleri (Katja Verheul) portrays the physical and psychological turbulence caused by the migratory policy of Europe; MUÑE (Catalina Jordan Alvarez) playfully disrupts ethnographic and gender stereotypes; Vesuvius At Home (Christin Turner) ruminates on our encounters with destruction; the essay film of Sky Hopinka (Lore), Mike Hoolboom & Alena Koroleva (Wax Museum), and Ei Toshinari (…And So We Start Again) are lyrical wonders to behold; Abiding (Ugo Petronin), Amusement Ride (Tomonari Nishikawa), and Valpi (Richard Tuohy) brilliantly address the formal essence of cinema in light, time, and movement; Simon Liu’s E-Ticket, which is included in the New Frontier Shorts Program at Sundance Film Festival 2020, is an astonishing collage made out of 16,000 splices of his personal archive.

Kaori Oda's Cenote debuts in the International Film Festival Rotterdam 2020 →

Next week in the Bright Futures main program, our Kaori Oda’s Mexican documentary premieres at Rotterdam. The film was also co-produced by our Marta Hernaiz-Pidal.

Synopsis:

In Northern Yucatan, Mexico, natural sinkholes called 'cenotes' constituted the sole water source for Mayans not living near a river or lake. Some cenotes were used for ritual sacrifices, and the Mayans believed that these holy springs connected this world to the afterlife.

The past and present of those living around the cenotes coalesce in this mysterious place. Long-lost memories echo in hallucinatory turquoise underwater footage, an entrancing game of light and dark. Swimming in these sinkholes, director Oda Kaori encounters intriguing shapes and beams of light, the water heaves, drops fall like razor blades.

Oda, who studied under Béla Tarr in Sarajevo, previously made Aragane, which was shot in a Bosnian coal mine. For Cenote, she used Super-8 film and a bubbling water soundscape. A captivating form for her impressions of a place where, as a ghostly voiceover explains, nothing is forgotten.

SCREENING DATES & TIMES

Original title Ts'onot

Filmmaker Oda Kaori

Premiere International premiere

Country Japan, Mexico

Year2019

Length 75’

LanguageSpanish

Producer Oda Kaori, Echigoya Takashi, Jorge Bolado, Marta Hernaiz

Production Company FieldRain, Aichi Arts Center, cinevendaval

Sales Article Films

Writer

Oda Kaori

Cinematography Oda Kaori

Editor Oda Kaori, Takeshi Hata

Production Design Marta Hernaiz

Sound Design Oda Kaori

Cast

voices of: Araceli del Rosario Chulim Tun, Juan de la Rosa Mibmay

Website https://fieldrain.net

————————-

<セノーテプロジェクト>

​メキシコユカタン半島北部に点在するセノーテと呼ばれる泉。
樹の根が這う水中洞窟、その縦穴の上から太陽の光が水の中に降る。

生贄として捧げられた者たち。

​脈絡のない断片的な記憶の連なり。

それ自体がもつ直感と予見性。

現地リサーチ(撮影)からインスピレーションをえて制作される映画、映像インスタレーション、ペインティングを横断するプロジェクト

-第1回目リサーチ撮影　2017年5月〜6月　実施

-第2回目リサーチ撮影　2018年5月〜6月　実施

-第3回目リサーチ撮影　2018年11月　実施

​-2019年1月~3月　長編映画作品『セノーテ』編集
-2019年4月　    　長編映画作品『セノーテ』完成

 
2019年6月16日　愛知県美術館・愛知芸術文化センターにて『セノーテ』初上映

​2019年10月　山形国際ドキュメンタリー映画祭アジア千波万波部門にて上映

​2020年1月　ロッテルダム国際映画祭にて上映

​2020年2月　恵比寿映像祭にて上映

15th International Short & Independent Film Festival Dhaka screens a program of Bistrik7 Films

This pas weekend in Dhaka, a film.factory / Bistrik7 sharing session happened as part of 15th International Short & Independent Film Festival Dhaka.

Our Bistrik7 colleague Ghazi Alqudcry arrived in Dhaka, Bangladesh to represent Bistrik7 and screen short films made by several of us as part of the 15th International Short & Independent Film Festival. He also shared his experience in film.factory

The program was curated by Aleksandra Niemczyk and Ghazi Alqudcry of Bistrik7.

 #15thISIFF #dhaka #bistrik7

This festival was organized by Bangladesh Short Film Forum. In Rasheed Chowdry’s opening speech yesterday, he talks about connecting what is disconnected within this globalized world in form of Free Cinema and Free Expression.

#15thISIFF #dhaka #bangladesh #bistrik7