The producers of The Blind Side are finally speaking out.
06.08.2023 - 13:19 / variety.com
John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent LOCARNO — Costa Rica’s Juli Films has boarded Nicaraguan Gloria Carrión’s “Pantasma,” building production partner backing for one of the most ambitious titles at a talent packed Locarno’s Open Doors Projects Hub. A stop motion doc-feature, the film will narrate how the Sandinista-Contra War of 1982-1989 in Nicaragua forced Félix, a 17-year-old revolutionary, to become an adult in the battlefield, “Pantasma” is now set up at Costa Rica’s Caja de Luz, Carrión’s label, and Juli Films, whose credits also take in documentaries “Songs from Bosawas” (2014) and “Patrol” (Mountainfilm Festival, 2023).
“Exiled” screened at Hot Docs in 2019. Cine CA co-produces Pnatasma,” which is produced by Leonor Zuñiga, a field producer on “Las Sandanistas,” a 2018 SXSW title and São Paulo New Directors winner.
Zuñiga, at CaLe Producciones, and Carrión have now founded their joint production company, Centroamericana, “to promote the female and Central American gaze” for local and global audiences. Honduras’ Servio Tulio Mateo – who produced the Honduras part of “Days of Light,” Honduras’ 2021 Oscars entry co-directed by Carrión – serves as a co-producer on “Pantasma.” Now being written by Carrión and Zuñiga, the “essayistic” “Pantasma” is inspired by an unpublished book, “Del fuego y de la sangre,” by former Sandinista Félix Vijil, now Carrión’s husband, a personal memoir of his experience in the war in Nicaragua.
The film will also feature interviews with former Contra fighters who now live in exile in Costa Rica and Honduras. Vigil’s book is “a journey towards disenchantment,” powered by his discovery of “a far more complex reality on the ground regarding who the enemy really is, versus what
.The producers of The Blind Side are finally speaking out.
Author Douglas Coupland once wrote in his seminal 1991 slacker work, “Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture,” that “nostalgia is a deadly weapon,” and one supposes those words can be cautionary tales about our youth, what we romanticize and what potentially holds us back from growing because we can’t move on past it. I’m not exactly sure what that has to do with the new documentary, “‘The Elephant 6 Recording Co.,” about the late ‘90s recording collective The Elephant 6, mostly comprised of lo-fi indie bands from in and around Athens, Georgie, other than to say after watching this appropriately chaotic, shaggy and baggy documentary, Coupland’s quote immediately flashed back into my memory.
tragic death of Princess Diana will play out on screen.Executive producers Andy Harries and Suzanne Mackie have claimed that they filmed the passing of Diana (played by Elizabeth Debicki) with “enormous sensitivity.”The pair noted that the death scene — the Princess of Wales died at the age of 36 in 1997 in a fiery car crash in Paris — will be shown in the early episodes of the season, according to Deadline.“The show might be big and noisy, but we’re not. We’re thoughtful people and we’re sensitive people. There were very careful, long conversations about how we were going to do it,” Mackie recently explained of the Netflix series at the Edinburgh TV Festival.“The audience will judge it in the end, but I think it’s been delicately, thoughtfully recreated,” she said.“Elizabeth Debicki is an extraordinary actress, and she was so thoughtful and considerate.
The producers of The Crown say they have filmed the death of Princess Diana with “enormous sensitivity” as they brace for what could be the most controversial moment in the show’s history.
Anna Marie de la Fuente Chilean indie Equeco, led by Pablo Calisto, is a triple threat at the 19th Santiago Int’l Film Festival (Sanfic), with three projects participating in the annual event running August 20-27. Vying for the top prize in the official competition is Equeco’s “Historia y Geografia,” which debuts its teaser trailer exclusively on Variety. Equeco is also embarking on its most ambitious project, “Il Cileno” by Sergio Castro San Martín, a historical drama in co-production with Italy’s Dispàrte, a Rome-based independent production company founded in 2015 by Alessandro Amato and Luigi Chimienti.
Florence Pugh is among the stars of “Oppenheimer”, playing Jean Tatlock, lover of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), a relatively small role in the film.
John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent FIPCA, Ibero America’s huge producers’ federation, is looking to power up the region’s knowledge economy and co-production as two longterm answers to huge volatility in its member states film-TV sectors. That drive cuts several ways, FIPCA president Ignacio Rey told Variety in the run-up to Sanfic Industria, one of South America’s biggest industry events. High-end Netflix, Amazon and other streamer originals, imply new ways of producing: “We’re lacking sufficient labor force capacity for a certain scale of productions,” Rey argued.
Addie Morfoot Contributor The 19th edition of the Camden Intl. Film Festival, kicking off Sept. 14, will feature a handful of award-contending documentaries fresh off showings at Telluride, Toronto, Sundance, South by Southwest, Berlin and Tribeca film festivals.
John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Victor Erice, one of the greatest of Spanish filmmakers, will receive a prestigious Donostia Award, given for career achievement, granted by the San Sebastian Film Festival. The award will coincide with screening of Erice’s latest film, “Close Your Eyes” (Cerrar los Ojos), which world premiered at the Cannes Festival this May.
John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Mexico’s El Relicario, whose “El rostro cubierto de besos” screened at Cannes Critics’ Week in its 2023 Morelia showcase, has boarded Ximena Valdivia’s Malaga Festival winner “4Eber,” a movie melding the modern teen dance scene in Cusco and ancient and contemporary fantasy and mythology. Written by Valdivia and Costa Rica’s Luisa Mora Fernández, a co-scribe on Mexican Kim Torres’ Cannes Festival-selected short “Luz Nocturna,” “4Eber” is now produced by Valdivia’s and El Relicario’s Mariano Rentería and Jorge Diez, in the first international feature co-production outing for the Morelia-based outfit.
John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Alfredo Castro, an absolute lead or co-star in seven Pablo Larraín films and one of the highest-regarded of actors in Latin America, is set to head the choral cast of “Three Dark Nights” (“Tres noches negras”), the third feature from Spanish-Chilean Theo Court. “Three Dark Nights” follows up Court’s “White on White,” also starring Castro, an actor described by Variety as “reliably superb,” which won a best director and Fipresci Prize at 2019’s Venice Horizons.
Glee is no longer on air, but die-hard Gleeks are able to get an idea of what their fav actors would sound like if they were to cover new songs with the magic of AI.
EXCLUSIVE: UK drama schools are to be put in the spotlight in a documentary feature film that promises to pull the curtain back on their “toxic culture.”
Rachel Leviss wasn't paid a cent for opening up to Bethenny Frankel about her time on Vanderpump Rules and Tom Sandoval cheating on Ariana Madix in her first interview since the explosive season 10 reunion aired.A source tells ET, «Rachel wasn’t paid for her interview with Bethenny. Bethenny offered her an unedited long-form platform where she could speak freely. Rachel knew no other outlet would give her that freedom.»ET has learned Leviss' interview with Frankel is three parts.
Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large Making “Daisy Jones & the Six” was more than just another show for Scott Neustadter and Lauren Neustadter: It was a family affair. Scott and his writing partner, Michael Weber (both Oscar nominated via their screenplay for the film “The Disaster Artist”), received an early copy of the “Daisy Jones” manuscript, written by author Taylor Jenkins Reid, before it even found a publisher. Neustadter, a music junkie, immediately fell in love with the script, and knew the perfect home for it: Reese Witherspoon’s company Hello Sunshine — where his wife, Lauren, had just joined as president of film and television.
“Below Deck Down Under” season 2 producers have been praised online after stepping in and stopping two potential sexual assault incidents happening.
John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent LOCARNO — Two movie projects which capture best the brewing revolution in Latin American filmmaking walked off with the biggest plaudits at this year’s Locarno Open Doors prize ceremony on Tuesday. Both underscore the mindset reset among cineasts – their questioning of received wisdom accompanied by the explosion in invention being brought to low-budget filmmaking in the region.
is no exception to the complaints.In a recent interview with Insider, Nolan divulged the artistic choice that makes the dialogue difficult to understand: he doesn’t request actors to come back to do additional dialogue recordings in post-production. ADR is a commonality in the TV and Movie industry. “I like to use the performance that was given in the moment rather than the actor re-voice it later,” he said.
John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent LOCARNO — Tiempo Libre, the Lima-based production house behind Peruvian Oscar candidate “Videophilia (and Other Viral Syndromes),” has boarded “Valves” (“Valvas”), the second feature film from Andrea Hoyos, whose feature debut “Autoerotic,” established her as one of the forthright rising stars of Peru’s still expanding film industry. Verony Centeno, a Peruvian actress with significant experience in film and dance, is attached as the film’s lead. Hoyos is at Locarno as part of its Directors’ Club at Open Doors, its major Latin American project and talent platform.
Savannah Chrisley has «every intention» of paying her parents, Todd and Julie Chrisley's, restitution amid their incarceration, the couple's lawyer tells ET. Jay Surgent of Weiner Law Group is the Chrisley's newly-appointed counsel, and spoke with ET about the current conditions he says Todd and Julie are facing behind bars. He also said there is path forward after the stars' December 2022 sentencing.