Natalia Oreiro (“I’m Gilda”), Gustavo Bassani (“Separados”) and Mercedes Moran (“Spider) head the cast of Argentine Amazon Original “Iosi, El Espía Arrepentido,” one of Amazon Prime Original’s biggest bets to date in Latin America.
The series, an espionage thriller, will be available exclusively on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide.
Showrun by Daniel Burman, a leading light of the New Argentine Cinema and recent Cannes Un Certain Regard jury member, “Iosi, El Espía Arrepentido” is produced by Oficina Burman, part of The Mediapro Studio, whose credits include “Pequeña Victoria” and “Pequeñas victorias, perdidxs en la Tierra,” both produced with Vis, with the latter acquired for Latin America by Amazon Prime Video.
Burman serves a series creator and showrunner on a banner project for the writer-director, which was one of the two he presented in person at Berlin Festival in 2017 when Mediapro confirmed it had taken a substantial stake in Oficina Burman.
The series, an espionage thriller, will be available exclusively on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide.
Showrun by Daniel Burman, a leading light of the New Argentine Cinema and recent Cannes Un Certain Regard jury member, “Iosi, El Espía Arrepentido” is produced by Oficina Burman, part of The Mediapro Studio, whose credits include “Pequeña Victoria” and “Pequeñas victorias, perdidxs en la Tierra,” both produced with Vis, with the latter acquired for Latin America by Amazon Prime Video.
Burman serves a series creator and showrunner on a banner project for the writer-director, which was one of the two he presented in person at Berlin Festival in 2017 when Mediapro confirmed it had taken a substantial stake in Oficina Burman.
- 7/26/2021
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Variety has been given access to an exclusive clip and poster from Toronto Special Presentation “La Odisea de los Giles” (“Heroic Losers”) which, starring Ricardo Darín, has just scored in is native Argentina a standout opening weekend of Peso 58.8 million ($1.1 million) and 316,300 admissions for Warner Bros. Pictures.
With “Heroic Losers” having released on Thursday Aug. 15, that four-day first weekend bow is two-to-three times better than any other national title of the year, putting “Heroic Losers” well on track to become the highest-grossing Argentine movie of 2019 in Argentina.
The news would be if the film hadn’t made that kind of box office. It has been released in prime mid-August box office real-estate, when local audiences now expect a big Argentine movie.
Rarely, moreover, has an Argentine movie weighed in with such a pedigree package. A feel-good revenge heist comedy-thriller, studded with tragedy which gives the film momentary harder edges, “Heroic Losers” features the star,...
With “Heroic Losers” having released on Thursday Aug. 15, that four-day first weekend bow is two-to-three times better than any other national title of the year, putting “Heroic Losers” well on track to become the highest-grossing Argentine movie of 2019 in Argentina.
The news would be if the film hadn’t made that kind of box office. It has been released in prime mid-August box office real-estate, when local audiences now expect a big Argentine movie.
Rarely, moreover, has an Argentine movie weighed in with such a pedigree package. A feel-good revenge heist comedy-thriller, studded with tragedy which gives the film momentary harder edges, “Heroic Losers” features the star,...
- 8/19/2019
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
CANNES -- Catholic school girls and provincial doctors -- are there two more repressed groups? -- rub elbows, and a few other body parts, in this unduly dry In Competition entrant. Although a contemporary drama, "La Nina Santa" (The Holy Girl) feels like a period piece from long ago, such is its stodgy dramaturgy.
In this Spanish, coming-of-age story, two sexually immature groups, adolescent students and middle-aged doctors, intersect at a small hotel where a medical convention is being held. The hotel is run by a glamorous divorcee (Mercedes Moran), and it is the hangout of her adolescent daughter, Amalia, and her schoolgirl chums. In between choir rehearsals and Biblical discussions, the girls whisper about all the good things they can't reveal among adults; accordingly, these girls are on their own in these matters, literally and figuratively, groping for answers.
Not surprisingly, the middle-aged cadre of physicians does not seem any more sexually advanced, tied up in long-term marriages and leading the lives of respectable physicians. Like many physicians of their era, the good doctors are of the dweeb variety, nerds who have trouble relating to their patients, especially the taciturn Dr. Jano (Carlos Belloso), who exhibits repressed symptoms almost immediately -- eying the girls, even rubbing up against Amalia (Maria Alche) in a crowd. His seeking her out is no mere random, predatory mistake -- she has cast yearning glances his way and pursued him.
In essence, "La Nina Santa" is a forbidden-love story centering around societal and religious conventions. Filmmaker Lucrecia Martel has intelligently presented a situation where the dictum of religion, as well as the professional guideposts of a respected profession, provide only facile guidance in matters of overall human need, resorting to shallow homilies or institutional dictum. In particular, Martel counterpoints the schoolgirls' rigid religious discussions and hymn singing with their teenaged exuberance and life-embracing natures.
Overall, "La Nina Santa" is a disappointingly barren drama: A running gag of a compulsive maid spraying disinfectant all over provides the film's most entertaining moments. Intercutting between the tedious choir practices and the nerdy socializing of the dull doctors, "La Nina Santa" is a drama of low-pulse rate and dim pallor, bereft of irony and anemic in essential dramatic functions, a surprising diagnosis considering Pedro Almodovar is an executive producer.
La Nina Santa
Pyramide
Credits:
Producer: Lita Stantic
Writer/director: Lucrecia Martel
Executive producers: Pedro Almodovar, Agustin Almodovar, Esther Garcia
Line producer: Matias Mosteirin
Cinematographer: Felix Monti
Editor: Santiago Ricci
Art director: Graciela Oderigo
Costume designer: Julio Suarez
Sound: Marcos De Aguirre, David Miranda, Guido Berenblum Music: Andres Gerszenzon
Cast:
Mercedes Moran, Carlos Belloso, Alejandro Urdapileta, Maria Alche, Julieta Zylberberg, Mia Maestro, Monica Villa, Marta Lubos, Alejo Mango, Arturo Goetz
No MPAA Rating
Running time -- 106 minutes...
In this Spanish, coming-of-age story, two sexually immature groups, adolescent students and middle-aged doctors, intersect at a small hotel where a medical convention is being held. The hotel is run by a glamorous divorcee (Mercedes Moran), and it is the hangout of her adolescent daughter, Amalia, and her schoolgirl chums. In between choir rehearsals and Biblical discussions, the girls whisper about all the good things they can't reveal among adults; accordingly, these girls are on their own in these matters, literally and figuratively, groping for answers.
Not surprisingly, the middle-aged cadre of physicians does not seem any more sexually advanced, tied up in long-term marriages and leading the lives of respectable physicians. Like many physicians of their era, the good doctors are of the dweeb variety, nerds who have trouble relating to their patients, especially the taciturn Dr. Jano (Carlos Belloso), who exhibits repressed symptoms almost immediately -- eying the girls, even rubbing up against Amalia (Maria Alche) in a crowd. His seeking her out is no mere random, predatory mistake -- she has cast yearning glances his way and pursued him.
In essence, "La Nina Santa" is a forbidden-love story centering around societal and religious conventions. Filmmaker Lucrecia Martel has intelligently presented a situation where the dictum of religion, as well as the professional guideposts of a respected profession, provide only facile guidance in matters of overall human need, resorting to shallow homilies or institutional dictum. In particular, Martel counterpoints the schoolgirls' rigid religious discussions and hymn singing with their teenaged exuberance and life-embracing natures.
Overall, "La Nina Santa" is a disappointingly barren drama: A running gag of a compulsive maid spraying disinfectant all over provides the film's most entertaining moments. Intercutting between the tedious choir practices and the nerdy socializing of the dull doctors, "La Nina Santa" is a drama of low-pulse rate and dim pallor, bereft of irony and anemic in essential dramatic functions, a surprising diagnosis considering Pedro Almodovar is an executive producer.
La Nina Santa
Pyramide
Credits:
Producer: Lita Stantic
Writer/director: Lucrecia Martel
Executive producers: Pedro Almodovar, Agustin Almodovar, Esther Garcia
Line producer: Matias Mosteirin
Cinematographer: Felix Monti
Editor: Santiago Ricci
Art director: Graciela Oderigo
Costume designer: Julio Suarez
Sound: Marcos De Aguirre, David Miranda, Guido Berenblum Music: Andres Gerszenzon
Cast:
Mercedes Moran, Carlos Belloso, Alejandro Urdapileta, Maria Alche, Julieta Zylberberg, Mia Maestro, Monica Villa, Marta Lubos, Alejo Mango, Arturo Goetz
No MPAA Rating
Running time -- 106 minutes...
CANNES -- Catholic school girls and provincial doctors -- are there two more repressed groups? -- rub elbows, and a few other body parts, in this unduly dry In Competition entrant. Although a contemporary drama, "La Nina Santa" (The Holy Girl) feels like a period piece from long ago, such is its stodgy dramaturgy.
In this Spanish, coming-of-age story, two sexually immature groups, adolescent students and middle-aged doctors, intersect at a small hotel where a medical convention is being held. The hotel is run by a glamorous divorcee (Mercedes Moran), and it is the hangout of her adolescent daughter, Amalia, and her schoolgirl chums. In between choir rehearsals and Biblical discussions, the girls whisper about all the good things they can't reveal among adults; accordingly, these girls are on their own in these matters, literally and figuratively, groping for answers.
Not surprisingly, the middle-aged cadre of physicians does not seem any more sexually advanced, tied up in long-term marriages and leading the lives of respectable physicians. Like many physicians of their era, the good doctors are of the dweeb variety, nerds who have trouble relating to their patients, especially the taciturn Dr. Jano (Carlos Belloso), who exhibits repressed symptoms almost immediately -- eying the girls, even rubbing up against Amalia (Maria Alche) in a crowd. His seeking her out is no mere random, predatory mistake -- she has cast yearning glances his way and pursued him.
In essence, "La Nina Santa" is a forbidden-love story centering around societal and religious conventions. Filmmaker Lucrecia Martel has intelligently presented a situation where the dictum of religion, as well as the professional guideposts of a respected profession, provide only facile guidance in matters of overall human need, resorting to shallow homilies or institutional dictum. In particular, Martel counterpoints the schoolgirls' rigid religious discussions and hymn singing with their teenaged exuberance and life-embracing natures.
Overall, "La Nina Santa" is a disappointingly barren drama: A running gag of a compulsive maid spraying disinfectant all over provides the film's most entertaining moments. Intercutting between the tedious choir practices and the nerdy socializing of the dull doctors, "La Nina Santa" is a drama of low-pulse rate and dim pallor, bereft of irony and anemic in essential dramatic functions, a surprising diagnosis considering Pedro Almodovar is an executive producer.
La Nina Santa
Pyramide
Credits:
Producer: Lita Stantic
Writer/director: Lucrecia Martel
Executive producers: Pedro Almodovar, Agustin Almodovar, Esther Garcia
Line producer: Matias Mosteirin
Cinematographer: Felix Monti
Editor: Santiago Ricci
Art director: Graciela Oderigo
Costume designer: Julio Suarez
Sound: Marcos De Aguirre, David Miranda, Guido Berenblum Music: Andres Gerszenzon
Cast:
Mercedes Moran, Carlos Belloso, Alejandro Urdapileta, Maria Alche, Julieta Zylberberg, Mia Maestro, Monica Villa, Marta Lubos, Alejo Mango, Arturo Goetz
No MPAA Rating
Running time -- 106 minutes...
In this Spanish, coming-of-age story, two sexually immature groups, adolescent students and middle-aged doctors, intersect at a small hotel where a medical convention is being held. The hotel is run by a glamorous divorcee (Mercedes Moran), and it is the hangout of her adolescent daughter, Amalia, and her schoolgirl chums. In between choir rehearsals and Biblical discussions, the girls whisper about all the good things they can't reveal among adults; accordingly, these girls are on their own in these matters, literally and figuratively, groping for answers.
Not surprisingly, the middle-aged cadre of physicians does not seem any more sexually advanced, tied up in long-term marriages and leading the lives of respectable physicians. Like many physicians of their era, the good doctors are of the dweeb variety, nerds who have trouble relating to their patients, especially the taciturn Dr. Jano (Carlos Belloso), who exhibits repressed symptoms almost immediately -- eying the girls, even rubbing up against Amalia (Maria Alche) in a crowd. His seeking her out is no mere random, predatory mistake -- she has cast yearning glances his way and pursued him.
In essence, "La Nina Santa" is a forbidden-love story centering around societal and religious conventions. Filmmaker Lucrecia Martel has intelligently presented a situation where the dictum of religion, as well as the professional guideposts of a respected profession, provide only facile guidance in matters of overall human need, resorting to shallow homilies or institutional dictum. In particular, Martel counterpoints the schoolgirls' rigid religious discussions and hymn singing with their teenaged exuberance and life-embracing natures.
Overall, "La Nina Santa" is a disappointingly barren drama: A running gag of a compulsive maid spraying disinfectant all over provides the film's most entertaining moments. Intercutting between the tedious choir practices and the nerdy socializing of the dull doctors, "La Nina Santa" is a drama of low-pulse rate and dim pallor, bereft of irony and anemic in essential dramatic functions, a surprising diagnosis considering Pedro Almodovar is an executive producer.
La Nina Santa
Pyramide
Credits:
Producer: Lita Stantic
Writer/director: Lucrecia Martel
Executive producers: Pedro Almodovar, Agustin Almodovar, Esther Garcia
Line producer: Matias Mosteirin
Cinematographer: Felix Monti
Editor: Santiago Ricci
Art director: Graciela Oderigo
Costume designer: Julio Suarez
Sound: Marcos De Aguirre, David Miranda, Guido Berenblum Music: Andres Gerszenzon
Cast:
Mercedes Moran, Carlos Belloso, Alejandro Urdapileta, Maria Alche, Julieta Zylberberg, Mia Maestro, Monica Villa, Marta Lubos, Alejo Mango, Arturo Goetz
No MPAA Rating
Running time -- 106 minutes...
- 5/17/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Director Lucho Bender's feature debut and Argentina's Academy Awards entry is a very accomplished, heartfelt ensemble comedy-drama that takes place on Christmas Eve, an occasion that is not a very happy one for most of the characters. A boxoffice hit on the home front, "Felicidades" was welcomed enthusiastically by the Nortel Palm Springs International Film Festival audience in its U.S. premiere and rates as a viable contender for a nomination.
The title means "Happy Holidays", but from opening sequences, there is not much joy in the lives of three mature Buenos Aires men in separate, eventually convergent story lines. A lonely writer (Luis Machin) at a festive bar mitzvah gathering has his heartstrings tugged by an equally lonely, very pretty young woman. But she leaves before he can introduce himself.
Longing to see his girlfriend, the writer hitches a ride with the hired comedian (Carlos Belloso) of the evening, and they soon take a wrong turn on the way back to Buenos Aires. When they run out of gas, the writer goes in search of a gas station, ends up wandering through a nearly deserted power plant and eventually winds up in the back of a truck with a group of Bolivian musicians.
In Buenos Aires, meanwhile, the writer's girlfriend (Silke) is pursued on the festive streets by a doctor (co-writer Pablo Cedron) who carries a shoe box with mysterious contents. But before they meet in her apartment, he helps a wheelchair-bound paraplegic (Marcelo Mazzarello) get to his fifth-floor apartment in a building with no elevator. The doctor lingers and performs more acts of charity for the needy but upbeat man. Later, when the doctor disastrously helps cause the death of a pet dog, he tries to cover it up with funny/sad complications.
The third main character is a dentist (Gaston Pauls) whose search for a particular toy as a Christmas present randomly inserts him and an ailing old man (Federico Cammarota) in a police investigation as witnesses. The investigation entails the cynical policemen (Cacho Castagna, Eduardo Ayala) breaking into a criminal's abandoned apartment and stealing everything of value with the help of a "fat neighbor" (Alfredo Casero).
Utilizing nonactors in several roles and basing many of the episodes on real-life stories, Bender and cinematographer Daniel Sotelo beautifully evoke an almost endless night of limbo, where sadness and disappointment are not magically revoked, but life is made bearable, and hope is not close to being extinguished.
FELICIDADES
Bendercine
Director: Lucho Bender
Screenwriters: Pablo Cedron, Pedro Loeb, Lucho Bender
Executive producer: Cecilia Hecht
Cinematographer: Daniel Sotelo
Art director: Patricia Pernia
Editors: Silvina Soto, Lucho Bender
Music: Daniel Tarrab, Andres Goldstein
Color/stereo
Cast:
Doctor: Pablo Cedron
Dentist: Gaston Pauls
Woman with dog: Silke
Writer: Luis Machin
Comedian: Carlos Belloso
Paraplegic: Marcelo Mazzarello
Running time -- 97 minutes
No MPAA rating...
The title means "Happy Holidays", but from opening sequences, there is not much joy in the lives of three mature Buenos Aires men in separate, eventually convergent story lines. A lonely writer (Luis Machin) at a festive bar mitzvah gathering has his heartstrings tugged by an equally lonely, very pretty young woman. But she leaves before he can introduce himself.
Longing to see his girlfriend, the writer hitches a ride with the hired comedian (Carlos Belloso) of the evening, and they soon take a wrong turn on the way back to Buenos Aires. When they run out of gas, the writer goes in search of a gas station, ends up wandering through a nearly deserted power plant and eventually winds up in the back of a truck with a group of Bolivian musicians.
In Buenos Aires, meanwhile, the writer's girlfriend (Silke) is pursued on the festive streets by a doctor (co-writer Pablo Cedron) who carries a shoe box with mysterious contents. But before they meet in her apartment, he helps a wheelchair-bound paraplegic (Marcelo Mazzarello) get to his fifth-floor apartment in a building with no elevator. The doctor lingers and performs more acts of charity for the needy but upbeat man. Later, when the doctor disastrously helps cause the death of a pet dog, he tries to cover it up with funny/sad complications.
The third main character is a dentist (Gaston Pauls) whose search for a particular toy as a Christmas present randomly inserts him and an ailing old man (Federico Cammarota) in a police investigation as witnesses. The investigation entails the cynical policemen (Cacho Castagna, Eduardo Ayala) breaking into a criminal's abandoned apartment and stealing everything of value with the help of a "fat neighbor" (Alfredo Casero).
Utilizing nonactors in several roles and basing many of the episodes on real-life stories, Bender and cinematographer Daniel Sotelo beautifully evoke an almost endless night of limbo, where sadness and disappointment are not magically revoked, but life is made bearable, and hope is not close to being extinguished.
FELICIDADES
Bendercine
Director: Lucho Bender
Screenwriters: Pablo Cedron, Pedro Loeb, Lucho Bender
Executive producer: Cecilia Hecht
Cinematographer: Daniel Sotelo
Art director: Patricia Pernia
Editors: Silvina Soto, Lucho Bender
Music: Daniel Tarrab, Andres Goldstein
Color/stereo
Cast:
Doctor: Pablo Cedron
Dentist: Gaston Pauls
Woman with dog: Silke
Writer: Luis Machin
Comedian: Carlos Belloso
Paraplegic: Marcelo Mazzarello
Running time -- 97 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 1/18/2001
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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