Oscar winner Fernando Trueba (“Belle Epoque”), “The Secret Life of Words” director Isabel Coixet and “Veneno” writer-director-producers Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo feature among talent behind Spanish titles at September’s San Sebastian Film Festival, the highest profile film event in the Spanish-speaking world.
Coixet will compete for the first time in San Sebastian’s main competition with “Un Amor,” a probing village-set tale of emotional dependence starring Laia Costa (“Lullaby”) and “Money Heist’s” Hovik Keuchkerian.
Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal will present as a special screening animated feature “They Shot the Piano Player,” a joyful and finally devastating portrait of the life and fate of pianist Francisco Tenorio Jr. narrated by Jeff Goldblum.
Ambrossi and Calvo – popularly known as Los Javis – will world premiere “La Mesías,” the most awaited Spanish series of the year, a big-scale, period-hopping Movistar Plus+ original, chronicling the devastating effect of a childhood education,...
Coixet will compete for the first time in San Sebastian’s main competition with “Un Amor,” a probing village-set tale of emotional dependence starring Laia Costa (“Lullaby”) and “Money Heist’s” Hovik Keuchkerian.
Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal will present as a special screening animated feature “They Shot the Piano Player,” a joyful and finally devastating portrait of the life and fate of pianist Francisco Tenorio Jr. narrated by Jeff Goldblum.
Ambrossi and Calvo – popularly known as Los Javis – will world premiere “La Mesías,” the most awaited Spanish series of the year, a big-scale, period-hopping Movistar Plus+ original, chronicling the devastating effect of a childhood education,...
- 7/14/2023
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Chile’s Quijote Films, run by Giancarlo Nasi, has reteamed with former partners El Viaje Films of Spain and Argentina’s Gema Films on two separate projects.
Attending the Berlin Film Festival’s European Film Market, Nasi said: “This market has been very good for us because as one of the outfits selected in the company matching program of the Co-Production Market, we have met with a lot of new firms from different countries. At the same time, we’ve been able to advance and confirm our collaboration with past partners.”
Quijote Films and El Viaje Films, partners on Theo Court’s “White on White,” which garnered the Venice Horizons Best Director and Fipresci awards and was Chile’s entry to the best international feature film Oscar race last year, are reteaming on Court’s latest film, “Tres noches negras” (“Three Dark Nights”).
“Our previous collaboration on Theo’s “White...
Attending the Berlin Film Festival’s European Film Market, Nasi said: “This market has been very good for us because as one of the outfits selected in the company matching program of the Co-Production Market, we have met with a lot of new firms from different countries. At the same time, we’ve been able to advance and confirm our collaboration with past partners.”
Quijote Films and El Viaje Films, partners on Theo Court’s “White on White,” which garnered the Venice Horizons Best Director and Fipresci awards and was Chile’s entry to the best international feature film Oscar race last year, are reteaming on Court’s latest film, “Tres noches negras” (“Three Dark Nights”).
“Our previous collaboration on Theo’s “White...
- 2/22/2023
- by Anna Marie de la Fuente
- Variety Film + TV
Martin Benchimol’s film explores the lengths a housekeeper will go to keep her promise
Screen can reveal the trailer for Martin Benchimol’s The Castle which will have its world premiere in Berlinale’s Panorama strand.
Using a mixture of documentary-style footage and dramatisation, the film explores the lengths a housekeeper will go to honour her promise to never sell an inherited, derelict mansion deep in the Argentinian Pampas.
The Castle is produced by Gema Juarez Allen and Clarisa Oliveri of Argentina’s Gema Films with Mayra Bottero, in co-production with Heidi Fleisher and Julie Paratian for France’s Sister Productions.
Screen can reveal the trailer for Martin Benchimol’s The Castle which will have its world premiere in Berlinale’s Panorama strand.
Using a mixture of documentary-style footage and dramatisation, the film explores the lengths a housekeeper will go to honour her promise to never sell an inherited, derelict mansion deep in the Argentinian Pampas.
The Castle is produced by Gema Juarez Allen and Clarisa Oliveri of Argentina’s Gema Films with Mayra Bottero, in co-production with Heidi Fleisher and Julie Paratian for France’s Sister Productions.
- 2/15/2023
- by Ellie Calnan
- ScreenDaily
Paris-based Luxbox have acquired Martín Benchimol’s “El Castillo” for international sales, excluding Argentina.
Produced by Gema Films, the drama marks the solo feature debut for Benchimol whose “The Dread,” co-directed by Pablo Aparo, scooped best medium-feature doc at 2017’s IDFA.
The story tracks Justina, a maid, whose lifelong devotion to her employer is rewarded with a castle. The grand property is set deep within the Argentinian Pampa. The gift comes with one condition, Justina must never sell the castle. The film stars newcomers Alexa Olivo and Justina Olivo.
“We discovered ‘El Castillo’ in the Wip Latam at San Sebastián where it is becoming tradition that we pick up a film!” Fiorella Moretti, president of Luxbox told Variety.
She added: “We are more than thrilled to join forces once again with Gema Film, … A poetic and heartfelt film filled with longing and hope, not short of delightful charm and animals!
Produced by Gema Films, the drama marks the solo feature debut for Benchimol whose “The Dread,” co-directed by Pablo Aparo, scooped best medium-feature doc at 2017’s IDFA.
The story tracks Justina, a maid, whose lifelong devotion to her employer is rewarded with a castle. The grand property is set deep within the Argentinian Pampa. The gift comes with one condition, Justina must never sell the castle. The film stars newcomers Alexa Olivo and Justina Olivo.
“We discovered ‘El Castillo’ in the Wip Latam at San Sebastián where it is becoming tradition that we pick up a film!” Fiorella Moretti, president of Luxbox told Variety.
She added: “We are more than thrilled to join forces once again with Gema Film, … A poetic and heartfelt film filled with longing and hope, not short of delightful charm and animals!
- 11/30/2022
- by Callum McLennan
- Variety Film + TV
Mexico’s Bruno Santamaría, Argentina’s Martín Benchimol and Turkey’s Selman Nacar proved three of the big winners among San Sebastian Industry Awards, announced Wednesday.
João Paulo Miranda, already a young star on Brazil’s film scene after “Memory House,” meanwhile won the Ikusmira Berriak Award.
A Chicago Golden Hugo winner for doc feature “Things We Dare Not Do,” Santamaría swept two awards at the fest’s Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum, a Mecca for Latin America auteurs and their producers seeking vital co-production partners as state funding prospects have plunged across the region.
Also written by Santamaría, its heavily autobiographical story, set in the ’90s, follows 10-year-old boy Bru, whose father is diagnosed with HIV, sparking his parents break up.“I want to film the glances and conversations that my parents had in silence and which I couldn’t observe as a child and find some sense [in what happened],” Santamaría told Variety.
João Paulo Miranda, already a young star on Brazil’s film scene after “Memory House,” meanwhile won the Ikusmira Berriak Award.
A Chicago Golden Hugo winner for doc feature “Things We Dare Not Do,” Santamaría swept two awards at the fest’s Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum, a Mecca for Latin America auteurs and their producers seeking vital co-production partners as state funding prospects have plunged across the region.
Also written by Santamaría, its heavily autobiographical story, set in the ’90s, follows 10-year-old boy Bru, whose father is diagnosed with HIV, sparking his parents break up.“I want to film the glances and conversations that my parents had in silence and which I couldn’t observe as a child and find some sense [in what happened],” Santamaría told Variety.
- 9/21/2022
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
“Like an Island” (“L’îlot”), a hybrid documentary fable tinged with magical realism by Swiss director Tizian Büchi, has won the Grand Jury Prize at international documentary film festival Visions du Réel in Nyon, Switzerland.
The debut feature had its world premiere at the festival, bearing testimony to the event’s reputation as a launchpad for new talent and its tradition for hybrid fiction-reality films. A total of seven first features are among the winners. It is the first time since 2013 that a Swiss film has picked up the festival’s top prize.
“A small urban island becomes the metaphor of contemporary Europe and lends itself to a deep reflection about the absurdity of borders, rules, fences and barriers. A brilliant observation, a surprising wondering, that rewrites the coordinates of geographical spaces in universal terms,” said the jury, composed of filmmaker Jessica Beshir, the winner of last year’s Grand Prix,...
The debut feature had its world premiere at the festival, bearing testimony to the event’s reputation as a launchpad for new talent and its tradition for hybrid fiction-reality films. A total of seven first features are among the winners. It is the first time since 2013 that a Swiss film has picked up the festival’s top prize.
“A small urban island becomes the metaphor of contemporary Europe and lends itself to a deep reflection about the absurdity of borders, rules, fences and barriers. A brilliant observation, a surprising wondering, that rewrites the coordinates of geographical spaces in universal terms,” said the jury, composed of filmmaker Jessica Beshir, the winner of last year’s Grand Prix,...
- 4/16/2022
- by Lise Pedersen
- Variety Film + TV
Chile’s premier international documentary forum, Conecta, is seeing a sizable boost in attendance for its upcoming virtual edition. It’s the proverbial silver lining in the global pandemic that has allowed more people to attend festivals and markets, albeit online, which time constraints and long distances may have thwarted in the past. Normally held in December, Conecta’s fifth edition has been slated for Jan. 19-28, 2021.
The number of entries to Conecta also saw a 50% increase compared to its 2019 edition, with some 15 Latin American countries submitting up to nearly 300 non-fiction projects for the forum’s sections. “We used to get, on average, between 80 and 90 applications per year,” said co-executive director Flor Rubina.
Founded by CCDoc (Chilean Documentary Corporation) in 2016, Conecta is spearheaded by an executive team that includes Rubina, Paola Castillo, Diego Pino and Paula Ossandon. The forum has proven to be an appointment event for Latin American producers,...
The number of entries to Conecta also saw a 50% increase compared to its 2019 edition, with some 15 Latin American countries submitting up to nearly 300 non-fiction projects for the forum’s sections. “We used to get, on average, between 80 and 90 applications per year,” said co-executive director Flor Rubina.
Founded by CCDoc (Chilean Documentary Corporation) in 2016, Conecta is spearheaded by an executive team that includes Rubina, Paola Castillo, Diego Pino and Paula Ossandon. The forum has proven to be an appointment event for Latin American producers,...
- 11/13/2020
- by Anna Marie de la Fuente
- Variety Film + TV
Peliculas Nobles, a filmmaker-led VOD platform for Argentine films, is launching Nov. 16. Argentina’s Gema Juarez Allen of Gema Films and Diego Dubcovsky of Bd Cine and Varsovia Cine have kicked off the new initiative in response to the dearth of platforms for homegrown titles.
The idea first arose from observing that a great number of Argentine catalog films couldn’t find spaces or platforms, said Juarez Allen. Classics like the 2003 gem by Albertina Carri, “Los Rubios,” were left in limbo.
“Many filmmakers whose films are not programmed or acquired by platforms — or whose contracts were discontinued — were forced to hire Vimeo on Demand individually or just open their links for free,” she explained.
“We decided to start organizing this platform and offer a very generous deal that would allow them to receive the same amount per transaction as if they, for instance, hired Vimeo on Demand themselves,” she said.
The idea first arose from observing that a great number of Argentine catalog films couldn’t find spaces or platforms, said Juarez Allen. Classics like the 2003 gem by Albertina Carri, “Los Rubios,” were left in limbo.
“Many filmmakers whose films are not programmed or acquired by platforms — or whose contracts were discontinued — were forced to hire Vimeo on Demand individually or just open their links for free,” she explained.
“We decided to start organizing this platform and offer a very generous deal that would allow them to receive the same amount per transaction as if they, for instance, hired Vimeo on Demand themselves,” she said.
- 11/12/2020
- by Anna Marie de la Fuente
- Variety Film + TV
Spain’s Latido Films has snagged worldwide sales rights – with the exception of Peru, Chile and Argentina – to Peruvian filmmaker Maria Paz Gonzalez’s feature debut, “Lina de Lima.” The dramedy’s trailer is launching exclusively in Variety ahead of its world premiere at the Toronto Festival Discovery sidebar.
“Following our tradition of accompanying new talents in their incursion inro the international market, and in particular of first directors in the world of fiction, ‘Lina de Lima’ meant for us the discovery of an original voice like that of González,” said Latido head of acquisitions and festivals, Oscar Alonso.
He added: “She tells the immigration drama from a luminous point of view not previously seen: All this through a female character who reverses the preset codes and to which Magaly Solier confers an overflowing capacity for empathy. “
Solier, whose career-launching turn in Claudia Llosa’s Berlin Golden Bear winning “The Milk of Sorrow...
“Following our tradition of accompanying new talents in their incursion inro the international market, and in particular of first directors in the world of fiction, ‘Lina de Lima’ meant for us the discovery of an original voice like that of González,” said Latido head of acquisitions and festivals, Oscar Alonso.
He added: “She tells the immigration drama from a luminous point of view not previously seen: All this through a female character who reverses the preset codes and to which Magaly Solier confers an overflowing capacity for empathy. “
Solier, whose career-launching turn in Claudia Llosa’s Berlin Golden Bear winning “The Milk of Sorrow...
- 9/4/2019
- by Anna Marie de la Fuente
- Variety Film + TV
Madrid — After years of marked box-office growth, Central American box office dipped 5.6% in 2018, from $144.34 million in 2017, to $136.3 million last year – which is nonetheless almost 50% higher than the regional box office recorded in 2012, according to comScore figures.
Honduras bucked the trend, with 8.5% growth, whereas the biggest drop was recorded in one of the smallest markets – Nicaragua – with a 34.5% fall.
Notwithstanding the dip in admissions, 56 new screens in 14 theaters opened in 2018, headed by Guatemala which bowed 25 new screens at six sites, followed by Costa Rica with 13 new screens, Panama with seven, Honduras with six and El Salvador with one.
Having emerged from decades of instability and war, Central America has prospered in recent years with low inflation rates, rising prosperity, and an increasingly stable middle class, which has fueled cinema-going habits. Nonetheless, box office revenues plateaued in 2017 and the dip in admissions in 2018 places a question mark for the future.
According to Luis Vargas,...
Honduras bucked the trend, with 8.5% growth, whereas the biggest drop was recorded in one of the smallest markets – Nicaragua – with a 34.5% fall.
Notwithstanding the dip in admissions, 56 new screens in 14 theaters opened in 2018, headed by Guatemala which bowed 25 new screens at six sites, followed by Costa Rica with 13 new screens, Panama with seven, Honduras with six and El Salvador with one.
Having emerged from decades of instability and war, Central America has prospered in recent years with low inflation rates, rising prosperity, and an increasingly stable middle class, which has fueled cinema-going habits. Nonetheless, box office revenues plateaued in 2017 and the dip in admissions in 2018 places a question mark for the future.
According to Luis Vargas,...
- 4/4/2019
- by Martin Dale
- Variety Film + TV
A disenchanted young pregnant woman is afraid of getting stuck in the small Cuban town where she lives. But when a tornado whisks her away to a luxury resort – where her competitive shooting skills turn her into a celebrity amongst the island’s Communist elite – she comes to realize, like a Hollywood heroine of a bygone era, that there’s no place like home.
A darkly comic portrait of Cuban society, “Shock Labor” (Obra de Choque) is the feature directorial debut of Cuban writer-director Marcos Diaz Sosa. Produced by Maria Carla del Rio’s Marinca Filmes, with Gema Juarez Allen of Argentina’s Gema Films and Sandino Saravia Vinay of Uruguay’s Producciones de la 5ta Avenida, the project will be presented in Ventana Sur this week during Proyecta, a new collaboration with the San Sebastian Film Festival to foster co-productions with and within Latin America.
The hotly anticipated title...
A darkly comic portrait of Cuban society, “Shock Labor” (Obra de Choque) is the feature directorial debut of Cuban writer-director Marcos Diaz Sosa. Produced by Maria Carla del Rio’s Marinca Filmes, with Gema Juarez Allen of Argentina’s Gema Films and Sandino Saravia Vinay of Uruguay’s Producciones de la 5ta Avenida, the project will be presented in Ventana Sur this week during Proyecta, a new collaboration with the San Sebastian Film Festival to foster co-productions with and within Latin America.
The hotly anticipated title...
- 12/11/2018
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
As documentaries and true-event based movies deliver many of the highlights and some news at the Santiago Int’l Film Festival (August 19-26), Abner Benaim’s much-lauded music documentary “Ruben Blades is Not My Name” is getting a rare multi-territory release across Latin America.
By the end of August, “Ruben Blades…” will have opened in Panama, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Costa Rica and Guatemala.
Chile, Argentina and the Caribbean are likely to follow. HBO has picked up the docu for the U.S. next year.
A co-production between Benaim’s Apertura Films, Gema Juarez Allen’s Gema Films of Argentina and Ciudad Lunar, Colombia, “Ruben Blades…” has been reaping multiple awards on the festival circuit.
The music docu received its world premiere at SXSW where it proved its commercial appeal by nabbing the 24 Beats Per Second audience prize. It closed Panama’s Iff festival and went on to key fest events across the region,...
By the end of August, “Ruben Blades…” will have opened in Panama, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Costa Rica and Guatemala.
Chile, Argentina and the Caribbean are likely to follow. HBO has picked up the docu for the U.S. next year.
A co-production between Benaim’s Apertura Films, Gema Juarez Allen’s Gema Films of Argentina and Ciudad Lunar, Colombia, “Ruben Blades…” has been reaping multiple awards on the festival circuit.
The music docu received its world premiere at SXSW where it proved its commercial appeal by nabbing the 24 Beats Per Second audience prize. It closed Panama’s Iff festival and went on to key fest events across the region,...
- 8/22/2018
- by Anna Marie de la Fuente
- Variety Film + TV
Panama City — Mexican documentary filmmaker Everardo Gonzalez is attending Iff Panama for screenings of his multiple award-winning doc “Devil’s Freedom” and as tutor at the fest’s Documentary Workshop, working in conjunction with Campus Latino’s Bettina Walter, Toronto’s documentary programmer, Thom Powers.
“Devil’s Freedom,” a harrowing documentary on Mexico’s drug wars, won top kudos at Los Angeles and Guadalajara.
Gonzalez says that he now wants to change tack in his next project, “El Vientre Yermo” (Sterile womb), that explores hidden life in 10 deserts around the world. He has already explored the universe of the Mexican desert in his 2012 documentary “Drought, but this project focuses on the positive signs of life found in the desert.
He feels that the project is almost a cleansing experience after delving into the psychological and emotional horrors of Mexico’s drug wars in “Devil.”
The shoot includes deserts in Namibia,...
“Devil’s Freedom,” a harrowing documentary on Mexico’s drug wars, won top kudos at Los Angeles and Guadalajara.
Gonzalez says that he now wants to change tack in his next project, “El Vientre Yermo” (Sterile womb), that explores hidden life in 10 deserts around the world. He has already explored the universe of the Mexican desert in his 2012 documentary “Drought, but this project focuses on the positive signs of life found in the desert.
He feels that the project is almost a cleansing experience after delving into the psychological and emotional horrors of Mexico’s drug wars in “Devil.”
The shoot includes deserts in Namibia,...
- 4/10/2018
- by Martin Dale
- Variety Film + TV
Abner Benaim, one of Panama’s leading helmers – whose recent features include 2009 comedy “Chance” and 2014 docu “Invasion” – is attending Iff Panama for the fest’s closing film, “Ruben Blades Is Not My Name,” which world premiered in South by Southwest (SXSW) where it won the audience prize, in the 24 Beats Per Second section.
The trailer, launched in March, has been a viral hit, with over 1 million views on Facebook.
Benaim reveals that the picture has already secured a wide theatrical release in Panama, with distribution deals covering Central America, the Caribbean, Colombia and Argentina and is about to close with Mexico. He says that the producers are currently considering offers from U.S. distributors and digital platforms and from international sales agents.
“Ruben Blades” is a co-production between Benaim’s company, Apertura Films, and Argentina’s Gema Films, run by Gema Juarez Allen, together with Ciudad Lunar in Colombia (“Embrace of the Serpent...
The trailer, launched in March, has been a viral hit, with over 1 million views on Facebook.
Benaim reveals that the picture has already secured a wide theatrical release in Panama, with distribution deals covering Central America, the Caribbean, Colombia and Argentina and is about to close with Mexico. He says that the producers are currently considering offers from U.S. distributors and digital platforms and from international sales agents.
“Ruben Blades” is a co-production between Benaim’s company, Apertura Films, and Argentina’s Gema Films, run by Gema Juarez Allen, together with Ciudad Lunar in Colombia (“Embrace of the Serpent...
- 4/5/2018
- by Martin Dale
- Variety Film + TV
I caught up with Argentine producer Gema Juarez Allen at the Panama Film Festival. Since seeing (and falling in love with) the Argentine road movie “Road to La Paz”/ “Camino a La Paz in Guadalajara and interviewing its director, Francisco Varone, I was interested in meeting her as well, even more so because her other film, the Colombian drama “Oscuro Animal” which premiered in Rotterdam and won four prizes at Mexico’s Guadalajara International Film Festival in March 2016, for Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress and Best Cinematography and has been sold to seven territories. “Oscuro Animal” is about three women fleeing armed conflict in Colombia. It was directed by Colombia’s Felipe Guerrero, an editor on “La Playa DC,” “Perro come perro” and “El Paramo”. It received funding from the Hubert Bals Fund and World Cinema Fund.
In Panama Gema was quite busy, not only with “Road to La Paz” but participating on the panel, Your Project in Motion: Coproduction and Financing along with Panamanian producers and directors, Delfina Vidal (“Caja 25”), Annie Canavaggio (“Breaking the Wave”) and Abner Benaim (“Invasion”) who also happens to be Gema’s partner.
As one of Latin America’s most active producers, Gema’s extensive experience international coproduction was invaluable and she shared it freely at the panel. Her participation in workshops in Europe, such as the Eave Producers Workshop and Eurodoc, has played a key role in establishing her international connections. While at Eave, she met Greek Boo Productions and Germany’s Ingmar Trost of Sutor Kolonko who came on board to coproduce “Oscuro Animal”.
“Road to La Paz” director, Francisco Varone said,
"In 2012 we submitted the project to Visions Sud Est in Switzerland. I was almost working by myself on the film at this time and then started working with a larger Argentinean production company, Concreto Films, owned by Juan Taratuto, a big film director who was directing TV commercials and said he’d help. They had a tough time finding investors so he introduced me to Gema Juarez Allen (whose recent film “Invasion” is the story of the U.S. invasion of Panama in the 1980s). She is a well-known documentary producer with experience in coproductions who knows how to find money and understands the value of going to festivals. She said she would do it as her first fiction film and went to San Sebastian Film Festival’s Foro de Coproduccion in 2013. There she had lots of one-on-one meetings and met Julius Ponten our Dutch coproducer who got funding from the Netherlands Film Fonds and Gunter Hanfgarn (“Bad Hair”) who applied to Ezef, an Evangelistic Fund for films from the south (one of the backers of “Timbuktu”). “
Read more on “Road to La Paz” here.
Gema continued this story when we spoke:
Juan liked the project but it was not in his domain so he sought me out. I read the script about two men and one car and thought, “This is easy”. But of course it was not. A road movie is the most difficult of all genres, and with animals, and covering two countries! Working with Pancho (Francisco Varone), he is the kind of director I like. I find the shooting is usually more important than the people, but with Pancho, the crew is important and he balanced the people and the shoot, so after all, it was ‘easy’.
The film is being sold internationally by FiGa. It is doing well in Argentina with 35,000 admissions, 20 copies and now in its fourth month in the cinemas. It is a ‘word of mouth’ film.
Sl: What are you working on now?
Gema Juarez Allen: I am now filming “Mapa Mudo”/ “Silent Map”.
A doc project by Felipe Guerrero, Nicolás Rincón and Jorge Caballero, based on video letters of three Colombian filmmakers who left their home country in the late 90s.
And I am developing a new project with the directors of our breakthough film from 2011, “Revenge of the Antipodes”/ “¡Vivan las antípodas!“ which screened in Venice. It’s called “Cro-goo-fant” and is a documentary for children, a funny story about animals. The director, Victor Kossokovsky, did a short doc for kids before.
I am also working with Andres di Tella, the most important documentary filmmaker and founder of Bafici in Argentina. It’s a very personal story about the avant garde art Institute lead by his father, the Instituto Di Tella.
And I am working on “Veterans” about the Falkland Islands War. Bertha Fund is backing it. Lola Arias is directing this documentary feature about the unexpected consequences of war on its protagonists, about the way memory is turned into fiction. I am looking for coproducers now. It is a different look at United Kingdom and Argentina vets that is at the same time both serious and humorous. We are creating a film around a theater play which will open in London this May. It began with the London International Theater Festival along with the Royal Court House Theater. It is not filmic; Lola Arias’ language is so refreshing; she is from the theater.
A winner of the 2015 Berlinale Co-production Market Pitch, Abner Benaim’s “Plaza catedral,” is also in the works. It is a tangled false friendship drama with thriller elements, set against the background of Panama’s social divide.
And I am currently producing Benaim’s doc, “My Name is Not Ruben Blades” with Ruben Blades.
Also in the works: the next film from Manuel Abramovich (“La Reina”), a Mar del Plata 2014 Works in Progress winner for “Solar” – a small but remarkable heart-warming doc-feature whose power struggle between director and subject adds unusually honest depths to a bio-portrait of someone who claims to come from the sun.
Sl: You are so prolific! How did you get started in this?
I studied anthropology at the University of Buenos Aires and the University of Rio de Janeiro but didn’t like academia and so I studied film at the National Film School and thought I would combine the two. In England I studied Visual Anthropology and worked as a P.A. and as a researcher for the BBC for a “Discovery Channel” type of channel and then I returned to Argentina.
Between 2003 to 2008 I worked at Cine Ojo the oldest doc company in Argentina and at Habitación 1520 Producciones (“Imagen Final”, “Criada”, “Los Jóvenes Muertos”, “Dulce Espera”) before creating my own company Gema Films in 2009.
Sl: You were coordinator of DocBuenos Aires until 2003, a training initiative as well.
Gema Juarez Allen: I have produced 17 films with lots of help.
I was a Sundance Documentary Fund grantee on two films. My projects have been supported by Visions Sud Est, Tribeca Film Institute, Hubert Bals Fund, Idfa Fund, Cinereach, Fondo Nacional de las Artes, DocStation Berlin, et al. I received the Arte/Bal Award in 2008 for Upcoming Producers at Bafici.
I coproduce with Wg Film (Sweden), Majade FilmProduktion (Germany), Gebrüder Beetz (Germany), Lemming Film (Netherlands) and Producciones Aplaplac (Chile).
I have received awards at Berlinale, Bafici, Roma, Guadalajara, Silverdocs, among many others. Gema is part of EuroDoc since 2010 and is a member of the Board of Adn, the Argentinean Documentary Filmmakers Network.
Sl: What advice do you have for young filmmakers?
Gema Juarez Allen: First find a good project. It is very competitive and you must have an original perspective on the subject. There are so many ideas everywhere, it must be good.
Producers should be highly-organized. Be sure to fully develop projects before presenting them to partners and funding decision makers. The key elements to present when the project is fully conceived are an overview, a synopsis, a director’s statement, a brief treatment, a financial plan, a budget, a production timetable and bio-filmographies.
Find a producer with experience. I’m always interested in new directors and new voices.
The best opportunities to find partners are at festivals, markets and above all workshops. These are good places to find colleagues and mentors to give you great feedback. Diana Elbaum is my mentor from Eave and she is always looking at what I’m doing. And most of my coproduction partners came from the Eave and Eurodoc workshops.
Beyond Eave and Eurodoc, which are very open to Latin American projects, other good workshops are Docmontevideo, Guadalajara, Typa, Cinergia Lab, Idfa Summer Academy, Chiledoc, Berlin Talent Campus, Documentary Campus, Morelia Lab among others.
Good international funding sources are Ibermedia and also the “Plus” schemes associated to funds such as Creative Europe, World Cinema Fund, Hubert Bals Fund and the Idfa Bertha fund. Other funds are Fonds d’Aide aux Cinémas du Monde, the Sundance documentary fund, Visions Sud Est, the Tribeca Film Institute, the Doha Film Institute and Sorfond, for co-productions with Norway.
In terms of leading international markets, Cannes, Rotterdam’s Cinemart, Berlin’s European Film Market, Ventana Sur and Guadalajara – and for documentaries – starting with Idfa Forum and Hotdocs, followed by Meetmarket Sheffield and Docmontevideo.
It is also important to choose the right festival to premiere a project since it’s virtually impossible to premiere a picture in a small festival and then get a larger fest to screen the film. It’s also important to explore the work-in-progress sidebars that now exist at most Latin American festivals, including Iff Panama’s Primera Mirada competition.
State funding sources in Latin America include Dicine, in Panama, Incaa in Argentina, Proimagenes in Colombia, Brazil’s Fundo Setorial do Audiovisual, the Fondo Audiovisual in Chile, and Imcine in Mexico. The selection criteria used by these national funds varies considerably. Proimagenes in Colombia, which only finances around 14 films per year last year had three pictures at Cannes.
Over the last three or four years many national funds have created specific lines of funding for co-productions, through bilateral agreements, such as that between Brazil’s Ancine and Argentina’s Incaa, which grants $250,000 per pic supported. As a result of such bilateral agreements Brazil, for example, is now a key partner for all of Latin America.
“I’d like to make the second or third films of my directors. They’ve all been such good experience. We’ve grown together,” Juarez Allen told Variety at the Mar del Plata Festival.
In Panama Gema was quite busy, not only with “Road to La Paz” but participating on the panel, Your Project in Motion: Coproduction and Financing along with Panamanian producers and directors, Delfina Vidal (“Caja 25”), Annie Canavaggio (“Breaking the Wave”) and Abner Benaim (“Invasion”) who also happens to be Gema’s partner.
As one of Latin America’s most active producers, Gema’s extensive experience international coproduction was invaluable and she shared it freely at the panel. Her participation in workshops in Europe, such as the Eave Producers Workshop and Eurodoc, has played a key role in establishing her international connections. While at Eave, she met Greek Boo Productions and Germany’s Ingmar Trost of Sutor Kolonko who came on board to coproduce “Oscuro Animal”.
“Road to La Paz” director, Francisco Varone said,
"In 2012 we submitted the project to Visions Sud Est in Switzerland. I was almost working by myself on the film at this time and then started working with a larger Argentinean production company, Concreto Films, owned by Juan Taratuto, a big film director who was directing TV commercials and said he’d help. They had a tough time finding investors so he introduced me to Gema Juarez Allen (whose recent film “Invasion” is the story of the U.S. invasion of Panama in the 1980s). She is a well-known documentary producer with experience in coproductions who knows how to find money and understands the value of going to festivals. She said she would do it as her first fiction film and went to San Sebastian Film Festival’s Foro de Coproduccion in 2013. There she had lots of one-on-one meetings and met Julius Ponten our Dutch coproducer who got funding from the Netherlands Film Fonds and Gunter Hanfgarn (“Bad Hair”) who applied to Ezef, an Evangelistic Fund for films from the south (one of the backers of “Timbuktu”). “
Read more on “Road to La Paz” here.
Gema continued this story when we spoke:
Juan liked the project but it was not in his domain so he sought me out. I read the script about two men and one car and thought, “This is easy”. But of course it was not. A road movie is the most difficult of all genres, and with animals, and covering two countries! Working with Pancho (Francisco Varone), he is the kind of director I like. I find the shooting is usually more important than the people, but with Pancho, the crew is important and he balanced the people and the shoot, so after all, it was ‘easy’.
The film is being sold internationally by FiGa. It is doing well in Argentina with 35,000 admissions, 20 copies and now in its fourth month in the cinemas. It is a ‘word of mouth’ film.
Sl: What are you working on now?
Gema Juarez Allen: I am now filming “Mapa Mudo”/ “Silent Map”.
A doc project by Felipe Guerrero, Nicolás Rincón and Jorge Caballero, based on video letters of three Colombian filmmakers who left their home country in the late 90s.
And I am developing a new project with the directors of our breakthough film from 2011, “Revenge of the Antipodes”/ “¡Vivan las antípodas!“ which screened in Venice. It’s called “Cro-goo-fant” and is a documentary for children, a funny story about animals. The director, Victor Kossokovsky, did a short doc for kids before.
I am also working with Andres di Tella, the most important documentary filmmaker and founder of Bafici in Argentina. It’s a very personal story about the avant garde art Institute lead by his father, the Instituto Di Tella.
And I am working on “Veterans” about the Falkland Islands War. Bertha Fund is backing it. Lola Arias is directing this documentary feature about the unexpected consequences of war on its protagonists, about the way memory is turned into fiction. I am looking for coproducers now. It is a different look at United Kingdom and Argentina vets that is at the same time both serious and humorous. We are creating a film around a theater play which will open in London this May. It began with the London International Theater Festival along with the Royal Court House Theater. It is not filmic; Lola Arias’ language is so refreshing; she is from the theater.
A winner of the 2015 Berlinale Co-production Market Pitch, Abner Benaim’s “Plaza catedral,” is also in the works. It is a tangled false friendship drama with thriller elements, set against the background of Panama’s social divide.
And I am currently producing Benaim’s doc, “My Name is Not Ruben Blades” with Ruben Blades.
Also in the works: the next film from Manuel Abramovich (“La Reina”), a Mar del Plata 2014 Works in Progress winner for “Solar” – a small but remarkable heart-warming doc-feature whose power struggle between director and subject adds unusually honest depths to a bio-portrait of someone who claims to come from the sun.
Sl: You are so prolific! How did you get started in this?
I studied anthropology at the University of Buenos Aires and the University of Rio de Janeiro but didn’t like academia and so I studied film at the National Film School and thought I would combine the two. In England I studied Visual Anthropology and worked as a P.A. and as a researcher for the BBC for a “Discovery Channel” type of channel and then I returned to Argentina.
Between 2003 to 2008 I worked at Cine Ojo the oldest doc company in Argentina and at Habitación 1520 Producciones (“Imagen Final”, “Criada”, “Los Jóvenes Muertos”, “Dulce Espera”) before creating my own company Gema Films in 2009.
Sl: You were coordinator of DocBuenos Aires until 2003, a training initiative as well.
Gema Juarez Allen: I have produced 17 films with lots of help.
I was a Sundance Documentary Fund grantee on two films. My projects have been supported by Visions Sud Est, Tribeca Film Institute, Hubert Bals Fund, Idfa Fund, Cinereach, Fondo Nacional de las Artes, DocStation Berlin, et al. I received the Arte/Bal Award in 2008 for Upcoming Producers at Bafici.
I coproduce with Wg Film (Sweden), Majade FilmProduktion (Germany), Gebrüder Beetz (Germany), Lemming Film (Netherlands) and Producciones Aplaplac (Chile).
I have received awards at Berlinale, Bafici, Roma, Guadalajara, Silverdocs, among many others. Gema is part of EuroDoc since 2010 and is a member of the Board of Adn, the Argentinean Documentary Filmmakers Network.
Sl: What advice do you have for young filmmakers?
Gema Juarez Allen: First find a good project. It is very competitive and you must have an original perspective on the subject. There are so many ideas everywhere, it must be good.
Producers should be highly-organized. Be sure to fully develop projects before presenting them to partners and funding decision makers. The key elements to present when the project is fully conceived are an overview, a synopsis, a director’s statement, a brief treatment, a financial plan, a budget, a production timetable and bio-filmographies.
Find a producer with experience. I’m always interested in new directors and new voices.
The best opportunities to find partners are at festivals, markets and above all workshops. These are good places to find colleagues and mentors to give you great feedback. Diana Elbaum is my mentor from Eave and she is always looking at what I’m doing. And most of my coproduction partners came from the Eave and Eurodoc workshops.
Beyond Eave and Eurodoc, which are very open to Latin American projects, other good workshops are Docmontevideo, Guadalajara, Typa, Cinergia Lab, Idfa Summer Academy, Chiledoc, Berlin Talent Campus, Documentary Campus, Morelia Lab among others.
Good international funding sources are Ibermedia and also the “Plus” schemes associated to funds such as Creative Europe, World Cinema Fund, Hubert Bals Fund and the Idfa Bertha fund. Other funds are Fonds d’Aide aux Cinémas du Monde, the Sundance documentary fund, Visions Sud Est, the Tribeca Film Institute, the Doha Film Institute and Sorfond, for co-productions with Norway.
In terms of leading international markets, Cannes, Rotterdam’s Cinemart, Berlin’s European Film Market, Ventana Sur and Guadalajara – and for documentaries – starting with Idfa Forum and Hotdocs, followed by Meetmarket Sheffield and Docmontevideo.
It is also important to choose the right festival to premiere a project since it’s virtually impossible to premiere a picture in a small festival and then get a larger fest to screen the film. It’s also important to explore the work-in-progress sidebars that now exist at most Latin American festivals, including Iff Panama’s Primera Mirada competition.
State funding sources in Latin America include Dicine, in Panama, Incaa in Argentina, Proimagenes in Colombia, Brazil’s Fundo Setorial do Audiovisual, the Fondo Audiovisual in Chile, and Imcine in Mexico. The selection criteria used by these national funds varies considerably. Proimagenes in Colombia, which only finances around 14 films per year last year had three pictures at Cannes.
Over the last three or four years many national funds have created specific lines of funding for co-productions, through bilateral agreements, such as that between Brazil’s Ancine and Argentina’s Incaa, which grants $250,000 per pic supported. As a result of such bilateral agreements Brazil, for example, is now a key partner for all of Latin America.
“I’d like to make the second or third films of my directors. They’ve all been such good experience. We’ve grown together,” Juarez Allen told Variety at the Mar del Plata Festival.
- 4/26/2016
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
“Road to La Paz” is a quiet, understated film about brotherhood and kinship between two very different Argentinians during the 2001 economic meltdown of the country, one a young man at a loss about how to live with his new wife and one an old man, a Muslim who has lived his life with his wife in Argentina and now wants to begin his pilgrimage, first to La Paz and then onward to Mecca.
What better way to transition from Qatar where I attended Qumra, a support program for upcoming filmmakers from Mena (Middle East, North Africa) to Latin America where I saw at Ficg, the Guadalajara Film Festival. “Road to La Paz” is a coproduction of Qatar, Argentina, Netherlands and Germany.
As I write this, it is screening at Iff Panama as well. Below is my interview with first time filmmaker, Francisco Varone. This interview was actually conducted in the foyer of the multiplex in Guadalajara before he went in for its premiere screening, just after I had seen it at the press and industry screening in Ficg.
This road movie starring Rodrigo de la Serna (“Motorcycle Diaries”) and one of Argentina’s leading stage actors, Ernesto Suárez, takes us on a trip of over 1,800 miles, from Buenos Aires, Argentina to La Paz, Bolivia.
Sebastian, whose passions are the rock band Vox Dei and his old Peugeot 505 is married and short of cash. Sebas decides to start working as a limo driver with his Peugeot. Among his frequent passengers is Jalil, an old unkind Muslim who one day offers Sebas a large amount of money to drive him to La Paz, Bolivia. Sebas reluctantly accepts. Jalil and Sebas don't agree on anything, not even on what music to play, Sebas likes Vox Dei, a progressive rock band from the 1970s, and Jalil brings along his traditional Arabic music tapes.
The road and Jalil's deteriorated health, make them surmount obstacles and become good fellow travelers. Jalil confesses that in La Paz he'll meet his brother Nazim and peregrinate along to Mecca. Jalil's health worsens and Sebastian knows he has little time left. After a long and winding road, Jalil arrives very weak to La Paz. There, after forty years, he meets his brother again. Sebas heads back home, his mission accomplished, his life changed.
The financing of this film was quite straight forward according to Francisco.
Francisco Varone: In 2012 we submitted the project the film to Visions Sud Est in Switzerland. I was almost working by myself on the film at this time and then started working with a larger Argentinean production company, Concreto Films owned by Juan Taratuto, a big film director who was directing TV commercials and said he’d help. They had a tough time finding investors so he introduced me to Gema Juarez Allen (whose recent film “Invasion” is the story of the U.S. invasion of Panama in the 1980s), a well known documentary producer with experience in coproductions who knew how to find money and understood the value of going to festivals. She said she would do it as her first fiction film and went to San Sebastian Film Festival’s Foro de Coproduccion in 2013. There she had lots of one-on-one meetings and met Julius Ponten our Dutch coproducer who got funding from the Netherlands Film Fonds and Gunter Hanfgarn that applied to Ezef, an Evangelistic Fund for films from the south (one of the backers of “Timbuktu”).
We already had the support from Incaa in their “Opera Prima” (First Works) section. Out of 100 script submissions, they chose three and I got 50% of the production budget.
We shot the movie in 2014 and then after we had a first rough cut, we went to 2015 Cartagena where we won in Colombia’s first Ficci PuertoLAB (consisting of five films by first, second or third time filmmakers from Latam, Spain or Portugal). This post-production money was awarded by a three-woman jury composed of producer Christina Gallego (“The Wind Journeys”, “Embrace of the Serpent”), Gaelle Mareschi of Kinology, the international sales agent and Paz Lazaro.
Then Doha added post-production funding for $25,000.
FiGa saw the film in Ventana Sur and picked it up for international sales.
Sl:What was your festival strategy?
Francisco Varone: Francisco Varone: The first festival it played in was Busan Film Festival 2015 in So. Korea. We wanted to play some festivals before its release in January in Argentina. There were many Latin American directors in Busan and it’s really good for making Asian sales.
From Busan it went on to Chicago, Sao Paolo, Mar del Plata where Ernesto Suárez won the Sagai Prize for New Actor, at Thessaloniki Ff 2015 where it won the Bronze Alexander, Palm Springs, London Argentinean Film Festival, Ficci, Ficg and Iff Panama. We also went to Palm Springs, Glasgow, Cartagena, Guadalajara (where I saw it) and Panama (where it is now playing). FiGa sells it at these festivals.
It was released in Argentina in January with 20 prints. So far it has 35,000 admissions and it is still playing, now in its fourth month!
Sl: How did you find your sales agent?
Francisco Varone: FiGa picked it up in Ventana Sur in December 2014 where they saw the first cut.
FiGa discussed playing it in more festivals but we needed the Argentinian release now, this year. Finding a commercial release date is hard so when you have it, you take it! There are not many options.
It was finished in 2015. At its premiere in Busan, FiGa it sold to Filmarti for Turkey. FiGa has sold to Danaos for Greece, Spain, Central America, Germany, France and Brazil. U.S. rights are still available.
Sl: Now that FiGa has it, what are you doing?
Francisco Varone: Four years ago when I quit commercials I became a professional scriptwriter and I’m also a script doctor, a rarity in Argentina. I conduct short-term one week-to-ten day workshops. Now I have written two scripts for two other directors and am working on my own script. I have lots of ideas…
Sl: What was the reaction to this film?
Francisco Varone: Most people have not seen Muslim films so audiences don’t recognize Sufi as something special.
In Sao Paolo, some young Muslims saw it and one told me that it was the first time in his life he saw Muslims without guns in a movie. He was surprised also that it came from Latin America.
Sl: What was the origin of the film?
Francisco Varone: In 2001 there was a huge economic crisis in Argentina. All savings in the banks disappeared. I was just finishing film school and there were no jobs. My best friend got married and his wife worked. He was a “house-husband”. This was a strange role conversion for me, but my friend was happy. I liked this character and wrote a half page of notes.
In 2008 I started a script about him. I also met an old film school friend and found out he had converted to Islam. These elements all went into the screenplay.
I am from a Catholic family but have always been interested in Buddhism and I practice martial arts; I’ve traveled to China and I like the East. So my friend introduced me to the Islam community. Like in the movie, I was in a ceremony called Dikhr, a Sufi ritual that takes one to two hours. It is a deeply moving experience.
I discovered something here in Argentina. How such Middle Eastern religions could be so organically a part of general society. I wanted to show this.
At the same time, I was into Zen Buddhism. Regarding how they express “truth”, I find the Buddhists and the Koran use the same words. We are all talking about the same thing.
The movie is not propaganda, it is simply depicting one possibility, one road…
Sl: How did you cast the film?
Francisco Varone: It as great for the film to have a huge star in such an indie film. The young actor, Rodrigo de la Serna, is very famous and he was very generous to trust in a debutant director and producer in fiction.
We had held a casting search in theaters in Cordoba, Uruguay, and other places and could not find an actor for the role of the Sufi. We had a casting director who called other casting directors and Eugenia Levin who had cast many important movies said on the phone she had the perfect actor and hd offered him this great part, but he had said no. She put us in touch with the older actor, Ernesto Suárez. He is very famous as a stage actor in Mendoza, a province in Argentina, but this is his first film. He lives a very modest life, drives a 1980 Renault, has a small house, a few clothes. He was not sure he wanted to do it, though we wanted him because he has such a natural quality.
He was not really interested in acting in a movie and I took a plane to talk to him. His two sons told him to do it, and so he accepted the part.
We found him three weeks before we started shooting. We were thinking of cancelling the shoot because we could not find the right actor.
What better way to transition from Qatar where I attended Qumra, a support program for upcoming filmmakers from Mena (Middle East, North Africa) to Latin America where I saw at Ficg, the Guadalajara Film Festival. “Road to La Paz” is a coproduction of Qatar, Argentina, Netherlands and Germany.
As I write this, it is screening at Iff Panama as well. Below is my interview with first time filmmaker, Francisco Varone. This interview was actually conducted in the foyer of the multiplex in Guadalajara before he went in for its premiere screening, just after I had seen it at the press and industry screening in Ficg.
This road movie starring Rodrigo de la Serna (“Motorcycle Diaries”) and one of Argentina’s leading stage actors, Ernesto Suárez, takes us on a trip of over 1,800 miles, from Buenos Aires, Argentina to La Paz, Bolivia.
Sebastian, whose passions are the rock band Vox Dei and his old Peugeot 505 is married and short of cash. Sebas decides to start working as a limo driver with his Peugeot. Among his frequent passengers is Jalil, an old unkind Muslim who one day offers Sebas a large amount of money to drive him to La Paz, Bolivia. Sebas reluctantly accepts. Jalil and Sebas don't agree on anything, not even on what music to play, Sebas likes Vox Dei, a progressive rock band from the 1970s, and Jalil brings along his traditional Arabic music tapes.
The road and Jalil's deteriorated health, make them surmount obstacles and become good fellow travelers. Jalil confesses that in La Paz he'll meet his brother Nazim and peregrinate along to Mecca. Jalil's health worsens and Sebastian knows he has little time left. After a long and winding road, Jalil arrives very weak to La Paz. There, after forty years, he meets his brother again. Sebas heads back home, his mission accomplished, his life changed.
The financing of this film was quite straight forward according to Francisco.
Francisco Varone: In 2012 we submitted the project the film to Visions Sud Est in Switzerland. I was almost working by myself on the film at this time and then started working with a larger Argentinean production company, Concreto Films owned by Juan Taratuto, a big film director who was directing TV commercials and said he’d help. They had a tough time finding investors so he introduced me to Gema Juarez Allen (whose recent film “Invasion” is the story of the U.S. invasion of Panama in the 1980s), a well known documentary producer with experience in coproductions who knew how to find money and understood the value of going to festivals. She said she would do it as her first fiction film and went to San Sebastian Film Festival’s Foro de Coproduccion in 2013. There she had lots of one-on-one meetings and met Julius Ponten our Dutch coproducer who got funding from the Netherlands Film Fonds and Gunter Hanfgarn that applied to Ezef, an Evangelistic Fund for films from the south (one of the backers of “Timbuktu”).
We already had the support from Incaa in their “Opera Prima” (First Works) section. Out of 100 script submissions, they chose three and I got 50% of the production budget.
We shot the movie in 2014 and then after we had a first rough cut, we went to 2015 Cartagena where we won in Colombia’s first Ficci PuertoLAB (consisting of five films by first, second or third time filmmakers from Latam, Spain or Portugal). This post-production money was awarded by a three-woman jury composed of producer Christina Gallego (“The Wind Journeys”, “Embrace of the Serpent”), Gaelle Mareschi of Kinology, the international sales agent and Paz Lazaro.
Then Doha added post-production funding for $25,000.
FiGa saw the film in Ventana Sur and picked it up for international sales.
Sl:What was your festival strategy?
Francisco Varone: Francisco Varone: The first festival it played in was Busan Film Festival 2015 in So. Korea. We wanted to play some festivals before its release in January in Argentina. There were many Latin American directors in Busan and it’s really good for making Asian sales.
From Busan it went on to Chicago, Sao Paolo, Mar del Plata where Ernesto Suárez won the Sagai Prize for New Actor, at Thessaloniki Ff 2015 where it won the Bronze Alexander, Palm Springs, London Argentinean Film Festival, Ficci, Ficg and Iff Panama. We also went to Palm Springs, Glasgow, Cartagena, Guadalajara (where I saw it) and Panama (where it is now playing). FiGa sells it at these festivals.
It was released in Argentina in January with 20 prints. So far it has 35,000 admissions and it is still playing, now in its fourth month!
Sl: How did you find your sales agent?
Francisco Varone: FiGa picked it up in Ventana Sur in December 2014 where they saw the first cut.
FiGa discussed playing it in more festivals but we needed the Argentinian release now, this year. Finding a commercial release date is hard so when you have it, you take it! There are not many options.
It was finished in 2015. At its premiere in Busan, FiGa it sold to Filmarti for Turkey. FiGa has sold to Danaos for Greece, Spain, Central America, Germany, France and Brazil. U.S. rights are still available.
Sl: Now that FiGa has it, what are you doing?
Francisco Varone: Four years ago when I quit commercials I became a professional scriptwriter and I’m also a script doctor, a rarity in Argentina. I conduct short-term one week-to-ten day workshops. Now I have written two scripts for two other directors and am working on my own script. I have lots of ideas…
Sl: What was the reaction to this film?
Francisco Varone: Most people have not seen Muslim films so audiences don’t recognize Sufi as something special.
In Sao Paolo, some young Muslims saw it and one told me that it was the first time in his life he saw Muslims without guns in a movie. He was surprised also that it came from Latin America.
Sl: What was the origin of the film?
Francisco Varone: In 2001 there was a huge economic crisis in Argentina. All savings in the banks disappeared. I was just finishing film school and there were no jobs. My best friend got married and his wife worked. He was a “house-husband”. This was a strange role conversion for me, but my friend was happy. I liked this character and wrote a half page of notes.
In 2008 I started a script about him. I also met an old film school friend and found out he had converted to Islam. These elements all went into the screenplay.
I am from a Catholic family but have always been interested in Buddhism and I practice martial arts; I’ve traveled to China and I like the East. So my friend introduced me to the Islam community. Like in the movie, I was in a ceremony called Dikhr, a Sufi ritual that takes one to two hours. It is a deeply moving experience.
I discovered something here in Argentina. How such Middle Eastern religions could be so organically a part of general society. I wanted to show this.
At the same time, I was into Zen Buddhism. Regarding how they express “truth”, I find the Buddhists and the Koran use the same words. We are all talking about the same thing.
The movie is not propaganda, it is simply depicting one possibility, one road…
Sl: How did you cast the film?
Francisco Varone: It as great for the film to have a huge star in such an indie film. The young actor, Rodrigo de la Serna, is very famous and he was very generous to trust in a debutant director and producer in fiction.
We had held a casting search in theaters in Cordoba, Uruguay, and other places and could not find an actor for the role of the Sufi. We had a casting director who called other casting directors and Eugenia Levin who had cast many important movies said on the phone she had the perfect actor and hd offered him this great part, but he had said no. She put us in touch with the older actor, Ernesto Suárez. He is very famous as a stage actor in Mendoza, a province in Argentina, but this is his first film. He lives a very modest life, drives a 1980 Renault, has a small house, a few clothes. He was not sure he wanted to do it, though we wanted him because he has such a natural quality.
He was not really interested in acting in a movie and I took a plane to talk to him. His two sons told him to do it, and so he accepted the part.
We found him three weeks before we started shooting. We were thinking of cancelling the shoot because we could not find the right actor.
- 4/18/2016
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
The Industry Program of the International Film Festival of Panama connects local film industry members with international representatives to identify new and creative possibilities for the production, marketing, and distribution of films.
At the same time, a vibrant and diverse group of film industry insiders support Iff Panama’s educational and training activities in the form of workshops, free screenings, presentations, and master-classes for industry members, students and youth.
Among the activities that will take place during Iff Panama’s fifth edition is the “Your Project in Motion: Co-production and Financing”, a panel, organized by the Panama Film Commision (Dicine), an agency under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (Mici). The panel will feature both international and domestic industry figures: producer Gema Juarez Allen, director Delfina Vidal, directorAnnie Canavaggio and director Abner Benaim. - See more here
The Importance of Inspiration
Iff Panama understands that the youth and children of today are the future representatives of Panamanian culture and industry. Knowing how essential it is to offer them healthy opportunities to develop critical thinking skills and grow creatively – both for the future of Panama’s film industry and maximum success in their own lives, in its inaugural year, the International Film Festival of Panama launched an exciting program to inspire and enable children and youth to explore cinema through educational workshops, free screenings, and supported learning in audio-visual/editorial production.
Combined with Iff Panama’s other activities, this program helps groups of young people organize to develop and refine their skills and knowledge in these and other areas of the film industry. - See more here.
Four years later, in 2015, over 850 children participated; representing nine different non-profit foundations and five schools, like Fundación Brooklyncito (which has been actively involved in this initiative for the past two years). Iff Panama provided no-cost film screenings for them to enjoy; arranging both transportation and accommodations so that youth groups in regions outside Panama City – like Portobelo, Colon, and the Darien – could reach and enjoy Iff Panama activities safely and easily.
Active. Applied. Animated
Among the program’s best-loved educational workshops is the stop-motion studio. In 2015, for the second year, children gathered for a high-energy, two-day experience where industry insiders helped them explore the process of creating stop-motion animation.
And the short film they created together? The large audience at Panama’s Museum of Contemporary Art declared its production and public screening an inspiring success.
This year ought to be even better.
Last year, Iff Panama partnered with Fancine initiative to support a group of young people in the foundation of their very own magazine: Pela'os and Pela'as Te Cuentan El Festival. The printed publication, distributed throughout Iff Panama in 2015, featured film critiques, articles, and exclusive interviews – written, designed, and produced entirely by members.
See more Here.
At the same time, a vibrant and diverse group of film industry insiders support Iff Panama’s educational and training activities in the form of workshops, free screenings, presentations, and master-classes for industry members, students and youth.
Among the activities that will take place during Iff Panama’s fifth edition is the “Your Project in Motion: Co-production and Financing”, a panel, organized by the Panama Film Commision (Dicine), an agency under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (Mici). The panel will feature both international and domestic industry figures: producer Gema Juarez Allen, director Delfina Vidal, directorAnnie Canavaggio and director Abner Benaim. - See more here
The Importance of Inspiration
Iff Panama understands that the youth and children of today are the future representatives of Panamanian culture and industry. Knowing how essential it is to offer them healthy opportunities to develop critical thinking skills and grow creatively – both for the future of Panama’s film industry and maximum success in their own lives, in its inaugural year, the International Film Festival of Panama launched an exciting program to inspire and enable children and youth to explore cinema through educational workshops, free screenings, and supported learning in audio-visual/editorial production.
Combined with Iff Panama’s other activities, this program helps groups of young people organize to develop and refine their skills and knowledge in these and other areas of the film industry. - See more here.
Four years later, in 2015, over 850 children participated; representing nine different non-profit foundations and five schools, like Fundación Brooklyncito (which has been actively involved in this initiative for the past two years). Iff Panama provided no-cost film screenings for them to enjoy; arranging both transportation and accommodations so that youth groups in regions outside Panama City – like Portobelo, Colon, and the Darien – could reach and enjoy Iff Panama activities safely and easily.
Active. Applied. Animated
Among the program’s best-loved educational workshops is the stop-motion studio. In 2015, for the second year, children gathered for a high-energy, two-day experience where industry insiders helped them explore the process of creating stop-motion animation.
And the short film they created together? The large audience at Panama’s Museum of Contemporary Art declared its production and public screening an inspiring success.
This year ought to be even better.
Last year, Iff Panama partnered with Fancine initiative to support a group of young people in the foundation of their very own magazine: Pela'os and Pela'as Te Cuentan El Festival. The printed publication, distributed throughout Iff Panama in 2015, featured film critiques, articles, and exclusive interviews – written, designed, and produced entirely by members.
See more Here.
- 4/5/2016
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
HollywoodNews.com: The Tribeca Film Institute (Tfi) announced the award winners for the Tfi Latin America Media Arts Fund and first-ever Heineken Voces grant at a celebration over the weekend for Latin American filmmakers during the Tribeca Film Festival. The funds, totaling $60,000, support innovative Latin American film and video artists to help them explore stories reflecting diverse cultures and gain exposure in the film industry.
The Tfi Latin America Media Arts Fund awards $10,000 grants to animation, documentary, or hybrid feature-length films in advanced development, production or post-production from filmmakers living and working in the Caribbean, Mexico, Central and South America. Grantees also receive exclusive guidance from Tfi to ensure that each film reaches completion and enters the U.S. marketplace from the best possible vantage point. The Fund is sponsored by Moviecity and Canacine.
“We are proud to support this year’s Latin America Fund and Heineken Voces winners, and...
The Tfi Latin America Media Arts Fund awards $10,000 grants to animation, documentary, or hybrid feature-length films in advanced development, production or post-production from filmmakers living and working in the Caribbean, Mexico, Central and South America. Grantees also receive exclusive guidance from Tfi to ensure that each film reaches completion and enters the U.S. marketplace from the best possible vantage point. The Fund is sponsored by Moviecity and Canacine.
“We are proud to support this year’s Latin America Fund and Heineken Voces winners, and...
- 4/23/2012
- by Josh Abraham
- Hollywoodnews.com
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