Sovereign is proud to announce that award-winning Mexican director Amat Escalante’s powerful thriller Lost In The Night received its UK premiere at the 2023 BFI London Film Festival, as part of the ‘Thrill’ section, and now the film is available to rent/buy on Amazon Prime Video in the UK.
From acclaimed Mexican director Amat Escalante, following Heli, for which he won Best Director at Cannes in 2013, and The Untamed, which won him the Best Director prize at Venice in 2016, comes Lost In The Night, a taut, engrossing thriller that blends traditional elements of Latin American cinema with astute social commentary on Mexican society and contemporary influencer culture.
The film, which premiered at Cannes this year, stars Juan Daniel García Treviño (Narcos México), and Latin American influencer superstar Ester Expósito, who has 27 million followers, and features a superb score by Stranger Things composers Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein.
The film...
From acclaimed Mexican director Amat Escalante, following Heli, for which he won Best Director at Cannes in 2013, and The Untamed, which won him the Best Director prize at Venice in 2016, comes Lost In The Night, a taut, engrossing thriller that blends traditional elements of Latin American cinema with astute social commentary on Mexican society and contemporary influencer culture.
The film, which premiered at Cannes this year, stars Juan Daniel García Treviño (Narcos México), and Latin American influencer superstar Ester Expósito, who has 27 million followers, and features a superb score by Stranger Things composers Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein.
The film...
- 4/11/2024
- by Peter 'Witchfinder' Hopkins
- Horror Asylum
Night Moves: Escalante Cultivates a Moody, Capricious Mystery
Replete with a slew of customary features encountered in a fatalistic film noir, Amat Escalante’s fifth feature, Perdidos en la noche (Lost in the Night), begins with a missing woman and then splinters off into unexpected directions. Part of the film’s intrigue is in how it resists our expectations, embracing Escalante’s penchant for corruption and nihilism but not without a sense of salvation. While the film’s narrative has more in common with Escalante’s Heli (2013) than his extravagantly perverse The Untamed (2016), it’s a genre film with a mind of it’s own, even if it resists a gratifying sense of catharsis.…...
Replete with a slew of customary features encountered in a fatalistic film noir, Amat Escalante’s fifth feature, Perdidos en la noche (Lost in the Night), begins with a missing woman and then splinters off into unexpected directions. Part of the film’s intrigue is in how it resists our expectations, embracing Escalante’s penchant for corruption and nihilism but not without a sense of salvation. While the film’s narrative has more in common with Escalante’s Heli (2013) than his extravagantly perverse The Untamed (2016), it’s a genre film with a mind of it’s own, even if it resists a gratifying sense of catharsis.…...
- 2/9/2024
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Amat Escalante brings great intensity to this story of a young man seeking out the truth of his mother’s disappearance, but the point gets rather lost
Amat Escalante is the Mexican film-maker who created the brutal and politically engaged crime drama Heli in 2013, for which he won the best director award in Cannes, and in 2016 the deeply strange body horror parable The Untamed which was a prizewinner at Venice. Now, after a stint on the streaming TV drama Narcos: Mexico he has directed and co-written this contorted Lynchian melodrama about Mexico’s corruption, cynicism and indifference, and all the secrets and lies that bloat the country’s ruling classes.
Lost in the Night concerns what may be the corpse of a woman buried in the grounds of a super-rich family and in this respect it rather resembles Robe of Gems from Natalia López Gallardo, who like Escalante has worked with Carlos Reygadas.
Amat Escalante is the Mexican film-maker who created the brutal and politically engaged crime drama Heli in 2013, for which he won the best director award in Cannes, and in 2016 the deeply strange body horror parable The Untamed which was a prizewinner at Venice. Now, after a stint on the streaming TV drama Narcos: Mexico he has directed and co-written this contorted Lynchian melodrama about Mexico’s corruption, cynicism and indifference, and all the secrets and lies that bloat the country’s ruling classes.
Lost in the Night concerns what may be the corpse of a woman buried in the grounds of a super-rich family and in this respect it rather resembles Robe of Gems from Natalia López Gallardo, who like Escalante has worked with Carlos Reygadas.
- 11/21/2023
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Mubi Podcast: Encuentros returns for a fifth season.The first episode features:Lois Patiño (Spain), visual artist and filmmaker. Her experimental and contemplative feature and short films have been screened at venues such as the Directors Fortnight, the New York Film Festival, and Ficunam. His debut feature Costa da morte won the award for Best Director in the Filmmakers of the Present competition at Locarno and, more recently, Samsara, his third feature, won the Special Jury Prize in the Encounters section at the Berlinale.Natalia López Gallardo (Bolivia-México), editor, actress and director. She has edited films such as Heli, by Amat Escalante; Jauja, by Lisandro Alonso, and Silent Light (Luz silenciosa) by Carlos Reygadas, for which she was nominated for an Ariel Award. She made her directorial debut in 2006 with her short film En el cielo como en la tierra, presented in Rotterdam, and 17 years later, her first feature film...
- 11/8/2023
- MUBI
Escalante will head the competition jury while Allen-Miller will preside over first feature
Filmmakers Amat Escalante, Raine Allen-Miller and Rubika Shah will preside over the competition juries for the 67th BFI London Film Festival.
Escalante, the Mexican director whose credits include 2013’s Heli and 2016’s The Untamed, will head the official competition jury where he is joined by Kate Taylor, programme director of the Edinburgh International Film Festival, and author Niven Govinden.
The Mexican director’s latest feature Lost In The Night made its debut in Cannes Premiere earlier this year and is also screening in the Lff Thrills strand.
Filmmakers Amat Escalante, Raine Allen-Miller and Rubika Shah will preside over the competition juries for the 67th BFI London Film Festival.
Escalante, the Mexican director whose credits include 2013’s Heli and 2016’s The Untamed, will head the official competition jury where he is joined by Kate Taylor, programme director of the Edinburgh International Film Festival, and author Niven Govinden.
The Mexican director’s latest feature Lost In The Night made its debut in Cannes Premiere earlier this year and is also screening in the Lff Thrills strand.
- 9/19/2023
- by Ellie Calnan
- ScreenDaily
In his films, director and screenwriter Amat Escalante (Mexico) is committed to portraying the violence of his country in a provocative, head-on way. His first three feature films premiered at the Cannes Film Festival: Sangre and Los bastardos screened in the Un Certain Regard section, and his 2013 film Heli premiered in competition for the Palme d'Or, for which Escalante won the Best Director Award. In 2016, he presented The Untamed (La región salvaje), a film with science-fiction elements, in competition at the Venice Festival, which again won him the Best Director Award. This year, he premiered his fifth feature film, Lost in the Night, in the Cannes Premieres section.In this episode, we talk about the relationship between filmmakers and their social context. In conversation with programmer and critic Pamela Biénzobas, Escalante speaks about his relationship with the city of Guanajuato as a source of inspiration and his interest in establishing...
- 7/12/2023
- MUBI
Amat Escalante returned to the Croisette, exactly 10 years after the premiere of Heli, for which he won the Best Director award at this prestigious festival. With Lost in the Night (aka Perdidos en la noche), Escalante continues to address similar themes, linked to one of the most violent times in Mexico. The opposition to a mine that operates with foreign capital causes a group of municipal police officers to carry out brutal actions. Three years later, Emiliano (Juan Daniel García) – the son of a missing woman who led the complaints against the mine – ends up with a key clue that could bring about the resolution that he and his sister have sought so much. Although there’s an eventual passage in the film...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
- 5/24/2023
- Screen Anarchy
Cannes frequently gets criticized for the paucity of Latin American representation in the main competition, so it was widely assumed that the new feature from festival veteran Amat Escalante, the 2013 best director winner for Heli, would be guaranteed a spot. Sad to report that watching Lost in the Night (Perdidos en la noche), it’s easy to see why it was shuffled off to a sidebar. The Mexican filmmaker moves out from the shadow of his former mentor, Carlos Reygadas, with his most accessible work to date in this revenge thriller, which is engrossing enough but also a bit meandering and underpowered.
Escalante’s fifth feature takes its cues more from his experience in television on Narcos: Mexico than from his previous big-screen work, which could in theory bring him to a wider audience. But it lacks the tight cohesion of that series at its best, and softens the jarring intensity,...
Escalante’s fifth feature takes its cues more from his experience in television on Narcos: Mexico than from his previous big-screen work, which could in theory bring him to a wider audience. But it lacks the tight cohesion of that series at its best, and softens the jarring intensity,...
- 5/23/2023
- by David Rooney
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Amat Escalante’s title debuted in the Cannes Premiere section.
Mexican auteur Amat Escalante’s Lost In The Night is to be released in the UK and Ireland by Sovereign, following its debut in the Cannes Premiere section.
Sovereign is aiming for a late 2023, early 2024 theatrical release, with The Match Factory handling international sales.
The social thriller tells the story of a Mexican activist who disappears without a trace following her protests against the local mining industry. Five years later, her son attempts to find the culprit.
It was written by Escalante in collaboration with his brother Martín Escalante and Paulina Mendoza.
Mexican auteur Amat Escalante’s Lost In The Night is to be released in the UK and Ireland by Sovereign, following its debut in the Cannes Premiere section.
Sovereign is aiming for a late 2023, early 2024 theatrical release, with The Match Factory handling international sales.
The social thriller tells the story of a Mexican activist who disappears without a trace following her protests against the local mining industry. Five years later, her son attempts to find the culprit.
It was written by Escalante in collaboration with his brother Martín Escalante and Paulina Mendoza.
- 5/21/2023
- by Mona Tabbara
- ScreenDaily
When Ester Expósito walked the red carpet in Cannes two years ago, she swore she’d be back.
“I was here for a brand, to show off some jewelry,” says the actress, who became a fashion trendsetter and online influencer — with 28 million followers on Instagram — after her turn as the cold, manipulative Carla Rosón Caleruega in Netflix’s Spanish teen drama hit Elite. “But when I was up there on those steps, I thought: ‘I’m going to come back soon, not with a brand with a movie.”
As good as her word, Expósito has returned to the Croisette this year as one of the stars of Lost in the Night, the new crime drama from Mexican director Amat Escalante, which premiered in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard and is being sold worldwide by The Match Factory.
Escalante seems a long way from the soapy prep school world of Elite. The Mexican helmer,...
“I was here for a brand, to show off some jewelry,” says the actress, who became a fashion trendsetter and online influencer — with 28 million followers on Instagram — after her turn as the cold, manipulative Carla Rosón Caleruega in Netflix’s Spanish teen drama hit Elite. “But when I was up there on those steps, I thought: ‘I’m going to come back soon, not with a brand with a movie.”
As good as her word, Expósito has returned to the Croisette this year as one of the stars of Lost in the Night, the new crime drama from Mexican director Amat Escalante, which premiered in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard and is being sold worldwide by The Match Factory.
Escalante seems a long way from the soapy prep school world of Elite. The Mexican helmer,...
- 5/21/2023
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
When Rigoberto Duplas, the worrying conceptual artist and antagonist of Amat Escalante’s new film, tells Emiliano, our steadfast lead, that the cheap glass in his modernist mansion has a tendency to “rattle,” it sounds like a dig. Luckily, it’s a tendency our hero doesn’t share. Played with furrowed seriousness by Juan Daniel García (a standout in the recent Robe of Gems), Emiliano is the most convincing part of Escalante’s muddled mystery: a film about a young man on a mission to avenge his mother who disappeared after protesting the sale of a local mine.
After breaking out in Un Certain Regard with Blood in 2005, Escalante’s ascension on the festival circuit has been nothing if not steady: awarded best director for Heli by Steven Spielberg’s jury in 2013, the director followed that success with a Silver Lion in Venice for The Untamed in 2016. That agreeably slimy...
After breaking out in Un Certain Regard with Blood in 2005, Escalante’s ascension on the festival circuit has been nothing if not steady: awarded best director for Heli by Steven Spielberg’s jury in 2013, the director followed that success with a Silver Lion in Venice for The Untamed in 2016. That agreeably slimy...
- 5/18/2023
- by Rory O'Connor
- The Film Stage
Stateside, audiences may know Amat Escalante best for directing episodes of “Narcos: Mexico” for Netflix. But Escalante deserves more recognition than that, having excellent independent dramas like 2013’s “Heli” and 2016’s “The Untamed.” And Escalante returns to the Croisette for the first time since “Heli” premiered in competition for the Palme d’Or with his new film, “Lost In The Night.”
Read More: Cannes Directors’ Fortnight 2023 Lineup Includes New Films From Hong Sang-soo, Michel Gondry & More
As a late addition to the Cannes line-up, “Lost In The Night” won’t have its world premiere in competition for the fest’s top prize, instead premiering in the Cannes Premiere section.
Continue reading ‘Lost In The Night’ Trailer: Amat Escalante’s Latest Twisty Crime Drama Premieres At The Cannes Film Festival On May 18 at The Playlist.
Read More: Cannes Directors’ Fortnight 2023 Lineup Includes New Films From Hong Sang-soo, Michel Gondry & More
As a late addition to the Cannes line-up, “Lost In The Night” won’t have its world premiere in competition for the fest’s top prize, instead premiering in the Cannes Premiere section.
Continue reading ‘Lost In The Night’ Trailer: Amat Escalante’s Latest Twisty Crime Drama Premieres At The Cannes Film Festival On May 18 at The Playlist.
- 5/12/2023
- by Ned Booth
- The Playlist
"Why did you hire me if you know who I am?" The Match Factory has unveiled a Cannes promo trailer for Lost in the Night, premiering at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival kicking off soon this month. This is the latest film by Mexican filmmaker Amat Escalante, best known for his more recent indie hits Heli and The Untamed. It's premiering in the Cannes Premiere section at the fest, not in the competition, Though it looks like it could be in there nonetheless. Emiliano lives in a small mining town in Mexico. Motivated by a sense of justice, he searches for those responsible for the disappearance of his activist mother. He finds a clue that leads him to the wealthy Aldama Family - soon he gets a job at their home. In search of the truth & justice, Emiliano plunges into a dark world full of secrets, lies and revenge. Starring Juan...
- 5/12/2023
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
European Film Promotion (Efp) has unveiled its 2023 Producers on the Move, the 20 up-and-coming film producers from 20 European countries picked to take part in the Efp’s networking event at the Cannes Film Festival this year.
The list of 2023 Producers on the Move includes Gentian Koçi (Albania), David Bohun (Austria), Julie Esparbes (Belgium), Vanya Rainova (Bulgaria), Miljenka Čogelja (Croatia), Stelana Kliris (Cyprus), Alice Tabery (Czech Republic), Emile Hertling Péronard (Denmark), Emilia Haukka (Finland), Silvana Santamaria (Germany), Vicky Miha (Greece), Júlia Berkes (Hungary), Kathryn Kennedy (Ireland), Valon Bajgora (Kosovo*), Dominiks Jarmakovičs (The Netherlands), Elisa Fernanda Pirir (Norway), Radu Stancu (Romania), Juraj Krasnohorský (Slovak Republic) and Julia Gebauer (Sweden).
The group will take part in a tailor-made program that runs May 18-22 during the festival intended to improve collaboration and foster international co-productions, between European film professionals. To help kick-start the effort, the Efp has begun a series of pre-festival events, including one-on-one speed meetings,...
The list of 2023 Producers on the Move includes Gentian Koçi (Albania), David Bohun (Austria), Julie Esparbes (Belgium), Vanya Rainova (Bulgaria), Miljenka Čogelja (Croatia), Stelana Kliris (Cyprus), Alice Tabery (Czech Republic), Emile Hertling Péronard (Denmark), Emilia Haukka (Finland), Silvana Santamaria (Germany), Vicky Miha (Greece), Júlia Berkes (Hungary), Kathryn Kennedy (Ireland), Valon Bajgora (Kosovo*), Dominiks Jarmakovičs (The Netherlands), Elisa Fernanda Pirir (Norway), Radu Stancu (Romania), Juraj Krasnohorský (Slovak Republic) and Julia Gebauer (Sweden).
The group will take part in a tailor-made program that runs May 18-22 during the festival intended to improve collaboration and foster international co-productions, between European film professionals. To help kick-start the effort, the Efp has begun a series of pre-festival events, including one-on-one speed meetings,...
- 5/3/2023
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
One of the most anticipated recent additions to the Cannes Film Festival lineup hails from Mexican director Amat Escalante, who returns to the festival after winning Best Director for Heli and whose last feature was 2016’s genre-defying thriller The Untamed, for which he won Best Director at Venice. Lost in the Night, starring Juan Daniel Garcia, Barbara Mori, Ester Exposito, Fernando Bonilla, and Maria Fernanda Osio, will debut in the Cannes Premiere section of the festival and we’re pleased to debut new images from the film, which clocks in at 113 minutes.
“Emiliano lives in a small mining town in Mexico. Motivated by a deep sense of justice, he searches for those responsible for the disappearance of his activist mother who was standing up for local jobs against an international mining company,” reads the synopsis. “Receiving no help from the police or judicial system, he finds a clue that leads...
“Emiliano lives in a small mining town in Mexico. Motivated by a deep sense of justice, he searches for those responsible for the disappearance of his activist mother who was standing up for local jobs against an international mining company,” reads the synopsis. “Receiving no help from the police or judicial system, he finds a clue that leads...
- 4/27/2023
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
The Cannes Film Festival on Monday announced a raft of new additions to the Official Selection of its 76th edition running May 16-27.
Two new films have been added to the Competition lineup: Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s Black Flies and Catherine Corsini’s Le Retour.
Sauvaire’s thriller stars Tye Sheridan opposite Sean Penn as a rookie paramedic paired with a veteran on a drive through New York.
According to local media reports, Corsini’s mother-and-daughters drama Le Retour was to have been announced as the seventh female-directed film in Competition during the main line-up press conference on April 13.
Allegations of inappropriate behaviour on the Corsica-based set – detailed in reports by French newspapers Le Parisien and Libération – forced the festival to put its selection on hold, while it looked into the matter.
Cannes Delegate General Thierry Frémaux is reported to have said that he would not be swayed by rumors.
The...
Two new films have been added to the Competition lineup: Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s Black Flies and Catherine Corsini’s Le Retour.
Sauvaire’s thriller stars Tye Sheridan opposite Sean Penn as a rookie paramedic paired with a veteran on a drive through New York.
According to local media reports, Corsini’s mother-and-daughters drama Le Retour was to have been announced as the seventh female-directed film in Competition during the main line-up press conference on April 13.
Allegations of inappropriate behaviour on the Corsica-based set – detailed in reports by French newspapers Le Parisien and Libération – forced the festival to put its selection on hold, while it looked into the matter.
Cannes Delegate General Thierry Frémaux is reported to have said that he would not be swayed by rumors.
The...
- 4/24/2023
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
‘Heli’s’ Armando Espitia Set for ‘Six Months,’ from Chicago Fest Winner Bruno Santamaría (Exclusive)
Armando Espitia, who broke out as the hapless young factory worker in Amat Escalante’s Cannes winner “Heli,” is attached to star in “Six Months in the Pink and Blue Building,” a feature project being brought to San Sebastian’s Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum by Mexico’s Bruno Santamaría Raso.
Also on board is actor – and writer-producer – Sofia Espinosa, who fulfilled all three roles in Max Zunino’s “Los Bañistas” and “Bruma” and won a Mexican Academy Ariel for her tearaway performance as Gloria Trevi in “Gloria.”
Written and to be directed by Santamaría, “Six Months in the Pink and Blue Building,” marks his first fiction feature. He caught attention and won a Chicago Golden Hugo Golden Hugo and Golde Q Hugo for best documentary for “Things We Dare Not Do,” a movie straddling fiction in its finish, production values and narrative structures as it depicts Toño, the eldest son...
Also on board is actor – and writer-producer – Sofia Espinosa, who fulfilled all three roles in Max Zunino’s “Los Bañistas” and “Bruma” and won a Mexican Academy Ariel for her tearaway performance as Gloria Trevi in “Gloria.”
Written and to be directed by Santamaría, “Six Months in the Pink and Blue Building,” marks his first fiction feature. He caught attention and won a Chicago Golden Hugo Golden Hugo and Golde Q Hugo for best documentary for “Things We Dare Not Do,” a movie straddling fiction in its finish, production values and narrative structures as it depicts Toño, the eldest son...
- 9/19/2022
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
10 films underscoring Mexican cinemas drive into diversity:
“Huesera,” (Michelle Garza Cervera)
Valeria is pregnant, but something is wrong with the baby. Shades of “Rosemary’s Baby,” but “Huesera” goes its own way, as Valeria gradually realizes what for her is really horror.
Genre and LGBTQ, a double winner at Tribeca, taking its coveted New Narrative Director hardware, and picked up by XYZ Films for most world sales. “A terrifying, bone-breaking body horror nightmare,” said Variety. Produced by Mexico’s Napa Films and Machete Films, the latter behind Cannes winners “Leap Year” and “La Jaula de Oro.”
“Mom,” (“Mamá,” Xun Sero)
Selected for Canada’s Hot Docs, Guadalajara Mezcal Award competition, where it won an honorable mention, and now Morelia’s doc strand, one of the banner titles of a new Chiapas cinema. A portrait of Sero’s mom, yes, but also of a remarkable, resilient woman who defied the conventions of her village,...
“Huesera,” (Michelle Garza Cervera)
Valeria is pregnant, but something is wrong with the baby. Shades of “Rosemary’s Baby,” but “Huesera” goes its own way, as Valeria gradually realizes what for her is really horror.
Genre and LGBTQ, a double winner at Tribeca, taking its coveted New Narrative Director hardware, and picked up by XYZ Films for most world sales. “A terrifying, bone-breaking body horror nightmare,” said Variety. Produced by Mexico’s Napa Films and Machete Films, the latter behind Cannes winners “Leap Year” and “La Jaula de Oro.”
“Mom,” (“Mamá,” Xun Sero)
Selected for Canada’s Hot Docs, Guadalajara Mezcal Award competition, where it won an honorable mention, and now Morelia’s doc strand, one of the banner titles of a new Chiapas cinema. A portrait of Sero’s mom, yes, but also of a remarkable, resilient woman who defied the conventions of her village,...
- 9/16/2022
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
How you respond to the news that “Robe of Gems” director Natalia López Gallardo is making her feature debut after editing work by the likes of Amat Escalante and Carlos Reygadas may ultimately guide your response to the film as a whole. Though the first-time writer-director forges her own cinematic path here and is very much an artist unto herself, the influence of her collaborators is evident in this elliptical exploration of a criminal underbelly that’s spent so much time in the light it’s hardly even dark anymore.
Nailea Norvind stars as Isabel, who moves into her mother’s villa in rural Mexico along with her husband and children following the matriarch’s departure. There they learn that the sister of Mari, who’s taken care of the family home since time immemorial, has gone missing — a development that so upets Isabel it spurs her into ill-advised action.
Nailea Norvind stars as Isabel, who moves into her mother’s villa in rural Mexico along with her husband and children following the matriarch’s departure. There they learn that the sister of Mari, who’s taken care of the family home since time immemorial, has gone missing — a development that so upets Isabel it spurs her into ill-advised action.
- 2/14/2022
- by Michael Nordine
- Variety Film + TV
New York-based Visit Films has swooped on world sales rights to “Robe of Gems” (“Manto de Gemas”) which will world premiere in main competition at next’s month’s Berlinale.
Produced by some of the best known producers on the art film and crossover scene in Mexico and Argentina, “Robe of Gems” marks the directorial debut feature of Natalia López Gallardo who has edited some of the most acclaimed and challenging films coming out of Latin America in the last decade, such as Lisandro Alonso’s “Jauja,” starring Viggo Mortensen, and Carlos Reygadas’ “Post Tenebras Lux” and Amat Escalante’s “Heli,” the latter two both best director award winners at the Cannes Festival.
Written, directed and edited by López Gallardo, “Robe of Gems” turns on Isabel, a woman in the midst of divorce who moves to an old country house her family once owned.
There she discovers her helper Marta...
Produced by some of the best known producers on the art film and crossover scene in Mexico and Argentina, “Robe of Gems” marks the directorial debut feature of Natalia López Gallardo who has edited some of the most acclaimed and challenging films coming out of Latin America in the last decade, such as Lisandro Alonso’s “Jauja,” starring Viggo Mortensen, and Carlos Reygadas’ “Post Tenebras Lux” and Amat Escalante’s “Heli,” the latter two both best director award winners at the Cannes Festival.
Written, directed and edited by López Gallardo, “Robe of Gems” turns on Isabel, a woman in the midst of divorce who moves to an old country house her family once owned.
There she discovers her helper Marta...
- 1/20/2022
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Supernova
It’s always a noteworthy point of interest when an artist who excels in one film department crosses over into the directors’ chair. Apart from a 2006 Rotterdam selected short (En el cielo como en la tierra), this is Natalia López feature film debut after editing such noteworthy titles as 2007’s Silent Light, 2012’s Post Tenebras Lux, 2013’s Heli, 2014’s Jauja, and 2016’s The Darkness – plus she appeared alongside her hubby Carlos Reygadas in Nuestro tiempo. We didn’t really take notice of the project when it was making the film coin rounds circa 2018, but it was among the projects selected for Venice Gap-Financing in 2020.…...
It’s always a noteworthy point of interest when an artist who excels in one film department crosses over into the directors’ chair. Apart from a 2006 Rotterdam selected short (En el cielo como en la tierra), this is Natalia López feature film debut after editing such noteworthy titles as 2007’s Silent Light, 2012’s Post Tenebras Lux, 2013’s Heli, 2014’s Jauja, and 2016’s The Darkness – plus she appeared alongside her hubby Carlos Reygadas in Nuestro tiempo. We didn’t really take notice of the project when it was making the film coin rounds circa 2018, but it was among the projects selected for Venice Gap-Financing in 2020.…...
- 1/8/2022
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
Elie Samaha’s Luminosity Entertainment and Mike Karz’s Gulfstream Pictures have snagged the worldwide rights to Abner Benaim’s dramatic thriller, “Plaza Catedral.”
The deal, forged by Luminosity partner and co-president Daniel Diamond and Karz, closed just ahead of the film’s world premiere at the Guadalajara Int’l Film Festival (Ficg) on Oct. 3. “Plaza Catedral” is in competition at Ficg’s main category, the Mezcal Awards.
“Plaza Catedral is a very powerful, moving film with superb performances and outstanding direction by Benaim. We are proud to be a part of bringing this film to worldwide audiences,” said Diamond.
This is the first non-English pickup by Luminosity, which was launched in September. “I haven’t represented many, if any, non English-language films but audiences in the U.S. and around the world are demonstrating their interest in content of all nationalities and languages, as evidenced by the success of shows like ‘Lupin,...
The deal, forged by Luminosity partner and co-president Daniel Diamond and Karz, closed just ahead of the film’s world premiere at the Guadalajara Int’l Film Festival (Ficg) on Oct. 3. “Plaza Catedral” is in competition at Ficg’s main category, the Mezcal Awards.
“Plaza Catedral is a very powerful, moving film with superb performances and outstanding direction by Benaim. We are proud to be a part of bringing this film to worldwide audiences,” said Diamond.
This is the first non-English pickup by Luminosity, which was launched in September. “I haven’t represented many, if any, non English-language films but audiences in the U.S. and around the world are demonstrating their interest in content of all nationalities and languages, as evidenced by the success of shows like ‘Lupin,...
- 10/3/2021
- by Anna Marie de la Fuente
- Variety Film + TV
It’s no secret that Latino artists are rarely nominated for mainstream accolades. Unless there’s a streaming behemoth supporting a famed director, like “Roma” back in 2018, Latin Americans and American Latinos are routinely shut out of the awards conversation.
Of course, that’s not because there’s a lack of worthy contenders. Among the many factors that keep the projects that do make it to screens in the United States from getting recognition, a crucial one is clear economic disparity in relation to titles with deep-pocketed distributors.
Most of these movies don’t have sizable budgets for marketing campaigns, which makes it difficult for them to get on the radar of awards pundits, the press in general, and, more importantly, Academy voters. Nevertheless, this season, once again, there are plenty of works by or about Latinos that Academy members can and should consider.
Some great documentaries — such as “Mucho Mucho Amor,...
Of course, that’s not because there’s a lack of worthy contenders. Among the many factors that keep the projects that do make it to screens in the United States from getting recognition, a crucial one is clear economic disparity in relation to titles with deep-pocketed distributors.
Most of these movies don’t have sizable budgets for marketing campaigns, which makes it difficult for them to get on the radar of awards pundits, the press in general, and, more importantly, Academy voters. Nevertheless, this season, once again, there are plenty of works by or about Latinos that Academy members can and should consider.
Some great documentaries — such as “Mucho Mucho Amor,...
- 3/4/2021
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Indiewire
Plaza Catedral
Panama’s Abner Benaim’s sophomore narrative feature Plaza Catedral is a dramatic thriller featuring actress Ilse Salas (Gueros; Cantinflas) and Manolo Cardona (“Narcos”). Newcomer Fernando de Casta is also amongst the principal cast, with Dp Lorenza Hagerman and editor Soledad Selfate (of Sebastian Lelio’s A Fantastic Woman and Gloria). Benaim’s first narrative feature was the 2009 comedy Chance, but has since become a notable documentarian, with 2018’s Ruben Blades Is Not My Name won the Audience Award at the SXSW Film Festival in the 24 Beats Per Second category.
Gist: Salas stars as Alicia, a 42-year-old-woman whose grief has caused her estrangement from society.…...
Panama’s Abner Benaim’s sophomore narrative feature Plaza Catedral is a dramatic thriller featuring actress Ilse Salas (Gueros; Cantinflas) and Manolo Cardona (“Narcos”). Newcomer Fernando de Casta is also amongst the principal cast, with Dp Lorenza Hagerman and editor Soledad Selfate (of Sebastian Lelio’s A Fantastic Woman and Gloria). Benaim’s first narrative feature was the 2009 comedy Chance, but has since become a notable documentarian, with 2018’s Ruben Blades Is Not My Name won the Audience Award at the SXSW Film Festival in the 24 Beats Per Second category.
Gist: Salas stars as Alicia, a 42-year-old-woman whose grief has caused her estrangement from society.…...
- 1/1/2021
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Mexican art cinema in the last two decades has been defined by a confrontational formalist rigor most widely seen in the films of Carlos Reygadas and Amat Escalante. Long takes, static camera shots with elaborate blocking, and sudden acts of cruelty are each stylistic staples. These cinematic devices undoubtedly parallel a collective feeling of suffocation, anxiety, and socio-political tumult brought upon by rampant Narco violence and government corruption.
Influenced by films like Battle in Heaven and Heli, Carlos Lenin’s The Dove and the Wolf sticks relentlessly close to a tormented young couple as they try to deal with the financial hardships and hidden traumas slowly crippling their relationship. While they share a living space, Paloma (Paloma Petra) and Lobo (Armando Hernandez) seem to be hitting that dire stage in every romantic partnership where apathy flourishes. Both work in blue-collar factory jobs with colleagues who are much more adept at...
Influenced by films like Battle in Heaven and Heli, Carlos Lenin’s The Dove and the Wolf sticks relentlessly close to a tormented young couple as they try to deal with the financial hardships and hidden traumas slowly crippling their relationship. While they share a living space, Paloma (Paloma Petra) and Lobo (Armando Hernandez) seem to be hitting that dire stage in every romantic partnership where apathy flourishes. Both work in blue-collar factory jobs with colleagues who are much more adept at...
- 12/16/2020
- by Glenn Heath Jr.
- The Film Stage
Attempting to guess the less than a dozen titles in Sundance’s World Dramatic comp section is a true crapshoot but seeing that Panamanian filmmaker Abner Benaim‘s last picture Ruben Blades Is Not My Name had it’s world premiere at Sundance’s competing festival SXSW means they are keeping tabs on this project. Benaim signed up the very choosey cinematographer Lorenzo Hagerman (Amat Escalante’s Heli and Rick Alverson’s last two features) and by enlisting the excellent Ilse Salas (featured in The Good Girls – check out our portrait of her in our TIFF studio) he assures that there’ll be interest for all Spanish speaking film territories and beyond. …...
- 11/23/2020
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
As the global film industry faced dire circumstances in recent months, Mexican filmmakers contended with a more specific threat. In early April, the country’s president attempted to eliminate critical funding that has supported generations of acclaimed Mexican filmmakers. The pushback culminated in a dramatic confrontation, with filmmakers such as Guillermo del Toro, Alejandro G. Iñarritu, and Alfonso Cuarón taking a stand to salvage these resources. Their successful efforts — for now, at least — cast light on a community reliant on national support.
Mexico’s film industry has seen astounding growth over the last two decades, in quantity and quality. The defining catalyst remains the creation of two government funds, Forprocine and Fidecine, in the late ‘90s. For several decades prior to these funds, Mexican cinema stagnated, producing less than 10 films per year. Last year, 200 completed features set a new record.
The success of these financing mechanisms is undeniable. Not only...
Mexico’s film industry has seen astounding growth over the last two decades, in quantity and quality. The defining catalyst remains the creation of two government funds, Forprocine and Fidecine, in the late ‘90s. For several decades prior to these funds, Mexican cinema stagnated, producing less than 10 films per year. Last year, 200 completed features set a new record.
The success of these financing mechanisms is undeniable. Not only...
- 5/30/2020
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Indiewire
Exclusive: UTA has signed Mexican actor Armando Espitia in all areas. Espitia most recently starred in Heidi Ewing’s drama I Carry You With Me, which premiered at Sundance and won the Audience Award and Grand Jury Award in the Next! categories.
Espitia first came to prominence with his leading role in Amat Escalante’s Cannes title Heli and also starred as the lead in Nuestras Madres which opened at Cannes in Critics’ Week where it picked up the Caméra d’Or.
Additionally, he has appeared in several features including Ayúdame A Pasar La Noche, and Open Cage. On the TV side, his credits include Amazon’s Diablo Guardián, Telemundo’s El Recluso as well as History Channel’s Texas Rising. He also founded the theater company Conejo Con Prisa.
He continues to be represented by Grandview.
Espitia first came to prominence with his leading role in Amat Escalante’s Cannes title Heli and also starred as the lead in Nuestras Madres which opened at Cannes in Critics’ Week where it picked up the Caméra d’Or.
Additionally, he has appeared in several features including Ayúdame A Pasar La Noche, and Open Cage. On the TV side, his credits include Amazon’s Diablo Guardián, Telemundo’s El Recluso as well as History Channel’s Texas Rising. He also founded the theater company Conejo Con Prisa.
He continues to be represented by Grandview.
- 2/21/2020
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
Nicolas Celis’ TV series “Perfect Monsters” has found its home. The “Roma” producer and his Mexico City-based production company Pimienta Films have inked an exclusive first-look deal with Exile and Endeavour Content, which announced a scripted television partnership in the spring.
“Perfect Monsters,” an epic western created by Celis, Marion d’Ornano and Enrique M. Rizo, is the first project announced under the new deal. The series was among the buzzed-up titles presented at In Development during Miptv.
Based on the eponymous novel by former police officer Miguel Ángel Molfino, the original story set in the Argentine plains has been adapted to take place in 1960s Mexico where 18-year-old Miroslavo flees after his parents are murdered and runs straight into the clutches of an arms dealer, as well as a gang of robbers and a troika of corrupt detectives.
“We are finally developing episodic content and I am very thrilled to...
“Perfect Monsters,” an epic western created by Celis, Marion d’Ornano and Enrique M. Rizo, is the first project announced under the new deal. The series was among the buzzed-up titles presented at In Development during Miptv.
Based on the eponymous novel by former police officer Miguel Ángel Molfino, the original story set in the Argentine plains has been adapted to take place in 1960s Mexico where 18-year-old Miroslavo flees after his parents are murdered and runs straight into the clutches of an arms dealer, as well as a gang of robbers and a troika of corrupt detectives.
“We are finally developing episodic content and I am very thrilled to...
- 12/4/2019
- by Anna Marie de la Fuente
- Variety Film + TV
A forensic anthropologist recovering the bones of people killed during Guatemala’s dark civil war believes he may have found his father’s remains in “Our Mothers,” a heartfelt though slight drama whose surprise Camera d’Or win at this year’s Cannes will significantly boost the film’s chances on the fest circuit. César Díaz’s debut may be one of the few fiction features to look at the horrors of the genocide perpetrated by the U.S.-backed military against the indigenous population, but his rudimentary screenplay is so overly didactic that the good intentions are diluted by the formulaic structure and writing. Notwithstanding a few genuinely affecting moments, “Our Mothers” never breaks free from being a standard social-issue movie mostly invested in preaching the cause.
Overworked Ernesto Gonzalez is a forensic anthropologist tasked with identifying the bones of people killed by the right-wing government in the 1980s.
Overworked Ernesto Gonzalez is a forensic anthropologist tasked with identifying the bones of people killed by the right-wing government in the 1980s.
- 5/30/2019
- by Jay Weissberg
- Variety Film + TV
We’ve all heard the warning, “If you play with fire, you’re gonna get burned.” Well, that’s nothing compared to the consequences if you steal gasoline straight from the source — an extremely high-risk practice now on the rise in Mexico, where the combustibility of extracting raw fuel from open fields is amplified by the dangers of dealing with the cartels who control this emerging black market.
However volatile, these activities have become widespread enough that the locals now have a word for such outlaws: “Huachicolero” — the original Spanish-language title of director Edgar Nito’s attention-grabbing, ignition-ready debut, “The Gasoline Thieves,” which earned its talented helmer the “best new narrative filmmaker” title at the Tribeca Film Festival. For complicated reasons, Mexican crime stories generally don’t translate well across borders: Those that play well at home tend to feel exaggerated and over-the-top compared to the cold-blooded ruthlessness of movies like “Sicario,...
However volatile, these activities have become widespread enough that the locals now have a word for such outlaws: “Huachicolero” — the original Spanish-language title of director Edgar Nito’s attention-grabbing, ignition-ready debut, “The Gasoline Thieves,” which earned its talented helmer the “best new narrative filmmaker” title at the Tribeca Film Festival. For complicated reasons, Mexican crime stories generally don’t translate well across borders: Those that play well at home tend to feel exaggerated and over-the-top compared to the cold-blooded ruthlessness of movies like “Sicario,...
- 5/9/2019
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
New projects directed by auteurs from Mexico, Brazil, Ukraine, Thailand and Hungary make up slots 6 to 10 in our most anticipated foreign films of 2020.
#10. State of the Empire (Estado del Imperio) – Amat Escalante
Four years after his subversive socio-genre creature feature The Untamed (which won Best Director in Venice 2016), Amat Escalante will return with his fifth feature State of the Empire. Produced by Nicolas Celis of Pimienta Films, the project won a Ctt Exp & Rentals Award at the 2018 Los Cabos Film Festival. While the narrative details have yet to be revealed, we’re assuming something dark and disturbing given the Mexican auteur’s track record, which includes 2008’s Bastards and 2013’s Heli (which won him Best Director at Cannes).…...
#10. State of the Empire (Estado del Imperio) – Amat Escalante
Four years after his subversive socio-genre creature feature The Untamed (which won Best Director in Venice 2016), Amat Escalante will return with his fifth feature State of the Empire. Produced by Nicolas Celis of Pimienta Films, the project won a Ctt Exp & Rentals Award at the 2018 Los Cabos Film Festival. While the narrative details have yet to be revealed, we’re assuming something dark and disturbing given the Mexican auteur’s track record, which includes 2008’s Bastards and 2013’s Heli (which won him Best Director at Cannes).…...
- 1/10/2019
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Based in Asia’s first Unesco-designated city of film, the Busan Asian Film School is an international film business academy. Since it opened in 2017, the school has offered practical education, with a curriculum includes hands-on filmmaking courses such as project development and production, as well as courses on financing, distribution and marketing.
While leading film institutes in South Korea, such as the Korean Academy of Film Arts and production house Myung Films Institute, train students in various disciplines, including directing, screenwriting, producing, shooting and editing, the AFiS particularly focuses on producing and international co-production.
“We aim to help our students understand what a producer does in feature film production, because producers’ roles are very important in promoting co-productions in Asia,” said Han Sun-hee, professor and dean of the AiFS’ international film business academy course. “In Asia, AiFS is the only film institute that puts so much emphasis on producing in the film business.
While leading film institutes in South Korea, such as the Korean Academy of Film Arts and production house Myung Films Institute, train students in various disciplines, including directing, screenwriting, producing, shooting and editing, the AFiS particularly focuses on producing and international co-production.
“We aim to help our students understand what a producer does in feature film production, because producers’ roles are very important in promoting co-productions in Asia,” said Han Sun-hee, professor and dean of the AiFS’ international film business academy course. “In Asia, AiFS is the only film institute that puts so much emphasis on producing in the film business.
- 10/6/2018
- by Sonia Kil
- Variety Film + TV
Strand Releasing’s The Untamed is now available on VOD platforms. Celebrated filmmaker Amat Escalante follows up his critically lauded features Heli and Los Bastardos with the award-winning The Untamed, which critics have called “ferociously intelligent” (Jonathan Romney, Screen) and “brilliant, frightening” (Rory O’Connor, The Film Stage). The Blu-ray release includes an 85-minute behind the scenes featurette. “Alejandra is a housewife, […]...
- 10/23/2017
- by Brad Miska
- bloody-disgusting.com
With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit platforms. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.
Cinema Through the Eye of Magnum (Sophie Bassaler)
When one conjures iconic memories from cinema history, they might be of your favorite shot or sequence, but my mind often travels to behind-the-scenes photos featuring director, cast, crew, and beyond. These photographs often have a unifying connection: they come from Magnum Photos. Since 1947, the photographic cooperative — founded by such iconic names as Robert Capa amd Henri Cartier-Bresson — has been responsible...
Cinema Through the Eye of Magnum (Sophie Bassaler)
When one conjures iconic memories from cinema history, they might be of your favorite shot or sequence, but my mind often travels to behind-the-scenes photos featuring director, cast, crew, and beyond. These photographs often have a unifying connection: they come from Magnum Photos. Since 1947, the photographic cooperative — founded by such iconic names as Robert Capa amd Henri Cartier-Bresson — has been responsible...
- 10/20/2017
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Mexican director Amal Escalante mixes naturalism and otherworldly CGI in bravura fashion
The Spanish title of Amat Escalante’s film, La región salvaje, translates as “the Wild Region”, which may refer to somewhere in space, or the riskier shores of human desire, or this Mexican writer-director’s lawless imagination. His last film, 2013’s Heli, about innocents caught up in the drug war, was at once coolly lucid in tone and horrific in content.
The Untamed features a similar combination of rigorous directing style and confrontational imagery, but ventures into far stranger territory. It’s about three working-class people – a young mother, her macho husband and her gay brother – whose lives are transformed when a mysterious woman (Simone Bucio) gets them entangled, and I mean entangled, with her ardent paramour who is, let’s say, not from around these parts. Escalante takes a hothouse hybrid of science-fiction horror and implants it...
The Spanish title of Amat Escalante’s film, La región salvaje, translates as “the Wild Region”, which may refer to somewhere in space, or the riskier shores of human desire, or this Mexican writer-director’s lawless imagination. His last film, 2013’s Heli, about innocents caught up in the drug war, was at once coolly lucid in tone and horrific in content.
The Untamed features a similar combination of rigorous directing style and confrontational imagery, but ventures into far stranger territory. It’s about three working-class people – a young mother, her macho husband and her gay brother – whose lives are transformed when a mysterious woman (Simone Bucio) gets them entangled, and I mean entangled, with her ardent paramour who is, let’s say, not from around these parts. Escalante takes a hothouse hybrid of science-fiction horror and implants it...
- 8/20/2017
- by Jonathan Romney
- The Guardian - Film News
Review by Matthew Turner
Stars: Ruth Ramos, Simone Bucio, Jesús Meza, Eden Villavicencio, Andrea Peláez, Oscar Escalante, Bernarda Trueba | Written by Amat Escalante, Gibrán Portela | Directed by Amat Escalante
The fourth film from Mexican writer-director Amat Escalante (Heli) mixes social realism and weird sci-fi eroticism to mesmerising effect.
Co-written by Escalante and Gibrán Portela, The Untamed begins with a shot of a meteorite, drifting through space, before abruptly cutting to a young, naked woman (Simone Bucio as Veronica) being pleasured by a tentacled creature in a shed, somewhere in the Mexican countryside. As if that wasn’t already strange enough, she’s also being observed by an older couple (Oscar Escalante and Bernarda Trueba), who appear to be the creature’s guardians.
When Veronica sustains a nasty injury during her encounter, she attends the local hospital, where she befriends first charming, openly gay nurse Fabian (Eden Villavicencio), and later his...
Stars: Ruth Ramos, Simone Bucio, Jesús Meza, Eden Villavicencio, Andrea Peláez, Oscar Escalante, Bernarda Trueba | Written by Amat Escalante, Gibrán Portela | Directed by Amat Escalante
The fourth film from Mexican writer-director Amat Escalante (Heli) mixes social realism and weird sci-fi eroticism to mesmerising effect.
Co-written by Escalante and Gibrán Portela, The Untamed begins with a shot of a meteorite, drifting through space, before abruptly cutting to a young, naked woman (Simone Bucio as Veronica) being pleasured by a tentacled creature in a shed, somewhere in the Mexican countryside. As if that wasn’t already strange enough, she’s also being observed by an older couple (Oscar Escalante and Bernarda Trueba), who appear to be the creature’s guardians.
When Veronica sustains a nasty injury during her encounter, she attends the local hospital, where she befriends first charming, openly gay nurse Fabian (Eden Villavicencio), and later his...
- 8/18/2017
- by Guest
- Nerdly
This sly and subversive allegorical body horror from the Mexican director of Heli is about the universal drives and addictions that power us all through life
Mexican film-maker Amat Escalante’s work has included the challengingly violent crime drama Heli (2013). Now he has created a bizarre realist-fantasy parable in which queasy eroticism and body horror are absorbed into life’s many pains and injustices. It is set in Guanajuato in central Mexico, which Escalante’s movie endows with a forbidding remoteness. The original title is La Región Salvaje, or the savage region. A perplexing opening sequence, showing what appears to be a vast asteroid heading for Earth, lays the foundation for the film’s strange premise. The asteroid has brought with it a new life form which its elderly discoverers – retired people who live in a modest woodland shack – find it necessary to keep secret, rather like Mr and Mrs...
Mexican film-maker Amat Escalante’s work has included the challengingly violent crime drama Heli (2013). Now he has created a bizarre realist-fantasy parable in which queasy eroticism and body horror are absorbed into life’s many pains and injustices. It is set in Guanajuato in central Mexico, which Escalante’s movie endows with a forbidding remoteness. The original title is La Región Salvaje, or the savage region. A perplexing opening sequence, showing what appears to be a vast asteroid heading for Earth, lays the foundation for the film’s strange premise. The asteroid has brought with it a new life form which its elderly discoverers – retired people who live in a modest woodland shack – find it necessary to keep secret, rather like Mr and Mrs...
- 8/17/2017
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
There are no talking foxes in Amat Escalante’s latest whatist, but chaos still reigns.
And though “La región salvaje” translates literally as “The Wilds,” one struggles to imagine a more fitting title for this surreal erotic thriller than “The Untamed.” The Mexican auteur, who last divided audiences with the punishing “Heli” (for which he won Best Director at Cannes), takes a cue from Andrzej Żuławski’s “Possession” in his tentacled pulse-pounder about the pain and pleasure of love in all its forms. This is the kind of experience that might tell you more about yourself as both a viewer and a person than you’re comfortable knowing; it’s also the most alluringly strange movie of the year so far.
It’s frequently beautiful, too, with cinematographer Manuel Alberto Claro (who also lensed “Nymphomaniac”) capturing the strange goings on and foggy environs in all their alien glory. “The Untamed...
And though “La región salvaje” translates literally as “The Wilds,” one struggles to imagine a more fitting title for this surreal erotic thriller than “The Untamed.” The Mexican auteur, who last divided audiences with the punishing “Heli” (for which he won Best Director at Cannes), takes a cue from Andrzej Żuławski’s “Possession” in his tentacled pulse-pounder about the pain and pleasure of love in all its forms. This is the kind of experience that might tell you more about yourself as both a viewer and a person than you’re comfortable knowing; it’s also the most alluringly strange movie of the year so far.
It’s frequently beautiful, too, with cinematographer Manuel Alberto Claro (who also lensed “Nymphomaniac”) capturing the strange goings on and foggy environs in all their alien glory. “The Untamed...
- 7/20/2017
- by Michael Nordine
- Indiewire
Arrow UK today announced the release of The Untamed in theaters August 18th and on Blu-ray and DVD September 25th. Celebrated filmmaker Amat Escalante follows up his critically lauded features Heli and Los Bastardos with the award-winning The Untamed, which critics have called “ferociously intelligent” (Jonathan Romney, Screen) and “brilliant, frightening” (Rory O’Connor, The Film […]...
- 7/14/2017
- by Brad Miska
- bloody-disgusting.com
The first thing we see in “Everything Else” is a look of emptiness. Doña Flor (Adriana Barraza), a middle-aged public servant who has spent 35 years engaged in an utterly boring routine, blankly stares at nothing in particular. Soon, we learn why: As a Mexico City clerk tasked with issuing government IDs, her days are spent assessing paperwork and mechanically processing new requests. Much of this quiet, slow-burn character study inhabits the dreary, remote quality of Doña’s existence, but with time, the movie pieces it together to reveal the emotional solitude lurking beneath that distant gaze.
Anyone familiar with Chantal Akerman’s “Jeanne Dielman” or Lucretia Martel’s “The Headless Woman” will find familiar patterns in writer-director Natalia Almada’s first narrative feature, though it may as well be an extension of her documentary work for the way it pulls viewers into the nuances of everyday rituals and their ability to mask psychological discord.
Anyone familiar with Chantal Akerman’s “Jeanne Dielman” or Lucretia Martel’s “The Headless Woman” will find familiar patterns in writer-director Natalia Almada’s first narrative feature, though it may as well be an extension of her documentary work for the way it pulls viewers into the nuances of everyday rituals and their ability to mask psychological discord.
- 4/19/2017
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
Ahead of stopping by Lincoln Center’s Film Comment Selects, the first trailer has arrived for The Untamed, the latest film from Spanish auteur Amat Escalante. While it is in Spanish with no (English) subtitles, the trailer features arresting imagery and a raw, ominous tone as it follows a couple whose lives are shaken when they encounter a mysterious creature. The third feature from Escalante, the film looks to be a harsh exploration of family, horror, and sex.
We said in our review, “The Untamed does that very rare thing in cinema in that it blends mystery, horror and pseudo-reality with a kind of dark subconscious arousal. In this way it recalls the auteur directors previously mentioned here, but also the eerie ethereal science fiction of H.P. Lovecraft. All this might lead you to believe that The Untamed is built on homage, and yet it refuses to be anything but its own thing.
We said in our review, “The Untamed does that very rare thing in cinema in that it blends mystery, horror and pseudo-reality with a kind of dark subconscious arousal. In this way it recalls the auteur directors previously mentioned here, but also the eerie ethereal science fiction of H.P. Lovecraft. All this might lead you to believe that The Untamed is built on homage, and yet it refuses to be anything but its own thing.
- 1/19/2017
- by Mike Mazzanti
- The Film Stage
There is no denying that talent that exists within Spanish auteur Amat Escalante, that much was evident in his preceding endeavour, and Palme d’Or nominee Heli, which won the filmmaker the best director award at Cannes Film Festival. But there’s an inclination to shock viewers in a way that seems somewhat gratuitous, which is a […]
The post Lff 2016: The Untamed Review appeared first on HeyUGuys.
The post Lff 2016: The Untamed Review appeared first on HeyUGuys.
- 10/10/2016
- by Stefan Pape
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
If there is one concept that defines Amat Escalante‘s Silver Lion-winning Venice title, it’s “ginormous horny alien sex octopus.” But if there’s one other, it’s risk — “The Untamed” is a brazen leap of faith for any filmmaker; for a rising arthouse star coming off a Cannes Best Director win for “Heli,” his gruellingly downbeat surgical strike on Mexican social inequity, cartel culture and corruption, it’s borderline kamikaze.
Continue reading Amat Escalante’s Strange, Salacious, Award-Winning Alien Sex Movie ‘The Untamed’ [Venice Review] at The Playlist.
Continue reading Amat Escalante’s Strange, Salacious, Award-Winning Alien Sex Movie ‘The Untamed’ [Venice Review] at The Playlist.
- 9/13/2016
- by Jessica Kiang
- The Playlist
With the jury winners announced this past weekend (see at the bottom), the 73rd Venice International Film Festival has now come to an end. As always, it was a strong kick-off to the fall festivals, with some premieres of dramas that we’ll see over the next few months, as well as a great many that won’t arrive until next year (or perhaps later, pending distribution). We’ve wrapped up the festival by selecting our 9 favorite films, followed by our complete coverage. Check out everything below and let us know what you’re most looking forward to.
Austerlitz (Sergei Loznitsa)
Having experimented with feature-length fiction films, shorts, and archival-footage documentaries in the course of his career, Sergei Loznitsa’s output since his 2014 Ukrainian crisis documentary Maidan has both garnered him greater acclaim than before and zeroed in on cinema as a collectively generated form. – Tommaso T. (full review)
Hacksaw Ridge...
Austerlitz (Sergei Loznitsa)
Having experimented with feature-length fiction films, shorts, and archival-footage documentaries in the course of his career, Sergei Loznitsa’s output since his 2014 Ukrainian crisis documentary Maidan has both garnered him greater acclaim than before and zeroed in on cinema as a collectively generated form. – Tommaso T. (full review)
Hacksaw Ridge...
- 9/12/2016
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
There’s something dark and wonderful lurking in The Untamed, the brilliant, frightening, hyper-real erotic mystery from the mind of Mexican auteur Amat Escalante, whose Heli ruffled more than a few feathers in Cannes a few years back. Is the 37-year-old merely a provocateur? On the evidence of his latest film, he is clearly not. The plotline of a strange extraterrestrial being that lurks in the woods granting ultimate pleasure sounds like a schlocky drive-in science fiction flick, but the director heightens things immeasurably by expertly cultivating the visceral, aesthetic nowhere of a drug trip, as if the characters involved (and perhaps the viewer) are participating in some sort of communal high.
Escalante opens on disjointed imagery: a comet; a woman masturbating (or not?), then she’s running through the mist, wounded, towards her dirt bike. Then, just as quick as it started, the dream — or whatever it is — stops.
Escalante opens on disjointed imagery: a comet; a woman masturbating (or not?), then she’s running through the mist, wounded, towards her dirt bike. Then, just as quick as it started, the dream — or whatever it is — stops.
- 9/5/2016
- by Rory O'Connor
- The Film Stage
Mexican director Amat Escalante follows his award-winning Heli with a deeply strange story of orgasmic frenzies and family dysfunction
Amat Escalante is the director who made a considerable splash at Cannes in 2013 with Heli, a brutal slice of working-class life in narcoterrorist Mexico, which won him the best director award. Now Escalante is back with a follow-up, The Untamed – though its original title is La Región Salvaje (The Savage Region), which seems to fit its mysterious, elliptical narrative a little better.
Escalante’s film begins by pitching us into a knotty, but not immediately unlikely, drama of family dysfunction in a small Mexican town. Ale is unhappy with her boringly macho husband Angel; he’s got a decent job, with a surveying crew, but is secretly cheating on Ale with – of all people – her doctor brother Fabian. (Angel’s method of deflecting suspicion is to pour a stream of homophobic...
Amat Escalante is the director who made a considerable splash at Cannes in 2013 with Heli, a brutal slice of working-class life in narcoterrorist Mexico, which won him the best director award. Now Escalante is back with a follow-up, The Untamed – though its original title is La Región Salvaje (The Savage Region), which seems to fit its mysterious, elliptical narrative a little better.
Escalante’s film begins by pitching us into a knotty, but not immediately unlikely, drama of family dysfunction in a small Mexican town. Ale is unhappy with her boringly macho husband Angel; he’s got a decent job, with a surveying crew, but is secretly cheating on Ale with – of all people – her doctor brother Fabian. (Angel’s method of deflecting suspicion is to pour a stream of homophobic...
- 9/5/2016
- by Andrew Pulver
- The Guardian - Film News
The Untamed, from Cannes best director award winner, among 13 titles.
The 64rd San Sebastian Film Festival (Sept 16-24) has revealed the 13 titles in its Horizontes Latinos programme, comprising some of the best Latin American films of the year to date.
Films selected may have competed or premiered at international festivals, but will have not yet been screened at a Spanish festival or had their commercial release in Spain.
The selected films compete for the Horizontes Award, decided by a specific jury and coming with €35,000, of which €10,000 will go to the director of the winning film, and the remaining €25,000 to its distributor in Spain.
The titles include The Untamed, from Amat Escalante, who won the Best Director Award in Cannes for Heli in 2013. The film, which will premiere in competition at this year’s Venice, centres on a young couple living in the Mexican lowlands whose lives are changed when a meteorite crashes into an nearby mountain.
Horizontes...
The 64rd San Sebastian Film Festival (Sept 16-24) has revealed the 13 titles in its Horizontes Latinos programme, comprising some of the best Latin American films of the year to date.
Films selected may have competed or premiered at international festivals, but will have not yet been screened at a Spanish festival or had their commercial release in Spain.
The selected films compete for the Horizontes Award, decided by a specific jury and coming with €35,000, of which €10,000 will go to the director of the winning film, and the remaining €25,000 to its distributor in Spain.
The titles include The Untamed, from Amat Escalante, who won the Best Director Award in Cannes for Heli in 2013. The film, which will premiere in competition at this year’s Venice, centres on a young couple living in the Mexican lowlands whose lives are changed when a meteorite crashes into an nearby mountain.
Horizontes...
- 8/17/2016
- ScreenDaily
As Cannes approaches, Screen casts its eye back at the winners and losers of 2013 according to our jury of critics.
Each year, Screen International’s Jury Grid collates the verdicts of an international panel of critics to provide an impressively reliable prophecy of the year’s top prizes.
In 2013, the Screen International’s jury grid of critics were in complete agreement with the Cannes jury, and gave their top spot to Abdellatif Kechiche’s coming-of-age romance Blue Is The Warmest Colour.
The film, which the jury grid gave 3.4 out of 4, went on to win both the Palme d’Or and the Fipresci prize. It also made Cannes history by being the first film to be officially awarded the festival’s top prize for the work of its leading actors - Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux – alongside director Kechiche.
In second place, with 3.3, was Joel and Ethan Coen’s black comedy Inside Llewyn Davis. It was the...
Each year, Screen International’s Jury Grid collates the verdicts of an international panel of critics to provide an impressively reliable prophecy of the year’s top prizes.
In 2013, the Screen International’s jury grid of critics were in complete agreement with the Cannes jury, and gave their top spot to Abdellatif Kechiche’s coming-of-age romance Blue Is The Warmest Colour.
The film, which the jury grid gave 3.4 out of 4, went on to win both the Palme d’Or and the Fipresci prize. It also made Cannes history by being the first film to be officially awarded the festival’s top prize for the work of its leading actors - Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux – alongside director Kechiche.
In second place, with 3.3, was Joel and Ethan Coen’s black comedy Inside Llewyn Davis. It was the...
- 5/6/2016
- ScreenDaily
Mexican filmmaker to deliver career interview and take part in post-screening Q&As.
The 22nd Sarajevo Film Festival (Aug 12-20) has invited Mexican director, writer and producer Amat Escalante to be the subject of its Tribute programme.
Escalante, the director of Cannes 2013 award-winner Heli as well as Sangre and The Bastards, will present his films in Sarajevo that often present despairing portraits of violence, in Mexico and the Us.
Escalante, who has previously visited the festival twice, will meet the audience during a career interview and will take part in regular Q&A sessions following the screenings.
Escalante has spent the majority of his life in Guanajuato, Mexico, though he was born in Barcelona, Spain (1979). He returned to Barcelona to study editing and sound at the Centre of Cinematographic Studies in Catalunya. Later on he studied at the International School of Film and Television in Cuba.
His films were produced by Mantarraya Producciones, a Mexican...
The 22nd Sarajevo Film Festival (Aug 12-20) has invited Mexican director, writer and producer Amat Escalante to be the subject of its Tribute programme.
Escalante, the director of Cannes 2013 award-winner Heli as well as Sangre and The Bastards, will present his films in Sarajevo that often present despairing portraits of violence, in Mexico and the Us.
Escalante, who has previously visited the festival twice, will meet the audience during a career interview and will take part in regular Q&A sessions following the screenings.
Escalante has spent the majority of his life in Guanajuato, Mexico, though he was born in Barcelona, Spain (1979). He returned to Barcelona to study editing and sound at the Centre of Cinematographic Studies in Catalunya. Later on he studied at the International School of Film and Television in Cuba.
His films were produced by Mantarraya Producciones, a Mexican...
- 2/16/2016
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
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