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Italy, Chile Co-produce ‘The Wealth of the World’

In deals forged during Ventana Sur, Chile’s Naira Films has secured the backing of Italy’s Keep Digging Prod. and Chile’s “Perro Bomba” producer Infractor Films to complete the financing of their Chilean independence war film “The Wealth of the World” (“La Riqueza del mundo”). The feature debut of artist-painter Simon Farriol is now being edited with a release slated for the second half of next year.

Set in 1814, “The Wealth of the World” pivots on a peasant (played by “To Kill a Man’s” Daniel Candia) rendered deaf by a bullet, and a soldier blinded during the war who become unlikely partners as they flee through a menacing war-ravaged countryside peopled with unusual characters.

It is, in a way, an expanded version of Farriol’s short “Un Hombre en la tierra de Dios,” (“A Man on God’s Earth”), a 2015 Cannes Short Film Corner selection, which follows a soldier as he

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Opinion | How film festivals can help combat Chinese censorship

Originally slated to debut at the prestigious Berlin International Film Festival in 2019, “One Second” was pulled from the festival at the last minute for “technical reasons.” In the United States, “technical reasons” might mean something like “a print wasn’t delivered in time,” the phrase in China is a common euphemism for failing to pass muster with the state’s censorship board. Now, almost two years later and following reshoots and re-editing, Zhang’s “love letter to cinema” set during the Cultural Revolution has been cleared to play for Chinese audiences, who have received it with minimal enthusiasm.

The fate of “One Second” should serve as a catalyst for change amongst prestigious film festivals such as Berlinale, Cannes, Venice, Sundance and others. If these festivals believe in the freedom of art and the ability of artists to make art uninhibited by government pressure, they should use their prestige to help curb China’s

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Ventana Sur: Film Factory Acquires Mattia Temponi’s ‘Nest’

In a now firmly established Ventana Sur tradition, Film Factory Ent., one of the Spanish world’s premiere sales agents, has announced a new sales rights pick-up on the market’s final day: Italian-Argentine psychological horror movie “El Nido” (“Nest”).

With “Nest” now in post-production, Film Factory will present a first promo at 2021’s Cannes Film Market.

The feature debut of Italy’s Mattia Temponi, and produced by Rome-based Alba Produzioni and Buenos Aires’ 3C Films Group, “Nest” turns on Sara, 18, from an upper class family and Ivan, a middle-aged volunteer, both locked inside a shelter during a quarantine.

Outside, a virus rages, turning people into savage and irrational beasts. But Sara and Iván seem safe in their “nest” until Sara begins to show signs of infection and slowly transforms. Ivan is left with the question of what to do? Should he kill her? And how can he survive with no chance

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Show Me the Fund Identifies 50 Funds for Latin American producers

Show Me the Fund, a new resource aimed at helping Latin American producers navigate a myriad of little known funding opportunities, was the focus of Wednesday’s Ventana Sur session on international funding.

The initiative – a partnership between film export bodies Brazilian Content and Cinema do Brasil and the AV support organization Projeto Paradiso – wants to support an industry dealing with the corrosive effects of politics and the coronavirus pandemic on cultural funds by seeking out alternative sources of finance.

Last month these three entities, along with cinema information portal LatAm Cinema, unveiled their mapping of international resources available for different stages of a film project – from development through to post and distribution.

The initiative’s researcher Gerardo Michelin, director of LatAm Cinema, explored 250 funds in total and selected 50 viable funding opportunities that – to paraphrase the immortal words of Jerry Maguire – show producers the money.

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‘Nomadland’ review: Director Chloe Zhao deserves every award imaginable for this artful film

Did you know that in the Academy’s 93-year history, only one woman (Katherine Bigelow of 2009’s “The Hurt Locker”) has ever broken through the glass ceiling to win the Oscar for best director? I’m betting that’s about to change. That’s because Chloe Zhao, the Chinese-born director of a wondrous work of art called “Nomadland,” fully deserves every award on the books for the scope of her virtuosity and the depth of her feeling. In only her third film, after 2015’s “Songs My Brothers Taught Me” and 2018’s “The Rider, Zhao joins the ranks of the giants.

PHOTO: Frances McDormand stars in the 2020 film, "Nomadland."

“Nomadland,” out this week from Searchlight, is based on Jessica Bruder’s 2017 nonfiction book “Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century.” The bestseller tracks the wanderlust of Americans traveling the country in vans searching for jobs and snatches of human connection. The film follows the lead

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Oscar-tipped film ‘Mank’ is bathed in Old Hollywood glamour

When director David Fincher enlisted his frequent collaborator, costume designer Trish Summerville, for his new movie “Mank”– a biopic on the screenwriter behind the iconic 1941 film “Citizen Kane” — she knew it was going to be her most challenging assignment for him to date.



a man wearing a suit and tie standing next to a woman: Amanda Seyfried and Gary Oldman travel back to the Golden Age of cinema for "Mank."

© Netflix
Amanda Seyfried and Gary Oldman travel back to the Golden Age of cinema for “Mank.”

Summerville, who previously worked with Fincher on the crime thrillers “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” from 2011 and “Gone Girl” from 2014, was tasked with recreating the glamor of 1930s Hollywood, from its backlot meetings to its lavish soirees, without using a drop of color.

Fincher and cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt strove for authenticity of the era by closely replicating the look and feel of Old Hollywood talking pictures — right down to shooting “Mank” entirely in black and white, or “Fincher-vision,” as Summerville described it over the

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“Dune,” “Matrix 4,” and every 2021 Warner Bros. film to debut on HBO Max & in theaters at same time

Warner Bros. Pictures Group has announced its entire 2021 film slate will open via a “distribution model in which Warner Bros. will continue to exhibit the films theatrically worldwide, while adding an exclusive one month access period on the HBO Max streaming platform in the U.S. concurrent with the film’s domestic release.” The strategy is identical to studio’s upcoming release of “Wonder Woman 1984,” which launches in theaters and on HBO Max for a month on December 25. Following the one-month HBO Max streaming run, all films will continue to play exclusively in theaters “with all customary distribution windows applying to the title.”

Read more from IndieWire: December TV premieres: 13 new shows to look out for

Warner Bros. has the following films included on its 2021 slate for now (release dates could change, of course): “The Little Things,” “Judas and the Black Messiah,” “Tom & Jerry,” “Godzilla vs.

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Shawn Mendes Says He Found a ‘Real Kind of Love’ and ‘Respect’ for Himself After Watching His Film



Shawn Mendes holding a sign posing for the camera: Kevin Mazur/Getty Shawn Mendes

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Kevin Mazur/Getty Shawn Mendes

Shawn Mendes is learning about himself after watching his Netflix documentary In Wonder.

During a Q&A with the pop star and the documentary’s director Grant Singer Thursday, Mendes opened up about realizing aspects about himself he hadn’t noticed.

“I can’t imagine what it’s going be like for me to watch that back in 30 years, that’ll be breathtaking for me,” the 22-year-old said. “But the interesting thing is, it’s not easy to catch your patterns in live time.”

“I really am seeing how much pressure I put on myself,” he explains, referring to a scene in the film after he’s forced to cancel a show in São Paulo. “In hindsight, I’m like, ‘Dude, you got to give yourself a break, you really put so much pressure on yourself.’ It was kind of beautiful because I was able to have this real

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Doctor who treated Port Arthur victims defends new film

A Royal Hobart hospital doctor who dealt first-hand with the grim aftermath of the Port Arthur massacre – and played a pivotal role in Australia’s gun law reform – has said he has no problem with a controversial upcoming film that will delve into the psyche of the perpetrator.



a group of people standing in front of a crowd: Photograph: Robert Cianflone/AAP

© Provided by The Guardian
Photograph: Robert Cianflone/AAP



a group of people standing in front of a crowd: Port Arthur victims remembered at a 2016 service. Dr Bryan Walpole says life-saving changes to gun control laws are a direct legacy of the tragedy.

© Photograph: Robert Cianflone/AAP
Port Arthur victims remembered at a 2016 service. Dr Bryan Walpole says life-saving changes to gun control laws are a direct legacy of the tragedy.

Dr Bryan Walpole was the staff specialist at Royal Hobart’s accident and emergency unit when the helicopters began delivering the wounded on a Sunday afternoon in April 1996.

The day after the shootings he led the medical team examining the bodies of 35 victims, including Nanette Mikac and her daughters Alannah, 6, and Madeline, 3.

Walpole told Guardian Australia that, as horrific as the

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A New Generation of Composers Steps Forward in Film

A new generation of film composers is shaking up the status quo. They’re free-thinking, experimental, come from diverse backgrounds … and they’re not all men (although some of them are).

They like to start early, often compose before they’ve seen a frame of film, and aren’t afraid to try offbeat ideas, frequently in response to filmmakers’ demands to do “something different.”

For Amazon Prime’s “Radioactive,” Russian-born, Paris-based composers Evgueni and Sacha Galperine underscored the story of 19th century scientist Marie Curie (Rosamund Pike) with a startling sound of analog synthesizers and early 20th century electronic instruments like the theremin and Ondes Martenot.

Director Marjane Satrapi didn’t want the old-fashioned “biopic classical music with full orchestra,” says Evgueni. “She wanted something new and modern.” The discoverer of radium was “ahead of her time, not only as a scientist but also as a woman. She was like a person of the next

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