Alex Rivera’s debut feature Sleep Dealer was developed at the 2000 and 2001 Sundance Institute Feature Film Program labs, and won the 2002 Sundance/NHK award and a 2004 Annenberg Feature Film Fellowship.
It then moved on to win two major awards at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Rivera and David Riker won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award for outstanding achievement for their screenplay and Sleep Dealer was also the recipient of this year’s Alfred P. Sloan Prize. The Prize, which carries a $20,000 cash award to the filmmaker provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, is presented to an outstanding feature film focusing on science or technology as a theme, or depicting a scientist, engineer or mathematician as a major character.
Sleep Dealer was selected “for its visionary and humane tale of a young man grappling with a technological future in which neural implants, telerobotics and ubiquitous computing serve a global economy rife with fundamental challenges and opportunities, and for its powerful and original storytelling and direction.”
The critical response has been qualified but almost without exception Rivera has been praised for his ambition and ingenious maximization of a meager budget to achieve his vision. What strikes me as the true challenge with this film is whether audiences spoonfed multi-million dollar special effects will be willing to shift suspension of disbelief or be able to overcome their addiction to blockbuster visuals to accommodate Sleep Dealer‘s unique angle on the near-future? Certainly the ideas are noteworthy enough and the film features a solid doe-eyed performance from one of Mexico’s rising stars. Luis Fernando Peña—the lead actor of Sleep Dealer—is likewise starring in Desierto Adentro, Rodrigo Plá’s critically-acclaimed follow-up to La Zona (featured in this year’s festival lineup). I encourage debate on whether audiences can be expected to shift their expectations of what a sci fi film should be to recognize the promise in Rivera’s flawed yet impressive debut feature.
PlumTV’s video interviews with Rivera, actress Leonor Varela and co-actor Jacob Vargas, include some clips from the film. Hollywood.com’s Sundance interview with Rivera is up on YouTube. And as of today, via The Hollywood Reporter, Maya Entertainment has picked up the U.S. Rights for Sleep Dealer.
Cross-published on The Evening Class.
An oddly international production - it’s shot by a Greek director in Colombia using Colombian money - I first started hearing rumblings about single take thriller PVC-1 about a year ago now but had failed to track down any images or a trailer for the film until now. Shot in a single, unedited shot the film is based on the true story of a woman kidnapped and fitted with a collar bomb that will explode if her family fails to pay the kidnappers a large sum of money - money the family doesn’t have. The single take thing can go one of two ways - either it’ll ramp up the tension considerably or it’ll fail and drag badly - and this certainly seems to be a premise well suited to the device. Word is good and the trailer looks strong. You’ll find it in the Twitch Player below the break.
Continue Reading "A Trailer For Colobian One-Shot Thriller PVC-1"...
I’ve been saying for a while now that genre film fans need to keep an eye on Chile and here is yet another example of one compellingly strange picture coming from the South American nation. Titled Humanimal it is being directed by Francesc Morales who did some work on Jorge Olguin’s zombie picture Solos and is described by Moreales as a “fable-horror”.
“It’s a horror story told from the point of view of a group of animals. The story starts when Turtle and Fox, two animals that live on a abandoned house, must learn how to act like humans. It will feature known Chilean actors Ramón Llao and Sebastián Layseca on the main roles, they will be dressed as animals on child-like costumes.”
With a premise like this it could go either way, obviously, but Morales’ connection to Olguin - one of the best the nation has to offer - is reassuring as is the fact that he’s using credible actors. Done right this could be creepy as all hell - Orwell’s Animal Farm is an obvious example of how this sort of premise can be played effectively for adults - and judging from the series of concept images that Morales sent in he’s certainly not aiming to make his characters cute and cuddly. You can check out a gallery of images at the link below.
The inaugural edition of Brazilian genre film festival RIOFAN launched yesterday and this is a notable event for a number of reasons. The programming team has put together a stellar lineup of films - 180 in all - including a competitive section that features Twitch faves Timecrimes, La Vida Me Mata, Mirage Man and Jack Brooks Monster Slayer. And then there are the retrospectives, one of which is dedicated to Coffin Joe and features one of the first ever public screenings of the icon’s “lost” film A Praga, which was just recently re-discovered and restored. Very nice. Read on for the full press release.
Continue Reading "Brazil’s RIOFAN Begins Today!"...
During the previous Cannes Announcement, there was speculation as to why Fernando Meirelles‘ Blindness, a very handsomely produced disease/apocalypse drama - 28 Weeks Later without all the gunfire and explosions - was not in the initial offering of Competition films. After all it’s a Brazilian/Canadian/Japanese co-production starring Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover, Sandra Oh and Gael Garcia Bernal, written by Canadian screenwriter/actor/director Don McKellar and based on Portuguese author José Saramago‘s Nobel Prize winning novel. What better way to kick off the first big worldwide festival of 2008 than a world-wide arthouse apocalypse yarn? An announcement from the festival group yesterday has indicated that Blindness not only at the festival, but is in fact the kick-off film for the Festival Competition section.
If you haven’t checked it out already head on over to Kaiju Shakedown and read excerpts of an interview Grady did with Chilean martial artist Marko Zaror. We’re quite fond of his two movies Kiltro and Mirage Man and you should be to. Head on over and read Marko Zaror on Bruce Lee.
Keep an eye on South America, folks. Several countries have been ramping up their level of film production for a while now and things look about ready to explode. A prime example is Carlos Moreno’s Sundanc ehit Perro Come Perro, a lean little crime drama that’s been drawing attention around the globe. We posted the original trailer for this one a while back and the final trailer has just arrived. This thing’s looking good.
Victor Peñaranda and Eusebio Benítez are unaware that they are condemned to death. They are two ex-cops now hired killers at the service of an underground collecting office in Cali. Both have been summoned to undertake a mission about which they know very few details. They meet for the first time at a downtown hotel room which they share, and where they have to wait for phone instructions.
They have both arrived to the meeting site following orders, but each of them hides his guilt. For the past couple of days, Peñaranda has been hiding a large amount of dollars which he had stolen from a police raid location while on the job. Benítez is burdened by a recent murder that weighs upon his conscience, and silently, endures the effects of what seems to be a witchcraft spell: unbearable nightmares and visions involving his victim torment and haunt him, draining him out both physically and mentally.
You’ll find both trailers below the break!
Continue Reading "Final Trailer For Columbian Crime Drama PERRO COME PERRO (DOG EAT DOG)"...
Ready, get set, go! The wait is over and the 51st San Francisco International Film Festival is fixed to begin. Over the past few weeks I’ve had the chance to preview a handful of festival titles on screener (plus one press screening), and herein offer some thoughts on what I’ve seen.
Out of the bunch, the two films with the biggest pre-festival profiles are undoubtedly Catherine Breillat’s festival opener The Last Mistress (Une vieille maîtresse) and Jia Zheng-ke’s Still Life (Sanxia haoren). Reams have been written about both since their premieres at Cannes 2007 and Venice 2006 respectively. So rather than add to the din, I’ll simply say that both are as excellent as anything else to be found in their directors’ esteemed filmographies. Asia Argento’s feral, spellbinding performance as an obsessed 19th century Spanish courtesan has to be seen to be believed. And Yu Lik-wai’s HD cinematography of the area to be flooded by China’s Three Gorges Dam is as crisp and sumptuous as digital filmmaking gets.
Continue Reading "SFIFF51—Michael Hawley At the Starting Gun!"...
Writer - director combo Carlos Esteban and Juan Felipe Orozco are determined to earn Colombia a place on the international genre map. Their previous film Al Final Del Espectro traveled the international festival circuit to positive response - positive enough that Orozco is currently working on an English remake starring Nicole Kidman. But before rolling on that the duo have shot another picture in Colombia, this one what looks to be a hard edged noir oriented thriller titled Saluda Al Diablo De Mi Parte. The first teaser has arrived and while it doesn’t give much in terms of story it leaves no doubt whatsoever that Orozco can shoot some stellar film. You’ll find the teaser in the Twitch Player below the break.
Continue Reading "Colombia Gets Criminal With SALUDA AL DIABLO"...
Many thanks to Mexican cinematic madman Aaron Soto for passing along news of Ivan Avila’s upcoming feature La Sangre Iluminada, or Enlightened Blood. I’m actually in the middle of packing up to catch a flight to the Udine Far East Film Festival right now and really shouldn’t be taking time away for this but Soto always finds the good stuff south of the border and so I couldn’t resist ...
Avila’s film, which was a big festival hit in Mexico where it hits screens in a week or so, is apparently based on a real life found diary, a diary detailing the life of ‘the transmutans’. What are transmutans? Depends who you ask I suppose, but according to them they are non-human creatures living as humans while changing bodies and building complicated, shared networks of memories and experiences. I imagine a doctor would have a very different take on the situation.
There are trailers available for the film on YouTube but rather than embedding those here I’m going to send you to the film’s official website, which is one stellar bit of hypnotic design work, where you’ll find a better quality version.
Attention New York martial arts fans! Chilean star Marko Zaror will be invading your fair city this weekend! Short notice, I know, but Zaror will be at the New York Comic Con on April 19th hosting screenings of both Kiltro and Mirage Man so get on out. You’ll find trailers for both below the break.
Continue Reading "MIRAGE MAN Invades New York!"...
Just a few days back we posted up a low grade YouTube trailer for the feature film version of popular Chilean kids’ show 31 Minutes, a film that features a collection of seemingly home made puppets doing battle with an invasion of aliens and giant robots. Puppets versus robots and aliens, in a film that features a poster as gorgeous as the one to the left? Yes, please! Only problem with that trailer was that it was on YouTube and, thus, looked like crap. Well, co-director Pedro Peirano - the man responsible for making said poster - was good enough to pass along a pointer to the film’s official website wherein there was a MUCH higher quality version of that trailer along with a stack of behind the scenes video and a good load of extra hand made art by Peirano himself. We’ve got the trailer in the Twitch Player below the break, so sit back, enjoy and marvel at the potency of the recreational substances that must be readily available in Chile to fuel something like this ...
Continue Reading "Much Higher Quality Trailer For Chilean Puppet Sci Fi 31 MINUTES!"...
With two films from Argentina, two from Brazil, one from Chile, and a short from Colombia, the sampling of South American cinema in this year’s SFIFF line-up is considerably less ample than in past years. Notwithstanding, the sextet warrants mention.
Brazil wins out with Philippe Barcinksi’s impressive debut feature Não Por Acaso (Not By Chance, 2007), wherein a tenuous balance between risk and control is played out in the lives of two domineering men who suffer unavoidable and comparable loss. Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano has written that in the automotive age the term “accident” is a misleading misnomer and should more appropriately be termed “consequence”; a theme Not By Chance suggests when—as Joni Mitchell sings—"change comes at you like a broadside accident.” Though change might be more the consequence of life, some changes (as the film’s title attests) are not by chance and only by surrendering to serendipity can one risk the insecure hazard of love.
Bound by hold review policy, I can’t say much more; but, Variety has given Robert Koehler considerable more leeway. He recognizes the film’s ambitious promise even as he acknowledges some first film fumbles that Barcinksi commendably overcomes.
Continue Reading "SFIFF51—South American Cinema"...
Apparently rather a lot of people in Chile are taking rather a lot of acid. 31 Minutos: La Pelicula is the feature film version of a popular Chilean kids’ show revolving around a puppet-run news broadcast. It’s got a kick ass poster, aliens, giant robots and cute fluffy bunnies. My head just exploded. You’ll find the trailer below the break.
Continue Reading "Chilean Puppets Versus The Space Aliens! 31 MINUTOS Trailer!"...
Citing last year’s 50th anniversary festival as a “fantastic benchmark” and “a gateway to a brighter future,” SF Film Society Executive Director Graham Legatt and his programming team revealed this year’s equally impressive line-up at a press conference last week. In a recent Evening Class write-up, I summarized all the special events that had been announced prior to the press conference, to which we can now add the following:
* Errol Morris will receive this year’s Persistence of Vision Award, with an on-stage interview and a screening of his latest work, Standard Operating Procedure.
* The Maurice Kanbar Award for screenwriting will go to Robert Towne, who will be interviewed on stage by Eddie Muller prior to a screening of Shampoo.
* This year’s State of Cinema Address will be given by Kevin Kelly, founding executive editor of Wired magazine and former editor/publisher of the Whole Earth Catalog.
* Rose McGowen and Jason Lee are to be the recipients of this year’s (2nd annual) Midnight Awards, presented to an actor and actress “entering the prime of their careers.”
That same pre-press conference write-up contained the Cinema by the Bay and Castro Theater roster of films. We now know what the other 80-plus programs worth of narrative and documentary features will be, and it’s quite something—full of movies I’d been hoping the festival would bring our way. I’ve had a week to digest the line-up and now offer this overview of what I personally find exciting about SFIFF51.
Continue Reading "SFIFF51—Michael Hawley Previews The Lineup"...
