Day 3 of the Festival: Oscar night! Everyone is waiting to see if one of the two MIFF selections—The Milk of Sorrow (La teta austada) by MIFF favorite Peruvian director Claudia Llosa or The Secret in Their Eyes (El secreto de sus ojos) by Argentine director Juan José Campanella—will be able to steal the coveted Best Foreign-language Film award away from the heavily favored German WWI drama The White Ribbon. Our fingers are crossed!

The Milk of Sorrow, a stunning drama set in Peru about women brutalized by Shining Path terrorists who, according to folklore, pass on their despair to their children via breast milk, is only Llosa’s second feature film; she brought her first, Madeinusa, to MIFF in 2006. Milk won Llosa the Golden Bear for Best Film at the 2009 Berlin Film Festival. And it marks Llosa’s second teaming with lead actress Magaly Solier.

The Secret in Their Eyes (El secreto de sus ojos), MIFF’s Awards Night film on Saturday, March 13, stars the charismatic stage and screen veteran Ricardo Darín as a retired prosecutor who re-opens a 30-year-old, unsolved murder investigation of a Buenos Aires woman only to discover that the crime had become intertwined with his own life. The Argentine thriller captured the Best Spanish-language Foreign Film award Feb. 14 at the Premios Goya (Spain’s equivalent of the Academy Awards) and earned supporting actress Soledad Villamil the Best New Actress prize.  Secret is Campanella’s second Oscar nod for top foreign-language film; the first one for the Buenos Aires native came in 2002 for Son of the Bride (El hijo de la novia), also Argentina’s official submission. His other directing credits include numerous episodes of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, 30 Rock and House, M.D. Campanella has promised Artistic Director Tiziana Finzi that if the film wins he will bring Oscar as his plus-one to Awards Night. Stay tuned! 

Bonus features: Four other official country submissions to the Oscars are also screening during the festival:  Dawson Isla 10 by Miguel Littin, from Chile; Samson & Delilah by Warwick Thornton, from Australia; Southern District (Zona Sur) by Juan Carlos Valdivia, from Bolivia; and, The Wind Journeys (Los viajes del viento) by Ciro Guerra, from Colombia.

In addition to Oscar night, Day 3 launched the Festival’s perennially popular REEL Education Seminar Series, which consistently attracts top Hollywood and independent film industry executives from Sony Pictures Classics, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., Universal Pictures, DreamWorks Animation, IFC Films, Fox Searchlight, HBO Films/HBO Latino, William Morris Endeavor, the Screen Actors Guild and Eastman Kodak, among others.

Today’s offerings: Back for another year, Steven Spielberg & Co. kindly loaned us DreamWorks Animation gurus Kyle Jefferson and Charley Walters, who shared their insights into the raging resurgence of 3-D animation and sneak peaks of the studio’s upcoming releases, sure to be 2010 box-office blockbusters: How to Tame Your Dragon, featuring the voices of Gerard Butler, Jay Baruchel and America Ferrara; and, Shrek Forever After, with Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz, Eddie Murphy and Antonio Banderas.  And William Wages, the director of photography of USA Network’s brilliant Burn Notice, the filmed-in-Miami, ratings-and-critics spurned-secret-agent darling that stars Jeffrey Donovan, Gabrielle Anwar, Bruce Campbell and Sharon Gless, served as the guest of honor at this year’s “Cinematographer Master Class” seminar, sponsored by the International Cinematographers Guild and ICG magazine.

Back to the big screen: Multi-Grammy-winning director Bob Smeaton (The Beatles Anthology, Jimi Hendrix: Band of Gypsies) selected Miami to host the international film festival circuit premiere at the University of Miami’s Bill Cosford Cinema of his latest Fab Four doc, The Beatles on Record, featuring never-before-seen footage and interviews of the band’s evolution from Please Please Me to Abbey Road. Smeaton is pulling double-duty this year; he’s also a judge in the festival’s World Competition, which could bode well for No One Knows About Persian Cats, the 2009 Cannes Special Jury Prize winner from Iran about two teenagers who struggle to form a rock band in Tehran’s outlawed, underground indie-rock scene and secure visas to perform in London.   

Ibero-American Competition nominees: Colombia’s Oscar Ruíz Navia came to support his feature film debut, Crab Trap (El vuelco del cangrejo) at Regal Cinemas, which has already collected the FIPRESCI Prize from the world’s largest film critics association at the 2009 Berlin Film Festival and a Special Jury Prize from the 2009 Havana Film Festival. And producer Mauricio Aristizábal discussed the Colombian revenge-and-drugs drama Blood and Rain (La sangre y la lluvia) during the premiere screening at the Tower Theater.

That’s a wrap!

by Dana Ballestero, Daily Wrap Editor

VIEW DAILY WRAP Day 4: Monday, March 8, 2010