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Day 6: The biggest day of the Festival so far, including the
launch of MIFF’s latest mentoring program, MIFF’s “Show me the money!” seminar,
another wave of directors washes ashore to promote their works, MIFF salutes the
career of celebrated German director Margarethe von Trotta and Festival parties
abound from Downtown to South Beach…
A Meeting of the Minds: MIFF kicked off the eighth year of
our vaunted film-in-progress program for Ibero-American filmmakers, Encuentros (Spanish for “encounters”).
Sponsored by LatAmCinema.com, American Airlines, Eastman Kodak and MovieMagic,
MIFF is one of the only festivals in the world that offers a matchmaker-type
service linking filmmakers from Spain, Portugal, Latin America and Florida with
distributors, financiers and other industry professionals to bring their films
from the script stage to the big screen. This year’s participants include:
Uruguay’s Pablo Stoll Ward with 3;
Mexico’s Rigoberto Perezcano, whose
current feature Northless (Norteado) is screening as part of the Festival’s
out-of-competition 360º section, with Carmín Tropical; Brazil’s Felipe Gamarano Barbosa with Casa
Grande; Argentina’s Diego Lerman
with Moral
Sciences (Ciencias morales); and, Colombia’s Alejandro Landes with Porfirio. MIFF’s most recent Encuentros success story is Son & Moon: Diario de un astronauta
by Spain’s Manuel Huerga, a
participant in the 2007 program; the film is an official selection of this
year’s DOX Competition.
Show me the money!: Speaking of financing…You have
everything in place: Script? Check. Talent? Check. Crew? Check. Post-production
team? Check. Now all you need is…the
money.
Well, the seemingly endless film production wellspring that
was fueled by Wall Street hotshots and U.S. real estate boom land barons has
dried up, deep-pocketed sheiks in Dubai and Abu Dhabi have disappeared faster
than an oasis sucked up in a sandstorm, your wealthy Aunt Mildred isn’t
speaking to you anymore because she gave you what she thought was a lot of
money (but really wasn’t) for your last feature and you still couldn’t get George
Clooney for the lead, and let’s face it, Ryan Cavanaugh of Relativity
Media wasn’t going to return your phone calls anyway. So, where do you go
from here? You would know if you had listened to the experts at MIFF’s REEL Education Seminar “Financing in Dollars, Euros, Pesos, Pounds
and More,” featuring the insights of Gael
Nouaille, sales agent for Wild Bunch,
the production team behind controversial films and festival favorites alike,
including City of God, The Brown Bunny, The Wrestler and MIFF’s Opening Night film, Looking
for Eric; and, Rene Bastian of Belladonna Productions, the house behind Oscar-nominated Transamerica, Funny Games and An Englishman in New York.
Six more directors came into town to premiere their films
and mingle with Festival-goers: Maximiliano
Pelosi and producer Walter Tejblum
traveled from Argentina for the World
Premiere of Other Among Others (Otros entre otros), their portrait of gay,
Jewish men struggling to make a life in Buenos Aires; Bolivia’s Juan Carlos Valdivia brought Sundance winner Southern District (Zona Sur)
a selection of the World Competition
about a wealthy La Paz family in flux; Marcelo
Gomes stopped by to promote his Brazilian love story I Travel Because I Have to, I
Come Back Because I Love You (Viajo Porque Preciso, Volto Porque Te Amo);
countryman Gabriel Mascaro discussed
the alarming and growing disparities between the haves and the have-nots in São
Paulo, Recife and Rio de Janeiro in High-Rise (Um Lugar ao Sol); Javier Fuentes-León and producer Rodrigo Guerrero Rojas came to promote Undertow
(Contracorriente), their Peruvian love story, starring Colombian telenovela and rising film star Manolo Cardona; and, last, but
certainly not least, director Nicolás
Entel premiered a sold-out screening of Sins of My Father, the
documentary on 1980s Colombian cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar featuring his exclusive first interview with
Escobar’s son, Sebastian Marroquin,
a key selection in the DOX Competition.
Teutonic Tribute: The queen of the night was longtime acclaimed
German actress and director Margarethe
von Trotta, who received MIFF’s 2010 Career
Achievement Tribute Award for her life’s work and contribution to world
cinema, including special screenings of past favorites I Am the Other Woman, Rosa
Luxemburg and Rosenstrasse. Award-winning German
actress Barbara Sukowa, a star of
several von Trotta films, and Oliver
Mahrdt, the head of German Films
for the U.S. and Canada, led the lively discourse and audience Q&A before
the screening of her latest work (also starring Sukowa) about a revolutionary
abbess in the Middle Ages, Vision, at the Gusman Center for the Performing Arts.
A laid-back evening reception at the Betsy hotel sponsored by the Greater
Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau lured hungry and thirsty industry
execs and filmmakers back to South Beach, while VIPs were able to hold a
private audience with von Trotta at the swanky by-invitation-only reception at
the Viceroy on Brickell.
That’s a wrap!
by Dana Ballestero, Daily Wrap Editor
VIEW DAILY WRAP Day 7: Thursday, March 11, 2010
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