Wednesday, August 31, 2022 at 10:30AM by Nathaniel R
The Czech Republic Oscar committe is considering 14 films while in Brazil the Academia Brasileira de Cinema have announced 6 films being considered for their Oscar submission. They are as follows...
Brazil, Czech Republic, Mars One, Slavic cinema Monday, August 15, 2022 at 6:00AM by Nathaniel R
the sexually charged "Rule 34" wins Locarno
Our favourite film festival correspondent, Elisa Giudici, couldn't make it to Locarno this year so we are here to just report on the winners! The top prize went to a sexually provocative drama from Brazil called Rule 34 (only the second Brazilian film to ever win Locarno) while a Costa Rican film called Tengo Suenos Electricos won three prizes from the jury.
Will any of the following titles show up as Oscar submissions for International Feature Film? Who can say. A little bit about each winner after the jump...
Sunday, January 30, 2022 at 10:20AM 
Settlers fight their way into the land. Inspired by colonialist ideals of manifest destiny, they go on a journey of discovery and conquest. This is how new countries are born, with blades cutting down the wilderness and burning paths. However, the settlers are not alone. Deep in the mysterious unknown, indigenous people reside in a land that's been their home for millennia. These adventurers wear cowboy-like hats while their enemies, abstracted into an exotic other, fight with feathers in their hair. The two forces clash, but theirs is not a fight of equals. Invaders calling themselves heroes have numbers and firepower on their side, centuries-old systems built to perpetuate violent domination. Even their bodies carry weapons, sicknesses they spread to the natives, killing them in active genocide.
No, this is not an old-fashioned western of less enlightened days nor a chronicle of historical crimes. This is the story of our days. This is The Territory…
Alex Pritz, Brazil, Reviews, Sundance, The Territory, documentaries Monday, January 24, 2022 at 4:00PM 
Looking over the city she calls home, Tércia lingers and, in turn, the camera lingers on her. It's a beautiful, if humble, image, her silhouette against a celestial painting. The twilight sun makes watercolors out of the skyline, yellow bleeding into blue, gray buildings falling into the cold penumbra. The contemplative frame can contain many meanings, and director Gabriel Martins doesn't force the audience's hand. We're free to surmise what we want from the picture. Speaking from a personal place, I couldn't help but feel a melancholic kinship. Maybe it's projection, but I recognized myself in Tércia, looking at a seemingly peaceful world I thought I knew until it proved me wrong...
Brazil, Gabriel Martins, Latin American Cinema, Mars One, Review, Sundance, politics Monday, December 13, 2021 at 1:00AM by Nathaniel R
Sometimes the long lead up to a movie's release can alter a story. In the case of Aly Muritiba's Private Desert, most people who come to it will already be aware of its central premise though the movie treats that as a "reveal". Happily the film works either way. Crossing the border can also change how a movie feels. The initial protagonist, Daniel (Antonio Saboia) is viewed sympathetically but his offscreen history (police brutality) is likely to spark different reactions from country to country, depending on societal views on policing and masculinity. In the minimalist but never simple story, a lonely cop spontaneously drives several hours to finally meet the woman he's been romancing online. She abruptly ghosts him after an implicit request for reciprocal nudes and we glean, quite a long time before he does, that he's fallen for a queer person.
We had the pleasure of talking to the director Aly Muritiba about the film, the careful casting of his second lead, and Brazil's contentious history of Oscar selections...
