Posted by Elena del Valle on November 18, 2024
This article and interview were created without AI-assisted technologies.
Sarah Schoellkopf, producer, Norita
Melissa Daniels, producer, Norita
Photos: Sarah Schoellkopf, Melissa Daniels, Norita Film
A podcast interview with Sarah Schoellkopf and Melissa Daniels, producers, Norita is available in the Podcast Section of Hispanic Marketing and Public Relations, HispanicMPR.com. During the podcast, they discuss Norita with Elena del Valle, host of the HispanicMPR.com podcast.
In addition to her work as a producer Sarah is an academic whose research focuses on human rights and gender. Her doctorate investigated the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo and included field research with the group in the 1990s and 2000s. Sarah co-produced the 2021 documentary Ferguson Rising, which premiered at Tribeca. She founded DoctoraStories in 2022 to connect with creative voices and give voice to marginalized stories. She is a champion of Spanish language education in California and president of the Eileen & Fred Family Schoellkopf Foundation.
Melissa, with over 15 years in journalism and film production, is the founder and executive producer of Tidetivity Studios. According to her bio she is passionate about diverse narratives and creates commercial and original films merging social justice and authentic community representations. Notable projects include NatGeo’s 2023 release The Mission, Hulu’s Venus as a Boy (2021), winner of a Tribeca International Film Festival audience award, and AppleMusic’s 2018 documentary Rainbow: The Film on pop music superstar Kesha.
To listen to the interview, scroll down and click on the play button below. It is also possible to listen by looking for “Podcast” then select “HMPR Sarah Schoellkopf, Melissa Daniels” and download the MP3 file to your audio player. You can also find it on the RSS feed. To download it, click on the arrow of the recording you wish to copy and save it to disk. The podcast will remain listed in the November 2024 section of the podcast archive.
Posted by Elena del Valle on November 13, 2024
This article was created without AI-assisted technologies.
Tito, Margot and Me
Image: IndiePix Films
Tito, Margot and Me, a 92-minute 2021 documentary, in Spanish and English with English subtitles (the screener version provided was in Spanish and English without subtitles), is Panama’s official Oscar Submission for Best International Film. It attempts to paint a picture behind the romance between Margot Fonteyn, a well known ballerina, and Roberto “Tito” Arias, a Panamanian diplomat, who was married and had three children at the time he approached her to propose marriage. According to a public relations spokesperson no one was available to be interviewed. The film “will be available exclusively on IndiePix Unlimited on Amazon Channels” starting November 15, 2024.
Narrated by Mercedes Arias, the couple’s niece who only met them once, the film is made up of family album photos, archival and current videos, interviews and current day images as well as ballet segments performed for the film. While Fonteyn continued to dance until her retirement a shooter left Arias quadriplegic. The film interviews appear to have taken place in Panama, United Kingdom and United States. Two of the interviewees have passed away since they were interviewed. Tito, Margot and Me was winner of the Ibermedia Fund 2019 and the Panama Film Fund.
The documentary was co-directed by Arias and Delfina Vidal, the founder of Betesda Films who works as a director and producer of independent documentaries. She has received two grants from the Panamanian Film Authority to carry out these projects. An example is Case in point: Box 25, a documentary about the construction of the Panama Canal, told through first-person accounts from the men who excavated the Canal in the early 20th century.
Vidal is a director and screenwriter with more than 20 years of experience in film and television production specialized in documentary filmmaking. She directed and produced, with her partner Arias, the documentaries Case in point: Box 25, A Different Day, and Out, la salida está en tu mente. As a university professor, she has taught at the University of Panama, Santa Maria La Antigua University, and the University of the Isthmus.
Posted by Elena del Valle on September 25, 2024
We have not used AI-assisted technologies in creating this article.
Dusty and Stones
Photo: First Run Features
Thanks to funding from HBO New True Stories Funding Initiative, the Gotham Documentary Feature Lab, Film Independent’s Fast Track, Durban FilmMart, and the XTR Film Society filmmakers followed two struggling country singers from the African Kingdom of Swaziland (now the Kingdom of Eswatini) on a journey from their home country to the United States. The result is Dusty & Stones, an 84-minute First Run Features 2023 documentary release, scheduled to open in theaters in Los Angeles October 11 and Atlanta October 18.
The film centers on cousins Gazi “Dusty” Simelane and Linda “Stones” Msibi in Swaziland and their 10-day road journey to a recording studio in Nashville and a small town in Texas for a country music event. According to the film website Dusty is a high school English teacher at Swaziland’s National High School, and Stones is a construction project manager.
Dusty and Stones was directed and produced by Jesse Rudoy, produced by Melissa Adeyemo, executive produced by Sam Bisbee and Cody Ryder of Ominira Film in association with Park Pictures.
Per his biography Rudoy is a filmmaker, musician, and born-again country fan based in New York City. He was most recently an editor on Season 2 of HBO’s The Jinx. Per her biography Adeyemo is a Nigerian-American producer and the founder of Ominira Studios, a New York-based production company. Her first feature, Eyimofe, premiered at the 2020 Berlinale and was acquired by Janus Films.
Posted by Elena del Valle on July 17, 2024
Modernism, Inc. poster
Photo (and screener): First Run Features
Using archival footage and interviews Jason Cohn explores post-war design and Eliot Noyes, one of the leading figures of the modern design movement, in Modernism, Inc., a 79-minute documentary from Bread & Butter Films and First Run Features. The documentary was made possible by funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, IBM Corporation, The Better Angels Society, Jeannine and Jonathan Lavine (through the Library of Congress) and the Noyes Family. His adult children are among those interviewed.
The film, narrated by Sebastian Roché, is scheduled to open in New York on July 19, 2024 at IFC Center and in Los Angeles on August 9, 2024 at Laemmle’s Royal. Cohn plans to appear in person at both openings.
Per the film Noyes, an architect born in 1910, was one of the leading pioneers of modern design during the mid-century, post-war boom in the United States. Educated by Walter Gropius at Harvard, Noyes, according the the film, “did more than anyone to align the Modernist design ethos to the needs of ascendant corporate America.”
The film follows his impact on residential architectural design as well as on companies like IBM and Mobil Oil, and the International Design conference. That influence, the film proposes, reached many in the business community open to the up and coming ideas about the role and importance of design. Some pointed out that he also became the symbol of design’s close ties with corporate America and its excesses. Noyes passed away in 1977.
Cohn was writer, director and editor for the film. Camille Servan-Schreiber was producer. Kevin Jones also edited. Steven Emerson was the music composer.
Posted by Elena del Valle on July 10, 2024
Cinco Lobitos poster
Photo (and screener): Outsider Pictures
Outsider Pictures and Latido Films to release Lullaby (Cinco Lobitos), an emotionally charged 104-minute film in Spanish and Basque with English subtitles, in the United States. It is scheduled to open as part of Outsider Pictures showcase of Latin and Spanish films that can be viewed either individually or as a group of five films screened at Cannes, San Sebastian, and Berlin.
According to promotional materials the films will be screened individually in rotation each day of the week, and can be seen separately or by purchasing a pass to attend all films. This collection is scheduled to open at the Cinema Village in New York on July 19, and the Laemmle Royal in Los Angeles on July 26.
In Lullaby new mother Amaia appears overwhelmed with her maternal role. After a false alarm while her partner is away for several weeks for work, she goes to her parents’ house in a coastal village in the Basque Country. They help her with the baby and she in turn is forced to assume added responsibilities when unexpectedly the situation changes.
The 2022 film stars Laia Costa (Amaia), Susi Sanchez (Begoña), Ramon Barea (Koldo), and Mikel Bustamante (Javi). According to promotional materials Lullaby, written and directed by Alauda Ruiz de Azua, was nominated for 10 Goyas. Filming appears to have taken place in Madrid, Bilbao, Bakio and Mundaka.
Posted by Elena del Valle on June 26, 2024
You have to come and see it
Photo (and screener): Outsider Pictures
In the film You have to come and see it (Teneis que venir a verla) director and writer Jonas Trueba follows two couples in their thirties, their discussions as couples and as friends. The story begins in Madrid, where the two couples go to see a show. One couple rejoice in their new home, on the outskirts of town and close to the countryside. Then they announce that she is pregnant. Months later the other couple takes the train to visit them in their home.
The slow paced 64-minute film from 2021 is in Spanish with English subtitles. It will open in the United States as part of Outsider Pictures showcase of Latin and Spanish films that can be viewed either individually or as a group of five films screened at Cannes, San Sebastian, and Berlin.
According to promotional materials the films will screened individually in rotation each day of the week, and can be seen separately or by purchasing a pass to attend all films. This collection is scheduled to open at the Cinema Village in New York on July 19, and the Laemmle Royal in Los Angeles on July 26.
Posted by Elena del Valle on May 8, 2024
Adiós Buenos Aires poster
Photo: Outsider Pictures
Adiós Buenos Aires, a 90-minute film from Betacinema and Outsider Pictures, opened in theaters May 3, 2024 in New York. On May 10th it is scheduled to open in Los Angeles at the Lammle Royal, and in Miami at the Coral Gables Art Theater. The 2022 film is in Spanish with English subtitles.
Inspired by real life events in Argentina in 2001 the film follows the stories of a struggling five member working class tango band and its members during a severe crisis in the South American country. It was directed by Buenos Aires born German Kral, who moved to Germany where he graduated from the Munich Film School.
The romantic center of the story is Julio Färber (Diego Cremonesi), the bandoneon player of the Vecinos de Pompeya, and Mariela (Marina Bellati) a briny taxi driver who crashes into his car. Although he has decided to leave his country for a better life in Germany one event after another, including frozen bank accounts nationwide and rioting in the streets, challenge his plans.
The screenplay by Stephan Puchner, Fernando Castets and Kral, was inspired by the real tragic events that shook Argentina in late 2001. According to promotional materials “The government froze all the country’s bank accounts from one day to the next, which became known in Argentina as the Corralito (little stall). Three weeks later, the December 19 and 20 pot-banging protests in the streets brought down the government at the time.”
Kral has worked as a film writer and director, dividing his time between Munich and Buenos Aires. Kral worked with Wim Wenders between 1993 and 1996 on the film Die Gebrüder Skladanowsky (A Trick of the Light). His graduate film Imágenes de la Ausencia (Images of the Absence) was nominated for the German Grimme Prize in 2001 and won First Prize at the Yamagata Film Festival in Japan in 1999, and the Young Bavarian Documentary Film Award in 2000.
Posted by Elena del Valle on February 21, 2024
Radioactive poster and director
Photo: First Run Features
A new documentary, uplifting, inspiring and distressing, about the 1979 Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania nuclear power accident and the events that followed was released in theaters December 2023. It is due to become available on DVD and via Apple TV and Amazon streaming next month. Radioactive: The Women of Three Mile Island, from Three Mile Productions, shines a light on the “never-before-told” stories of four homemakers who take their community’s case against the plant operator to the Supreme Court as well as the story of a young woman journalist.
The 77-minute documentary consists of archival video and modern day interviews with some of the women who lived in the area at the time and others. The film features activist and actor Jane Fonda, whose film, The China Syndrome (a fictional account of a nuclear meltdown), opened 12 days before the real disaster in Pennsylvania. It also breaks the story of a “radical new health study” seeking to uncover the truth of the meltdown. According to promotional materials, for more than forty years, the nuclear industry “has done everything in their power to cover up their criminal actions” and insisted that “No one was harmed and nothing significant happened.”
According to the film in April 1979 a government commission studied the accident and concluded that although it was the fault of the nuclear operator no humans had been harmed. In the film Mary Olson, founder, Gender Radiation Impact Project, says “Radiation is ten times more harmful to young females than to Reference Man and 50 percent more harmful to comparable females.”
Heidi Hutner, the director, via a publicist, declined to be interviewed or to answer questions about the documentary. According to promotional materials for the documentary it won: Audience Award – Best Documentary at the Dances With Films Festival, New York City; Best Director and Best Documentary at the Full Frame International Film Festival, New York City; and Best lnvestigative Documentary at the Uranium International Film Festival, Rio de Janeiro.
Hutner is also the writer and producer of the film. According to promotional materials, she is professor of Environmental Humanities and Gender Studies at Stony Brook University, and a “scholar of nuclear and environmental history, literature, film, and ecofeminism;” and she is the winner of Sierra Club Long Island’s 2015 Environmentalist of the Year Award.
Posted by Elena del Valle on May 24, 2023
Joey Santore and Al Scorch, hosts, Kill Your Lawn
Photo: Empty Quarter Studios
Kill Your Lawn, a new half-hour reality-TV series that began airing last month, seeks to inspire viewers to rid themselves of their home lawns. Based on two screeners provided by an Empty Quarters representative via email, the guys next door style program showcases examples of yard transformations and lawn-less projects. In Episode Two the program’s two hosts and a dog travel to Miami, Florida where they share their opinions on lawns, interview a homeowner keen to replace his lawn with native plants as well as a nursery owner and others. With the owner’s approval the hosts kill the lawn using a pressure washer. In a similar episode they redo the yard of a Fort Lauderdale, Florida couple. They remove the lawn using a portable fire device.
According to a press release Kill Your Lawn “is a rejection of the lawn industrial complex, celebrating the courage and inspiring messages of first-time lawn killers.” It consists of eight half hour makeover episodes. The goal is to replace homeowner lawns with pollinator-friendly, native plant gardens, according to promotional materials.
Joey Santore and Al Scorch are the hosts. Santore is described in promotional materials as “a blue-collar schmuck from Chicago who left a career at the railroad to pursue a lifetime studying botany and educating others via his cult-hit YouTube channel Crime Pays But Botany Doesn’t.” Schorch is said to be his best friend from Chicago, “a bicycle mechanic and punk rock banjoist.”
According to a spokesperson EarthxTV, is available on Charter’s Spectrum TV, FuboTV, the National Cable Television Cooperative (NCTC) in the United States, Sky, and Freeview in the United Kingdom, M7 in Europe, Claro video and TotalPlay in Mexico. EarthxTV may be available on Directv for satellite and internet customers and Directv Streat.
Empty Quarter Studios (EQS) specializes in “unique, uplifting, and edgy entertainment, telling stories of human experience shaped by adventure, natural history, culture, and ingenuity.”
Posted by Elena del Valle on May 1, 2023
Photo: Citronella Stories
Citronella Stories will release Bug Therapy, a seven minute animated short film about mental health, via YouTube.com on May 1, 2023. According to a press release the short film will have a limited release in North America online and at select theaters, at no cost, for the month of May, to celebrate Mental Health Awareness Month. The film strives to highlight the importance of therapy and mental health. It should be available today at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6n7aMfxKec
It features the voices of Phil McGraw, Meghan Trainor, Jay Leno, Sterlin K. Brown, Tom Green, Emily Goglia and Jason Reisig. It is due to have a wide release in June, with plans for a global release this fall, according to a press release received by email.
Bug Therapy was directed by Jason Reisig. It was written and created by Michael Jann and Michele Jourdan, of Citronella Stories, and animated by 88 Pictures. Randy Mills was producer. Eric Bergman was co-producer. Jann and Jourdan were executive producers, along with Jason Reisig, Randy Mills, and 88 Pictures’ Milind D. Shinde.
In Citronella (Trainor), a mosquito who faints at the sight of blood, tries to muster the courage to attend group therapy to overcome her phobia. She learns that “everyone faces mental health struggles.” Stick Bug (Brown) battles depression over never feeling seen, Fly (Leno) is “OCD and germaphobic and can’t stop washing his hands,” Grasshopper (Green) suffers from addiction to coffee, Praying Mantis (Goglia) is narcissistic and delusional and believes she’s God. A Dragonfly couple (Jann and Jourdan) are co-dependent, and Spider (Reisig) tries to overcome his phobia of spiders. Dr. Pill (McGraw) leads the therapy.
