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.
Posted by Elena del Valle on January 19, 2023
Alice Nevers
Photo: Mhz Choice
Starting this month Alice Nevers, a 2019 French television series in French with English subtitles, will become available on Mhz Choice, a subscription streaming platform popular among audiences with a taste for international episodic programs and films. A screener of the first episode was provided by the streaming service.
The six episodes star Marine Delterme as Alice Nevers, an investigating judge and single mother returning from maternity leave, and Jean-Michel Tinivelli as Fred Marquand, her policeman partner. A Mad World, the first episode, centered on a mental health case, hints at a possible romance between the two colleagues. It was directed by Rene Manzor and produced by Ego Productions “with the participation of TF1.”
Posted by Elena del Valle on November 2, 2022
Last month Ordinary People began streaming on MhzChoice.com
Photo: MhzChoice.com
On October 11, 2022 Ordinary People, described in promotional materials as a comedy drama from Iceland rated TV-14, began streaming on MhzChoice.com. Reinvent Studios released the series about two friends, Vala (Vala Kristin Eiriksdottir) and Júlíana (Júlíana Sara Gunnarsdóttir). The women, best friends since drama school, pursued different paths in life.
The series, in Icelandic with English subtitles, centers around their friendship. Vala, a destructive and difficult to like character, seeks an acting career. Júlíana stepped away from acting choosing to have two children with her husband Tómas (Halldór Halldórsson), an aspiring entrepreneur. Vala, who had hoped to host a TV program of her own, is only offered the role of sidekick. Her friend received the opportunity of main host, making Vala unhappy.
Posted by Elena del Valle on October 12, 2022
The Other Tom poster
Photo: Outsider Pictures
Outsider Pictures is releasing a new production in New York October 14, 2022. In The Other Tom filmmakers Rodrigo Pla and Laura Santullo present a painful to watch 111-minute drama of Elena, a single mother in El Paso, Texas, and Tom, her nine year old son who teachers identify as a problem child. Their lives, already stretched financially and emotionally, take a turn for the worse after he is diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). The film explores the controversial diagnosis, subsequent prescription of psychiatric medication, the school system’s intense pressure on parents to comply with a chemical solution and the concept of excessive medication in childhood. According to a spokesperson it will be available for online streaming.
Julia Chávez plays Elena and Israel Rodríguez Bertorelli plays Tom. The film, in English and Spanish with subtitles, premiered in Venice in 2021 and includes on screen sexual situations. No rating was listed in the press release.
Following a troubling accident Elena becomes concerned about the possible side effects of the prescription medication her son is taking. When concerned for his well-being she stops administering the drugs to Tom, Social Services threaten to remove him from her custody unless he resumes taking the powerful psychiatric medication.
“The fact that we are parents was the single overwhelming motivator in our making this film,” Plá said of his collaboration with wife Santullo on The Other Tom in promotional materials provided via email by a publicist. “It’s nearly impossible these days to remain oblivious as a parent to the myriad of mental disorders and pathologies our children are diagnosed with, based entirely on behavior. It has become normal to create syndromes for behaviors and then develop drugs to ‘treat’ them. Increasingly, overworked teachers demand that their students be put on psychiatric drugs to quell disruption, and more and more doctors oblige, prescribing them like candy…but parents also, out of ignorance or convenience or sheer desperation, may find themselves surrendering to this mindset and medicating their children. This generation carries our hopes, and with this film, we hope to open eyes to a more human approach to helping them to adulthood.”
Chavez is a graduate of the Pearson College UWC in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Plá, director and writer, is a Mexican-Uruguayan director, screenwriter and producer. In addition to this production his feature films are La Zona (Venice, 2007), Desierto adentro (Cannes, 2008), La demora (Berlinale, 2012), and Un monstruo de mil cabezas (Venice, 2015). Santullo, director and writer, is a narrative and screenplay writer. In addition to this production her work as a screenwriter includes the feature films Un monstruo de mil cabezas, La demora, Desierto adentro, and La Zona. The Other Tom was produced by Buenaventura Cine and BHD Films.
Posted by Elena del Valle on August 31, 2022
On October 4, 2022 MhzChoice.com plans to offer its first Japanese series, according to a recent press release. Pension Metsa, a six-episode miniseries released in 2021, features Tenko, a Japanese woman who runs a one room country guesthouse in the Nagano larch forest. Nagano is 278 kilometers northwest of Tokyo. MhzChoice.com provided a screener although no images or video clips were available for editorial publication.
A different brief story unfolds around a guest star in each 20-minute episode. The stories take place in and around the pretty guesthouse and its natural environs. Often there are shared meals and soulful conversations.
Satomi Kobayashi is Tenko. According to Imdb.com Kana Matsumoto is the writer and director of the series. The episodes are in Japanese. English subtitles were added by the streaming service.
Actress Tôko Miura, who played the young chauffeur Misaki in the Oscar-winning feature Drive My Car, appears in Episode 6. MhzChoice.com offers a streaming subscription service of European series and programs with English subtitles.
