Cannes Review: Andres Ramirez Pulido’s ‘La Jauria’

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentSideshow and Janus Films have acquired North American rights for “Tori and Lokita,” the latest film by two-time Palme d’Or winners Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, which world premiered in competition at Cannes. The movie was one of the best reviewed films of the competition and earned the Dardenne brothers the festival’s special 75th Anniversary Prize.A story of human perseverance, the film is set in contemporary Belgium and follows a young boy Tori (Pablo Schils) and an adolescent girl Lokita (Joely Mbundu) who have traveled alone from Africa and pit their invincible friendship against the difficult conditions of their exile.“Tori and Lokita” stars Pablo Schils, Joely Mbundu, Alban Ukaj, Tijman Govaerts, Charlotte De Bruyne, Nadège Ouedraogo, and Marc Zinga.

Sideshow and Janus Films have acquired North American rights for Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s Tori and Lokita which premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival and was lauded with the Festival’s Special 75th Anniversary Prize. A theatrical release from Sideshow and Janus is being planned.

Emiliano Granada Playing Directors’ Fortnight, Fabián Hernández’s “A Male” (“Un Varón”) underscores just how much Colombian cinema has evolved in recent years, in both technique and kind of storytelling. A meditation on manhood sold by Dubai-based Cercamon and seen at San Sebastian’s WIP Latin last year, it turns on 16-year-old Carlos (Dylan Felipe Ramírez Espitia), glimpses of his deep turmoil shining through a stoic facade. His mother in jail, his sister on the game,Carlos lives in a central Bogotá homeless shelter in central Bogotá.Over Christmas, he wanders his local streets, dominated by the ideal of the alpha male and an eye-for-an eye vengeance. Sensitivity is conspicuous by its absence.

“War Pony” wins Palm Dog AwardBrit the Silver Poodle, who stars in Riley Keough and Gina Gammell’s indigenous drama “War Pony,” took home the coveted Palm Dog collar, according to the Hollywood Reporter.The Palm Collar is awarded to the best performance by a canine or group of canines during the festival. The award consists of a leather dog collar with the term “PALM DOG.”Steve Pond, in his review of “War Pony” wrote, “Set on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota and co-written, co-produced and starring members of the Native American community, “War Pony” is unhurried, naturalistic and heartbreaking, taking its rhythms from the lives of characters in a situation where the lack of options can lead to desperation or to resignation.

The exquisite and sublime journeys of Oregon-based filmmaker Kelly Reichardt are arguably, more or less, incidental or oblique political statements about survival in America, often focusing on two or more friends, usually outsiders, and their struggle to endure. “Wendy And Lucy,” about a destitute woman and her soulmate canine companion, was overt about human inequity and hardship; “Meek’s Cutoff” depicted the unbearable burden of living off a hostile, unforgiving land; and “First Cow” presented the warm, but sad futility of two friends trying to sustain themselves under the grueling rigors of nascent American capitalism.

“The Stars at Noon” finds the French filmmaker Claire Denis shooting in Panama doubling for Nicaragua; directing a cast of Yanks, Brits, and assorted Central Americans; and working from a script switching between Spanish and English. Internationally coproduced Towers of Babel such as this aren’t at all uncommon at the Cannes Film Festival, but the errors in translation all over this disappointing foreign-relations drama run deeper than simple differences of ethnicity or language.

Anna Marie de la Fuente In a historical first, the Cannes Festival and its market, the Marché, hosted the inaugural Venezuela Film Hub (VFH), surprising many international participants by its presence, given the mostly abysmal news coming from the South American country, crippled by the government’s economic mismanagement and U.S. sanctions.Spearheaded and fully financed by The Visionist Advisers, a New York and Paris-based creative agency founded by strategic advisor Valeska Hernandez, VFH brought close to a 100 Venezuelan projects to the Marché in a booth that offered a networking platform for Venezuelan filmmakers as well as a chance to promote the country as a filming location and the sampling of Venezuelan products.

Manori Ravindran International EditorOn the heels of Critics’ Prize wins for Andres Ramirez Pulido’s “La Jauria,” Variety can reveal an exclusive clip from the Colombian film.The pic on Wednesday won the Grand Prize at Critics’ Week, the Cannes Film Festival’s sidebar dedicated to first and second features. It also picked up the SACD prize.“La Jauria” centers on Eliu, a country boy, who is incarcerated in an experimental young offenders institution, deep in the heart of the Colombian tropical forest, for a crime he committed with his friend El Mono.Every day, the teenagers perform hard manual labor and endure intense group therapy, under the menacing gaze of the camp guard Godoy.

Kelly Ripa is opening up about the grim reality of being a parent in a country with such little gun control.ALSO: HELLO! launches Jubilee T-shirt collection to celebrate Queen Elizabeth in styleThe star, joined by Ryan Seacrest on Live! With Kelly and Ryan, gave an impassioned statement on the morning show following the news that 19 children and two adults had been killed by an 18-year-old gunman.Kelly put it plain and simple, saying: "I have not slept yet, because I am enraged, again, and again, and again."WATCH: CBS' Tony Dokoupil reports from Robb Elementary SchoolMORE: Kelly Ripa's son Joaquin twins with dad Mark Consuelos during night out in New YorkShe reminded viewers of the stark contrast between the amount of shootings abroad versus in the United States, saying: "In case you are keeping score, there have been thirty school shootings this year."The mass shooting at Robb Elementary School marked the 212th mass shooting in 2022 alone, just ten days after another gunman opened fire at a Buffalo, New York supermarket, killing ten Black people.The talk show host continued her heartbreaking statement with the unfortunate realization that: "There's a whole bunch we haven't even heard about, that didn't even make the news."The heartbreaking conversationShe pleaded with viewers: "So what are we doing? And who are we as a society?"MORE: Kelly Ripa plays matchmaker for son Joaquin with surprising dateMORE: Kelly Ripa's son Michael's throwback photo will leave you doing a double takeRyan went on to mention his sister, who has a three-year-old, and Kelly endearingly revealed that she was one of the first people she thought about when she first learned about the shooting, knowing the dread all parents of school-aged children

Given the combustible subject matter and the director’s reputation, French auteur Claire Denis has made a remarkably listless and unpersuasive film in Stars at Noon. Set during the Nicaraguan Sandanista revolution circa 1984, this adaptation of Denis Johnson’s novel published two years later centers on a couple of Americans of dubious character who misspend time in Central America before finally deciding it’s time to split when, in fact, it might be too late. This is the sort of misfire that, just because it comes from a hallowed French auteur, sometimes gets programmed in the Cannes competition even when it manifestly doesn’t deserve to be there.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentAndres Ramirez Pulido’s “La Jauria” won the Grand Prize at Critics’ Week, the Cannes Film Festival’s sidebar dedicated to first and second features. The Colombian film also won the SACD prize.

As the Cannes Film Festival rolls towards its conclusion on Saturday night, sidebar Critics’ Week doled out its awards this evening with the Grand Prize going to Andres Ramirez Pulido’s La Jauria. Critics’ Week is devoted to first and second features, and this is Pulido’s debut meaning the film is also eligible for the Camera d’Or which will be announced on Saturday during the fest’s main closing ceremony.

EXCLUSIVE: Utopia has finalized its North American deal for Cannes Competition pic Holy Spider, the noir thriller from Danish-Iranian filmmaker Ali Abbasi. We told you the deal was all but there a couple of days ago.

Deadline’s studio at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival kicked off at the American Pavilion by hosting fest-goers such as Joel Edgerton of The Stranger, Jesse Eisenberg and Julianne Moore of When You Finish Saving The World, and many more. Click on the photo above to launch the gallery.

Nostalgia has seldom looked grittier, or more treacherous, than it does in Mario Martone’s eponymous new film. The Italian director splashes his teaming, boisterous, unruly native city of Naples across the screen in fulsome fashion in telling the story of a man who left as a teenager but, some 40 years later, is drawn back into its sinister embrace.

Aerosmith announced on Tuesday that lead singer Steven Tyler voluntarily entered rehab after relapsing following a foot surgery.

CANNES – It may seem obvious, but sometimes combining two compelling stories doesn’t lead to an overall more captivating film. That’s the primary takeaway from Gina Gammell and Riley Keough‘s somewhat messy “War Pony,” which debuted at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival this weekend.

It is more than a bit ironic in a Cannes Film Festival where Baz Luhrman’s biopic Elvis is one of the most anticipated entries, that the subject of it, Elvis Presley turns out to have another direct connection this year’s fest. His granddaughter Riley Keough is making her directorial debut with the Un Certain Regard selection, War Pony having its World Premiere today. The film focuses on two young Native Americans coming of age and trying to get by in a story set on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. It is a location that has intrigued other filmmakers like Chloe Zhao (The Rider) in recent years, and now has caught the attention of Keough and her co-director Gina Gammell in order to tell an authentic and unique contemporary tale of Native American youth brought to life by an impressive group of first-time actors, mostly locals the directors cast in order to give this as fresh and real a feel as possible. They have succeeded.

Anne Hathaway is channeling one of her most iconic characters. On Thursday, the 39-year-old actress stepped out for a screening of her new flick, , at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, and gave off serious Mia Thermopolis vibes.Hathaway stunned on the red carpet in a custom, white Giorgio Armani Privé gown that included a train and oversized bow.