‘The Mole Agent’ Director Maite Alberdi Spotlights Elder Neglect With Chilean Oscar Entry – Contenders International

Fernando Frias’ I’m No Longer Here (Ya No Estoy Aquí) had a long journey to the screen — conceived when Frias was a student at New York’s Columbia University, the project was selected by the Sundance Writers Lab in 2014, and went before cameras in 2017, ultimately hitting the festival circuit in 2019, and Netflix last year. Challenges in getting the acclaimed drama made included everything from financing hurdles to a lengthy hiatus and the lead actor being rejected for a U.S.

The team behind new PBS legal documentaryBelly of the Beasthas released a lyric video for the original song "See What You've Done," written by Mary J. Blige, Nova Way and DJ Camper and performed by Blige.

Anna Marie de la Fuente It’s been a banner year for Latin American cinema where 18 countries, including newcomer Suriname, have submitted films to vie for the international feature Oscar. Half of this year’s crop are by women, many of them debuts.

Angelique Jackson CAA has signed filmmaker Déa Kulumbegashvili, whose film “Beginning” is Georgia’s submission for best international feature at the 2021 Oscars.“Beginning” marks Kulumbegashvili’s feature directorial debut and has made major waves along the film festival circuit since its debut last fall at the Toronto International Film Festival, where the film won the Fipresci Prize.

Irish actress Clare Dunne stars in Herself, a harrowing drama about a single mother who, after escaping an abusive partner, aims to rebuild her life in a unique manner. After months of struggling with the welfare and housing systems, she comes upon the idea of self-building an affordable home and, with the help of friends and neighbors, rebuilds her life and theirs from the ground up.

The idea for Emerald Fennell’s debut movie Promising Young Woman came to her in a single image: while a seemingly drunk woman is being bothered by a man, she turns the tables by suddenly sitting up, stone-cold sober, and asking, “What are you doing?” This happens quite a few times in her film, which sees college dropout Cassie (Carey Mulligan) taking revenge on the kind of men that sexually abused her best friend in college, leading to her suicide.

Deadline on Monday launched streaming sites for its first two Contenders awards-season events that took place over the weekend: Contenders International and Contenders Documentary.

Politics and Covid-19 have been intertwined ever since the novel coronavirus emerged in Wuhan, China a year ago. But when director Hao Wu made 76 Days, his harrowing film documenting hospital workers and Covid patients in Wuhan as the city went through lockdown, he left political questions aside.

In I’m No Longer Here (Ya no estoy aquí), filmmaker Fernando Frias puts the spotlight on Kolombia counterculture in the region of Northern Mexico. Following the story of 17-year-old Ulises (played by breakout Juan Daniel Garcia Treviño), the film, Mexico’s submission in the International Feature Oscar race, uses his journey to present a different kind of immigrant narrative.

Director and co-writer Edoardo Ponti brought along his mother for my conversation about his movie, Netflix’s The Life Ahead, as part of Deadline’s Contenders International awards-season event. That mother happens to be a true screen legend, Sophia Loren, who has been directed by her son (their third collaboration) in her first major leading role in a movie in several years.

“I wanted to do this project for a long time, I had this story in mind for years and years,” says director Filippo Meneghetti about Two of Us, France’s Oscar entry this year, adding that he also spent an additional five years writing the screenplay with his co-writer Malysone Bovorasmy.

Dea Kulumbegashvili’s feature directorial debut Beginning was a part of the official selection of the Cannes Film Festival’s 2020 edition, even receiving a special in-person screening during the event’s abridged celebration in October. The drama further was invited to the Toronto, San Sebastian, New York and Busan festivals and is also Georgia’s submission for the International Feature Film Oscar.

Romanian director Alexander Nanau joined Deadline’s Contenders International awards-season event to talk about his searing documentary Collective, one of the year’s most acclaimed films as winner of the European Film Award for documentary. It is also Romania’s official entry to the International Feature Film Oscar race, as well as a strong contender in the Documentary Feature competition too.

Finnish author Tove Jansson is most known for creating the enduringly popular children’s characters the Moomins, which have spanned comics, books and TV series since she first came up with them in the 1940s. She is now the subject of a biopic, Tove, which is Finland’s submission for the International Feature Oscar this year.

Preparations to be Together for an Unknown Period of Time, Hungary’s contender this year for the International Feature Film Oscar, hinges on a moment around seven minutes into the movie.

Scary stories and urban legends are always fun and at times can haunt you for the rest of your life. For filmmaker Joko Anwar, it was a scary story that was the inspirational seed that would bloom into Impetigore, Indonesia’s official entry for the Oscar International Feature race.

This year’s International Oscar entry for Switzerland, My Little Sister, follows a woman who has largely given up on her ambition to be a playwright and returns to Berlin to look after her twin brother, a famous actor with a terminal illness. It is directed by long-term collaborators and co-directors Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond.

In La Llorona, writer-director Jayro Bustamante blends elements of folklore, magical realism and horror to engage audiences, while also bringing attention to the genocide of native Mayans in 1980s Guatemala.

Never Gonna Snow Again co-directors and co-writers Malgorzata Szumowska and Michal Englert’s professional collaboration is an unusual one — the pair are ex-husband and wife. But Szumowska says their enduring partnership shows “collaboration is possible.”

KilI It And Leave This Town is a deeply personal, unconventional and moving hand-drawn animation from artist-turned-animator Mariusz Wilczynski, who explores subjects including grief and childhood in his feature debut.