News

The Mistress of the Dark and Fright Rags collide for a limited time in a new Midnight Madness shirt! Also: Comet TV's May contest details, a new poster for Hostile, a look at Doyle's "Run For Your Life" music video, and info on the zombie short story anthology Gone With the Dead.

Fright Rags' Elvira Shirt: From Fright Rags: "Hello Darlings! Since the 80s, Elvira has been tempting us as the horror hostess of our dreams (or maybe nightmares?). Late night so-bad-it’s-good horror movies were never complete without her hilariously quirky intros, her long black dress and her big… um… hair. We’re celebrating the Mistress of the Dark with a Limited Edition release at Midnight Tomorrow (Est)! They will be available for $18/ea for 24Hrs! Don't miss Midnight Madness!

Art by Christopher Franchi

Only at Fright-rags.Com"

Images from Fright Rags:

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Comet TV's May Contest Details: "May...

With Madre, writer/director Aaron Burns explores the dangers of dismissing maternal instincts with a cautionary tale that’s part psychological thriller, part body horror, and 100% unnerving to watch. It’s evident that Burns’ previous experiences within the genre world have served him well, because with Madre, he does a masterful job creating a harrowing and horrifying predicament that anyone can relate to, regardless of their parental status.

Madre centers on Diana Prieto (Daniela Ramírez), who has more than she can handle on her plate. Her son, Martin (Matías Bassi), has a severe case of autism and suffers from violent outbursts, with a tendency to hurt himself and lash out his mother, who is now pregnant with her second child. Her husband, Tomás (Cristobal Tapia Montt) travels frequently to Japan for business, which leaves Diana harried and ready to throw in the towel. One day, Martin goes into a rage at a local supermarket,...

Films and projects travel from Sundance to Rotterdam and Rotterdam’s love affair with Latin America becomes apparent.

Making their way from Sundance to Rotterdam, “Lemon” was Opening Night in the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Sloan Prize Winner “Marjorie Prime” played in Voices while director Michael Almereyda was on the Jury of the Hivos Tiger Competition. His documentary, “Escapes” also played in the Regained section of the festival.

“Marjorie Prime”: Director Michael Almereyda, Lois Smith and Jon Hamm

“Chile’s “Family Life” by Alicia Scherson and Cristian Jimenez, Singapore’s “Pop Aye”, “Lady Macbeth” and “Sami Blood” all screened here after premiering in Sundance as well.

Pop Aye director Kirsten Tan won the Big Screen Competition and in addition to the cash prize may also count on a guaranteed release in Dutch cinemas and on TV.

“The Wound” by John Trengove has even longer legs, reaching from Sundance World...

Student activists are placed on the menu of the very people they are trying to save in Eli Roth's The Green Inferno, available on Digital HD December 22nd & Blu-ray and DVD January 5th from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment, and we've been provided with one Blu-ray copy to give away.

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Prize Details: (1) Winner will receive (1) Blu-ray copy of The Green Inferno.

How to Enter: For a chance to win, email contest@dailydead.com with the subject “The Green Inferno Contest”. Be sure to include your name and mailing address.

Entry Details: The contest will end at 12:01am Est on January 6th. This contest is only open to those who are eighteen years of age or older that live in the United States. Only one entry per household will be accepted.

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Press Release: Universal City, California, November 9, 2015 – An international goodwill mission goes terrifyingly wrong in The Green Inferno,...

It’s been a couple months since the last edition of What’s Up Doc? placed Michael Moore’s surprise world premiere of Where To Invade Next at the top of this list and in the meantime much shuffling has taken place and much time has been spent on various new endeavors (namely my Buffalo-based film series, Cultivate Cinema Circle). Finally taking its rightful place at the top, D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hagedus’ Unlocking the Cage is in the midst of being scored by composer James Lavino, according to Lavino’s own personal site. Though the project has been taking shape at its own leisurely pace, I’d expect to see the film making its festival debut in early 2016.

Right behind, the American direct cinema masters is a Texan soon to make his non-fiction debut with Voyage of Time. Just two weeks ago indieWIRE reported that Ennio Morricone, who scored...

The fall festival rush is upon us. Locarno is currently ramping up. Venice has released their line-up and Thom Powers and the Toronto International Film Festival team have dropped a bomb with a previously unannounced new feature from powerhouse docu-provocateur Michael Moore. It is truly a miracle that the production of a film such as Moore’s upcoming Where To Invade Next (see still above) managed to go completely undetected by the filmmaking community until it was literally announced to world premiere at one of the largest film festivals in the world. Programmed as a one of the key films in the Special Presentations section at Tiff, the film sees Moore telling “the Pentagon to ‘stand down’ — he will do the invading for America from now on.” Also announced to premiere at Tiff was Avi Lewis’ This Changes Everything, which has slowly been rising up this list, as well as...

It’s been a surprisingly interesting month of moving and shaking in terms of doc development. Just a month after making his first public funding pitch at Toronto’s Hot Docs Forum, legendary doc filmmaker Frederick Wiseman took to Kickstarter to help cover the remaining expenses for his 40th feature film In Jackson Heights (see the film’s first trailer below). Unrelentingly rigorous in his determination to capture the American institutional landscape on film, his latest continues down this thematic rabbit hole, taking on the immensely diverse New York City neighborhood of Jackson Heights as his latest subject. According to the Kickstarter page, Wiseman is currently editing the 120 hours of rushes he shot with hopes of having the film ready for a fall festival premiere (my guess would be Tiff, where both National Gallery and At Berkeley made their North American debut), though he’s currently quite a ways away from his $75,000 goal.

As part of our "How I Shot That" series, Indiewire asked Antonio Quercia about his experience shooting Eli Roth's "Knock Knock," which stars Keanu Reeves as a family man whose life is turned upside down by two mysterious young women. What camera and lens did you use? I usually use Canon. Out of curiosity, I started testing the 7D which gave me excellent results. I continued with the 5D Mark II and III and was really satisfied with it. I took two C300s to the Amazon and they never failed me. The optics that I always carry with me are the L series from Canon because of its size, speed and quality they always finish in more than one take. I also use the Cp Zeiss series and the Canon Cinema Prime series with its still optic series. They help when there is no light and the marvelous distance-to-spot ratio is almost non-existent.

Knock Knock

Written by Eli Roth, Nicolás López and Guillermo Amoedo

Directed by Eli Roth

USA/Chile, 2015

Watching an Eli Roth film is the cinematic equivalent of passing a kidney stone. It’s painful, exhausting, nauseating,and makes you wish you were dead. Which is why it’s such a surprise that his latest, Knock Knock, is actually kind of great in its own twisted and campy way.

The film follows Evan (Keanu Reeves), a happily married family man who gets his life torn apart by a pair of femme fatales, Bel (Ana de Armas) and Genesis (Lorenza Izzo), after he lets them in his house during a storm while his family is away for the weekend. If you don’t clue into the fact that you’re supposed to laugh within the first few minutes, the experience won’t be a rewarding one. The opening is lit like a soap opera,...

Representing Latin American, U.S. Latino, and non-Latino artists who explore multicultural relationships from singular perspectives, the films at this year's Sundance Film Festival include an array of stories that showcase the diverse creative voices that exist within the Latino filmmaking community.

This list includes both films that have been created fully or partially by Latin American or U.S. Latino filmmakers, as well as those that deal with themes and ideas relevant to the Latino experience in or outside the Unites States, even if these were not created by Latino artists. The increasing interest in these stories testifies to how rapidly Latinos are becoming constant and strong voices in all areas of the film industry.

In order to highlight as many of these talented creators and films as possible, we’ve created a list that includes all the films at the festival that are helmed by or that incorporate Latino talent and those that focus on a specific aspect pertinent to the Latino community. Some are obvious standouts like Argentina's acclaimed dark comedy "Wild Tales" or Colombia's "Liveforever" from Carlos Moreno.

Then there are those who at first sight might not fit the parameters of what one could think is a Latino film. This is the case of films like Eli Roth's "Knock Knock," which is an English-language horror film whose co-writers, producers, and part of the cast are originally from Chile. There is also " Aloft," a drama in the Spotlight section, which is set between Canada and Minnesota and stars Jennifer Connelly. It was written and directed by Academy Award nominated Peruvian filmmaker Claudia Llosa.

The third case includes those films that deal with subjects that have Latino elements or that explore diversity in the U.S in some way. Examples of these are "The Strongest Man" from Kenny Riches, a film narrated in Spanish by its protagonist "Beef," a charming, yet lost Cuban-American man in Miami; or "Cartel Land" by Matthew Heineman, which focuses on the violence shared between Mexico and U.S due to the drug-fueled chaos that afflicts the region. On a lighter note, there are films like “City of Gold” by Laura Gabbert, in which Los Angeles is seen through its ethnic food and local idiosyncrasies.

In an effort to give exposure to those films in the program that don’t get as much attention, the list below starts with the Shorts Programs and ends with the Dramatic Premieres. Each title is linked to its page on the Sundance website where screening times and locations can be found. Regardless of what films you watch at the festival, it is likely that your eyes will be expose to the work of some amazingly talented Latino filmmaker, writer or actor, or those who appreciate our stories as much as we do.

Shorts

"Spring" (Primavera) - Shorts Program 2

Latino Talent: Dir. Tania Claudia Castillo

Latino Theme: The short was created theough Mexico's renowned Centro de Capacitacion Cinematografica (Ccc), and it focuses on

Elba, an introverted, lonely 14-year-old, who wants to bond with her sister Fernanda before she leaves home.

"Papa Machete" - Shorts Program 3

Latino Theme: Two hundred years ago, Haitian slaves defeated Napoleon's armies with the same tool used to work the land: the machete. "Papa Machete" explores a martial art evolved from this victory through the practice of one of its few remaining masters.

"Making it in America" - Shorts Program 4

Latino Theme: A Salvadoran immigrant who fled to the United States as a teenager is now a single mother striving to build a future for her family in Los Angeles.

"Stop" - Shorts Program 5

Latino Talent: Dir. Reinaldo Marcus Green, Producer Rashaad Ernesto Green, Cinematographer Federico Cesca, Actors J.W. Cortes and Joshua Rivera.

Latino Theme: A young man's livelihood is put to the test when he is stopped by the police on his way home. Although not specific the Latino experience, the subject matter speaks to recent events involving minority groups and the use of excessive force by police

"Palm Rot" - Animation Spotlight

Latino Talent: Dir. Ryan Gillis Lizama

Latino Theme: An old Florida fumigator discovers a mysterious crate in the Everglades that ruins his day.

"The Sun Like a Big Dark Animal" (El Sol Como un Gran Animal Oscuro) - Animation Spotlight

Latino Talent: Directors Ronnie Rivera and Christina Felisgrau, Screenwriter Bernardo Britto, Producer Lucas Leyva

Latino Theme: This is Spanish-language short about a computer and a woman fall in love, only to be torn apart because of their inappropriate feelings for each other.

"{The And} Marcela & Rock" - Documentary Shorts Program 1

Latino Talent: Dir. Topaz Adizes, Assistant Directors Armando Croda and Sebastian Diaz

Latino Theme: Exploring the intimate spaces of modern-day relationships, this is the best couples therapy session you'll ever witness.

Special Events

Sundance Institute Short Film Challenge

Latino Talent: Directors Diego Luna, Gael García Bernal, Marialy Rivas

Latino Theme: Sundance Institute Short Film Challenge presents five winning narrative and documentary short films selected from 1,387 submissions representing 69 different countries.The project was designed to use the transformative power of storytelling to generate discussion, shift perceptions around extreme hunger and poverty, and harness the power of independent film to create a global conversation about these issues.

Sundance Kids

"The Game Maker" (El Inventor de Juegos)

Latino Talent: Dir. Juan Pablo Buscarini

New Frontier

"Liveforever" (Que Viva la Musica)

Latino Talent: Dir. Carlos Moreno, Screenwriters Alberto Ferreras and Alonso Torres, alongside the crew and cast.

Latino Theme: Hovering over the river that segregates Cali, Colombia, into haves and have-nots, a haunting presence identifies a perilous willingness among the populace to do anything that is asked of it. A blonde teenage girl, knowing she must change her life, leaves her well-appointed house and flagrantly gives herself over to this tolerant city, saying "yes" to everything provocative it offers her. Only the music tethers her body and spirit together, even as she reaches for redemption through a bold, delicious, and resplendent self-destruction. Inspired by the 1977 best-selling cult novel by Andres Caicedo.

Park City Midnight

"Knock Knock"

Latino Talent: Screenwriters Guillermo Amoedo & Nicolás López, Producers Miguel Asensio and Nicolás López, Cinematographer Antonio Quercia, Actresses Lorenza Izzo and Ana de Armas

"Reversal"

Latino Talent: Dir. José Manuel Cravioto, Producers Alex Garcia, Rodolfo Marquez and Daniel Posada, Editor Jorge Macaya, Actress Bianca Malinowski

Spotlight

"Aloft"

Latino Talent: Dir. Claudia Llosa

"Wild Tales" (Relatos Salvajes)

Latino Talent: Dir. Damián Szifrón, as well as most of the cast and crew.

Latino Theme: Nominated for the Best Foreign Language Academy Award, this Argentine marvel is conformed of 6 stories about people giving in to their most savage instincts. Forgiveness is out o the question because revenge has never been so deranged and insanely comedic.

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"H."

Latino Talent: Dir. Daniel Garcia

"Nasty Baby"

Latino Talent: Dir. Sebastián Silva, Producers David Hinojosa, Juan de Dios Larraín and Pablo Larraín

Latino Theme: Brooklyn artist Freddy (Sebastian Silva) is baby obsessed. His new project centers around newborns, and he and his boyfriend, Mo, have recruited their best friend, Polly (Kristen Wiig), to help them have a baby. On top of dealing with the stress of opening an art installation and the complications of conceiving a child via artificial insemination, the three begin to be harassed by The Bishop, a mentally ill neighborhood man. An escalating series of incidents threaten to derail the comfortable lives these people have built for themselves.

"Tangerine"

Latino Talent: Actress Kiki Kitana Rodriguez

Latino Theme: It's Christmas Eve in Tinseltown, and Sin-Dee is back on the block. Upon hearing that her pimp boyfriend hasn't been faithful during the 28 days she was locked up, the working girl and her best friend, Alexandra, embark on a mission to get to the bottom of the scandalous rumor. Their rip-roaring odyssey leads them through various subcultures of Los Angeles, including an Armenian family dealing with their own repercussions of infidelity.

"The Strongest Man"

Latino Talent: Actor Robert Lorie

Latino Theme: Beef is a beefy Cuban man who believes that he is The Strongest Man in the World. He doesn’t want children, but he wants to tell his grandchildren about his life as The Strongest Man in the World. His best friend is a slight Korean man named Conan. Conan makes him think about things he normally doesn’t think, like the fact that Beef thinks in Spanish, rather than English. Illy, the adopted daughter of a rich art collector, brings out an anxious side in Beef. But it is when his prized possession—a solid gold BMX bicycle—is stolen from him that Beef finds and loses so much more than he thought he could.

World Dramatic Competition

"The Second Mother"

Latino Talent: Dir. Anna Muylaert and her cast and crew

Latino Theme: Val is the kind of live-in housekeeper who takes her work seriously. She wears a crisp maid's uniform while serving perfect canapés; she serves her wealthy São Paulo employers day in and day out while lovingly nannying their teenage son whom she's raised since toddlerhood. Everyone and everything in the elegant house has its place until one day, Val’s ambitious, clever daughter Jessica arrives from Val’s hometown to take the college entrance exams. Jessica’s confident, youthful presence upsets the unspoken yet strict balance of power in the household; Val must decide where her allegiances lie and what she's willing to sacrifice.

U.S. Documentary Competition

"Cartel Land"

Latino Theme: In the Mexican state of Michoacán, Dr. Jose Mireles, a small-town physician known as "El Doctor," shepherds a citizen uprising against the Knights Templar, the violent drug cartel that has wreaked havoc on the region for years. Meanwhile, in Arizona's Altar Valley—a narrow, 52-mile-long desert corridor known as Cocaine Alley—Tim "Nailer" Foley, an American veteran, heads a small paramilitary group called Arizona Border Recon, whose goal is to halt Mexico’s drug wars from seeping across our border.

"City of Gold"

Latino Theme: As the unabashed cradle of Hollywood superficiality and smoggy urban sprawl, Los Angeles has long been condemned as a cultural wasteland. In the richly penetrating documentary odyssey City of Gold, Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic Jonathan Gold shows us another Los Angeles, where ethnic cooking is a kaleidoscopic portal to the mysteries of an unwieldy city and the soul of America.

"Western"

Latino Theme: In his classic novel A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens famously wrote "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." That line sums up the story ofWestern, the latest film from Bill and Turner Ross, a documentary destined to become a classic itself. Eagle Pass, Texas, and Piedras Negras, Mexico, two towns on opposite sides of the border have shared a harmonious history until the specter of cartel violence threatens to divide them.

U.S. Dramatic Competition

"Me and Earl and the Dying Girl"

Latino Talent: Dir. Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

"Dope"

Latino Talent: Actors Tony Revolori, Michael Flores, Allen Maldonado, Lidia Porto, and Sergio Garcia

Latino Theme: Malcolm is a high school geek with a high-top fade, carefully navigating life in The Bottoms, one of the toughest neighborhoods in Inglewood, California. He and his fellow outcasts share a voracious appreciation for all things '90s hip-hop, opting to sport Cross-Colours and Z. Cavariccis at the risk of being clowned at school. He dreams of attending Harvard, but first he has to make it home every day. When a drug dealer takes a shine to Malcolm and invites him to his birthday party, Malcolm’s crew is swirled into a hilarious blender of offbeat characters and bad choices where redemption can only be found in Bitcoin.

"The Stanford Prison Experiment"

Latino Talent: Dir. Kyle Patrick Alvarez, Actors Moises Arias and Armand Vasquez

Documentary Premieres

"Fresh Dressed"

Latino Theme: With funky, fat-laced Adidas, Kangol hats, and Cazal shades, a totally original look was born—Fresh—and it came from the black and brown side of town where another cultural force was revving up in the streets to take the world by storm. Hip-hop, and its aspirational relationship to fashion, would become such a force on the market that Tommy Hilfiger, in an effort to associate their brand with the cultural swell, would drive through the streets and hand out free clothing to kids on the corner.

Dramatic Premieres

"Experimenter"

Latino Talent: Dir. Michael Almereyda and Actor John Leguizamo

"Last Days in the Desert"

Latino Talent: Dir. Rodrigo García and Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki

"Lila & Eve"

Latino Talent: Producers Tanya Lopez and Priscilla Porianda, Actors Jennifer Lopez, Andre Royo, Marisela Zumbado and Rey Hernandez

Latino Theme: When teenage Stephon is killed in a drive-by shooting, his mother, Lila, slips into a paralyzing grief. She joins a support group for women who have lost children to crime and meets Eve, a woman whose little girl was killed the same night as Stephon. Lila and Eve form a friendship, and Lila begins to crawl out of her depression. She develops a burning desire to find justice for her son, and she presses the authorities for answers, but they are slow-moving and ineffective. It’s Eve who has the idea first—join together, find the drug dealers who shot Stephon dead, and bring them to justice themselves.

Los Angeles — Splat pack ringleader Eli Roth takes his gory roadshow south in "Aftershock," a lively but formulaic Chile-set chiller where a group of tourists finds themselves bloodied, bludgeoned and buried beneath a horrific earthquake. With Roth playing one of the leads and handing off directorial duties to Nicolas Lopez (Santos), the film tends to feel shoddier than the first two "Hostel" movies, even if the team draws laughs from the sight of spoiled hipsters getting their comeuppance in the Third World.

Given how the torture-porn genre has been waning, credited writers Roth, Lopez and Guillermo Amodeo bring down the ketchup count considerably here, and "Aftershock" is less of an all-out bloodbath than a throwback to hokey horror and disaster flicks from the `70s and `80s.

Taking many of its ingredients from the "Hostel" recipe, the film kicks off with a goofy American tourist known simply as Gringo (Roth) trying...