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John C. Reilly will soon appear on the big screen as Buffalo Bill in “Heads or Tails?” a surreal Western by Italian directorial duo Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis (“The Tale of King Crab”). The film is inspired by a true event that took place during Buffalo Bill’s stay in Italy.

Along with the Oscar-nominated U.S. actor – who co-starred with Joaquin Phoenix in Jacques Audiard’s Western “The Sisters Brothers” – the top notch “Heads or Tails?” cast also comprises rising French star Nadia Tereszkiewicz and Italy’s Alessandro Borghi, in lead roles, and Argentina’s Peter Lanzani.

Italian cowboys known as “butteri” –– and hailing from the central Italian plains of northern Lazio up through the coastal Italian region of Maremma into southern Tuscany — have a long-standing connection to Buffalo Bill and the history of America’s Wild West.

Buffalo Bill, born William F. Cody, was a...

“It’s not for us.” Anyone who has ever pitched a movie has heard those words. But when Luis Ortega was looking for financing for his latest feature, the surrealist, gender-bending Kill the Jockey, he heard it a lot.

It didn’t matter that Ortega’s work had been making waves in Argentine cinema since his first feature, 2003’s Caja Negra, or that his prior feature, El Angel, competed in Un Certain Regard in Cannes in 2019. Kill the Jockey, about a jockey whose identity — already fragmented by trauma, drugs and alcohol — repeatedly transforms following a racing accident and its accompanying head injury, was just too esoteric.

“This movie is not pitchable,” Ortega admits.

Another potential reason for all those passes? “Pineapple Head. That’s [what] the film was called,” Ortega says, alluding to a homeless man in Buenos Aires who — walking around the city in a fur coat, one sandal and one woman’s high-heeled shoe,...

Scheduled for release in 2025, “Death of a Comedian” (“La Muerte de un Comediante”), renowned Argentine actor Diego Peretti’s first feature film as director, has been acquired for world sales by FilmSharks.

Breaking out in TV series “The Pretenders” (2001-04), directed by Damián Szifrón, Peretti won most immediate notice for comedy, such as “It’s Not You, But Me,” though he can be highly effective in drama or Lucía Puenzo’s “The German Doctor” or humour-laced thrillers like “The Heist of the Century.”

Peretti has directed alongside Javier Beltramino, a respected figure on Argentina’s animation scene (“Rice and Matchsticks”) and a former Telefonica Studios production manager.

Now in post-production, the film stars Peretti as Juan Debré, an actor who has played the hero of a TV series for his entire career, oblivious to his true self. Diagnosed with a terminal illness, he flees to Belgium, the land of his...

One of my top discoveries from the first half of the 2024 Venice Film Festival is an Argentinian film called Kill the Jockey, originally known as El Jockey in Spanish. It's the latest cinematic creation from artsy, talented Argentinian filmmaker Luis Ortega, already known for his other films Damn Summer, Lulu, and El Angel previously. The film is premiering in the Main Competition at Venice – within the first 15 minutes after the screening began, I knew why they picked this film to play in this prestigious section at the festival. It really is a fantastic film, with complex filmmaking, slick storytelling and vivid pacing, and a very precise, clean style. It's also an impressive 97 minutes (which in Venice is refreshing because almost everything else is 2 to 3 hours long), never overstaying its welcome and moving along at such a swift pace it almost feels like they're leaving out major moments of this story.

Produced by El Deseo, the company owned by Almodóvars Pedro and Agustin, Luis Ortega’s last film, El Angel (2018) was the gloriously kitsch, sexually mischievous, and very loosely fictionalized true story of a notorious Argentine serial killer known for his baby-faced looks and crimes so hideous that Ortega balked at portraying even half of them. Though it comes without the Almodóvar imprimatur, Kill the Jockey (just The Jockey in Spanish) is a more subdued yet somehow even stranger piece of work, starting out like a deadpan Wes Anderson spoof of a Stanley Kubrick gangster movie and slowly mutating into a genderfluid/trans version of Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin.

The jockey is Remo Manfredini (Nahuel Pérez Biscayart), a once-famous horse racer, and we find him in a catatonic state in a jaw-droppingly bizarre dive bar frequented by literally legless drinkers. Manfredini is out cold, and a gang of mobster types comes to take him.

Luis Ortega’s absurdist comedy “Kill the Jockey,” which plays in Venice competition, is set in Argentina’s horse-racing community. “It’s a wild, wild world,” he tells Variety. “I encountered some very exotic jockeys and horse owners and I thought it’s so great. They’re so crazy and exciting, and [the jockeys] risk their life every race.”

The central character, Remo Manfredini, is clearly psychologically damaged – abusing drugs and alcohol to the extent that we see him fall off his horse even before it leaves the gate – but nonetheless he retains the self-possession and panache of a matador. “There is a lot of pride in that attitude,” says the Argentine filmmaker, whose previous film “El Angel,” about a baby-faced killer, premiered in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard.

Remo, played by Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, always keeps his race-track cronies at a distance and can seem aloof. “The only way I could relate...

They Kill Horse Riders, Don’t They?: Ortega Puzzles with Deadpan Metaphors

Nothing is what it appears to be in Argentinean Luis Ortega’s latest film Kill the Jockey, a crime comedy drama which becomes an increasingly complex exercise regarding identity. The film itself suffers from the same semblance of identity crisis as some of its characters, which is akin to Ortega’s last film, El Angel (2018), about a cherub-faced criminal whose misdeeds initially seem all the more shocking because of his demeanor. Nahuel Pérez Biscayart leads the charge in what partially appears to be a trans allegory with a sometimes convoluted, sometimes amusing mixture of rebirth/reincarnation themes which might be overtly perplexing on a first view but most assuredly will reveal more complex interpretations upon closer examination.…...

To be a jockey is to be both athlete and adjunct. While the horse gets the glory, its human partner is a literal hanger-on: ostensibly in control, but subject to animal impulses. That paradox allows Remo Manfredini, the star rider at the center of “Kill the Jockey,” more scope for invisibility than most top-of-their-game sportsmen — though when an accident in a crucial race lands him in hospital, his very identity begins to disintegrate. Restlessly switching lanes from frenzied farce to pulpy gangster movie to gender-confusion musing, Argentine director Luis Ortega’s alternately dark and daffy eighth feature is suitably untethered for a story concerned with the malleability of the self. That comes at some cost to its impact, however: Awash with kooky gags and bolstered by the strange, soulful presence of leading man Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, it’s fun but flighty, liable to throw some viewers from the saddle.

Ortega...

Protagonist Pictures has acquired Luis Ortega’s absurdist comedy “Kill the Jockey” for worldwide sales. The film will make its world premiere in competition at the Venice Film Festival, and will make its North American premiere at the Toronto Film Festival in the Centrepiece section.

The story revolves around Remo Manfredini (Nahuel Pérez Biscayart), a legendary jockey whose self-destructive behavior is beginning to outshine his talent and threaten his relationship with his girlfriend Abril (Úrsula Corberó).

On the day of the most important race of his career that will clear him of his debts from his mobster boss Sirena (Daniel Gimenez Cacho), he has a severe accident, disappears from the hospital and wanders the streets of Buenos Aires. Free from his identity, he starts to discover who he is truly meant to be. But Sirena wants him found, dead or alive.

The film, co-written by Ortega with Rodolfo Palacios and Fabián Casas,...

Boatloads of high-wattage stars are set to disembark at this year’s Venice Film Festival.

Lady Gaga, Joaquin Phoenix, Julianne Moore, Tilda Swinton, Angelina Jolie, Daniel Craig, Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Cate Blanchett, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Monica Bellucci, Michael Keaton and Jenna Ortega are among A-list talents toplining high-profile titles that will premiere at the Lido’s Palazzo del Cinema.

But besides being a glitzy affair, Venice’s upcoming 81st edition – which features a rich mix of known names and potential discoveries across a wide range of genres – also looks set to bolster the event’s status as the top destination for studios and streamers to build Oscar campaigns and a prime launchpad for the cream of the year’s cinematic crop.

As anticipated by Variety, “Joker 2: Folie à Deux” — Todd Phillips’ edgy musical sequel to his 2019 Golden Lion prizewinning “Joker,” starring Gaga and Phoenix — is once again...

And the winner is: “Simon of the Mountain.”

The film, directed by Federico Luis – and marking his feature debut – was awarded Cannes’ Critics Week Grand Prix.

Sold by Luxbox, the Argentina-Chile-Uruguay production stars Lorenzo “Toto” Ferro, the lead in breakout “El Angel,” as Simon, 21, a lonely only son who falls in with a group of discapacitated kids, feigning a discapacity. Thanks to their friendship he flowers, discovering love, sex and a sense of belonging.

“I am thinking not only about what it means to us, but also about what it means to the people in Argentina who, over the course of the next four years, will struggle, trying to make local films,” said Luis, accepting the award.

“At home, there are people who still think we make films no one wants to see. I hope this will change it and that Argentinian people – and then the whole world – will watch Argentinian cinema.

Among the Croisette items contending for the prestigious Caméra d’Or at Cannes, a fresh voice emerges from Argentina’s film scene: Federico Luis, a filmmaker based in beautiful yet economically challenged epi-center of Buenos Aires. Following his participation in the Shorts Competition with “La Siesta” back in 2019, Luis returns for a second time to present Simon de la montaña (Simon of the Mountain). In this film, we witness Lorenzo Ferro shedding his iconic curls and trading the angelic yet sinister qualities of his previous role in Luis Ortega’s El Angel (2018) for a character that is enigmatic, mysterious, and resistant to easy interpretation.…...

Paris-based Luxbox, a sales company on a multiple standout Spanish-language debuts bowed at big festivals – from “1976” to “20,000 Species of Bees,” “Clara Sola,” “Song Without a Name” and “The Heiresses” – has swooped on international sales rights to “Simon of the Mountain” (“Simon de la Montaña”), in the run-up to the Cannes Film Festival.

The anticipated first feature of Argentina’s Federico Luis, “Simon of the Mountain” was announced Monday as one of seven movies confirmed for main competition at this year’s Cannes Critics’ Week.

Co-written by Federico Luis, the film’s editor Tomás Murphy and Agustín Toscano, helmer of Directors’ Fortnight title “The Snatch Thief” who also figures in the film’s key cast, “Simon of the Mountain” stars Lorenzo “Toto” Ferro, one of Argentina’s most rated young actors after his breakout performances as Argentina’s most notorious serial killer in Cannes 2018 Un Certain Regard player “El Angel...

Pedro Almodóvar’s El Deseo is teaming up once again with Peru’s most prominent producer, Tondero, to co-produce Peruvian filmmaker Salvador del Solar’s second pic after his lauded feature debut, “Magallanes.”

Titled “Un lugar para Ramon” (“A Place for Ramon”), the drama is set against the backdrop of Peru’s months-long Covid-19 lockdown where two men, a Peruvian national who is confined to his apartment with the ashes of his estranged father, meets a Spaniard who is unable to leave the country because Lima’s airport has been shut down.

Thrown together by the unusual circumstances, their friendship evolves into deeper and more ambiguous terrain.

“I would liken it to two beings stuck on an island together where they are isolated and detached from the rest of the world,” said Del Solar who wrote the script with Hector Galvez, best known for directing and/or writing “Nn” and “Paraiso.

In what marks the most ambitious film from Peru’s leading producer Tondero and, most likely, Peruvian cinema in recent times, Pedro Almodóvar’s El Deseo, Infinity Hill (“Argentina 1985”) and Tondero have joined forces to co-produce a drama based on the hostage crisis that took place at the Japanese embassy in Lima in 1996.

El Deseo executive producer Esther Garcia and Infinity Hill co-founder/chief creative officer Axel Kuschevatzky were in Lima to attend Tondero’s 15th anniversary festivities and for Garcia to receive a tribute from the ongoing 27th Lima Film Festival, which runs Aug. 10-18.

The still-untitled project has been co-written by Spain’s Alicia Luna and Peru’s Santiago Roncagliolio, Patricia Romero and Lima Film Fest artistic director Josué Mendez who together spent some four years delving into the facts behind the crisis that drew massive international attention at the time.

The incident spawned several works in literature and film.

Peter Lanzani, star of some of the greatest films and series to come out of Argentina of late – “Argentina, 1985,” “El Angel,” “The Clan,” “4X4,” “Un Gallo Para Esculapio” – is set to make his directorial debut, helming a biopic of Argentine ‘80s rock icon Luca Prodan. Lanzani will also play Prodan.

Two other movers and shakers on Argentina’s film-tv scene, Argentina’s Armando Bo, an Academy Award winner for the screenplay of Alejandro González Inárritu’s “Birdman, or, Sergio Olguín, Lanzani and Fisner are writing the screenplay.

The big question is what through line they will drive between ‘70s class-bound, punk-energized Britain and an Argentina of the early ‘80s emerging from a bloody dictatorship.

The biopic is set up at Bo’s Rebolución, behind his 2012 Sundance hit, “The Last Elvis,” and his second feature as a director, “Animal,” and Bo’s About Entertainment, founded in 2020 to focus on high quality...

Luis Ortega has wrapped production in Argentina on “Kill the Jockey,” starring Úrsula Corberó, “Money Heist’s” Tokyo, and Nahuel Pérez Biscayart (“120 Bpm”), which is shaping up as one of the biggest upcoming movies from Latin America.

Ortega’s follow-up to 2018 Un Certain Regard hit “El Angel,” which sold worldwide and set a box office record in Argentina, “Kill the Jockey” has been snapped up for overseas sales by Vicente Canales’ Film Factory Entertainment, which also sold “El Angel.”

TelevisaUnivision VOD service ViX will roll out “Kill the Jockey” in the U.S. and Latin America. Scanbox handles distribution in Scandinavia.

“Kill the Jockey’s” top-notch cast also features Daniel Giménez Cacho, Mariana Di Girólamo, Daniel Fanego (“El Ángel”) and Roly Serrano (“Youth”).

It turns on Remo (Pérez Biscayart), the best jockey of his generation, whose addictions, however, have gradually cast a shadow over his glory. Like Abril (Corberó), another jockey,...

Ester Expósito, one of the stars of Netflix global hit “Elite,” is attached to star “The Wailing” (“El Llanto”), co-written by Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s regular co-scribe Isabel Peña (“The Beasts”) and directed by talent-to-track Pedro Martín-Calero (“Secrets”). It’s one of the most powerful Spanish-language packages being brought onto Berlin’s European Film Market.

The auteur genre movie has gone into production, shooting in Madrid, Buenos Aires and La Plata.

Film Factory Entertainment has acquired international rights. “The Wailing” is lead produced by on-the-rise Madrid production house Caballo Films, behind Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s films, including “The Beasts,” a best picture Goya on Feb. 11.

The feature debut of Spain’s Pedro Martín-Calero, “The Wailing” turns on a seemingly invisible evil. “No one can see it with the naked eye, but its presence has always been there. 20 years ago he stalked Camila and Marie. Now, 10,000 kilometers away, Andrea has begun to hear the wailing,...

Underground, the Buenos Aires-based division of Telemundo Streaming Studios (Tss), is adapting for HBO Max Latin America the thriller “Cathedrals” (“Catedrales”) by award-winning noir author Claudia Piñeiro.

This marks the first time Tss is producing a series for the Warner Bros. Discovery streamer.

“We are delighted to announce the development of ‘Catedrales’ for HBO Max in Latin America, exactly the type of fresh and culturally relevant content that today’s audiences expect,” said Juan Ponce, senior VP and general manager of Telemundo Streaming Studios.

Piñeiro, widely regarded as Argentina’s “queen of noir novels.” will serve as a literary consultant. Winner of the Dashiell Hammet award in 2021, “Catedrales” is described as “a noir novel that shows the hypocrisy of religion and the atrocities that happen because of it.”

According to the book’s synopsis, it revolves around the mystery behind the brutal murder of 17-year-old Ana Sardá, a devout Catholic...

World premiering in Cannes’ Premiere section, Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s thriller “The Beasts”(“As Bestas”) has shared with Variety its poster, crafted by James Verdesoto at New York’s Indika Entertainment Advertising, who as creative director at Miramax was responsible for the original award-winning film poster of “Pulp Fiction,” as well as those for “The Piano” and “The Crying Game,” among 200 posters.

In advance of its Cannes bow, “The Beasts’” sales agent Latido Films has granted Variety an exclusive first look at its key art campaign, which may well drive to the heart of the film.

The poster depicts three men entangled, close up. Two men grasp a third whose mouth opens in agony, consumed by a raw, animalistic rage, in a vertical tangle. The characters are nearly unrecognizable, anguish on their faces, the hostility of the attack quite palpable. One demonstrates subjugation to the struggle, the attackers’ clothes speckled with...

Carlos Gardel, the most famous figure in tango history, is set to become the subject of a bio-series made by Kapow, the Argentine producer of HBO Max/Amazon hit “La Jauría,” and Luis Ortega, director of episodes of Netflix’s “El Marginal” as well as smash hit true crime feature “El Angel.”

Currently being written by Ortega, with partner Rodolfo Palacios at their prodco El Despacho, which will co-produce the series, the series should be ready for presentation by around the end of May, Ortega told Variety.

Designed as an “auteur, premium and original” production and part of Kapow’s fiction department output, the bio has to be high-end, said Kapow founder Agustín Sacanell. “This has to be a big production to be done well. It can’t be done on a modest budget,” he added.

The series is inspired by Felipe Pigna’s 500-page plus biography of the singer-composer,...

It looks like no coincidence that two of the biggest announcements concerning celebrated Argentine movie directors and producers this year were their moves into drama series creation. In February, Netflix announced that K & S, producers of “Wild Tales,” “The Clan” and “El Angel,” will produce a series adaptation of legendary Argentine sci-fi graphic novel “El Eternauta,” with Bruno Stagnaro directing.

In March, El Estudio announced two series with another founding father of the New Argentine Cinema, Pablo Trapero: a U.S. series remake

of his movie “Carancho” and bio-series “Galimberti.”

Appointed president of Argentina’s film agency Incaa in December, director Luis Puenzo does enjoy government backing, but he faces a perfect storm.

Even before Covid-19 struck, Argentina sustained crippling inflation: 50% last year and in 2018, plus a plunging peso, which lost 77% of its dollar value from April 2018 and studios’ lock on prime exhibition slots.

Last month, coronavirus had halted some 30 shoots,...

NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises has acquired Underground Producciones, the Argentina-based production company led by Sebastian Ortega that recently delivered several hit TV formats, like 100 Days to Fall in Love, as well as Argentina's latest foreign-language Oscar bid, El Angel.

The new wholly-owned subsidiary will become an extension of Telemundo Global Studios, strengthening Telemundo’s position in the Spanish-language content market in the U.S. Financial terms were not disclosed.

"Acquiring Underground Producciones is a strategic investment to help us meet the growing demand for high-quality, cutting-edge Spanish-language content in the U.S. and around the world," Marcos Santana, president ...

“Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile,” the stridently descriptive and wordy title for Joe Berlinger’s narrative feature about Ted Bundy, could have been more conveniently used to refer to Lars von Trier’s “The House That Jack Built.” That ghastly picture from the Danish auteur revels in the grotesque and sadistic exploits of a serial murderer, as the monster intellectualizes his crimes and is outspoken about his desire to kill.

“Extremely Wicked” takes a completely opposite approach to engaging with the actions of its own hazardous charmer. Working from Michael Werwie’s Blacklist script, Berlinger — whose career in documentary has concentrated on the perpetrators and victims of heinous crimes — adamantly refrains from displaying explicit physical violence, opting instead to dwell on the efficacy of Bundy’s manipulation tactics. To that end, “Extremely Wicked” is less a play-by-play perusal of the killer’s methods and perversions, and more an examination...

The Orchard Film Group has officially relaunched as 1091, a new distribution company for independent film and television content creators. The announcement was made by Daniel Stein and Joe Samberg, principals of 1091 Media. Stein will take an active role in the company as executive chairman. The name 1091 comes from the address number of Stein and Samberg’s investment firm, which was The Orchard’s original investor in 2003.

In addition to announcing the new company name, 1091 has already set its first two theatrical releases in the U.S.: Werner Herzog’s political documentary “Meeting Gorbachev,” which will open May 3, and the fashion documentary “Halston,” which will debut in theaters May 24. Both films will be shown at the Tribeca Film Festival.

In addition to Stein, 1091’s new leadership includes Chad Blackwell, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer; Julie Dansker, Chief Revenue Officer; Danielle Digiacomo, Senior Vice President, Acquisitions and Strategic Partnerships; Adam Brostoff,...

Executive was invited to stay on but will look to ’build something new’.

Paul Davidson is stepping down as executive vice-president of film and television of The Orchard in a move that follows the recent sale of the film group to investor 1091 Media.

Davidson has led the division for five years, overseeing acquisitions and releases on such titles as Birds Of Passage, Hunt For The Wilderpeople, Neruda, El Angel, American Animals, and The Hummingbird Project.

At time of writing sources could not expand on the succession plan, nor did they elaborate on 1091 Media’s plans for the film and television business.

Guadalajara — Chilean production company Equeco is at this year’s Guadalajara Intl. Film Festival to pitch a new project, “Pepperoni.” The immigration-themed dark comedy will be the second feature of festival favorite, D.J.-turned-director Tomás Alzamora, better known in Chile as DJ Four-d, who shared exclusive first details with Variety in the lead-up to the Mexican event.

Alzamora has confirmed to Variety that “Pepperoni” will star popular Chilean comedian and actor Rodrigo Salinas, who also appeared in his debut, “Little White Lie.”

Salinas will play a hardworking, Trump-sympathizing Chilean who is fed up with the number of immigrants in his own country, and relocates to the U.S.

From the second he steps off the plane he experiences racism from the other side, and struggles to make ends meet. Eventually he finds a group of fellow Chileans on Facebook with a room for rent, but national ties only go...

Buenos Aires — Mario Vargas Llosa, the great Peruvian novelist, once wrote that reality in Latin America is too compelling to ever be ignored in its fiction. Yet, as WWII raged, Jorge Luis Borges, perhaps the greatest of Argentine writers, pointedly published “Ficciones,” fantasy tales, often philosophical speculation given narrative form.

If this year’s Pci Film Directors Assn, showcase at Ventana Sur is anything to go by, some young Argentine filmmakers are having it both ways, creating films which straddle the fiction-reality divide, or enroll fabrication and myth to large effect. Their films, sneak peaked in brief extracts or teaser trailers at the Pci’s annual Work in Progress showcase during Ventana Sur, and underscored the diversity of Argentine filmmaking, a cause championed by Pci and its around 100 directors, and an indication of the depth of talent of Argentine filmmaking.

“7h 35” is a case in point. The feature debut of Javier Van de Couter,...

Buenos Aires — Ugc Distribution has beaten out all other suitors to clinch what had became by Friday morning the most anticipated deal of this year’s Ventana Sur market: All rights to France on Argentine Mariano Cohn’s “4 x 4,” sold by Latido Films and distributed throughout Argentina by Disney.

After mounting speculation about which distributor would finally win out on France, the deal was closed by Ugc’s Thierry Decourcelle and Latido Films Juan Torres.

The sale vindicates Latido and the producers’ decision to bring “4 x 4” onto the market at a private screening at Ventana Sur, attended this year by more than 100 French executives.

Stoking the drama of Thursday’s screening, it took place in torrential rain, but top-class screening conditions.

One of the biggest new titles at Ventana Sur, sitting in the mid-ground between arthouse and mainstream – it’s a thriller but makes caustic social comment about the vindictiveness...

Buenos Aires — Lucia and Julia Meik’s Buenos Aires boutique sales company Meikincine has acquired international sales rights to two of the more mainstream Argentine propositions at this year’s Ventana Sur: Andy Caballero and Diego Corsini’s “Just Love,” and “Re Loca,” the Argentine remake of Chile’s “Sin Filtro.”

The “Re Loca” deal is for world rights outside Latin America, where Paramount will handle distribution, as previously announced.

Teen comedy-musical “Solo el Amor” (“Just Love”) turns on the across-the-tracks romance between a pop band lead singer-writer Noah and Emma, a young over-achiever female lawyer, who literally bump into each other. Their love gives Noah’s songs an authentic edge they previously lacked. But Noah’s fame, millions of online followers and manipulating manager threaten to wreck their passionate affair. Can “just love” pull them through?

Making its market debut at Ventana Sur on Dec. 12, “Just Love” stars 24-year-old Franco Masini,...

The Orchard has acquired the North American distribution rights to “Meeting Gorbachev,” the documentary about former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev, which will be co-directed by Werner Herzog, the company announced Friday.

The Orchard is planning a theatrical release for early 2019, while History retains all television rights for the documentary.

Directed by Herzog and André Singer for Spring Films and Werner Herzog Film, “Meeting Gorbachev” conducts behind-the-scenes memoirs from Gorbachev, the eighth and final leader of the Soviet Union and one of the world’s most established politicians of the 20th century. Herzog interviewed Gorbachev on three separate occasions across a six-month period, each time capturing a look into Gorbachev’s career and his commitment to peace.

Also Read: Werner Herzog Says Mikhail Gorbachev Is Filled With 'Existential Solitude' (Video)

The documentary is produced by Lucki Stipetic and Svetlana Palmer. The executive producers are Richard Melman for Spring Films, and...

It’s a meeting for the ages. In one corner, the architect of Perestroika. In the other, the director who nearly tamed Klaus Kinski.

“Meeting Gorbachev,” a nonfiction film documenting a series of interviews between filmmaker Werner Herzog and Mikhail Gorbachev, has been acquired by the Orchard. The indie distributor plans to release the film theatrically in 2019. “Meeting Gorbachev” premiered at the 2018 Telluride Film Festival and played at the Toronto International Film Festival. It is directed by Herzog and his longtime collaborator André Singer.

Herzog, famous for “Fitzcarraldo” and “Aguirre, the Wrath of God,” interviewed Gorbachev on three separate occasions over six months. He captured the last leader of the Soviet Union’s thoughts on peace and history.

“’Meeting Gorbachev’ is an enthralling look back at a fascinating leader and diplomat, all the more impactful based on what the world looks like today,” said Paul Davidson, the Orchard’s Evp of film and television.

Star-driven specialties mostly took a pause this weekend, though the big ticket awards-release Friday, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs from Netflix, had a courtesy theatrical release in a few Landmark theater locations, giving the Coen brothers release the watermarks of an awards release.

The focus is still on its core streaming service, so box office numbers are not released by Netflix. But a quick check at the theater website shows the musical-Western, starring Liam Neeson, James Franco, and Zoe Kazan, played in smaller houses. So the theatrical experience for this title will be for a very select NY and L.A. coastal crowd, and likely not a big box office number. But that’s how it was designed. Some of the other big fall releases will follow suit, with symbolic theatricals via Netflix, including Alfonso Cuarón’s amazing Roma and Susanne Bier’s anticipated Bird Box.

On the actual specialty theatrical release side this weekend,...

Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra’s “Birds of Passage,” Colombia’s official entry to the Oscars’ Foreign-Language category, took home the best picture Fenix Award in a glittering ceremony held in Mexico City on Nov. 7. Its lead actress, Carmiña Martínez, clinched the best actress Fenix.

However, Argentine period drama “Zama” by Lucrecia Martel snagged the most awards, including cinematography, editing, sound and art design.

In a nod to the boom in premium TV series, the Fenix have included included television nominees since last year. Alex Pina’s Atresmedia-produced Netflix heist thriller series, “La Casa de Papel” (“Money Heist”), nabbed best series while Gael Garcia Bernal and Kyzza Terraza’s “Here on Earth” won best ensemble cast for a family drama-thriller series which toplines some of the most renowned actors in the Spanish-speaking world, such as Mexico’s Daniel Giménez Cacho, Chile’s Luis Gnecco and Spain’s Ariadna Gil.

Marcelo Martinez...

With only two months to go until 2018 expires, we recently published our guide on where to stream the best films of 2018. There’s also plenty of worthwhile theatrical options, including a long-awaited film 40 years in the making, darkly comedic period pieces, highly-anticipated Best Picture follow-ups, and much more.

Matinees to See: Boy Erased (11/2), A Private War (11/2), Distant Constellation (11/2), The Front Runner (11/7), Overlord (11/9), Outlaw King (11/9), El Angel (11/9), The New Romantic (11/9), The Long Dumb Road (11/9), Shoah: The Four Sisters (11/14), At Eternity’s Gate (11/16), Jonathan (11/16), The World Before Your Feet (11/21), Anna and the Apocalypse (11/30), and Sicilian Ghost Story (11/30)

15. Searching for Ingmar Bergman (Margarethe von Trotta; Nov. 2)

The celebration of Ingmar Bergman’s immaculate career continues on his birth centenary. Well-timed with the release of The Criterion Collection’s epic new box set, a new documentary on the Swedish master will arrive this month. Margarethe von Trotta’s Searching for Ingmar Bergman take an...

Bernardo Zupnik, one of the Argentine film industry’s most senior figures, has been voted in as the president of Argentina’s Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Cecilia Roth, famed for her performances in early Pedro Almodovar films, will serve as vice-president, and producer-turned-director Juan Vera, who has just debuted behind the camera with Ricardo Darín starrer “An Unexpected Love,” is the Academy’s new second vice-president.

The appointment marks the latest career turn for Zupnik, one of Argentina’s most famous independent distributors who headed for years, along with his daughter Paula Zupnik, Distribution Co., which released many of the largest U.S. independent and Argentine titles, such as 2009 Oscar winner “The Secret in Their Eyes,” which grossed $9.3 million domestically. He has also held public sector positions such as deputy director of the Argentine Film Institute (Incaa).

His appointment comes as Incaa is under increasing fiscal pressure,...

Indie distributor The Orchard finished first in the hunt for North American rights to “Hurley,” a documentary about a queer race car driver who kept his sexuality a secret over much of his lengthy career.

Directed by Derek Dodge and executive produced by “Grey’s Anatomy” star Patrick Dempsey, the doc premiered at the Inside Out Lgbt Film Festival earlier this year and will hit theaters sometime in 2019.

“Hurley” follows Hurley Haywood, a successful endurance sports car racing driver who hid his homosexuality in a culture of toxic masculinity amid the bravado of auto sports.

“Hurley the person and ‘Hurley’ the movie are one and the same — inspiring, surprising and a window into a world many haven’t traversed,” Paul Davidson, The Orchard’s Evp Film and Television, said in a statement.”

Dempsey said he’s “thrilled that people are going to get an opportunity to learn about Hurley Haywood...

by Nathaniel R

We're now up to 79 entries for Best Foreign Language Film, so this will be our last chart update before the official announcement by AMPAS in a week or so. There's probably only 10-12 that weren't officially announced that will show up on the list as that list generally tops out at around 90 titles.

A few of the most recent entries are from Argentina (the beautiful-boy-on-crime-spree drama El Angel), Bangladesh (No Bed of Roses headlined by international star Irffan Khan), Kyrgyzstan (road trip drama Night Accident), and Costa Rica (university student pregnancy drama Medea). I'm kicking myself that I didn't see El Angel at Tiff because it was on the schedule but I dropped it on an exhausting day.

RafikiFinally, perhaps you've been following the drama around Kenya's submission. The director of the initially-banned lesbian romance Rafiki (which Chris reviewed here from Tiff) fought valiantly to get the...

San Sebastian — The biggest regulatory deal signed at this year’s San Sebastian was a new Argentina-Spain co-production treaty, intended to encourage the development of film and TV co-productions between the two countries in order to meet the modern needs of companies and content creators in the two countries.

As movies must counter the dramatic rise in production levels, standing out in ever more crowded markets – European film production grew 50% over the last decade; Latin American levels are up 22% in the last five years, according to the European Audiovisual Observatory – the treaty offers means to fundraising by encouraging international co-production between the two countries. Similarly, as TV ad markets contract, broadcast networks must co-produce fiction to keep up with market demand.

The new treaty comes as a welcome replacement of the previous co-production agreement between the countries, which first went into effect 1969. The 50 features the countries have co-produced together over...

San Sebastian — In one of the banner deals at this year’s San Sebastian, Vicente Canales’ Film Factory Ent, the sales agent on “Wild Tales,” “The Clan” and now Argentine Oscar entry “El Angel,” has pounced on world sales rights to “La Llorona,” which stars the female leads of Bustamante’s Berlin awarded debut “Ixcanul.”

Deal was struck at this year’s San Sebastian Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum, where “La Llorona” walked off with one of the top prizes, the EFADs-caci Co-production Grant, adjudicated by Europe and Latin America’s powerful state film agencies, from the BFI to France’s Cnc, Mexico’s Imcine or Argentina’s Incaa, a sign that “La Llorona” is the kind of film that these government film funds want to encourage.

Backed by French investor George Renard, who will serve as associate producer, “La Llorona” is scheduled to shoot from this December, Bustamante said. If ready,...

Luis Ortega’s Pedro Almodovar-backed ‘El Angel,’ which premiered at Cannes and screens at this week’s San Sebastian Film Festival, has been selected as Argentina’s submission for consideration for the Academy Award for best foreign language picture.

Sold by Vicente Canales’ Film Factory, produced by Argentina’s K & S and and Pedro Almodovar’s El Deseo and co-produced by Argentine broadcast network Telefe – a quartet with previous Oscars clout – their film “Wild Tales” was nominated for best foreign-language feature in 2015 – “El Ángel” also marks a move into feature film production for Underground Producciones, one of Argentina’s foremost drama series production houses (“El Marginal”).

The film examines the teenage beginnings of Argentina’s longest-serving prisoner, the near-celebrity Carlos Robledo Puch. Dubbed the “Angel of Death” because of his age, baby face and angelic blonde curls, Carlos and his older friend from school, Ramón, started experimenting with petty crime when still in school,...

Argentina has selected Luis Ortega’s well-received Cannes Film Festival crime drama The Angel (El Angel) as its contender for the Foreign Language Oscar. The film, produced by Pedro Almodóvar, broke box office records in its home country; The Orchard acquired U.S. rights after its Un Certain Regard bow and has set a November 9 theatrical release in New York and Los Angeles for the film before rolling it out nationally.

The pic from Ortega, who directed and co-wrote with Sergio Olguin and Rodolfo Palacios, is a portrait based on Argentina’s real-life serial killer dubbed “The Angel of Death.” The pic picks up the story when Carlitos (Lorenzo Ferro), a 17-year-old with movie star swagger, blond curls and a baby face in 1970s Buenos Aires, meets Ramon (Chino Darín) who embark on a journey of discovery, love and murder. When he is finally caught, the press dubs Carlitos “The...

The first-annual Film Fest 919 (FF919) will open with Alfonso Cuarón’s award-winning film “Roma,” organizers revealed Friday. The festival, which was announced last year at a Chapel Hill, North Carolina event and screening of Sean Baker’s “The Florida Project,” is scheduled to run Oct. 3-7 at Silverspot Cinema at University Place in Chapel Hill.

Boasting the slogan: “Catch the films before they catch on,” FF919 — named for the North Carolina Research Triangle area code — aims to bring rich offerings from the festival circuit to the area’s film-loving audience. “Roma,” which won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, will bookend with closer “Wildlife,” Paul Dano’s directorial debut and Sundance entry.

Other screenings will include Toronto People’s Choice Award winner “Green Book,” Yorgos Lanthimos’ Venice prize-winner “The Favourite,” Cannes Palme d’Or champ “Shoplifters,” David Lowry’s “The Old Man & the Gun” with Robert Redford and Sissy Spacek,...

San Sebastian — Juan Vera’s “An Unexpected Love,” which opens the 66th San Sebastian Intl. Film Festival on Sept 21, has closed a new distribution deal with Palace Films for Australia and New Zealand.

The U.S., China, Italy and Germany are now under discussions, said Guido Rud, at its sales agent, FilmSharks Intl.

Starring Mercedes Moran and Ricardo Darin, and Darin’s first production credit at his new label Kenya Films, “An Unexpected Love” is distributed by Filmax in Spain. The latest distribution deal adds to other licensing accords with Eurozoom for France, Big Film for Russia and the Cis, Nachson Film for Israel, and Alpha Films for Brazil.

Wiesner Distribution has acquired rights to Central America, Cinecolor those for Peru, Colombia and Chile, Av Jet for Taiwan, and Feelgood for Greece.

In Argentina, where it was distributed by Disney’s Buena Vista International (Bvi), the first feature as a...

The Miami Film Festival’s fall edition, called Gems, has unveiled its lineup including Colombia’s Oscar entry “Birds of Passage” as opening night selection and Spain’s Oscar submission “Champions” as closing night film.

Miami Dade College organizes the festival, which takes place Oct. 11-14 at the college’s Tower Theater Miami. The Miami Film Festival’s 36th edition will run March 1-10, 2019.

Spanish actress Barbara Lennie will accept the Precious Gem Award before the screening of her latest film, “Petra.” Cinematographer Diego Garcia, who shot Paul Dano’s directing debut “Wildlife,” will receive the Art of Light award before the Florida premiere of the film.

Films screening in the Spotlight Stage section are “El Angel,” “Animal,” “Ben is Back,” “Border,” “Burning,” “Capernaum,” “Cold War,” “Everybody Knows” and “Petra.”

The Discovery Stage section will screen “Boys Cry,” “Diamantino,” “Dry Martina,” “The Heiresses,” “Hopelessly Devout,” “Soufra,” “Wildlife” and “Woman at War.

AngeloLuis Ortega’s El Angel (2018), an Argentinian biopic of 70s pretty-boy serial killer Carlos Puch, establishes its baseline tone in its first scene, in which Puch (Lorenzo Ferro) plays an LP in a house he has broken into, and Ortega amplifies the song Reservoir Dogs-style as Puch dances under the credits. The film sticks with this energetic, amoral agenda, and manages it pretty well from a craft perspective; along the way it shows a fair amount of intelligence and psychological insight that sometimes coexists awkwardly with its wish to entertain. Puch hooks up with a family of thieves that includes his classmate Ramon and enjoys his introduction to firearms so much that the family is unwittingly dragged along with him into the world of homicide. Puch tends to shoot when surprised or irritated, and afterwards isn’t overly sensitive to consequences: the character retains an odd innocence for a psychopath.

The Orchard has bought “The Hummingbird Project,” a drama about two scheming cousins that stars Jesse Eisenberg and Alexander Skarsgard, Variety has confirmed. The deal is for U.S. rights.

“The Hummingbird Project” premiered at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival and attracted some attention from studios because of its cast and subject matter. The film finds Eisenberg and Skarsgard (unrecognizable with a shaved head) attempting to build a thousand-mile-long tunnel from Kansas to New Jersey that will give them a one-millisecond edge on stock transactions. Kim Nguyen (“War Witch”) directs.

The Orchard plans to release the film in 2019. The indie studio’s upcoming releases include two foreign language film awards contenders, “Birds of Passage” and “El Angel,” as well as the comedy “The Unicorn.”

It has been a relatively slow market at this year’s Toronto. Neon, another indie studio, has been active, buying “Vox Lux” and “Wild Rose,...

“Lizzie” (Sept. 14)

Chloe Sevigny stars as the 19th-century axewoman who killed her father and stepmother — but also had a romantically charged relationship with the family’s live-in maid (Kristen Stewart).

“Colette” (Sept. 21)

Keira Knightley stars as the early-20th-century French author who confronts not only the patriarchy but also dallies with women, including the cross-dressing noblewoman Mathilde de Morny (Denise Gough).

“Studio 54” (Oct. 5)

Matt Tyrnauer’s documentary, which debuted at Sundance, looks at the legendary New York City nightclub of the 1970s created by college pals Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager.

“The Happy Prince” (Oct. 10)

Rupert Everett directs and stars as the Irish author Oscar Wilde as he lives out his last days in exile following his conviction for “gross indecency” with men.

“Boy Erased” (Nov. 2)

Lucas Hedges (“Manchester by the Sea”) plays the gay son of a Baptist minister who is sent off to a gay conversion therapy program.

Variety has been given an exclusive clip from crime drama “Acusada” (The Accused), which plays in competition at the Venice Film Festival. The Argentinian film, which is also screening at the Toronto Film Festival, stars Lali Esposito and Leonardo Sbaraglia, with Gael Garcia Bernal in a supporting role.

The film, directed by Gonzalo Tobal, centers on Dolores, a beautiful young woman who is charged with the murder of her best friend. As her loved ones fight to prove her innocence and the trial is about to begin, Dolores puts the entire strategy at risk.

Tobal says that he has been “captivated” by true crime stories. “I imagine obsessively how these stories are lived behind the scenes: what happens to a person when going through such an experience in which private and public affairs are mixed with so much violence,” he says.

The film is simultaneously a crime film and “a portrait of this question,...

Santiago, Chile — At the Santiago Intl. Film Festival (Sanfic) to present Luis Ortega’s “El Angel,” Argentine actress Mercedes Morán also gave actor’s studio on Wednesday night for local industry professionals and aspiring filmmakers and actors. A long time pillar of Spanish-language cinema, Argentine actress Morán is having a year that most actors could only dream of. And she is fully aware of her good fortune.

“It’s like a fantasy, right?” she wondered. “Any actress who loves cinema wants to have films that are circulating. And what cinema allows us to do, unlike theater, is to travel, and one can go where the film goes. It makes me very happy when I can travel with the movies and meet the people who make movies.”

However, to chalk up her current wave of international recognition to good fortune is to do the actress a disservice. Morán has put in her time,...