Latin Beat: Peru's Haunting MAGALLANES And Thrilling DESAPARECER; Plus Mexico's BELLAS DE NOCHE

The Past Comes Back To Haunt MAGALLANES In New Trailer
By Ernesto Zelaya Miñano, Reporting From Peru

Another trailer for a Peruvian movie has hit the web this week, this time for Magallanes, the directorial debut of actor Salvador del Solar, who also wrote the screenplay, based on a short story from famed author Alonso Cueto.

Mexican actor Damián Alcázar stars as the title character, a cab driver who one day recognizes a fare as a woman he knew years ago, when he was a soldier during Peru’s internal conflict with the Shining Path terrorist movement. His desire to help her lands him in a web of corruption and bribery, while bringing back the painful truths of a past he thought was long forgotten.

Del Solar has rounded up an interesting and diverse cast; the always dependable Álcazar is joined by Magaly Solier (The Milk of Sorrow), Argentina's Federico Luppi (Cronos), and heartthrob Christian Meier, who has made a name for himself working throughout most of Latin America in series such as the dark comedy Lynch.

The movie comes from Tondero Films, the same ones who brought us A Los 40 and Asu Mare; here, they seem to be moving away from the comedy genre and into more serious fare. This is the second of their four releases for 2014; the remaining two are Joanna Lombardi's Nómades and Javier Fuentes-León's El Elefante Desaparecido.

Magallanes opens in wide release on November 13.

(Click through to see another still and the trailer for the movie.)

It's A Wrap For New Peruvian Thriller DESAPARECER
By Ernesto Zelaya Miñano, Reporting From Peru

This week, filming just finished on new Peruvian thriller Desaparecer, after months of shooting in the city of Iquitos and other Amazon locations.

It's the sophomore feature for Dorian Fernandez-Moris and production company Audiovisual Films, who burst onto the scene in a big way with the horror movie Cementerio General, the second highest grossing local film in 2013 and also filmed in Iquitos.

The plot concerns the sudden disappearance of an environmental activist in the rainforest. Her husband goes on a desperate search for her, at the same time investigating a rash of abductions attributed to local folklore about mythological creatures living in riverbanks.

Action thrillers are a rare breed in Peruvian cinema, and Fernandez-Moris has promised a worthwhile entry into the genre, with chase sequences inspired by films like Taken or the Bourne series. No expense has been spared, with the innovative use of aerial drone cameras being a much talked about technological highlight.

The film will now move into its post-production phase, with a release planned for May 2015. Hopefully a trailer will drop sometime soon.

(Click through to see two behind-the-scenes photos and the poster for the movie.)

Desaparecer

First behind-the-scenes photo: the film crew tests out the drone cameras mentioned in the article.

Desaparecer

Second behind-the-scenes shot: director Dorian Fernandez-Moris and lead actor Ismael La Rosa.

Desaparecer

Official poster.

BELLAS DE NOCHE Among The Docs Getting Ambulante And Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma’s Post-Production Grant

By Eric Ortiz Garcia, Reporting From Mexico

Back in February, we first reported about the upcoming Mexican documentary Bellas de Noche. It is a look at the lives of seven former vedettes, such as Sasha Montenegro, Lyn May, and Princesa LEA, who also appeared in many exploitation movies from the seventies and eighties (i.e. La Pulquería).

Now we have good news regarding this María José Cuevas-directed doc, as it was selected to receive Ambulante and Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma’s post-production grant, automatically securing a spot at the 2015 edition of the Ambulante film festival as well.

This grant is given each year to some documentaries (from two to four) that are already on post-production, in order to help Mexican talent, certainly. Aside of Bellas de Noche, the other two projects that got this year’s support are José Villalobos Romero’s El Charro de Toluquilla and Paulina Sánchez’s Hotel de Paso.

El Charro de Toluquilla tells the story of a mariachi singer who suffers of AIDS, while Hotel de Paso is about a hotel located in the “red zone” of Mexicali (the Mexico-US border), in which deported immigrants stay while they try to solve their situation.

In 2014, the Ambulante-Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma jury included Daniela Alatorre (producer, programmer for the Morelia film festival), Mónica Luna (producer and documentary filmmaker), Jaime Romandía (producer, founder of Mantarraya), Nina Mayagoitia (Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma’s social and communication manager), and Elena Fortes (Ambulante’s general director). The total amount of money destined to the three documentary productions will be $61,472 dollars, approximately.

El Origen del Planeta de los Simios

Looks like a straightforward translation of the title, with "origin" (or, "source") substituted for "dawn," and the same key art used elsewhere in the English-language marketing.

12 Horas Para Sobrevivir

Much more menacing art to go along with the new title, which translates roughly as 12 Hours to Survive; in Spanish, it must be hard to purge "The Purge" completely of its 'laxative' associations.