International: Latin America Interviews
Cannes 2023 Roundtable Interview: Amat Escalante Talks LOST IN THE NIGHT
Amat Escalante returned to the Croisette, exactly 10 years after the premiere of Heli, for which he won the Best Director award at this prestigious festival. With Lost in the Night (aka Perdidos en la noche), Escalante continues to address...
LA CIVIL Interview: Teodora Ana Mihai on Dramatizing a Mother's Living Nightmare
Arcelia Ramírez stars in director Teodora Ana Miha's dramatization of a true story about a mother's living nightmare, caught up in the midst of the horrific Mexican drug war.
SXSW 2021 Interview: LUCHADORAS Directors Paola Calvo And Patrick Jasim On Lucha Libre, Feminism And Ciudad Juárez
One of the most violent Mexican cities since the first years of the so-called "drug war" is Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. In 2010, the most violent year in its history, there were more than 3,000 murders. The case of "the dead...
Morelia 2020 Interview: Director Rodrigo Reyes on 499, A Docufiction About Mexico's Violent Past And Present
2021 will mark the 500th anniversary of the fall of Tenochtitlán, the capital of the Aztec Empire. No doubt this landmark is going to be a much-discussed topic in Mexico. Director Rodrigo Reyes has ready a film that by thinking...
Interview: Hubert Sauper Talks EPICENTRO, Intimate Documentary on Cuba
Filmmaker Hubuert Sauper turns his attention to Cuba in his new documentary.
Los Cabos 2020 Interview: Artistic Director Maru Garzón On The Festival Going Virtual
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, part of the Mexican film industry is trying to make the public return to theaters under the so called “new normality.” Back on August 12th, cinemas in Mexico City officially reopened, including the...
FICUNAM 2020 Interview: Chris Fujiwara On The Legacy Of Jacques Tourneur
French filmmaker Jacques Tourneur is, certainly, an important part of the history of horror cinema, because he was one of the directors in Val Lewton’s low-budget horror unit at RKO Pictures. In the forties, Tourneur directed the Lewton-produced classics Cat...
Interview: BACURAU Directors Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles
Flipping the idea of first world hegemony on its head, a Brazilian Western sci-fi genre mashup Bacurau is a campy, violent, funny, angry, energetic and carthartic film that is extremely enjoyable for both genre fans and politically minded. It is...
Tribeca 2019 Interview: Director Edgar Nito On THE GASOLINE THIEVES
Fantastic cinema aficionados started to notice Edgar Nito back in 2014, when the young Mexican director made one of the segments of the horror anthology México Bárbaro. A year later, his short film Masacre en San José quickly took him to...
WELCOME TO ACAPULCO Interview: Director Guillermo Iván On His Video Game-Inspired Action Comedy
How in the hell did American video game designer Matt Booth (Michael Kingsbaker) end up in Acapulco, Mexico, being chased by several extremely dangerous characters? That’s the big question Guillermo Iván's action comedy Welcome to Acapulco seeks to answer, going...
Interview: Festival del Puerto Director on the 2018 Edition
From December 7 to 9, the fourth edition of the Festival del Puerto is taking place in Puerto Escondido, a very famous tourist place in the state of Oaxaca. Outdoor movies and the enjoyment of the Bacocho beach is what...
Los Cabos 2018 Interview: Director Andrés Kaiser on Religion, Found Footage and FERAL
After having its world premiere at Fantastic Fest, Feral is celebrating its Mexican premiere in November as part of the 2018 edition of the Los Cabos International Film Festival. Directed by Andrés Kaiser, Feral mixes the (fake) documentary and found...
Rotterdam 2018 Interview: "Out-of-the-Norm Family Was an Important Part of Our Story" Juliana Rojas and Marco Dutra Discuss Heart-Warming Fantasy Horror Musical GOOD MANNERS
"We're aware of the so-called "elevated genre" discussion, but we always treated this aspect of the film with love, and not as an opposition of regular drama" Juliana Rojas and Marco Dutra on Good Manners
THE UNTAMED Interview: Amat Escalante On His Best Film Yet
The Untamed (aka La región salvaje) is arguably Amat Escalante’s greatest film yet. After dealing with the Mexican drug trade in Heli, Escalante returned with another social drama set in Guanajuato, his hometown. This time, though, there’s a fantastic element...
Interview: Everardo González On His Powerful Documentary DEVIL'S FREEDOM
Everardo González, documentary filmmaker best known for Ladrones viejos and Drought (Cuates de Australia), is visibly enraged when he starts talking about the case of Javier Duarte, a Mexican politician who in early 2017 was detained for a huge corruption...
Rotterdam 2017 Interview: Lukas V. Rinner Talks A DECENT WOMAN "It Could Easily Happen That You Pass By An Orgy While Working"
Lukas Valenta Rinner reveals more about his sophomore feature A Decent Woman
Fantaspoa 2016 Interview: Brian Trenchard-Smith On TURKEY SHOOT And DEAD END DRIVE-IN
Fantaspoa’s tradition of paying homage to living legends of genre cinema, such as Lloyd Kaufman, Richard Stanley and Fabio Frizzi, continues in 2016 with a mini retrospective dedicated to fearless filmmaker Brian Trenchard-Smith, key figure of the so-called Ozploitation subgenre....
Interview: Adrián García Bogliano Talks SCHERZO DIABOLICO
After directing Late Phases, his English-language debut film, Adrián García Bogliano returned to Mexico to work again with Here Comes the Devil’s Francisco Barreiro. The result was Scherzo Diabolico, in which Barreiro portraits a middle aged man who -- while waiting...
WE ARE THE FLESH Interview: Emiliano Rocha Minter Discusses His Corporeal And Twisted Debut
Budding Mexican filmmaker Emiliano Rocha Minter shot a bit twisted, albeit daringly corporeal, feature debut We Are the Flesh (Tenemos la Carne) at the age of 26. Minter showed a promise in his shorts efforts, a promised that did not...
Interview: Brazilian Filmmaker Gabriel Mascaro Discusses His Work
The Brazilian artist Gabriel Mascaro, having one leg in the visual arts and the other in cinema, already has several notable works under his belt, and Film Society of Lincoln Center is celebrating him as arising international auteur by organizing...