The Riviera Maya Film Festival (RMFF), which takes place throughout Mexico’s beautiful, tourist-ridden state of Quintana Roo, seems to have unfathomably deep pockets at its disposal. I was flown in for its fourth edition as a representative of the True/False Film Fest and housed, along with several dozen other industry delegates, in Hotel Cacao, the poshest place I’ve ever slept. Over the course of a few days, I was relieved to discover that the festival wasn’t just blowing resources on lavish guest accommodations. Its organizers seem ambitious, practical and equally committed to serving two communities: those who reside in Quintana Roo […]
by Chris Boeckmann on Jun 18, 2015Buenos Aires, Argentina’s capital, is a big city, at least for me: I live in another capital, Santiago de Chile, but can’t compare how big the two are. That’s especially true when one starts to ask around what’s actually part of Buenos Aires: if the “Conurbano” (poor suburbs surrounding the capital) is included, if here or there is or isn’t part of this “autonomous city.” It’s the same when one starts asking about the importance of the BAFICI (the Spanish acronym for the festival, “Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente”) or how it has changed with time: you get many responses, […]
by Jaime Grijalba on Jun 4, 2015Sundance SCOTT MACAULAY Check it out: the two top prize winners at Sundance this year, Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, and Crystal Moselle’s The Wolfpack, both feature as central elements teenagers who stage and film their own versions of classic movies. There’s even overlap between the two films, although Moselle’s Manhattan shut-ins incline more towards Tarantino and Freddy Krueger, while Gomez-Rejon’s teen Pittsburgh auteurs shirk the Romero roots of their hometown for deep dives into the Criterion Collection. For film lovers of a certain age, both Me and Earl and the Dying Girl and The Wolfpack […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Apr 28, 2015