by Iain Blair

Latin cinema is growing by leaps and bounds, and after talking to a lot of Latin filmmakers, it seems all are very excited about the Silver Anniversary of the Miami International Film Festival (MIFF) happening later this month. In fact, MIFF’s 25th Anniversary edition program has had a 300 percent increase in film submissions since the 2007 edition, and the Festival’s film screenings have expanded by nearly 20 percent in the same period. MIFF is attracting top talent, including recent BAFTA - winner Javier Bardem, and Demi Moore, Helen Hunt, Kate Hudson, Kate del Castillo, Carmen Salinas, Patricia Clarkson, Matthew Broderick, César Troncoso, Amber Valletta, Carlos Santana, and many more. “It’s such an important event for networking and meeting people,” Chilean director Gonzalo Justiniano told me. He’s coming to the festival for the world premiere of his new film Lokas, He says that it’s “a humorous look at intolerance in macho Latin society. “And now I’m starting a Chilean-Mexican production called, Have You Seen Lupita? that we’ll shoot in Mexico and L. A., starting later this year. It’s hard financing and making films anywhere, but it’s REALLY hard in Chile – we only make 10 to 15 a year, so this festival is very important for us.”

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This entry was posted on Thursday, February 14th, 2008 at 3:39 pm and is filed under Production. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.