York Honored as the IPA's 2009 Mary Pickford Award Winner. Los Angeles, CA, October 14, 2009 --The International Press Academy today announced that actor Michael York will receive the 2009Mary Pickford Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Entertainment Industry at this year's 14th Annual Satellite Awards™ on Sunday, December 20, 2009 in Los Angeles, CA.

Spanning 45 years in entertainment, Michael York's career began on stage in his native England with the National Youth Theatre. After graduating from Oxford University, he joined Laurence Olivier's National Theatre in 1965 and made his film debut the following year in Franco "Zeffirelli's The Taming of the Shrew" with legendary screen couple Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. He also appeared as Tybalt in the Zeffirelli remake of "Romeo and Juliet".

Academy-Award Winner For Best Foreign Film 2009

It was full house yesterday at the 1200-seater Teatro Giovanni Theatre in Udine for the European premiere of Departures.

Gibara, Cuba

Over a Hundred Films Will Compete at the International Non-Budget Movie Festival. As always, the Festival will be held at the small, beautiful northeastern city of Gibara.

The Late Humberto Solas, Founder & Creator Humberto Solás. Photo Archive. Mildrey Ponce.

The Hottest Latin Film School: International School of Film and Television San Antonio de los Baños- CUBA

As a filmmaker, deciding what film school to go to is quite a difficult task. You want to pick the best place possible to prepare you for your career, and then several other things go into play, like your budget and your family situation. When I was in the process of choosing an undergrad film school, it all came down to four schools for me: USC, NYU, U of Miami and EICTV. USC was crossed out because California seemed too far from my family in NY and South America. NYU I excluded because I wanted to try living in a new place from where I had grown up, so my last two choices were

University of Miami and EICTV in Cuba.

Brazilian Film festival in Paris. Spring is around the corner, bringing with it the eleventh Festival du Cinéma Brésilien de Paris to be held as usual in the Latin Quarter at Nouveau Latina theatre from 29 April through 12 May, 2009.

Discover new fiction film from 29 April to 5 May) and documentaries (May 6th-12th).

Fiction Awards designated by a professional Jury will go to Best Film, Best Actor and Best Actress at a ceremony to be held on May 5th.

Hello from afar, my fellow bloggers. I write my final Oscar-themed blog of 2008 from the capital of the best coffee in the world, Quindío, Colombia. On my week away from the Openfilm headquarters (located in an undisclosed Cyberfilm Paradise), I had two major topics running through my head. #1: Coffee, and #2: the 81st annual Academy Awards. As a Colombian filmmaker, I was in heaven this week. First of all, because I came to this beautiful country to shoot a video of the entire coffee cultivating-to-packaging process, from growing the coffee beans on the lavish Colombian fields 1400 feet above sea level in the beautiful lands just above the vast Amazon, and finally to the final smile of happiness of the java junkies sipping some of the best coffee in the world.

8:40

The show is off to a great start. Hugh Jackman sure is a versatile guy - not only can he grow knives out of his knuckles, but he can sing and dance with the best of ‘em.

8:47

Penelope Cruz wins Best Supporting Actress - hooray! She created the most hilarious portrait of an artist in Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona, which proved once and for all that Scarlett Johansson couldn't act her way out of a paper bag.

The 81st Annual Academy Awards are two days away. Going in, I'm fairly ambivalent about the outcome. Unlike last year, when There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men duked it out for the top prize, there are no masterpieces. I deeply admired Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler, Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire, Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, Andrew Stanton's WALL-E and Gus Van Sant's Milk. These would have been my nominees for Best Director and Best Picture, but many of them got gypped.

Still, I'll definitely be tuning in. I've watched every awards show since 1990, when I was 9 going on 10. All 9-year-olds who watch the Oscars naturally assume they'll be making it to the podium someday. I'm sure if I looked hard enough I'd find a few acceptance speeches, written in chicken-scratch and tucked away for safekeeping. I'm more cynical and realistic about all that now - instead of 30, now I'm giving myself until 40 to win an Oscar. Now and then I'm forced to look away to avoid being blinded by all the Great and Important People basking in their own sense of self-worth. But mostly the Oscars give me a giddy feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Latinos in the 2009 Award Season

The only quasi Latino thing to celebrate on the Oscar nomination list is Penelope Cruz's performance as best supporting actress in Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona, as you can read about in my previous blog, "Will Penelope Be Wearing Gold?" But even though Cruz is the only Hispanic name on the list, we come to consider if the Academy is being a bit racist in not nominating any more Latino talent in the recent year's Latin cinema. Is it because there is no other Latin talent out there? Nope, because talent there sure is! The Sundance Awards were recently announced, giving six Awards to Latino filmmakers and Latino films! How come none of these were recognized by the Academy?

Oscar Gold that is....! This is the first time that Penelope appears to be one of the favorite contenders for the best supporting actress Oscar in an English-language film.

Is there anything worse than a movie that's been made for only one purpose: to win Oscars?

I'm talking, of course, about Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon and David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Here are two handsomely mounted productions that take no risks, offer no insights, and are just polite enough to win the Academy's favor. That's not to say these movies are bad, but they ARE boring. Don't let anyone tell you any different.

Latin Nominees for the 2009 Independent Spirit Awards

As we approach the end of the year, the award season begins for the best in film of 2008. One of the first ceremonies that just announced its nominees is the Independent Spirit Awards, the awards show for North America's independent film community. As for Hispanic and Latino nominations, we have four major nominees. On the Spanish side, the talents of Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem were recognized, as both got nominations for their collaborative work in Woody Allen's flick Vicky Cristina Barcelona

When it comes time to hand out the best-of-the-year awards, movies released in December get all the love. This is partly due to the fact that studios have been saving some of their best products for the holiday season, but sometimes it seems like movie critics and members of the Academy Awards of Arts and Sciences suffer from memory loss. So I thought it might be fun to see what the first 11 months of the year had to offer and make a best-of-the-year list from that. Keep in mind that I still haven’t seen some of the most anticipated films of the season, including The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon and Milk. I’ll write about those movies in future blogs. For now, here’s my nowhere-near definitive look at the best movies of 2008, listed in order of preference:

CINEMAD is the cinematic brother of FESTIMAD. Born at the same time, in 1994, in Madrid’s Revolver Theater. Since then CINEMAD has never failed in its annual appointment with the Independent and Cult Film Festival. Cines Renoir Film Festival is involved promoting and exhibiting short films. Genres such as gore and animation, and successful filmmakers such as Santiago Segura, Álex de la Iglesia and Alejandro Amenábar, have found CINEMAD to be their launching platform. Other filmmakers have had similar success.

BOO-enas Noches, guys and ghouls. Welcome to the first-ever Halloween edition of Jr’s Cineblog, where we will be dissecting the best terror films to watch if you want to get spooked… en Español!!! In this list, we will bring to you the top horror, thriller and suspense films produced in Spanish. So grab your chili con carne popcorn… and cuddle up next to that special Mamasita or Papacito, and grant them the protection and tranquility they need from oh-so-terrifying Spanish celluloid horror.