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".

Francesca Bertini was one of the most successful silent film divas of Italy. Born 1892, she played in films as a child in Naples and in Rome.

The Merry Widow (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, US 1925)is the opening night film at the 2009 Giornate de Cinema Muto 200,

The Music
When I first accompanied The Merry Widow years ago, I was totally struck by this highly creative and inventive film adaptation of the operetta, directed by the genius Erich von Stroheim. Immediately I realized that my "one" piano + singer accompaniment wasn't at all enough to serve this brilliant film. I started a serious quest to develop a score for the film, and at the same time to promote this relatively unknown von Stroheim film wherever I possibly could.

Hollywood Elite turns out for premiere of documentary Mary Pickford, Muse of the Movies which pays tribute to the legendary film star.

Watch the gala here – Documentary Honors Film Legend Mary Pickford

"Why does one constantly mimic herself in front of the lens all the time? In any case, her image will appear as someone else. Photograph seems like a mirror with memory. What happens if herself never coincides with her image…"

Only 12 men in history have walked on the moon and yet there is no personal account of how these historical missions affected each man personally. The Wonder of it All recounts the narrative of their journeys from childhood to the present. The story unfolds as each astronaut talks candidly about his adventure, with never heard statements until now.

Well, not quite. Stuart Townsend's Battle in Seattle, about the protests at the 1999 WTO Ministerial Conference, grossed well under $1 million at the box office when it was released in a handful of theaters last fall. The DVD came out on March 10. I usually have trouble getting new releases on Netflix because the wait list is so long, but I had so such problem when I Netflixed Battle in Seattle. Interest in this movie seems to range from lukewarm to nil.

We're only in the third month of the year, and already we've seen high-profile remakes of three different horror movies: My Bloody Valentine, Friday the 13^th and, most recently, The Last House on the Left. What's surprising about these movies isn't the fact that they're all remakes. Nothing is sacred in Hollywood, not even The Host and Oldboy - easily two of the best films of the decade, both slated to be streamlined and repackaged thanks to Tinseltown's recycling plant. No, what's surprising is that exploitation movies have entered the mainstream at all.

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.

Alright, so you're a decently trained and young inexperienced actor and you finally got headshots you can live with. Then you got some more done. Now you got an entire book filled with a face only a mother could love and you even went so far as to land a reputable SAG licensed agent who also has the same taste as your mother. You are ready to be sold on the open market, but your agent hasn't had the time to give you the entire run-down. Well here it is. Most people in the biz will tell you never to listen to other actors... this is true, but there are some things that are a part of the starter set you should know. Before you start going out on the castings you've been so fortunate enough to be called on (thanks to those wonderful pictures), there are some necessary things you must have in your bag and in your car (or whatever transport you got) at ALL times. In your bag, you should have:

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.

It really has been a complicated and difficult year for Spanish film, without any blockbuster success in the billboards, different than in 2007 when The Orphanage or [REC] made box office smash numbers very close to Hollywood super productions.

A list of Spanish movies were added in the first quarter of 2008, international productions like Asterix at the Olympic Games and The Oxford Crimes that made some waves and increased the number of spectators attending premieres.

Following this wake some co-produced films were added as national films like Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Che, the Argentine, Transsiberian or El Greco, but their box office figures turned out to be really regrettable. These are not 100% Spanish produced, so they don't really count as exclusively Spanish films in my Opinion. Anyway, as 2008 is just past us, I made a couple of lists of 5- 100% Spanish films that, in my opinion, represent the best and the worst films of 2008. In this Cineblog you will read the Best and in the next Cineblog I will bring you the Worst.

In the beginning there was the word, and the word was made flesh. In the middle there was this person named an agent and/or a manager... and they told you what the word was and how it was being used or who was using them, and how you should use these words... and then in the end, the Hollywood Films Casting machine was made whole. So I arrived in Los Angeles with an awesome, almost too-good-to-be-true sounding but entirely legitimate program called The Pinnacle Actor's Group, headed by a wise old man by the name of Lawrence Folgo, who brought 45 years of experience and connections to the program. The program is great in that it offers the determined actor to arrive in Tinsel town with all the opportunities to hit the ground running. It lasted an entire month, and in that month we rehearsed previously found scenes, found new ones, and trained and perfected our craft for the potential agents, managers, and casting directors who came to see our three showcases.

How many times has this happened to you? You're watching a movie or a TV show and you know exactly where they're shooting... but you know that it may have been shot better somewhere else? Or you're watching something and now you have ideas of your own to shoot something but you don't know where to go to get the shot? Have you ever needed the perfect place to shoot a scene but can't afford to hire a location scout because you're a student or you're broke? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you should probably read this in case you're hoping to shoot in the Magic City... Miami, FL.

What are the three most important things in setting up business in the filmmaking business? Survey says: Location, Location, Location... Okay, now that we've got that down, you know that without it you'll be shooting in your mother's kitchen and in your father's garage, which per say is not a bad thing, unless that is... you have a lot of "on-location" type of shooting to do, then you need to get out and find it, Fast. First: Where does the story take place, what time of year, season? Do I need permits to shoot outside in public? Do you need seclusion, privacy in public? Do you need to stop a busy road but can't afford it? Well, I'm going to make this blog interactive by taking all specified questions you may have and answering them to the best of my knowledge. To boot, I know of thousands of different streets, alleys, bars, clubs, hotels, motels, houses, tourist traps, historical info, from who to grease for the shot and who not to, what places are camera crazy, I'm talking about anything about a location you need I might be able to help.

After many years spent in my bed dreaming as a child, the only walk in life that could suffer me was the entertainment business. I studied, worked, ate, drank, and slept theatre, photography, art, and film all the live long day while growing up and now that I'm in it... I'm not content... I'm not fully satisfied with my work up until now, which reminds me of a famous quote I was given once by a dear professor of mine in college. It comes from a letter written by Martha Graham to Agnes De Mille:

"There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all Time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine: how good it is; nor how valuable it is; nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open ... no artist is pleased...there is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction; a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others."

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:

Knowing what you want to do in life after college, or any other institution’s release of one’s mind, is only a third of the way in the trajectory to becoming something, anything in this privileged slice of life we call America. To the contrary if you don’t know what you want to do and start out in life, after being ‘educated’, with a natural curiosity for things that absolutely feed your sense of wonder and interest, then I feel there is more room for soul searching and experiential gatherings of knowledge.