" The Scent Of Oak " spearheads 1st Travalling Carribbean Film Showcase : April 14-18 at Unesco, Paris.

This new travelling film showcase from the Caribbean region, chaired by Cuban filmmaker, Rigoberto Lopez, at Unesco, recently showed a selection of features and shorts chosen among 21 participating Caribbean countries.

We've all heard our female friends and family members say that famous saying: "A good man is hard to find!" Well how about this take on that saying: "A good Spanish movie is hard to find!!!" Well my dear Cinebloggers, I got news for you: In the process of finding A Good Movie, we found A Good Man (Un Buen Hombre)!

I'm writing this Cineblog about the new film by one of my all-time favorite directors, Pedro Almodóvar, whom I had the honor of meeting the week before he won an Academy Award for All about My Mother back in 2000.

Los Abrazos Rotos, or Broken Embraces, is the name of his new film. It premieres on March 18, and there is already buzz that it will play at Cannes. The teaser is very short, but leaves no doubt that this is a film by the one and only Almodóvar.

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.

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.

El Patio de mi Carcel - My Prison Yard This film is somewhat indifferent. The storyline is not very deep, but the performances are quite good. Veronica Echegui's performance is the only thing that saved this movie, perhaps the best role of her career that gives her a more promising future.

The plot: A petty thief and her pals attempt to adapt to life outside jail. But there is not much more depth to the overall story. Perhaps first-time director Belén Macías will get it right in her upcoming films.

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.

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.

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.

Noticia de un Secuestro or News of a Kidnapping, from the renowned author and credited Colombian Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez, will be embodied in a film version next year and reach cinemas in 2010. This is not the first work of Garcia Marquez (or Gabo, as he is popularly known) to be brought to the cinema. Of Love and Other Demons and Love in the Time of Cholera also had their big-screen adaptations.

Welcome one, and Bienvenidos Todos(Welcome All) to the most original Spanglish Cine Blog, exclusively on Openfilm.com. This CineBlog is called "Junior's CineBlog", Junior being yours truly, Me!...... and "...CineBlog" meaning "...FilmBlog" in our neighboring tougue, and second official language of the United States, Spanglish! That is right. This unique bilingual film blog is going to bring you the latest scoops on the hottest topics in the Hispanic film industry, bringing you stories on film releases, Latin film personalities as well as film events all over the world, all with the particular thread of the Spanish/Latin/Hispanic inclination.