Something like five years ago I optioned a feature script from writer James Hancock that I really liked, it took the teen slasher format and gave it a more European feel mixing up a bunch of horror essentials without cheese and with a psychological edge that just completely entertained. James and I spent quite a while developing it further, tried to get it funded, unsurprisingly failed with just a couple of tiny low budget shorts to our name and decided to come back to it a bit later in our careers.

Born Jan. 3, 1905, in Los Angeles' Chinatown, Wong played the lead role in the first Technicolor feature, The Toll of the Sea, in 1922, when she was just 17. By 19 she was intriguing against the movies' top action star, Douglas Fairbanks, in his super-production The Thief of Bagdad. At 23 she went to Europe, where she starred in a half-dozen A pictures - including her best one, E.A. Dupont's Piccadilly - and, when sound films arrived, performing roles in three languages: English, German and French.

" 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.

On a quiet pedestrian street in Kars, is the run-down delapitaded house where Yeghishe Charents, (1897 - 1937) one of the greatest Armenian poets was born and lived.Both his primary and secondary schooling took place in Kars.

His patriotic pleas to unite Armenians against Stalinism ended him in prison, where he died at the age of 40.

UKULELESCOPE Film accompagnati dal vivo da / Films accompanied live by The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain (Dave Suich, Richie Williams, Hester Goodman, George Hinchcliffe, Kitty Lux, Will Grove White, Jonty Bankes) Ideazione e produzione / Created and produced by: Hester Goodman Musica di / Original music: Hester Goodman, George Hinchcliffe

FOX STORY #4702: SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE AND FAMILY (Fox News, US 1922) James Seebach; New York, 24.6.1922; Fox Movietone News Collection, University of South Carolina, Columbia.

The Rose of Rhodesia (1918), one of the earliest feature films made in South Africa, presented at this year's Giornate del Cinema Muto is a five-reel romance cantered on a stolen diamond, an interracial friendship, and an anti-colonial uprising, The Rose of Rhodesia impressed contemporary reviewers with its daring realism, spectacular outdoor locations, and casting of African actors in prominent roles. Considered lost for most of the last century, the film may claim to be the first fictional treatment of Zimbabwe in cinema.

Abel Gance's J'Accuse (1919), a politically an d stylistically daring anti-war drama produced while the trench warfare of World War I was still grinding up soldiers on both sides of the battle, opens with the title spelled out by the bodies of soldiers striding into formation, like a marching band at a half-time show. Then they collapse, as if dead, to startling effect. Appropriating the cry leveled by Emile Zola during the Dreyfus affair, Gance levels his accusations at war itself.

The film Der Golem is a classic film – doubly so.

First, it has long nestled comfortably within the list of titles that make up the German Expressionist movement of the 1920s. Teachers of survey history courses are more likely to show Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari, but a serious enthusiast will make a point of seeing Der Golem as well.

From the start, reviewers recognized Der Golem as Expressionist. In 1921 the New York Times' critic wrote, "Resembling somewhat the curious constructions of THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI, the settings may be called expressionistic, but to the common man they are best described as expressive, for it is their eloquence that characterizes them." (Spellbound in Darkness, p. 362) In 1930, Paul Rotha's The Film Till Now, the most ambitious world history of cinema in English to date, appeared. Highly influential in establishing the canon of classics, Rotha adored Weimar cinema, including Der Golem.

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

I am now in LA, my future here much like the economy, is uncertain. But it is Los Angeles, the Mecca for actors on the lam from their respective hometowns forced to work hard to not defer their dreams. But as fate shall have its way, that’s the way it is and I’m not suffering for it. The full knowledge I had of this before I moved out here was the only proverbial brass pair I had to tug on in hopes that it would keep me confident. When I mean that I knew actors out in LA work hard, I mean I know actors who left Tinsel Town penniless and defeated, running back home with their tales so far up their asses they spit fur as they panted gaining speed towards mommy. But the working hard comes from a different place, a place that comes way before we are ever even ready to go meet with agents to one day hopefully book castings. Working hard means something different to everyone but I will attempt to clear the air as to what actually works for me as an actor.

"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…"

Guests clucking over a glass of champagne were bowled over Tuesday night at the Majestic Hotel when to the tune of the national anthem of Thailand, they caught a glimpse of Her Royal Highness Princess Ubolratana Rajakanya of Thailand gliding into the Salon Croisette in a glamorous fluffy white strapless evening gown and silver pumps, followed by the Ambassador of Thailand in Paris, and dignitaries from the Entertainment sector of that country. Also in attendance at the reception was the Mayor of CANNES, Monsieur Bernard Brochand.

One of the most significant Asian "New Wave" film directors, Hong Kong filmaker, Ann Hui, is present this year, at Udine Far East Festival to talk about her beginnings in the cinema industry of that country. Commissioned by the national broadcaster and ICAC, the anti-corruption entity to create a series of shows on various aspects crime prevalent in the 1970's such as bribery of government officials, kickbacks, corruption of innocents and minors etc..the fledgling filmmaker laid the basis for a rich career as director of author's films which portrayordinary people at throes with the complex issues in life.

Valiant French actress Rosine Deréan - from "Douce France to Ravensbrück

On April 25th, 2009, in the tiny village of Genillé (Indre-et-Loire), where she lived and died, a tribute will be held to the stylish '30's French actress and several films she starred in will be shown in 8 mm.

Brought to you by the creative minds behind Pencil Fighting: The Life and Times of Team Balderdash, the 20-minute short Inventing Kin is a dramedy about missed opportunities and life's second chances. It's close in spirit to Zach Braff's Garden State, which was also about a lost soul returning home to make peace with the past. This new film lacks the broad characterizations that made Pencil Fighting so memorable, but it displays some of the quirkiness that sets the films of Fro Rojas apart. (Full disclosure: Rojas and I both went to Miami International University of Art & Design, where we made a film together.)

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.

Festival de cinema do Brasil in Paris.

The first week of this 9th two-prong event (feature competition and then documentaries) has ended at the L'Arlequin Cinema in Paris 'trendy Quartier Latin with the presence of top-knotch Brazilian filmmakers, actors and producers, flown over for the event to present each of the two dozen films in competition.

Big names of Brazil's 'cinema novo' period such as Miguel Farias, Carlos (Caca) Diegues, Sergio Rezende, Joao Batista de Andrade boasted a vigorous older-generation slate of works to compete with talented newercomers like Tata Amoral, the only female feature director, Heitor Dhalia, Karim Ainouz and Cao Hamburger.

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.

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.

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:

The teaser for Quentin Tarantino's long-awaited WWII epic, Inglourious Basterds, comes out today. You can catch it before the new Friday the 13th remake, which is appropriate enough given that Basterds (the misspelling is Tarantino's doing, not mine) looks like it's going to be a splatter-fest.

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.

So you want to be an actor? You heard of the term "shoot", right? Photographers, Directors, Cinematographers, Cowboys – they all use this term. Now, to get the term right, when it comes to acting it means you need to know that without having your head shot in the right way you are D-E-A-D in this town (or any other town, for that matter). I mean, shot like it matters, the actor's attitude matters, their hair and make-up matters, the clothes matter, the colors matter, why even the manner in which you get it to the right agent or manager or casting director MATTERS. Alright, so I had a small head-start, I've had headshots done by four other photographers before and only two out of a million shots were chosen to be what my then agents in Miami thought could actually sell me. After showing my manager out here in LA the headshots that had gotten me decent work over the years on the east coast, he laughed, burped, farted, and then asked me to burn them. Which after much suffering... I did. Suffering from the gaseous response, I mean.

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.

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.

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."

Why did I want to become a filmmaker in the first place? These days I can barely remember, and that makes me kind of sad. When I graduated from film school, I had a director's demo reel ready to go and all the confidence in the world that it was good enough to get me that first directing gig. I must have sent my reel to almost 200 companies, but all anyone ever needed was a PA for a day or two. Money started getting tight and before I knew it, my focus turned from creating to surviving. Fast forward seven years and a bunch of reality TV sets later and here I sit asking myself what happened to all my so-called dreams. Or, more to the point, what happened to my dreams coming true?

We all know filmmaking is a team effort. Nowadays almost everybody's seen the DVD features and the behind-the-scenes of their favorite movies and perhaps been overwhelmed by the number of people who are involved in the filmmaking process. Camera teams, lighting teams, post-production teams, stunt teams, wardrobe teams, animal wranglers and so on, we are all aware of the seemingly infinite amount of names and titles that keep scrolling up during the credits. Unfortunately, most people choose this time to stop sucking on those unpopped-popcorn seeds and start walking out of the theater (or turn the TV off, if you were already home), even though it's probably the only real public moment of acknowledgement that the "rigging gaffer" or the "second-second-second-assistant director" will get!

I started working in projection booths in 1999, the year Fight Club came out. As FC fans know, Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) has a night job as a projectionist, which he uses as an opportunity to splice frames of pornography into Disney flicks.

Two of the more interesting documentaries on Openfilm, Toward 2012 and Consciousness is the Key, can be viewed on Joao's channel. They're the first in a planned series of animated shorts that, according to the website postmoderntimes.com, present "new ideas about global consciousness and techniques for social and ecological transformation." Consider this blog a kind of CliffsNotes for the videos, which explore serious ideas that deserve to be expounded upon.

More than 700 people came out to the Aventura Mall on Thursday, Oct. 23, to attend the premiere of Director, a low-budget action movie shot in Miami.

It was a real coup for filmmaker Aleks Rosenberg, who both directed and served as the director of photography on the film. The maker of one previous feature, 2001's award-winning Zelimo, Rosenberg now teaches in the film department of Miami International University of Art & Design. He said he'd spent the last week-and-a-half working round-the-clock in the editing suite, making last-minute tweaks to prepare the film for its world premiere. The producers sent out invitations to more than 200 journalists, and the response was so enormous they had to rent out a second screen to show the film on.

Not too long ago, politicians were still allowed to have a dark side. In those days, secret trips to the all-nude revue full-friction gentleman's club and the occasional midnight cockfight were just another Friday night for some elected officials. As long as whatever depravity or off-color behavior was not covered by the mainstream media, everything would be cool. People weren't afraid of being caught on a camera phone enjoying a Tijuana donkey sex show, as many of us have.

In honor of all hardworking, ballbusting P.A.'s whom without the film and video industry would crumble. They are the unsung warriors of film sets, the psychics of the walkie talkies, the krazy glue of "Jenga-like" productions, samurais of lockdowns, peacekeepers with lunch orders... for these and the many more thankless efforts that P.A.'s tackle on a daily basis, I salute you my friends. P.A. proudly!

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.