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Ventana Sur’s Blood Window long ago established itself as one of the most important platforms for genre cinema in Latin America. This year, the sidebar returns with a seven-title lineup for its Blood Window Screenings program.

The diverse lineup includes classic slashers, sci-fi flicks, supernatural tales and psychological thrillers that emphasize the range of stories that can be told using genre language and the widening definition of genre cinema.

Although this year’s lineup is broader in scope than what was once common for Blood Window – originally a platform for straight-up horror films, it’s also noticeably more contemporary than many previous editions of the program. Latin American genre cinema has a knack for producing fantastic period films, but this year’s titles are mostly set in the modern day, and those that aren’t are – except for one in the 1960s – set in the last half-century. The narratives...

Toni Servillo, who played Roman socialite Jep Gambardella in Paolo Sorrentino’s Oscar-winning “The Great Beauty,” will star in a drama about Cosa Nostra boss Matteo Messina Denaro, dubbed “the last godfather” directed by Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza (“Sicilian Ghost Story”).

Also starring in the hotly-anticipated drama titled “Iddu” – which means “Him” in Sicilian dialect – is Italian A-list actor Elio Germano, winner of a Cannes best actor prize for Daniele Luchetti’s “Our Life” in 2010 and more recently of Italy’s 2021 David di Donatello Award for Giorgio Diritti’s “Hidden Away.”

The roles respectively being played by Servillo and Elio Germano are being kept under wraps.

After being on the run for three decades, Messina Denaro was arrested in mid-January 2023 outside an upscale medical facility in Palermo, where he had been undergoing cancer treatment for a year under false identity. The top mafioso, convicted of masterminding some of Italy...

Photo: 'Rose Island'/Netflix We open on an upbeat song, titles informing us that we are in 1968. A government official enters an almost dystopian-looking building to find a coughing, shivering, and desperate man. Upon asking what he wants, the man explains that he has come to petition the Council of Europe to save his island. “You bought an island?” an official asks. “No,” the shivering man replies. “I made it.” So begins ‘L'incredibile storia dell'Isola delle Rose’ (‘Rose Island’ is the English title), the incredible true story of one engineer’s quest to build his own country in the middle of the ocean. The film, directed by Sydney Sibilia (‘I Can Quit Whenever I Want’) and starring Elio Germano and Matilda De Angelis, captures the endeavors of Italian engineer Giorgio Rosa to gain true independence and freedom from the government and pursue a life unrestricted by the inconvenience of the law.

Oded Fehr (The Mummy franchise) has landed a series regular role in ABC’s Richard Lagravenese drama pilot. In the vein of Dangerous Liaisons, the untitled project is set in New York and revolves around the love and rivalry between two equally matched, powerful socialites, Philip Fitzgerald Julien (Rufus Sewell) and Margot Worth Cole, who play out their obsessive attraction and seduction of each other through their manipulation of others. Fehr, repped by Paradigm and Add Agency, will play Anderson Cole, Margot’s ex-husband and one of the Forbes 500 whose power has resulted in expanding a multimillion-dollar company into a multibillion-dollar corporation. Anderson has fooled three beautiful women into marrying him and is working on Trophy No. 4. Fehr previously starred in the Resident Evil franchise and Showtime’s Sleeper Cell and will next be seen in For The Love Of Money. Related: 2014 ABC Pilots Kyle Jones (Plan C, Hidden Away...