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Fernando Franco’s “Lorca,” Caru Alves de Souza’s “A City for Christine” and Diana Toucedo’s “To Live in a Shout” look like possible standouts at next week’s 2025 Malaga Festival Fund & Co-Production Event (Maff), one of Europe’s principal forums for projects from Spain and Latin America seeking new partners and distribution.

Also sparking good word of mouth are “A Decorous Woman,” headlined by “The Maid” star Catalina Saavedra, Fernando Tato’s family drama “Goodbye Berta,” Alvaro López Alba’s “Three Summer Days,” an intimate three-parter, and LGBTQ coming of age story “Her Ocean.”

The 25-title selection also boasts a notable line in buzzy genre movies from Latin America from young women directors: Paula Martel’s Argentine teen Western “First We Take Anillaco,” the Dominican Republic’s “Maguana Racing” from Maia Otero and Juliano Kunert and immigration horror tale “The Tenants,” from Peru’s María Paz Barragán.

Nine...

Chile’s Catalina Saavedra, a Sundance Acting Special Jury Prize winner for “The Maid,” and a Film Independent Spirit Award nominee for “Rotting in the Sun,” is attached to star in Natalia Luque’s “A Decorous Woman” (“Señorita de Buena Presencia”), lead produced by Chile’s Parina Films and one of the highest profile projects to be showcased at next week’s 2025 Malaga Festival Fund & Co-Production Event (Maff).

In further news, “A Decorous Woman,” set up at Parina Films, represented by Rodrigo Díaz, and France’s Tomsa Films (France), headed by Thomas Lambert, has just been boarded by Madre Content. A Latinx company, Madre was launched in 2023 by distinguished Chilean filmmaker Francisca Alegría (“The Cow Who Sang a Song Into the Future”) with offices in Chile, Uruguay and the U.S.

Madre will co-produce “A Decorous Woman,” which has also tapped a grant from the Chilean Audiovisual Fund 2024 in its Feature Film Production category,...

Martin Rejtman is an acclaimed Argentine director known for his absurdist comedies and observational style. Throughout his career spanning three decades, he’s crafted films that illuminate the quirky dilemmas and interactions of everyday people. In Rejtman’s skilled hands, ordinary lives become a showcase for both laughter and melancholy introspection.

His latest film, The Practice, focuses on Gustavo, a yoga instructor living in Chile who’s recently separated from his wife Vanesa. As Gustavo struggles to find stability in the aftermath of divorce, a string of bizarre mishaps piles even more chaos onto his life. When an earthquake causes an accident at his class, a knee injury waylays his teaching, and a suspected theft rattles his studio, it’s clear the universe has no sympathy for Gustavo’s fragility.

Amidst the unpredictability, Rejtman infuses the story with his trademark dry wit. Through deft comedic timing and extended visual gags,...

It’s almost time to head back to Westeros as the second season of “House of the Dragon” premieres on Max and HBO on Sunday, June 16. The epic prequel series to “Game of Thrones” will air new episodes in HBO’s premier window on Sunday night through Aug. 4. Also hitting the service in June will be the comedy special from “Hacks” star “Hannah Einbinder: Everything Must Go” and the motel-renovation series “Trixie Motel: Drag Me Home.”

Also coming to Max via the Bleacher Report Sports Add-On will be United States Men’s and Women’s soccer games, the 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race, Major League Baseball games, and potentially the conclusions of the NBA and NHL conference championship slates. Don’t miss any of the sports action and streaming premieres of the best prestige and unscripted titles on Max. The streamer offers three monthly subscription plans ranging from ad-supported...

In 2024, could there be sure a thing as a “hip film studio” that would attract both filmmakers and adventurous filmgoers despite the subject matter or “creatives”? From the intense internet “buzz” the answer is a big yes. A century ago it was those Warner Brothers with their urban crime thrillers (before expanding into swashbucklers and tearjerkers). And there are those studios that specialize in a genre as Blumhouse does with horror and the Marvel Studios with their comics properties. Perhaps the last time a studio inspired nearly blind loyalty may have been in the early 90s with Miramax, which introduced us to, among many, Kevin Smith and Quentin Tarantino before one of the founders started the spark that became “Me Too”. Today it is A24, which grabbed the top six Oscars a year ago. Last week saw the release of Love Lies Bleeding. From that quirky crime noir/love story...

Chicago – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on “The Morning Mess” with Dan Baker on Wbgr-fm on February 29th, 2024, reviewing “Problemista,” the debut film of writer/director/lead actor Julio Torres. In select theater now, in Chicago March 8th.

Rating: 4.0/5.0

Torres is Alejandro, a nebbishy immigrant from El Salvador in New York City. He is there for one goal … to become a toy designer for Hasbro. While going through the application process, he works for a cryogenic company, maintaining the frozen body of Bobby (portrayed by the rapper Rizza). Bobby’s wife Elizabeth (Tilda Swinton), a prominent art critic, needs to sell Bobby’s paintings to pay for his frozen state. When Alejandro needs a sponsor to extend his visa, and Elizabeth needs an assistant to help mount a show, a new odd couple is born.

”Problemista” is in select theaters March 1st, and Chicago March 8th. See local listings.

FileMaker Pro is the root of all evil in Julio Torres’ idiosyncratic immigrant comedy “Problemista,” in which the writer/director and comedian stars as an El Salvadoran toy designer trying to secure a visa before he’s kicked out of the U.S.

The computer database engine, used by the creative community for filing and data tracking, is a software Torres’ Alejandro is woefully unfamiliar with. And when he accepts the demoralizing gig of organizing a show of egg paintings bequeathed by a now-cryogenically frozen artist (RZA) to his wife, former art critic and current art world castaway Elizabeth (Tilda Swinton), it’s one facet of the job description Alejandro just can’t hack. Yet, for Elizabeth, working knowledge of the program is the be-all and end-all for employment.

Swinton, who spoke with IndieWire from a hotel bed in New York City over Zoom after the film’s hometown premiere,...

Julio Torres’ whimsical comedy shows promise in its portrayal of the Kafka-esque maze of the US immigration system, but his ideas don’t always come together

As testified by numerous documentaries, many journalistic investigations and countless lived experiences, the United States immigration system is a purgatorial, deliberately confusing, dehumanizing hell. Getting here, let alone staying here, can be a confounding maze of dead-ends and Kafka-esque double binds, an impossible staircase of bureaucracy. The metaphors come easy; the system lends itself well to magical realism, as poignantly realized in the new A24 film Problemista, in which immigration is a literal maze of drab cubicles, an hourglass counts down one’s days till deportation, and applicants are physically disappeared by a bland visa denials.

Problemista, the winsome debut feature from writer/director/actor Julio Torres, is at its best when the erstwhile SNL writer and creator of the HBO show...

Greta Lee and Teo Yoo in ‘Past Lives’ (Photo Credit: Jon Pack / Courtesy of A24)

Past Lives took home top film honors at the 2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards, held on February 25th in a tent on the beach in Santa Monica. The film also earned Celine Song the Best Director award, with American Fiction‘s Cord Jefferson and May December‘s Samy Burch earning screenplay honors.

On the television side, The Last of Us collected two awards: Nick Offerman for Best Supporting Performance in a New Scripted Series and Keivonn Montreal Woodard for Best Breakthrough Performance in a New Scripted Series. Beef also netted two wins, with Ali Wong awarded Best Lead Performance in a New Scripted Series and the show earning the Best New Scripted Series award.

2024 Film Independent Spirit Award Nominations

Best Feature (Award given to the producer.)

All of Us Strangers

Producers: Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin,...

Another big award show took place this weekend (in addition to the SAG Awards), the Film Independent Spirit Awards, which celebrates indie film and TV. One thing about this awards show is that their idea of independent sometimes makes me scratch my head a bit, with HBO’s big-budget The Last of Us nominated a whole bunch in the TV category, along with Netflix’s Beef and several other streaming shows, which I’m not sure one could call independent. For films, there’s a $30 million budget cap. For TV, I’m honestly not sure what the benchmark is because Last of Us was notoriously an expensive show to shoot, costing at least $100 million.

Indeed, The Last of Us won some key awards on the TV side, winning Best Supporting Performance (for Nick Offerman) and Best Breakthrough Performance (for Keivonn Montreal Woodard). Over on the film side, American Fiction and...

The best in independent film and television were honored at the 2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards!

Plenty of A-List stars were in attendance at the event on Sunday afternoon (February 25) at the Santa Monica Pier in Santa Monica, Calif.

Movies are only eligible for a Spirit Award if they have a budget of less than $30 million, so there are some awards favorites like Barbie, Oppenheimer, and Killers of the Flower Moon that are not nominated.

American Fiction, May December, and Past Lives lead the pack this year with five nominations each.

Make sure to check out our post with photos of Every celeb who attended the event! Also check out our best dressed list.

Head inside to see the full list of winners…

Keep scrolling to see the full list of winners…

Best Feature (Award given to the producer)

All of Us Strangers

Producers: Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, Sarah Harvey

American Fiction

Producers: Cord Jefferson,...

Da’Vine Joy Randolph joked about the struggles of filming The Holdovers, including a lack of “heated seats during a Boston winter,” and other resources but also praised independent filmmaking as “the beating heart of this industry” while accepting the Film Independent Spirit Award for best supporting performance on Sunday.

“I often joke that making Holdovers felt like doing a student film,” she said. “Whatever resources we lacked, such as heated seats during a Boston winter, we made up for and care and determination every day. I was astonished by the level of innovation and creativity that our cast and crew exhibited in order to turn what limited resources we had into an incredible piece of art, all of which is a beautiful testament of what can happen when a small group of passionate people are given a chance to come together and tell the story.”

Randolph won the award...

Live from a tent on the beach in Santa Monica, California, it’s the 2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards! This year’s ceremony, which kicked off this afternoon, was hosted by “Saturday Night Live” alum Aidy Bryant and feted the best in indie film and TV.

This year’s pack of nominees included a slew of Oscar contenders and a number of indie gems, all competing for the biggest prizes in the indie sphere.

Celine Song’s “Past Lives” won Best Feature (which the filmmaker picked up just minutes after winning Best Director as well), while “The Holdovers” and “American Fiction” also enjoyed multiple wins, including a Best Performance win for “American Fiction” star Jeffrey Wright and Best Screenplay for writer Cord Jefferson, and a Best Supporting Performance win for “The Holdovers” standout Da’Vine Joy Randolph and a Breakthrough Performance win for newbie Dominic Sessa.

Thanks to the Spirits’ various TV categories,...

The 2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards are being handed out Sunday, February 25, from Santa Monica Pier in Santa Monica, CA in a show hosted by comedian, actress and “SNL” alumnus Aidy Bryant. On the film side, the nominations were dominated by “American Fiction,” “Past Lives” and “May December,” which picked up five nods apiece. Those three films are up for Best Feature along with “All of Us Strangers,” “Passages” and “We Grown Now.” Best Director is a contest between Andrew Haigh (“All of Us Strangers”), Todd Haynes (“May December”), William Oldroyd (“Eileen”), Ira Sachs (“Passages”) and Celine Song (“Past Lives”).

Of the nominated features, only “American Fiction” and “Past Lives” are also in the running for Best Picture at the Oscars, while none of the nominated directors are up for Academy Awards. However, on the off chance that either “American Fiction” or “Past Lives” manages to take the top prize at...

Gold Derby is backstage at the 39th Annual Indie Spirit Awards on the beach in Santa Monica, CA on Sunday, February 25, hosted by comedian, actress and “SNL” alumnus Aidy Bryant. We’ll bring you all of the up-to-date details on the presenters, nominees and winners. (See the complete winners list here.) Read on for the 2024 Spirits live blog.

The kudofest is streaming live on IMDb’s YouTube Channel as well as Film Independent’s YouTube and Twitter accounts starting at 2 p.m. Pst/5 p.m. Est.

On the film side, the nominations were dominated by “American Fiction,” “Past Lives” and “May December,” which picked up five nods apiece. Those three films are up for Best Feature along with “All of Us Strangers,” “Passages” and “We Grown Now.” Since 2012, Film Independent and the Spirits have forecast 7 of 12 Best Picture winners at the Academy Awards, including “The Artist” (2012), “12 Years a Slave...

You will probably laugh the first time Alejandro (Julio Torres) walks though the frame in Problemista, seemingly bouncing off the ground before gliding across it, almost as if he were walking on eggshells—or paintings of them. (More on those in a bit.) Which makes sense, given that this aspiring toy designer from El Salvador who’s looking for a co-signer for his visa so that he can remain in the United States is very wary of angering the powers that be who are holding him back from his dreams in both visible and invisible ways.

But somewhere around the fourth or fifth time that Torres performs this dormouse shimmy in his feature-length directorial debut, the gag lapses into the grating. What initially scans as a reflection of a young man’s existential fear of disrupting the order of the universe becomes a literalization of how Torres tentatively circles his...

The 39th Independent Spirit Awards will stream live on Film Independent and IMDb’s YouTube channels on Sunday, February 25. Scroll down to see our official odds in all 12 film categories (with our predicted winners highlighted in gold) and be sure to make or update your own predictions while there’s still time.

Heading into the ceremony, which will be hosted by comic actress Aidy Bryant, “American Fiction,” “May December,” and “Past Lives” stand as the year’s nominations leaders with five apiece. They will all face off in the top category of Best Picture, along with “Passages” (four total bids), “All of Us Strangers” (three), and “We Grown Now” (three).

Last year’s Spirit Awards previewed the Oscars success of “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” which left both ceremonies with seven wins including Best Picture. Over the years, only eight recipients of the academy’s highest honor have first clinched the corresponding Spirit Award,...

A24 has set March 1 for the limited release of the Julio Torres-directed feature Problemista, with the title going wide on March 22. A special video release announcement featuring Torres and his co-star Tilda Swinton can be found above.

The feature was originally set to premiere in August but was delayed due to the dual WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.

Julio Torres and Tilda Swinton in ‘Problemista’

The surreal adventure Problemista follows Alejandro (Torres), an aspiring toy designer from El Salvador struggling to bring his unusual ideas to life in New York City. As time on his work visa runs out, a job assisting an erratic art-world outcast Elizabeth (Swinton) becomes his only hope to stay in the country and realize his dream. Problemista is described as a surreal adventure through the equally treacherous worlds of New York City and the U.S. Immigration system.

A four-time Emmy nominee, Torres directed from his own script,...

“American Fiction,” “May December” y “Past Lives” lideran los Spirit awards 2024.

Ayer se anunciaron los nominados a los Spirit Awards, conocidos como “Film Independent Spirit Awards”, unospremios cinematográficos que honran los logros en la producción de películas independientes en los Estados Unidos. Los ganadores de los premios Spirit 2024 se conocerán en la ceremonia del 25 de febrero. Aquí os dejamos con la lista de los nominados de esta edición:

Mejor PELÍCULA

All of Us Strangers

American Fiction

May December

Passages

Past Lives

We Grown Now

Mejor DIRECCIÓN

Andrew Haigh, All of Us Strangers

Todd Haynes, May December

William Oldroyd, Eileen

Celine Song, Past Lives

Ira Sachs, Passages

Mejor ACTUACIÓN Protagonista

Jessica Chastain, Memory

Greta Lee, Past Lives

Trace Lysette, Monica

Natalie Portman, May December

Judy Reyes, Birth/Rebirth

Franz Rogowski, Passages

Andrew Scott, All of Us Strangers

Teyana Taylor, A Thousand and One

Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction

Teo Yoo, Past Lives...

While the likes of Oppenheimer, Barbie, and Killers of the Moon will likely battle it out at the Oscars, Film Independent Spirit Awards is putting the spotlight on the indie productions of the year, with budget ranges from $10,000 to $28 million. May December, Past Lives, and American Fiction lead the nominations for the 39th ceremony, each taking five nods.

Other highlights include All of Us Strangers and Passages for Best Feature, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt and Earth Mama for Best First Feature, Kokomo City and The Mother of All Lies for Best Documentary, Glenn Howerton for BlackBerry, Marin Ireland and Anne Hathaway for Eileen, Marshawn Lynch for Bottoms, How to Blow Up a Pipeline for Best Editing, Godland and Tótem for Best International Film, and more.

See the nominations below ahead of the ceremony on Sunday, Feb. 25, 2024 (a full two weeks before the Oscars), hosted by Aidy Bryant.

Best...

“American Fiction,” “May December” and “Past Lives” shared the spotlight with five nominations apiece to lead the 2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards announced Tuesday. The trio all landed bids for Best Feature along with “Passages,” “All of Us Strangers” and “We Grown Now.”

“American Fiction” was also cited for its screenplay (Cord Jefferson), for Jeffrey Wright’s lead performance and for Sterling K. Brown’s and Erika Alexander’s supporting work. “May December” also landed bids for Best Director (Todd Haynes) and Best First Screenplay (Sammy Burch) as well as for Natalie Portman’s lead performance and Charles Melton’s support. And “Past Lives” was singled out for Celine Song’s screenplay and direction and the lead performances of Greta Lee and Teo Yoo. See the full list of nominees here.

Next with four nominations apiece were “Passages” and the Alexander Payne-directed “The Holdovers.” Besides its Best Feature bid, “Passages...

Erika Alexander stars as Coraline and Jeffrey Wright as Thelonious “Monk” Ellison in ‘American Fiction’ (Photo credit: Claire Folger © 2023 Orion Releasing LLC)

American Fiction, Past Lives, and May December lead the list of the 2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards. Each of the three films picked up five nominations and will be going head-to-head in the Best Film and Best Supporting Performance categories. Films and TV shows earning four nominations included The Holdovers, I’m a Virgo, The Last of Us, and Passages.

The 39th Film Independent Spirit Awards will be held on February 25 on the beach in Santa Monica. Aidy Bryant (Saturday Night Live) is on board to host.

“This year’s exciting group of Spirit Award nominees reflect the undeniable strength and vitality of independent storytelling – this is the beating heart of film culture today,” said Josh Welsh, President of Film Independent. “It’s especially thrilling to see so many nominees...

Ceremony to take place on Santa Monica Beach on February 25, 2024.

The 39th Film Independent Spirit Awards nominations have been announced and May December, American Fiction, and Past Lives lead the field with five nods apiece.

The Holdovers earned four and there were three for All Of Us Strangers – winner of seven Bifas at the weekend – as the nominations were announced on Tuesday. A24 leads the studio field with 11 nominations, followed by Netflix on 10.

Andrew Scott for All Of Us Strangers, Jessica Chastain for Memory, Greta Lee for Past Lives, Franz Rogowski for Passages, and Jeffrey Wright for American Fiction are...

Ceremony to take place on Santa Monica Beach on February 25, 2024.

The Film Independent 39th Film Independent Spirit Awards have been announced and May December, American Fiction, and Past Lives lead the field with five nods apiece.

The Holdovers earned four and All Of Us Strangers three as the nominations were announced on Tuesday. A24 leads the studio field with 11 nominations, followed by Netflix on 10.

Andrew Scott for All of Us Strangers, Jessica Chastain for Memory, Greta Lee for Past Lives, Franz Rogowski for Passages, and Jeffrey Wright for American Fiction are in the running fort the gender-neutral lead acting category.

The 2024 Film Independent Spirit Award nominations — see the full list below — were unveiled on Tuesday, December 5, crowning the past year’s achievements in indie film. The actual awards ceremony, taking place on February 24, 2024 in the usual tent on the beach in Santa Monica, is a little less than three months away, but the films nominated today will carry new momentum into the rest of awards season, including the Oscar race. Joel Kim Booster (“Fire Island”) and Natalie Morales (“No Hard Feelings”) were the presenters of the nominees.

“American Fiction,” “May December,” and “Past Lives” led the Indie Spirits noms with five each, including each of them getting a nod for Best Feature. Todd Haynes for “May December” and Celine Song for “Past Lives” also received Best Director nods. Natalie Portman for “May December,” Greta Lee for “Past Lives,” and Jeffrey Wright for “American Fiction” also received Best Lead Performance nods.

The full list of nominations for the 2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards has been announced!

Movies are only eligible for a Spirit Award if they have a budget of less than $30 million, so there are some awards favorites like Maestro and Killers of the Flower Moon that are not nominated here.

Aidy Bryant is set to host the 2024 awards ceremony, which will take place on February 25. The event will no longer air on television and will instead stream on YouTube.

American Fiction, May December, and Past Lives lead the pack this year with five nominations each.

Head inside to check out the full list of nominations…

Keep scrolling to see the full list of nominations…

Best Feature (Award given to the producer)

All of Us Strangers

Producers: Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, Sarah Harvey

American Fiction

Producers: Cord Jefferson, Jermaine Johnson, Nikos Karamigios, Ben LeClair

May December

Producers: Jessica Elbaum, Will Ferrell,...

Film Independent announced the 2024 Spirit Award nominees in all the film and TV categories on Tuesday, Dec 5. Only American productions with budgets of less than $30 million were eligible for consideration in the film races. Winners will be revealed on Sunday, Feb. 25, 2024, at a ceremony hosted by Aidy Bryant.

Last year, these kudos eliminated the four gendered acting awards and replaced them with just two prizes: lead and supporting performances (each has 10 nominees). It also added a new category, Best Breakthrough Performance, which has five contenders.

See the full list of 2024 Spirit Awards nominations for film and TV below.

Film

Best Picture

“All of Us Strangers”

“American Fiction”

“May December”

“Passages”

“Past Lives”

“We Grown Now”

Best Director

Andrew Haigh, “All of Us Strangers”

Todd Haynes, “May December”

William Oldroyd, “Eileen”

Ira Sachs, “Passages”

Celine Song, “Past Lives”

Best Lead Performance

Jessica Chastain, “Memory”

Greta Lee, “Past Lives”

Trace Lysette, “Monica”

Natalie Portman,...

Writer-director Martín Rejtman’s La Práctica skillfully eases us into a world where yoga is a lifestyle and not just an exercise. This is a world that promises health for the health-conscious, an improvement of one’s life through strict scheduling discipline, and freedom from earthly troubles thanks to the influence of Hinduism that can still be felt in yoga’s practice. Pity, then, that Gustavo (Esteban Bigliardi), an Argentinian yoga instructor living in Chile, is no longer grounded in his connection to that practice, as his separation from his wife, Vanesa (Manuela Oyarzún), prompts a series of life changes that a Vinyasa pose can’t fix.

Despite his dedication to exercise and a vegan diet, Gustavo’s health is threatened by a series of stretching accidents and pratfalls, forcing him to teach his yoga classes with a limp. He lives, at first, with Vanesa’s brother and the man’s wife,...

Rotting in the Sun is now showing exclusively on Mubi in the series Chaos Theory: A Sebastián Silva Retrospective.Chilean director Sebastián Silva and influencer-comedian Jordan Firstman joined us earlier this year to talk about their collaboration on Rotting in the Sun, now streaming exclusively on Mubi.In the film, Silva and Firstman play off-kilter versions of themselves. When Silva's character embarks on a solo trip to a gay nudist beach to cure his existential woes, he's saved from drowning by none other than Instagram celebrity Jordan Firstman—a peppy foil to the downtrodden, ketamine-fueled Sebastián. A huge fan of Sebastián's films, Jordan pitches his new project, an indulgent-sounding riff on Curb Your Enthusiasm called You Are Me. But when Sebastián suddenly goes missing, Jordan embarks on a wild, quasi-detective journey through Mexico City to uncover the truth.In this conversation, Silva and Firstman chat about the making of this "post-covid existential comedy,...

Whenever I watch a good film for work, I feel like I’m obligated to write a solid article. I’m not sure if that makes any sense or not, but it is like I owe something to the movie for the kind of memorable experience it has given me. Sebastian Silva’s meta-crime comedy Rotting in the Sun does fall under this category. Cut from the same cloth as Safdie brothers’ madcap caper comedy Uncut Gems (2017), Silva’s anxiety attack of a film is excellent from start to finish, in every possible way. It wouldn’t be wrong of me to say that it has been a while since I have seen a film as riveting as this one.

A lot happens in the opening five minutes of Rotting in the Sun. A man, played by director Sebastian Silva himself, reads a really morbid book while sitting by a fountain.

An obnoxious influencer pitches a TV project to an entitled director in this deeply unflattering portrait of privilege that quickly becomes a crime story

Sebastián Silva’s slippery black comedy begins something like a cross between Curb Your Enthusiasm and Girls. Silva plays a version of himself, a film director called Sebastián Silva living in Mexico City; he’s meant to be working, but instead he idles days away on the sofa in his flat morosely snorting ketamine, Googling his own name and researching suicide methods. It’s a deeply unflattering portrait of entitled privilege from Silva and co-writer Pedro Peirano. Sebastián is mean to his dog and unforgivably rude to his housekeeper Vero. Keep an eye on Vero, she will be important later.

To escape his funk, Sebastián takes a trip to the coast – staying at a gay partying spot heaving with hot naked men. Silva packs in more...

The solipsism of artists and influencers offers infinite variations on self-lacerating lampoon, and Sebastian Silva’s new film Rotting in the Sun comes up with a dandy. Here Silva, the Chilean filmmaker best known in the States for the Michael Cera psychedelic quest movie Crystal Fairy & the Magic Cactus, creates a suicidal, ketamine-crazed Mexico City filmmaker, named for and played by Silva, and a comically, brutally self-absorbed internet personality, named for and played by the comedian (and internet personality) Jordan Firstman. Jordan wants Sebastian to collaborate on a happier variation on Curb Your Enthusiasm,...

John Waters muse Jean Hill once said that she was well-known for “shaking hands with the dick,” and in Sebastián Silva’s Rotting in the Sun, influencer Jordan Firstman certainly takes the baton. At once an excoriating satire of the performativity of homosexuality within a social media-addled community as well as a seemingly earnest lament for the total loss of collectivity, the film minces neither words nor bodily appendages.

Silva plants tongue deep in cheek as a hopelessly depressed caricature of himself, dodging promotional commitments, slapping his shit-eating dog across the face in full view of horrified passersby, watching people watch him page through E.M. Cioran’s The Trouble with Being Born, and getting lost in a K-hole as often as he can manage. It’s not that Silva’s on-screen alter ego is out of ideas—in fact, he spends much of his time slashing away at his...

Chilean indie Equeco, led by Pablo Calisto, is a triple threat at the 19th Santiago Int’l Film Festival (Sanfic), with three projects participating in the annual event running August 20-27. Vying for the top prize in the official competition is Equeco’s “Historia y Geografia,” which debuts its teaser trailer exclusively on Variety.

Equeco is also embarking on its most ambitious project, “Il Cileno” by Sergio Castro San Martín, a historical drama in co-production with Italy’s Dispàrte, a Rome-based independent production company founded in 2015 by Alessandro Amato and Luigi Chimienti.

Equeco’s first international co-production, “Il Cileno” was conceived from the start as a cross-border project between Chile and Italy, said Calisto. Inspired by the book “Aldo Marín: Cannon Fodder,” it follows a young political exile who fled Chile after the 1973 coup and ended up in Turin, where he joined the anarchist group Azione Rivoluzionaria, dying years later...

"Why don't you stay your lane?" Mubi has revealed the first official trailer for the indie comedy Rotting in the Sun, the latest film from Chilean filmmaker Sebastián Silva. This premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, where Silva has been a regular in the past - in 2013 he premiered two new films at the festival: Crystal Fairy & the Magical Cactus and Magic Magic. The very meta film follows social media celebrity Jordan Firstman as he starts a search for the filmmaker Sebastian Silva who has gone missing in Mexico City. He strangely suspects that the cleaning lady in Sebastian's building may be involved in his disappearance. The festival adds: "Silva returns to Sundance playing a derisive version of himself in his latest black comedy, skewering not only the business of filmmaking, but also our modern solipsistic culture. Darkly funny, refreshingly audacious in its depiction of sex,...

Sebastián Silva’s “Rotting in the Sun” poked and prodded the 2023 Sundance Film Festival with its graphic, unsimulated gay sex scenes and full-frontal male nudity. But this dark existential meta-comedy about a filmmaker in freefall (also played by Silva) is deeper than all that chatter — as riotously funny and enjoyable as it may also be for those very same reasons. This sharp, self-flagellating satire of gay millennial life, co-starring social media star Jordan Firstman, finally opens from Mubi in theaters on September 8 before streaming on the platform September 15. Watch the trailer, an IndieWire exclusive, below.

“Rotting in the Sun” combines a timely skewering of gay narcissism with the filthy filmmaking spirit of John Waters and even a quasi-detective story. While dooming and glooming at a Mexican gay beach town that sure looks like Oaxaca’s nude vacation mecca Zipolite, depressed director Sebastián Silva (the filmmaker plays himself) is rescued from...

A24's Problemista is the latest film to feel the effects of the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike. The indie film, which premiered this March at the SXSW Film Festival to critical praise, was set to hit theaters August 4th. According to Deadline, who first reported the news, A24's postponement is an effort to help filmmaker Julio Torres, as independent films typically do best when their stars are available for press events.

Problemista marks Torres' directorial debut, and he stars in the film as Alejandro, a young immigrant artist desperate to find a co-signer for his visa so that he can remain in New York. Desperate, he turns to his frightening boss Elizabeth (Tilda Swinton), who agrees to help Alejandro in exchange for his help putting together an art exhibit. As Elizabeth, Swinton portrays a nightmarish art curator who makes Alejandro's journey to the American Dream a nightmarish experience.

To create...

“Problemista” has hit a problem with its theatrical release.

Distributor A24 has officially delayed the August 4 premiere of Julio Torres’ film, which debuted at 2023 SXSW. A new release date will be determined later; the news comes after Amazon pushed back Luca Guadagnino’s “Challengers” and Lionsgate delayed the release of “White Bird.” Deadline first reported on the “Problemista” delay, which IndieWire confirmed.

Deadline first reported that A24 opted to release “Problemista” once the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike is resolved so writer/director/actor Torres and co-star Tilda Swinton could be available to do press promoting the indie film. The rollout was slated to begin with a limited release while Torres was doing a press tour with screenings and Q&As. The film will still play at a sold-out Outfest showcase on Saturday in Los Angeles.

“Problemista” follows Alejandro (Torres), an aspiring toy designer from El Salvador who is struggling to bring...

Exclusive: In light of the current strikes, A24 is pausing the release of Julio Torres’ Problemista which was set to launch limited on Aug. 4. The new release date will be determined down the road. The studio is doing this to support filmmaker Torres, furthermore these awards-type indie movies need their stars, Tilda Swinton here, available to do press and raise such fare’s profile.

Problemista is the second August release after Lionsgate’s White Bird to move off its opening date; that pic originally scheduled for a limited release on Aug. 18. It’s obvious the SAG-AFTRA strike is having a more immediate upending impact than anticipated. Studios are able to pivot with these movies at the last minute as they do not have long-lead tentpole campaigns with big TV spends.

The movie made its world premiere out of SXSW where it notched 91% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

Pic follows Alejandro (Torres...

Julio Torres, who has earned writing credits on over 60 episodes of Saturday Night Live and co-created the horror comedy series Los Espookys with Ana Fabrega and Fred Armisen, has made his directorial debut with the oddball comedy Problemista, which is set to receive a limited theatrical release from A24 on August 4th. A wide release will follow on August 25th. With those dates swiftly approaching, a new trailer for Problemista has arrived online, and you can check it out in the embed above.

Promising to take viewers on a “surreal adventure through the equally treacherous worlds of New York City and the U.S. Immigration system”, Problemista has the following synopsis: Alejandro is an aspiring toy designer from El Salvador, struggling to bring his unusual ideas to life in New York City. As time on his work visa runs out, a job assisting an erratic art-world outcast becomes his only...

Sebastián Silva’s Mexico-set meta-comedy “Rotting in the Sun” has finally found a home in the U.S. and elsewhere after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2023.

IndieWire exclusively shares that Mubi has acquired the rights to the latest button-pushing work from the filmmaker behind “The Maid,” “Nasty Baby,” and “Crystal Fairy.” The Park City premiere stars Silva as a version of himself, here a filmmaker staring down an existential crisis while adrift over his busted latest project, and comedian and social media sensation Jordan Firstman also as a version of himself, an outspokenly gay influencer who blows up the fictional Silva’s life.

This raunchy, sexually explicit satire of gay millennial life amused and provoked Sundance audiences with its graphic content, unapologetic drug use, and a narrative hairpin turn typical of Silva’s low-budget, genre-mixing indies. In a quote shared by Mubi, Bret Easton Ellis said the...

One of the highlights from SXSW earlier this year was SNL writer and Los Espookys co-creator Julio Torres’ feature-length writing and directing debut Problemista. Backed by A24 and also starring Tilda Swinton, RZA, Isabella Rossellini, Larry Owens, Catalina Saavedra, and Greta Lee, the film follows an aspiring toy designer from El Salvador who is struggling to bring his unusual ideas to life in New York City. As time on his work visa runs out, a job assisting an erratic art-world outcast becomes his only hope to stay in the country and realize his dream. Ahead of an August release, the first trailer has now arrived for the Emma Stone-produced film.

Jake Kring-Schreifels said in his SXSW review, “In Problemista, Torres’ feature-length writing and directing debut––loosely based on his own struggles as an immigrant––everything is just slightly off-kilter, too. Consider the single clump of hair that sticks out from his character’s head,...

Tilda Swinton transforms once more for a role — this time into a deranged yet endearing art critic for Julio Torres’ satire “Problemista.”

The film debuted at 2023 SXSW, with Torres marking his feature directorial debut coming off “Los Espookys.” Torres plays Alejandro, an aspiring toy designer from El Salvador who is struggling to bring his unusual ideas to life in New York City. As time on his work visa runs out, a job assisting an erratic art-world outcast (Swinton) becomes his only hope to stay in the country and realize his dream. Torres writes and directs the surreal adventure film that shows the pitfalls of the equally treacherous worlds of New York City and the U.S. Immigration system.

RZA, Isabella Rossellini, Larry Owens, Catalina Saavedra, and Greta Lee round out the A24 film. Torres also produces, along with Emma Stone, Dave McCary, and Ali Herting. “Problemista” is among IndieWire’s...

“Only the optimist commits suicide, optimists who no longer succeed at being optimists.” The Emil Cioran line, introduced in the first scene of Sebastián Silva’s morbid black comedy “Rotting in the Sun,” initially feels like the key to understanding the Chilean filmmaker’s latest endeavor. “The others,” the quote continues, “having no reason to live, why would they have any to die?” More than merely placing suicide at the heart of Silva’s fictionalized take on himself, the quote’s pop intellectualism sets the tone for what soon becomes, in true Silva fashion, an absurdist meditation on death wishes, social media influencers and 21st-century nihilism.

When we first see “Sebastián” reading Cioran, he’s in Mexico City. Adrift with his thoughts and seemingly uninspired, he’s more and more drawn to the idea (if perhaps not the actual reality) of killing himself. From what he gathers, it’s easy...

A24’s latest film Problemista just had its premiere at SXSW last week. It stars Julio Torres, who is best known for writing 6 seasons of Saturday Night Live and co-creating HBO Max's much-loved but short-lived series Los Espookys, and also serves as his feature film directorial debut. He also wrote the script, which follows a Salvadorian toy designer who dreams of making it big in New York.

Problemista has an eclectic cast full of top-tier talent that includes Tilda Swinton, who plays art critic Elizabeth, Wu-Tang Clan's RZA as her painter husband Bobby, and Isabella Rossellini as the narrator. The film also stars several acclaimed up-and-coming actors and previous Torres collaborators, from Titans star James Scully and Abbott Elementary fan-favorite Larry Owens to Catalina Saavedra and Greta Titelman from Los Espookys.

Related: Tales From Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves SXSW Premiere

Screen Rant spoke to the stars of...

The term “unique voice” gets thrown around a lot. But how else do you describe Julio Torres? Over several years as a writer for Saturday Night Live and actor on HBO’s Los Espookys he’s quietly cultivated his own fresh, distinguished comedic sensibility, highlighting the surreality and humanity in the perfunctory. That’s most evident in the variety of digital shorts written during his time at 30 Rock, where he captured, for example, the nightmares and paranoia of a graphic designer tortured by Avatar’s papyrus font, or the inner life of an oddly shaped glass sink in an otherwise bland linoleum bathroom. You picture him looking at the world with his head slightly bent.

In Problemista, Torres’ feature-length writing and directing debut––loosely based on his own struggles as an immigrant––everything is just slightly off-kilter, too. Consider the single clump of hair that sticks out from his character’s head,...

In Julio Torres’ delightfully surrealist debut feature Problemista, a boy anxious to pull off the seemingly impossible meets a woman who has never thought of her demands as improbable. What an unlikely pair they make: Alejandro (played by Torres), an aspiring toy designer desperate for a work visa, and Elizabeth (Tilda Swinton), a widowed art critic frantically trying to preserve her husband’s legacy. He is gentle, reserved and easily imposed-upon by the cruel challenges of the world. She is exacting, malcontent and has never been told “no” in her life.

Their first encounter is an accident. A rejection from the Hasbro talent incubator program forces Alejandro, a recent immigrant from El Salvador, to take a job overseeing bodies at a human cryogenic freezing company — lest he lose his visa. He’s tasked with watching over the chamber-bound body of Elizabeth’s husband, Bobby (RZA). They are hastily introduced during...

Some folks have it easy, and others make life difficult for themselves. Guess which type “Problemista” is about.

The perpetually unsatisfied title character, a demanding New York art critic played by Tilda Swinton as a hag with hair the color of hibiscus tea, is obsessed with archiving the life’s work of her late husband (RZA), who left behind a series of egg paintings no one seems to understand. Swinton feels like a future Halloween costume in search of a movie in writer-director Julio Torres’ overly kooky and all-too-quixotic debut — another attention-deficit comedy from the studio that made “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” except that Torres lacks the technical experience to pull off even a fraction of the ideas to which he aspires.

That’s a waste of such an up-for-anything talent as Swinton, who’s presented here as the human equivalent of a fire-breathing dragon. What isn’t remotely clear is why,...

When I saw the poster for Problemista, a film that tackles issues of immigration, I wondered why Tilda Swinton — who stars — was on the poster. After seeing it, I now understand. Written and directed by Julio Torres, the movie takes on the U.S. immigration system and isolation, all packaged in a sweet surrealist bow. Alongside Torres, the film stars Swinton, Rza, Isabella Rossellini, Catalina Saaverdra and James Scully.

The movie begins with Alejandro (Torres) as a boy in El Salvador. He’s sitting in a field with his artist mother Delores (Saaverdra) drawing pictures. She shields him from the world by encouraging him to create safe spaces for himself, so the young boy retreats inward where he explores the boundaries of his wild imagination. As an adult, he lives in New York City with the goal to become a toy maker with Hasbro. The young man has tried many...

Half of the jokes in “Problemista” fell on deaf ears at the film’s SXSW world premiere, but not because the audience didn’t want to hear them. Rather, the Austin crowd covered up several lines of dialogue with howling laughter seemingly every other time writer-director-star Julio Torres opened his mouth as Alejandro, an aspiring toy designer in New York City doing his best not to get deported back to El Salvador.

Catalina Saavedra, who played Alejandro’s mother, Dolores, pointed out the uproar during the post-screening Q&a. When asked if it felt good to hear the reactions to the film, she joked that she didn’t get anything from it. Speaking in Spanish, she said that American audiences react that way to everything they see.

The movie did manage to slow down for its sweeter beats. During a particularly heartfelt sequence near the end of the film, Torres’ co-star Tilda Swinton,...