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My Morning Jacket have occasionally been tagged a jam band, albeit one that exists on the less slapstick-y end of the jam spectrum. But they’ve also often been at their best when compacting their rangily spiritualist 21st century Southern rock into digestible studio servings. That is definitely the case with their tenth album, Is, which signifies its inentions with a title that’s at once philosophical and down-to-earth. The usually self-produced band changed things up by bringing a big-name outside producer — mega-reliable rock record-maker Brendan O’Brien, known for his work with Pearl Jam,...

Gerardo Naranjo’s “Kokoloko” took home the Premio Mezcal for best Mexican film at the hybrid 35th Guadalajara Film Festival (Ficg), which wrapped Friday, Nov. 27.

The love triangle drama signals a return to the big screen for Naranjo who has spent nearly a decade after his 2011 hit “Miss Bala” directing episodes of such high-profile series as “Narcos,” “The Bridge” and “Fear the Walking Dead.”

Shot in 16 mm, Naranjo’s drama about a woman caught between two men, one a violent cousin holding her captive, first debuted at Tribeca where lead Noe Hernandez won the Best Actor prize. The Match Factory handles international sales.

Chilean film and TV writer-director-producer Andres Wood won the Best Ibero-American film prize with his political thriller “Spider,” that tracks the disparate fates of right-wing radicals in the early ‘70s, prior to the coup d’état that heralds the military regime of Augusto Pinochet in Chile. Drama...

Like many of its counterparts worldwide, the Guadalajara Int’l Film Festival (Ficg), Mexico’s largest film festival, faced the quandary of whether to go online, reschedule or cancel altogether because of the pandemic.

It opted for a rescheduled hybrid 35th edition which would serve those either unable or afraid to travel and those without an internet connection in Mexico.

“We struck a deal with Canal 44 to have them air some of our films,” said festival director Estrella Araiza, who is adamant that despite the challenges and complications, the film community will prevail in the end. “We have to believe in cinema,” she declared. Outdoor screenings and restricted indoor cinema screenings are on the schedule while most of the master classes and conferences are online.

Ficg was pushed from its traditional March dates to the fall, where it’s now been running over Nov. 20-27.

Its inauguration on Friday Nov.

"Why is the foreman so intent on finding you?" The Match Factory has released an official promo / sales trailer for a Spanish indie film titled Out in the Open, also known as Intemperie in Spanish. Adapted from a novel by Jesús Carrasco, the film is a Spanish fable set in an "Old West" tyrannical and oppressive version of Spain filled with misery and poorness, following a boy who runs away to find freedom. It's the story of a friendship between a boy who undertakes a journey through the desert fleeing from the relentless foreman of the town, and a Goatherd who has long lived outside society. Starring Jaime López as the boy, with Luis Callejo, Luis Tosar, Vicente Romero, Kandido Uranga, Juanjo Pérez Yuste, Adriano Carvalho, and Manolo Caro. This premiered at the Valladolid Film Festival last year, and also played at the Glasgow & Miami Film Festivals this year but...

Barcelona-based studio Filmax has acquired world sales rights to “Lemon and Poppy Seed Cake,” an uplifting second chance in life drama from Spain’s Benito Zambrano, writer-director of critically admired features that have scored festival and Goya awards and broken out to sales abroad.

Also handling local distribution in Spain, Filmax will bring “Lemon and Poppy Seed Cake” onto the market at November’s online American Film Market.

Produced by Filmax and Luxembourg’s Deal Productions, whose credits include Berlin Festival’s 2019 Panorama opener “Flatland” and 2017’s “High Fantasy,” which screened at Berlin, Toronto and Rotterdam, “Lemon and Poppy Seed Cake” turns on two sisters, Anna and Marina.

Separated as teens, they re-meet to sell a bakery in Majorca that they’ve inherited from a mysterious benefactor. Neither are happy in life. Anna is locked in a loveless marriage; Marina travels the world as an Ngo doctor, a lonely existence.

“Black Bear,” “Kokoloko,” “Night of the Kings,” “Rosa’s Wedding” and “Undine” have been selected as the competition titles for the Marimba Award at the upcoming Miami Film Festival Gems event.

The seventh annual edition of Gems will be held virtually from Oct. 8-11. The juried prize, which carries a $25,000 award, is given for a film that best exemplifies richness and resonance for cinema’s future.

“Black Bear is a U.S. film, directed by Lawrence Michael Levine and starring Aubrey Plaza, Sara Gadon and Christopher Abbot. It premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

“Kokoloko” (Mexico), directed by Gerardo Naranjo, received a Best Actor prize for Noé Hernández at the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival.

“Night of the Kings” comes from Ivory Coast, France, Canada and Senegal. Directed by Philippe Lacôte, it is the Ivory Coast’s official submission in the Academy Awards’ Best International Feature Film category

“Rosa’s Wedding” (Spain...

Barcelona-based Filmax has acquired the world sales rights to “The Art of Return” – a Spanish production by first-time director Pedro Collantes nurtured through Venice’s renowned Biennale College film workshop initiative.

The boutique distributor will also handle the Spanish distribution for this coming-of-age drama, which focuses on a young actress (“Holy Camp’s” Macarena García) returning home to Madrid after six years in New York.

The action takes place over a 24-hour period in the protagonist’s home city, where she has a series of encounters that cause her to reassess her life.

Set to make its debut Sept. 8 at the Venice Film Festival, the film was co-written by Collantes and the Spanish screenwriter Daniel Remón (“Out in the Open”), who is also making his feature debut as a producer on this production.

Executive producers are Tourmalet Films’ Mayi Gutiérrez Cobo (“Stockholm”) and the producer and line manager Manuel Fernandez-Arango “(Destronados,...

Twelve years have passed since Nine Inch Nails released Ghosts I – IV, their brooding suite of instrumental bric-a-brac, and in that time, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have made wordless sound collages a cottage industry. They scored David Fincher’s The Social Network two years later, winning them an Oscar and a Golden Globe, and they have composed music for more than a dozen films and TV series since. In interviews, Reznor has taken to describing working on Nine Inch Nails albums — like their recent angsty, excellent Add Violence and...

In today’s film news roundup, a disaster fund for SAG-aftra members is launched, the Doc10 festival is postponed and the Miami Film Festival plans to present awards, even though the event was called off in the middle of the festival with 27 films still to screen.

Disaster Relief

The SAG-aftra Foundation and the SAG-aftra Motion Picture Players Welfare Fund have created the Covid-19 Disaster Fund for eligible SAG-aftra members impacted by this pandemic.

SAG-aftra members are eligible to apply to the Fund if they are currently active and paid up on their dues through October, 2019. The Fund — which has distributed more than $12 million to members over the past 35 years — covers members who are in an emergency financial crisis related to the Coronavirus) to cover basic expenses such as rent, mortgage, utilities, medical bills and other essential needs.

The Actors Fund will assist by administering these resources. All applications are confidential and anonymous.

by Nathaniel R

We remain nervous about the American awards prospects of Almodovar’s wonderfully moving 'i’m not dead yet but I kinda feel like it some times' autobiography, but at least in Spain, Pain & Glory is having a love-fest. This year the latest Almodóvar movie received 16 nominations, that's two more than even Volver got in its year. The Goya nominators did not spread the wealth. We're not sure if it was a weak year for Spanish cinema or if they just didn't look around much but the other two biggies, While at War and The Endless Trench, received 17 and 15 nominations respectively.

Best Film

“Pain and Glory” (Pedro Almodóvar) “Out in the Open” (Benito Zambrano) “The Endless Trench” “Fire Will Come” (Oliver Laxe) “While at War” (Alejandro Amenábar)

You may recall that While at War was a finalist for Spain's Oscar submission this year...

Other nominees include ‘Intemperie’, ’The Endless Trench’ and ’Fire Will Come’.

Alejandro Amenábar’s While At War leads the nominations for Spain’s 34th Goya Academy Awards but will face-off against Pedro Almodóvar’s Pain And Glory at the ceremony on January 25 in Malaga.

Scroll down for full list of nominations

Amenábar’s Spanish Civil War drama has secured 17 nominations while Almodóvar’s semi-autobiographical film has 16 nods.

While At War has proved a box office hit following its debut at Toronto, ranking as Spain’s third highest-grossing domestic film of 2019 and taking more than $11.3m to date.

Pain and Glory...

Pedro Almodóvar’s “Pain and Glory” will go head-to-head with two other big Spanish films – Alejandro Amenábar’s “While at War” and “The Endless Trench,” from Aitor Aguirre, Jon Garaño and José Mari Goenaga – at Spain’s 34th Goya Academy Awards, to be held Jan. 25 in Malaga.

“Pain and Glory” garnered 16 nominations,” “While at War” 17 and “The Endless Trench” 15.

Though most pundits would put “Pain and Glory” as the frontrunner, the outcome is difficult to predict. World-premiering in Spain before competing in Cannes, where Antonio Banderas won the best actor prize, “Pain and Glory” was reckoned by Spanish critics to be Almodóvar’s best film in a decade.

But ever since the screenplay for Luis Buñuel’s “Viridiana,” which went on to win the Palme d’Or, was written off in Spain as nonsense, the Spanish industry has steadfastly refused to kowtow to internationally acclaimed directors or indeed talent.

Screening at Ventana Sur,...