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America Ferrera delivers an empowering monologue in the Barbie movie, inspiring viewers with a speech about unfair expectations women face. Ferrera's other roles, such as Ana in Real Women Have Curves and Helen in Cesar Chavez, also inspire audiences with their focus on representation and social issues. Superstore and Ugly Betty showcase Ferrera's talent in portraying strong female characters who challenge societal norms and discrimination in the workplace.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for the Barbie movie.America Ferrera delivered an empowering monologue that proved highlight of the Barbie movie and her career, but the actress has several other roles under her belt that deserve as much attention as her Barbie performance. In Barbie, Ferrera plays Gloria, an employee of Mattel who helps Margot Robbie's Stereotypical Barbie find her way in the real world. When Barbie realizes the real world does not align with the female-forward convictions of the Barbie brand,...

Elizabeth Peña has passed away. The actress, with a professional career spanning nearly 40 years, left us on the night of October 14 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. She had recently wrapped work on the first season of the El Rey Network's action series, Matador, where she played the title character's mother Maritza.

Born in Elizabeth, New Jersey and raised by her Cuban immigrant parents, Peña was destined for a career in the arts. Her father, Mario, was a playwright, director, actor, and designer in their native Cuba, who opened up the Latin American Theatre Ensemble after establishing a life for he and his family in New York. As a teen, Peña began making a name for herself as a formidable young actress in the New York theatre scene. She attended, and graduated from, the High School of Performing Arts and began her professional film career in 1978 with León Ichaso's El Super.

• Ed Harris, Jim Sturgess, Abbie Cornish, and Andy Garcia are currently in negotiations to join the sci-fi adventure film Geostorm. Gerard Butler has already been tapped to star as a stubborn satellite designer who must work with his estranged brother to save the world after climate-controlling satellites malfunction. (There’s also a plot to assassinate the president for good measure.) Sturgess is in talks to play Butler’s brother with Cornish as Sturgess’ girlfriend, a Secret Service agent. Harris and Garcia would play the secretary of state and president, respectively. Dean Devlin, who co-wrote the script to Independence Day, will...

Divergent superfans, this one is for you. At the beginning of setting up this dystopian adventure, readers learn that all the people living in this world are sorted into five different factions when they come of age. An aptitude test helps place them, but the final decision is theirs (sounds wonderfully familiar, right?). While Beatrice, Caleb and all the rest had a tough decision to make, we got to thinking about where some Hollywood celebs would find themselves if they suddenly woke up in this world. Here are our best guesses for Jennifer Lawrence (Honest!), Lady Gaga (Brave!) and more.

Actor Tim Blake Nelson will host the awards ceremony at the Sundance Film Festival, which also announced Tuesday the members of the five juries that will determine the winners. The festival runs from Jan. 20-30; the awards will be handed out the evening of Jan. 29. (The Short Film Awards will be named earlier at a ceremony on Tuesday, Jan. 25, at Park City’s Jupiter Bowl.)

The complete list of jurors follows, with bios provided by the festival.

U.S. Documentary Jury

Jeffrey Blitz

Jeffrey’s film career started in 2002 with the Oscar-nominated, Emmy-winning documentary “Spellbound.” His fiction feature debut, “Rocket Science,” became his first to play the festival (Sundance, 2007; Dramatic Directing Award). He has also directed the documentary “Lucky,” (Sundance, 2010) and multiple episodes of NBC’s “The Office.” In 2009, he won the Emmy for comedy directing.

Matt Groening

Matt Groening created the longest-running comedy in television history, “The Simpsons.” As a cartoonist,...

America Ferrera, aka "Ugly Betty," is set to step back into the executive producer role for her new film with Maya Entertainment, American Tragic. The Sister of the Traveling Pants is set to act in the film as well. After playing an unflattering caricature of a nerdy loser, its great to hear that Ferrera is sinking her teeth into something more substantial along the lines of Real Women Have Curves. I bet you didn't know that Ferrera had executive produced before, did you? She exec produced a film called How The Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer, with Maya. Maya Entertainment just so happens to be a Hispanic studio and the flick seems to be part-Hispanic as well. Sergio Aguero (Y Tu Mama Tambien) will lend a hand and co-executive produce along with little miss Ferrera. Maya Entertainment chairman states "We hope that this is validation of the job we did...

• Armed with caffeinated drinks and toothpicks (for closing eyelids) IONCINEMA’s Australian correspondent Samuel Hilton will be covering this very cool fest from the land down under……take it away Sam! The 52nd Sydney Film Festival was kicked off in style on Friday 10th June in the heart of Sydney city at State Theatre with the opening film, My Summer of Love. While it’s a shame that there wasn’t an Australian film of enough quality to open the festival, the British flick drew a large audience in for the beginnings of a highly promising festival. My Summer of Love’s lead actors Nathalie Press and Emily Blunt were both in attendance to open the film festival (while none of my pictures of them came out - here's one from the festival's site) This year the line-up, which includes independent films from Australia, Britain and the U.

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PARK CITY -- In answer to the question posed in the title of How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer, know that the three women experience life in ways that audiences should find amusing, touching and thoroughly enjoyable.

This one is a treat, although be forewarned that the rhythms of life in a small, sun-blasted Arizona town in mid-summer are slow. People take their time; there's nothing much to do other than to gossip or become the subject of that gossip. Fortunately, the Garcia girls do the latter.

A film that speaks about three generations within a Latino family and about female desire clearly has several audiences. Those who enjoyed the 2002 Sundance winner Real Women Have Curves will certainly embrace this one. Perhaps it's no coincidence that lovely and likable America Ferrera stars in both pictures.

Writer-director Georgina Garcia Riedel makes her feature debut here by expanding one of her short films. The title is tongue in cheek for the "girls" are actually the matriarch of the Garcia family, Dona Genoveva (Lucy Gallardo), a 70-year-old who decides old dogs can learn new tricks; her middle-aged daughter Rosa (Elizabeth Pena), a bitter divorcee grappling with loneliness; and one real girl, Rosa's 17-year-old daughter Blanca (Ferrera), just awakening to womanhood.

Grandmother starts life anew by purchasing a used car. She has never driven, but her gardener, Don Pedro (Jorge Carver Jr.), who is about her age, volunteers to teach her. The town soon takes notice of the two lurching through the back streets.

Then Rosa, fighting off depression and discouragement in her butcher shop, finds herself under romantic siege by the video shop owner (Steven Bauer) across the dusty street. What she fails to notice is the warm affection her butcher Jose Luis (Rick Najera) has for her.

A newcomer to town with a notorious reputation, Sal Juarez (Leo Minaya), cruises by Blanca in his cousin's pick-up often enough that one day she gets in. He turns out to be more sensitive and attentive than she imagined.

Riedel weaves the three plot strands together so each reflects and plays off the others. Seldom has sexual desire by women found its way to the screen with such poignancy and power. That a teen has hormones buzzing inside her is no surprise. But Riedel dares to depict a much older woman still in desperate need for the physical expression of affection.

Clearly her three actresses trusted her in areas where much could go wrong. Their reward is three indelible performances that speak to the yearnings of women of all ages. The tenderness with which Riedel shows the sometimes comical, sometimes emotional inner lives of the Garcia girls is doubly refreshing at a time when cinema seemingly can explore every side to sexuality except that of love.

Riedel possesses a rigorous though unhurried style that gives the sleepy town a hazy beauty. She favors few camera angles per scene and is content to let actors dwell within the frame in virtually still poses. Movement is kept to a minimum as the play of emotions happens in the actors' faces and in the sharp dialogue.

All tech credits are first rate.

HOW THE GARCIA GIRLS SPENT THEIR SUMMER

Loosely Based Pictures

Credits:

Writer/director: Georgina Garcia Riedel

Producers: Georgina Garcia Reidel, Olga Arana, Jose C. Mangualo

Executive producers: Nieves Riedel, David Riedel

Director of photography: Tobias Datum

Production designer: Elizabeth Calienas

Costume designer: Swinda Reichelt

Editor: Sean Robert Olson

Cast:

Lolita: Elizabeth Pena

Blanca: America Ferrera

Dona Genoveva: Lucy Gallardo

Don Pedro: Jorge Cevera, Jr.

Sal Juarez: Leo Minaya

Victor Reyes: Steven Bauer

Jose Luis: Rick Najera

No MPAA rating

Running time -- 128 minutes...

Elizabeth Pena has been tapped to star opposite Sela Ward in the CBS telefilm Suburban Madness, which retells the story of Texas woman Clara Harris, who was convicted last year of murdering her philandering husband by running over him several times with her Mercedes-Benz. Pena will play Harris in the project, told from the perspective of private investigator Bobbi Bacha (Ward), who was hired by Harris to spy on her husband and ended up capturing the July 2002 murder on tape. Robert Dornhelm is set to direct the Sony Pictures TV/Storyline Entertainment telefilm, executive produced by Storyline's Craig Zadan and Neil Meron. Production is slated to begin Friday in Toronto. Pena will next be seen in the telefilms The Hollywood Mom's Mystery and the features Down in the Valley, Sueno and How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer Vacation. She is represented by Paradigm and Rigberg-Rugolo Entertainment.