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“The mole agent” (Chile), “La llorona” (Guatemala) and “Ya no soy aquí” (Mexico) are semi-finalists for the Oscars.
A Mexican musical drama (“I’m not here anymore”), a Chilean fiction documentary (“El agent mole”) and a Guatemalan horror film (“La llorona).
These are the three Latin American cinematographic bets that, along with 12 other semi-finalists, are already officially competing in the Oscars for the best international film, as announced Tuesday by the Hollywood Academy.
We tell you what you need to know about the three semi-finalists.
1. I am no longer there
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Fernando Frías’s film takes a look at the Cholombian subculture of Monterrey.
The fictional drama “I’m not here more” (2019), directed and written Fernando Frias, takes place in the mountains of Monterrey, Nuevo León, in northeastern Mexico.
It tells the story of Ulysses, a 17-year-old passionate about cumbia and leader of a band called Los Terkos. The young man, played by the Mexican musician and actor Juan Daniel Garcia, lives in a neighborhood of extreme poverty and is forced to emigrate to New York after receiving death threats.
Music is a fundamental part of the story of this film, which explores the Colombian subculture through the cumbia rebajada, which originated in Monterrey, which unites Colombian cumbia with the rhythms of the north.
Image Source, IMDB
Mexican musician and actor Juan Daniel García gives life to Ulysses in “Ya no I’M Here”.
In the critics are stressed “exceptional soundtrack” And his “great editing in general”.
The tape got one 100 on the film critic website Rotten tomatoes and won the prize for best film at the Morelia International Film Festival.
The American journalist and filmmaker Bilge Ebiri describes her in Vulture as “a wonderful story of music, migration and loss.”
2. The mole agent
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“The Mole Agent” competes in double competition at the Oscars.
The Chilean director Maite Alberdi presents in “The Mole Agent” (2020) the poignant story of a man who infiltrates a nursing home to help a resident whose daughter he suspects is being abused.
Romulo, a private investigator, hires Sergio, an 83-year-old widow played by Sergio Chamy, for this mission.
Airing on Netflix on February 19, the fictional documentary is a double semi-finalist competing for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Documentary. It is the first time that a Chilean film is included in two categories.
Image Source, IMDB
Maite Alberdi’s fictional documentary is set in a nursing home in Chile.
“In a year when it has been a challenge for us as a team to bring international visibility without leaving our homes, it is a great milestone for a Chilean documentary to be positioned in Hollywood,” Alberdi said after hearing the news.
Film critic Eric Kohn describes the film on IndieWire as “the most moving spy film ever made”.
3. La llorona
Image Source, IMBD
“La Llorona” mimics the abuses committed by the army against the indigenous population in the early 1980s.
“La llorona” (2019), the acclaimed Guatemalan horror film Jayro Bustamante, It has already won a nomination for best foreign film at the Golden Globes and now hopes to achieve it at the Oscars.
The film starring the Guatemalan actress Maria Mercedes Coroy, use terror (the legend of the woman who drowned her children and whose soul, repentant and cursed, seeks them in tears at night) to tell a true fact: the so-called Mayan genocide or Guatemalan, one of the worst atrocities in Latin America history, occurred in the early 1980s.
It has received mixed reviews. Manohla Dargis of the New York Timesdescribed her as “more efficient than ambitious”, while Guy Lodge writes The Guardian, “Bustamante’s fascinating and slow story blends enigmatic spiritualism with full-throttle terror and seething rage against the ruling class.”
Image Source, IMDB
María Telón (right) and María Mercedes Coroy (left) in “La llorona”.
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