Golden Globe Awards

In a time when Colombia appears close to the end of the decades-long conflict between its government and leftist guerrillas, Colombian director José Luis Rugeles has made Alias Maria, a drama that shows the role of child soldiers and their exploitation in that civil war.  The film is the story of Maria (Karen Torres), a 13-year old child guerrilla soldier.

Part of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s mission is to foster greater understanding through world cinema. This year over 90 foreign language films were submitted for Golden Globe consideration.

In the latest film by Gastón Duprat and Mariano Cohn the story begins as celebrated Argentine expatriate writer Daniel Mantovani (Oscar Martinez) receives the Nobel Prize for Literature. In his acceptance speech, in front of the king and queen of Sweden, he expresses his scorn for such a recognition which he considers the end of his career, since from now on he will be forever regarded as a “Nobel Prize Winner”, which will generate incredible expectations for his future works.

I Am Not Madame Bovary, directed by critically acclaimed filmmaker Feng Xiaogang and starring Fan Bingbing, is a rare satire of China’s bureaucracy in the current landscape of Chinese cinema. The term “Madame Bovary” originates from a famous fictional character “Pan Jinlian” in the 17th-century Chinese novel The Plum in the Golden Vase (Jin Ping Mei).

Director David Schurmman had a very unusual upbringing: born in Brazil, he graduated college in New Zealand and, between one landmark and the other, spent most of his life on a boat, crossing the Earth’s oceans with his family. Little Secret, his first feature film after a career in TV and documentaries, showcases this very special point of view and beyond: it is, in essence, the story of his family.

As Afterimage's credits start to roll, the inevitable becomes a reality: this is the last time we will see Andrzej Wajda's name on a new film. His final cinematic outing could not be a more beautiful and courageous artistic statement, though, which makes it a little more bearable.

Golden Globe winner Pedro Almodóvar returns to explore the theme of women in Julieta, his 20th feature film. But this time the way in which the Spanish director faces his subject is quite a departure from his earlier work.

In The Ardennes Brothers Dave and Kenneth are reunited on Kenneth’s release, after four years in prison following a failed home invasion. While Kenneth is anxious to dive headfirst into the drug-centered existence that ensnared him in the first place, both Dave and Kenneth’s former girlfriend Sylvie have adopted clean lifestyles.

Since its inception cinema has offered numerous movies depicting life in prison but always from the perspective of male directors and mostly about the plight of imprisoned men. 3000 Nights is the first prison film about female prisoners made by a female director, Palestinian Mai Masri, who chose to shed light on the predicament of tens of thousands of Palestinians languishing in Israeli jails through the eyes of a woman: a school teacher, Layal (played by Maisa Abd Ehladi).

Ma Ma is the first movie fully produced by Penélope Cruz. The three-time Golden Globe nominated actress has produced before but, as she herself recognized, “never from the first moment”.