Pitch Perfect

Jason Moore's Pitch Perfect (US, 2012) - A well-groomed, funny and altogether special musical comedy set against the backdrop of collegiate competitive a cappella singing, Pitch Perfect hits an abundance of right notes, resulting in one of the most full-bodied mainstream comedies of the year. Suffused with a joie de vivre, this enjoyable adaptation of Mickey Rapkin’s 2008 nonfiction book of the same name augurs good things not only for freshman feature director Jason Moore but also its various young cast members. RATING: 7.

2012 San Sebastian Winners

Francois Ozon's In The House won Best Film and Best Screenplay Award.

Pablo Berger's Blancanieves won Special Jury Prize and Best Actress Winner for Macaraena Garcia

The Artist and The Model won Best Director Award for Fernando Trueba

Laurent Cantet's Foxfire won Best Actress Award for Katie Coseni

Javier Rebollo's The Dead Man and Being Happy won Best Actor Award for Jose Sacristan

Bahman Ghobadi's Rhino Season won Best Cinematography Award

In the Kutxa-New Directors competition, the winner was Fernando Guzzoni’s Carne De Perro, with special mentions to Majid Barzegar’s Parviz and Adrian Saba’s El Limpiador

 The Horizontes Award went to Armando Bo’s El Ultimo Elvis. Special Mentions went to Marcelo Gomes’ Once Upon A Time Was Veronica and Michel Franco’s After Lucia.

US drama The Sessions, written and directed by Ben Lewin has won the audience award worth $77000.

Six Acts

COMING SOON: Jonathan Gurfinkel's Six Acts (Israel, 2012) - Israel’s Jonathan Gurfinkel makes an arresting debut with Six Acts (Shesh Peamin) - which, despite being shot in an affluent beachfront suburb of Tel Aviv, is a completely universal film. If you don’t immediately recognise the people and situations on screen here, you’ve forgotten what it is to be 16. At times almost excruciating to watch, Six Acts, handled internationally by Films Distribution, is a natural art-house attraction - and a potential crossover title - which should perform very solidly internationally, particularly at the younger end of the market. Boosted by a riveting, at times painfully honest performance from Silvan Levy in the lead role, Six Acts is both modern and a story for the ages. No mean feat for a debut. 2012SANSnd.

Looper

Rian Johnson's Looper (US, 2012) - In the futuristic action thriller Looper, time travel will be invented – but it will be illegal and only available on the black market. When the mob wants to get rid of someone, they will send their target 30 years into the past, where a “looper” – a hired gun, like Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) – is waiting to mop up. Joe is getting rich and life is good… until the day the mob decides to “close the loop,” sending back Joe’s future self (Bruce Willis) for assassination. Also starring Emily Blunt, Paul Dano and Jeff Daniels. 2012TOR. RATING: 7.

My Amityville Horror

Eric Walter's My Amityville Horror (US, 2012) - The spooky events that supposedly happened at a Dutch Colonial house at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, New York, in 1975 have inspired scores of horror films and documentaries, but Eric Walter’s fascinating documentary offers a new perspective on the much-told story. My Amityville Horror is a seriously fascinating film, impressively structured and absolutely absorbing. For the first time in 35 years Daniel Lutz – who was a child when events happened – recounts his version of the infamous Amityville haunting that terrified his family. Not only does it tackle what happened but also bears testimony to the psychological scars he still carries.

Postcards From The Zoo

Edwin's Postcards From The Zoo (Indonesia, 2012) - A Jakarta zoo is the setting for a slow and dreamy magical realist romance in Indonesian filmmaker Edwin’s follow-up to his well-received 2009 debut Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly. Sweet and playful as a baby monkey, but with the lumbering pace of a hippo, the film has shades of both Thai auteur Pen-ek Ratanaruang (particularly Monrak Transistor) and Japanese manga guru Hayao Miyazaki (particularly Spirited Away) – in fact it feels a little as if the former had adapted and directed a script by the latter. Cinematic poetry of this nature is often a slow-build affair, and for much of its running time Postcards From The Zoo is one of those odd viewing experiences that bores and fascinates at the same time. The patient, though, will be rewarded by what is in the end an unclassifiable work of striking originality. 2012BERic, 2012BUS, 23.502012TRI. RATING: 8

Tomboy

Celine Sciamma's Tomboy (France, 2012) - The politics of gender get an unusual exploration in the world of pre-teen kids in Celine Sciamma’s Tomboy, a simple conceit blessed by the same naturalistic performances and fluid camerawork that marked out her feature debut Water Lilies. The story of a 10 year-old girl, a tomboy, pretending to be a boy in a new circle of friends is one built on deception and it could easily have travelled on a doom laden road towards discovery and tragedy. Instead Sciamma avoids the obvious and takes a more gentle route, honing in on the details of interactions between children, the joyful playtime, the rituals and the arrival of preconceptions which will shape their prejudices as they grow older. 2011BERp, 2011EDI. RATING: 7

Pitch Perfect

COMING SOON: Jason Moore's Pitch Perfect (US, 2012) - A well-groomed, funny and altogether special musical comedy set against the backdrop of collegiate competitive a cappella singing, Pitch Perfect hits an abundance of right notes, resulting in one of the most full-bodied mainstream comedies of the year. Suffused with a joie de vivre, this enjoyable adaptation of Mickey Rapkin’s 2008 nonfiction book of the same name augurs good things not only for freshman feature director Jason Moore but also its various young cast members.

2012 Israeli Academy Award Winners (OPHIR)

Rama Burshtein's Fill The Void won 7 Ophir Awards includes Best Film, Director, Screenplay, Actress, Supporting Actress, Cinematography and Make Up.

Meni Yaesh's God's Neighbours won 2 Ophir Awards Include Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor

Benny Torati's Ballad of The Weeping Spring won 4 Ophir Awards includes Best Sound Design, Music, Costume and Production Design

Other Winners Includes: 
Itzhak Zhayek won the editing prize for Rock the Casbah by Yariv Horovitz

Tamar Tal’s The Camera was awarded in the Best Documentary category.

Shemi Zarhin’s The World is Funny, a hit in the domestic market and the film which originally gathered the highest number of nominations, won only Best Casting (Orith Azulay), a category inaugurated this year for the first time.

 A Life Achievement Award went to veteran scriptwriter Eli Tavor, who is 78.

The Valley (2012)

COMING SOON: Inaki Elizalde's The Valley (Spain, 2012) - Ideas abound in Inaki Elizalde’s debut feature The Valley (Baztan) - which boasts almost as many plot strands as there are cast members. Sprawling, freewheeling, endearingly bonkers at times, there is a fascinating story of discrimination and abuse at its core. Hanging on in there to peel off the layers around it isn’t the easiest of challenges for non-native speakers, however, and ultimately, this heartfelt Basque film is of greatest interest (and comprehension) to Spanish audiences, who should best understand and appreciate its historic significance. 2012SANSz.

The Dead Man and Being Happy

COMING SOON: Javier Rebollo (Spain/ Argentina, 2012) - For his third feature, the gifted Spanish director Javier Rebollo (WOMAN WITHOUT PIANO) has decamped to Argentina and created a literate, screwball road movie that Borges surely would have loved. The “dead man” of the title is Santos (veteran Spanish screen star José Sacristán), a cancer-stricken hired killer who flees his Buenos Aires hospital bed and sets off on one last assignment. It is a journey that takes him through an interior Argentina rarely glimpsed in movies, from the Cordoba resort town of La Cumbrecita (with its disproportionate—and disconcerting—population of elderly Germans) to the northern province of Santiago del Estero. Along the way, Santos finds himself joined by Alejandra (the wonderful Roxana Blanco), an attractive middle-aged woman who impulsively jumps into his vintage Ford Falcon at a gas station and soon thwarts him from his intended path. At one point, our curious couple stops off at a decrepit beach town described by one of the film’s dueling voice-over narrators as “a strange mix of paradise and apocalypse”—which, as it happens, also perfectly sums up Rebollo’s playful and unexpectedly moving reverie on love, death and the open highway. 2012NYFF, 2012SANSic.

House at The End of The Street

Mark Tonderai's House at The End of The Street (US, 2012) - In her first release since the massive success of The Hunger Games, Jennifer Lawrence adds a modicum of dramatic interest to twisty and quiet effective thriller House At The End Of the Street. The young Oscar nominee’s presence should boost the youth audience for this uneasy mix of psychological suspense and horror action even though the broader audience may choose to wait for Lawrence’s appearance in buzzed-about November opener Silver Linings Playbook. RATING: 7

Trouble With The Curve

 Robert Lorenz's Trouble With The Curve (US, 2012) - A movie about family and baseball that throws every pitch right down the middle, Trouble With The Curve is a gentle but rather obvious drama. The film marks the first time in almost 20 years that Clint Eastwood has starred in a movie that he didn’t also direct, but despite some game performances — especially from Amy Adams — this Warner Bros. release eventually gets bogged down by its sentimental, predictable approach. 2012TOK. RATING: 9

The Hidden Face

Andres Baiz's The Hidden Face (Spain, 2011) - When his girlfriend, Bethlehem, vanishes, the handsome director of the Bogota Philharmonic Orchestra despairs -- then gradually moves on. But even as he finds comfort in a new relationship, questions about Bethlehem's disappearance linger. RATING: 7.

Quim Gutierrez in The Hidden Face

End of Watch

GREAT MOVIES: David Ayer's End of Watch (US, 2012) - With his screenplay for the Denzel Washington Oscar-winner Training Day and his subsequent features Harsh Times and Street Kings, writer-director David Ayer has meticulously chronicled the dangerous, ethically slippery world of the Los Angeles Police Department. His new film, End Of Watch, doesn’t break much new ground on the subject, but it’s nonetheless an intensely rendered and superbly acted drama. Stars Academy Award® nominee Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña. 2012TOR. RATING: 9

Dredd (2012)

Pete Travis' Dredd (US, 2012) - Grim, gritty and ultra-violent, "Dredd" reinstates the somber brutality missing from the U.K. comicbook icon's previous screen outing, the disappointing 1995 Sylvester Stallone starrer "Judge Dredd." A reboot as drastic as Christopher Nolan's "Batman Begins," this hard-R, sci-fi actioner from director Pete Travis and screenwriter Alex Garland should find an appreciative audience among serious-minded fanboys and gorehounds, while the pic's more extreme elements will likely limit its potential of crossing over to the superhero mainstream when Lionsgate releases it domestically Sept. 21. 2012TOR. RATING: 7

The Last Time I Saw Macao

Joao Pedro Rodrigues' The Last Time I Saw Macao (Portugal, 2012) - This stunning amalgam of playful film noir and Chris Marker–like cine-essay from João Pedro Rodrigues (TO DIE LIKE A MAN, NYFF 2009) and João Rui Guerra da Mata explores the psychic pull of the titular former Portuguese colony. After a spectacular opening scene, in which actress Cindy Scrash lip-synchs, as tigers pace behind her, to Jane Russell’s “You Kill Me”—from Josef von Sternberg’s MACAO (1952), a key reference here—the film shifts to da Mata’s off-screen recollections of growing up in this gambling haven in the South China Sea. He’s come back to Macao to help a friend who later vanishes—a mystery that begets not only poetic ruminations on time, place, and memory but also magnificent compositions of flora, fauna, and cityscapes. Rodrigues will also have his work presented during NYFF’s soon-to-be-announced Views From the Avant-Garde schedule. 2012LOCic, 2012NYFF, 2012TOR. RATING: 7

The Master

GREAT MOVIES: Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master (US, 2012) - 2012VENic Best Director and Best Actors Winner. Paul Thomas Anderson's longtime fascination with souls in extremis achieves a teasing, richly unsettling apotheosis in "The Master." The 1950-set story of a troubled WWII veteran drawn to and repelled by a mysterious community that strikingly resembles the Church of Scientology, the writer-director's typically eccentric sixth feature is a sustained immersion in a series of hypnotic moods and longueurs, an imposing picture that thrillingly and sometimes maddeningly refuses to conform to expectations. Still, with its bravura technique and superbly synched turns from Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman, the Weinstein Co. release should generate robust returns and furious discussion long after its hugely anticipated Sept. 14 bow. 2012SANSic, 2012TOR, 2012VENic. RATING: 9

Just The Wind

Bence Fliegauf's Just The Wind (Hungary, 2012) - This looks very much like a documentary, but it isn’t. A test of endurance for most audiences, requiring enormous patience and curiosity, it will most probably cater to a minuscule market of Fliegauf fans that have seen and appreciated his earlier work, films like Dealer and Milkway, in which he made the same demands on its viewers. Nothing seems to happen in the course of the first 90 minutes, except that it is all preparatory stuff which really makes sense only in the light of the climactic ending. The premise here is a series of violent attacks on Hungarian gypsies perpetrated in 2008 and 2009. Homes were burned down with Molotov bottles, five people were injured by shotgun fires, six were killed, 55 other people were severely harmed. This, however, is not a reconstruction of those cases, but rather Fliegauf’s comment on them. The focus here is not on the offenders but on their victims, his entire film following one poor, humble gypsy family. RATING: 7.

Silenced (2011)

GREAT MOVIES: Hwang Dong Hyuk's Silenced (South Korea, 2011) - Were Silenced not based on fact, its unchecked depiction of corporal and sexual abuse in a Korean school for the deaf could be construed as sensational, manipulative, even sadistic. As it were, the polished manner in which director-screenwriter Hwang Dong-hyuk (My Father) adopts mainstream genre conventions to develop ambience, suspense and calculated twists propels the story to an incendiary and compelling conclusion. Although the film ultimately achieves its function to expose deep-rooted and far-reaching social injustice,its visceral representation of harrowing and morally repugnant scenes remains unnerving and questionable. Adapted from successful writer Cong Jee-young's online novel Dogani, which sparked an uproar over the then little known case, the film still caused a public stir when released in Korea, reflected in the 2.7 million tickets sold within two weeks. It can exert an equally forceful impact on overseas viewers, but making itself heard beyond Asian specialist ancillary could be tricky. 2011HIT. RATING: 9

Sherlock Jr.

GREAT MOVIES: Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr. (US, 1924) - A projectionist is studying to be a detective and is in love with a young lady. When he proposes her, his rival steals the chain watch of her father and incriminates him. The disappointed young projectionist returns to his job and while projecting the film, he dreams on being the detective of the story. Meanwhile, the girl finds the truth and acquits the guilty of the projectionist to her father.100TIME, 1000DT, 1001M. RATING: 9

Barfi

COMING SOON: Anurag Basu's Barfi (India, 2012) with Ranbir Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra

Anurag Basu's Barfi (India, 2012) - The romantic misadventures of a mischievous deaf-mute occasion a series of CGI-enhanced silent-film gags in Anurag Basu's whimsical comedy "Barfi!" The film traces Barfi's overlapping involvement with two women -- a rich Calcutta beauty and an autistic gamine -- and features complex derring-do involving ladders, handcarts, puffing trains and the hero's very own Keystone Kop. Hopping nimbly among three distinct timeframes, helmer Basu deconstructs the film's sentimental thrust to stress his hero's in-the-moment ingenuity; its genuine appreciation for Chaplinesque slapstick and sped-up chases gives it definite crossover possibilities following its Sept. 14 worldwide release. 2013OE. RATING: 8

The Bay (2012)

COMING SOON: Barry Levinson's The Bay (US, 2012) - Veteran filmmaker Barry Levinson takes a distinct change of cinematic direction with The Bay, a smartly made found-footage style creature feature that eschews big-star casting and instead goes of natural performances and slow-burn chills. The film is an environmental catastrophe film that feels all too real, and given the right word-of-mouth is the sort of film that could creep up on audiences and give them a shock. 2012NYFF, 2012SANSz, 2012TOR.

Starry Starry Night

Tom Lin Shu Yu Lin's Starry Starry Night (Taiwan, 2012) - An imaginative, emotionally resonant coming-of-age story about two young kindred spirits who seek solace in one another, writer-director Tom Shu-Yu Lin’s adaptation of Taiwanese author Jimmy Liao’s bestselling illustrated book is swollen with genuine feeling. Showcasing the commingled frailty and toughness of adolescents, and the rich inner landscapes that exist apart from whatever tethering relationships they have with adults, Lin’s sophomore effort represents a solid blend of technical achievement and kindhearted portraiture. 2012SEA.

Eat Sleep Die

Gabriela Pitchler's Eat Sleep Die (Sweden, 2012) - Raša Abdulahović is a 21 year old tom-boy muslim immigrant living in a rugged small-town life. When she is fired despite she decides to leave and experience life at large. At her farewell party, after she breaks down, there is a tinge of a smile on her face. In the end nothing will drag her down. Never-say-die. 2012TOR, 2012VENcw Audience Award Winner. RATING: 8.

2012 Toronto Film Festival Winners

David O Russell's Silver Linings Playbook won 2012 Toronto Audience Award.

2012 Toronto Film Festival Winners
Audience Award: David O Russell's The Silver Linings Playbook, Ben Afleck's Argo (First Runner Up), Eran Riklis's Zaytoun (Second Runner Up)
Midnight Madness Audience Award: Martin McDonagh's Seven Psychopaths,  Barry Levinson's The Bay (Second Runner Up), Don Coscarelli's John Dies at The End (Third Runner Up)
Audience Award for Documentary: Bartholomew Cubbin's Artifact, Christopher Nelius' Storm Surfer (First Runner Up), Rob Stewart's Revolution (Second Runner Up)
Best Canadian Feature: Xavier Dolan's Laurence Anyways
Best Canadian First Feature: Brandon Cronenberg's Antiviral and Jason Buxton's Blackbird
FIPRESCI Prize Winner: Mikael Marcimain's Call Girl (Discovery Section) and Francois Ozon's In The House (Special Presentation Section).
Best First or Second Asian Film: Sion Sono's  The Land of Hope

Wasteland (2012)

Rowan Athale's Wasteland (UK, 2012) - A heist thriller with a distinctly British sensibility, Wasteland marks an assured and engaging first feature from writer/director Rowan Athale. Appealing characters, clever plotting and smart dialogue make for a winning combination that should have commercial heft for a UK theatrical release and beyond. 2012TOR. RATING: 7.

Rhino Season

COMING SOON: Bahman Ghobadi's Rhino Season (Turkey, 2012) - Bahman Ghobadi’s first non-Iranian film takes him one step further away from the basically realistic, even if essentially poetic, approach of his earlier films. A tragic love story, a fierce indictment against the Islamist regime in Tehran, but most of all, a lyrical elegy replete with symbolical visions accompanying the poems on the soundtrack, Rhino Season (False Kargadan) is a natural for film festivals, though an award or two could certainly help it through to a respectable art house distribution. 2012SANSic, 2012TOR.

Beijing Flickers

COMING SOON: Zhang Yuan's Beijing Flickers (China, 2012) - Prolific sixth-generation Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yuan returns to the same territory as his first major film, 1993’s Beijing Bastards, with this highly accessible and heartfelt expression of angst and alienation among the city’s less upwardly mobile young adults. Less rough-hewn than his handheld debut, Flickers still captures the disaffection of contemporary Chinese youth, but does so more via the accomplished cinematography and sentiment seen in his later films such as Seventeen Years and Little Red Flowers. Commensurate sales are likely. 2012BUS, 2012TOR.

The Bullet Vanished

Lo Chi Leung's The Bullet Vanishes (Hong Kong, 2012) - Less fantasy-oriented than Tsui Hark’s supernatural Detective Dee and more seriously minded than Guy Ritchie’s playful Sherlock Holmes movies, The Bullet Vanishes is a competently staged period whodunit which, judging from its handsome box office returns in mainland China and its makers’ visual flair and intellectual candour in handling the complicated material, has ample potential to develop into a prominent detective movie series for the Chinese-speaking market. RATING: 6

Ill Manors

Ben Drew's Ill Manors (UK, 2012) - ILL Manors is the highly anticipated directorial debut by pioneering British music artist Ben Drew (a.k.a. Plan B). A unique crime thriller set on the unforgiving streets of London, iLL Manors follows six disparate lives, all struggling to survive the circles of violence that engulf them. Narratively linked through original music from Plan B, the film is a visually stunning and emotionally impactful experience laced with street-wise humour. The film’s soundtrack just topped the U.K.’s album chart. 2012TOR. RATING: 8.

Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)

Paul W.S. Anderson' s Resident Evil: Retribution (US, 2012) - Alice fights alongside a resistance movement in the continuing battle against the Umbrella Corporation and the undead. RATING: 4.

Cosmopolis

David Cronenberg's Cosmopolis (US, 2012) - The cerebral postmodern novels of US writer Don DeLillo have so far proved immune to screen adaptation. It’s not difficult to understand why as we watch David Cronenberg’s arid stab at Cosmopolis, DeLillo’s 2003 yarn about a multi-millionaire asset manager crossing New York in a stretch limo to get a haircut as his investments plummet. Cut and pasted almost verbatim into the script, the novelist’s mannered dialogue and shallow characters (many of whom are simply mouthpieces for ideas) make for an anemic, dramatically flat viewing experience. 2012CANic, 2012SITGES. RATING: 3.

The Holy Quaternity

COMING SOON: Jan Hrebejk's The Holy Quaternity (Czech, 2012) - This engagingly fruity spouse-swap comedy romp offers some modestly naughty film entertainment, likely to be appealing in its home territory, but of strictly limited appeal elsewhere, with home entertainment the most likely route. 2012TOR.

Post Tenebras Lux

Carlos Reygadas' Post Tenebras Lux (Mexico, 2012) - 2012CANic Best Director Winner. Maverick helmer Carlos Reygadas compares "Post tenebras lux" to an expressionist painting, though Dadaist is more accurate. Auds will go for "perplexing," likely to be the kindest word used when describing this challenging non-story about a family living in the grandeur of Mexico's wilds. The director surely doesn't expect auds to attempt a logical piecing together of the shifting elements in this ultra-personal mood piece, which makes Djuna Barnes feel like Dan Brown. Themes from Reygadas' previous pics crop up, and visuals expectedly astonish, yet despite moderate Cannes sales to boutique distribs, "Post" will largely remain in tenebrae. 2012CANic, 2012TOR. RATING: 8.

Raiders of The Lost Ark

Steven Spielberg's Raiders of The Lost Ark (US, 1981) - Archeologist and adventurer Indiana Jones is hired by the US government to find the Ark of the Covenant before the Nazis. 1981HIT, 1982AA, 1982DGA / 1000DT, 1000NY, 1001M, E500, EFS, EGM. RATING: 10.

Foxfire: Confessions of A Girl Gang (2012)

COMING SOON: Laurent Cantet's Foxfire (US, 2012) - It might have been more coherent on the pages of Joyce Carol Oates’s 1993 novel about five teen-aged working-girls who formed the eponymous secret society in upstate New York in 1955, but, in this second film version (the first, directed by Annette Haywood-Carter in 1996, starred Angelina Jolie as their beautiful leader), almost everything is amiss. 2012SANSic, 2012TOR.

In The House

COMING SOON: Francois Ozon's In The House (France, 2012) - Francois Ozon’s cleverly structured psychological thriller is an intriguing delve into the mine-field of the teacher-student relationship, and while its low-key cleverness never quite takes the film to the satisfactory ending the story deserves, it is nicely performed and for a while an intriguingly subversive drama. 2012SANSic, 2012TOR. Cohen Media Released.

The Patience Stone

COMING SOON: Atiq Rahimi's The Patience Stone (Afghanistan, 2012) - Sensual and horrifying, "The Patience Stone" plays like a mesmerizing, modern take on the tales of Scheherazade and a parable on the suffering of Afghan women. Afghanistan-born, France-based helmer Atiq Rahimi adapts his own novel set in a Muslim country torn apart by war, where a beautiful woman in her 30s cares for her comatose husband, relieving her burden by confessing her frustrations, dreams and desires. Featuring a tour-de-force performance by exiled Iranian thesp Golshifteh Farahani ("About Elly"), Eastern rhythms and Euro production polish, this opened-up chamber drama should engage niche arthouse audiences in the West without testing their forbearance. / Golshifteh Farahani gives a memorable and moving performance in Atiq Rahimi’s poetic and politically charged allegory The Patience Stone (Syngué Sabour), as a woman in an unnamed, war-torn, Middle Eastern country, who delivers a powerful and emotionally charged monologue to her comatose husband. 2012TOR.

Everybody Has A Plan

COMING SOON: Ana Piterbarg's Everybody Has A Plan (Argentina, 2012) - Viggo Mortensen’s trademark quiet strength and enigmatic stillness works to impressive effect in Ana Piterbarg’s moody and evocative drama Everybody Has A Plan (Todos Tenemos Un Plan), largely set against backdrop of Argentina’s tough and isolated the Tigre Delta, a labyrinthine tangle of islands and waterways which has its own codes and sense of justice. 2012TOR.

7 Boxes

Juan Carlos Maneglia's 7 Boxes (Paraguay, 2012) - Turning the Paraguayan capital's biggest public market into an arena for a wild and cunningly plotted chase movie, filmmaking partners Juan Carlos Maneglia and Tana Schembori build a rollicking entertainment with "7 Boxes." Certain to be one of the first titles from Paraguay to make a serious dent in the international marketplace, the pic makes a pleasurable surplus from minimal resources and plenty of ironic-comic-violent storytelling energy. Word of mouth will translate into lusty sales worldwide, with a good chance Stateside to buck the recent trend of a lack of Spanish-language hits. 2012SANSnd, 2012TOR. RATING 7.