(MENAFN- Arab Times) LOS ANGELES March 7 (RTRS): Just after Alejandro G. Inarritu''s ''Birdman'' won big at the Oscars Mexico''s 30th Guadalajara Festival shows why and why Mexican talent lures Hollywood. Adding to the Oscar glory last month Latin America swept most top awards at the Berlin festival (''The Club'' ''Ixcanul'' above ''600 Miles'' ''The Second Mother'' ''Nasty Baby''). At Guadalajara 22 Mexican movies vie for the Mezcal Prize while the fest also boasts a 15-title Ibero-American feature competition and the Co-production Meeting with 28 projects. The festival runs March 6-15 in Guadalajara Jalisco Mexico (ficg.mx).
In 2014 a group of markedly different Mexican movies performed robustly at Mexico''s box office: ''Perfect Dictatorship'' a political lampoon hit $13 million; romantic comedy ''Marry Who You Can'' grossed $11.2 million; and biopic ''Cantinflas'' which world premiered at 2014''s Guadalajara hit $8.5 million and repped Mexico in the foreign-language Oscar race. Guadalajara''s 2015 Mezcal competition is equally eclectic and plural reflecting Mexican cinema''s good moment says festival director Ivan Trujillo. Some of the highest-profile local players will be launching pics at the fest including ''Instructions Not Included'' producer Monica Lozano who world preems ''El Jeremias'' a child genius comedy with social undertones; and Carlos Reygadas'' producer Mantarraya unveils animated feature ''The Incredible Story of the Stone Boy'' a play for a more mainstream family audience. Dropouts There''s also a 10-part docu about Latin America''s high school dropouts ''El aula vacia'' from Gael Garcia Bernal''s Canana Films which will screen alongside fare from Argentina''s Lucrecia Martel Mexico''s Nicolas Pereda Uruguay''s Pablo Stoll and Peru''s Diego and Daniel Vega. ''Mexican filmmaking is increasingly international impacting in and impacted by a global world'' says Trujillo. That could be said for all Latin America. Some 50% of the Co-production Meeting projects drawn from all over the region are already international co-productions or have directors who have studied or live abroad plan to shoot overseas or in a foreign language. Mezcal entries include Mexican directors working with the UK (Laura Plancarte''s ''Tierra caliente'') Ireland (Kevin de la Isla''s drug underworld thriller ''The Hit Producer'') and Australia (''Dog''s Breakfast'' from Rich Valverde). Desperate Now more than ever Latin Americans are able to make films about social issues that reach out to wider audiences. At Guadalajara Gabriel Ripstein''s ''600 Miles'' a first feature winner at the recent Berlinale highlights US arms trading with Mexico. But its essential story Ripstein says turns on two characters in a desperate situation: a seasoned ATF agent played by Tim Roth and his short-fused Mexican abductor. Guadalajara''s Italy tribute forms part of a broader 18-month pan-regional push called ''2015 Year of Italy in Latin America'' with filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci picking up Guadalajara''s Intl. Mayahuel Award. There''s also a 34-pic Italian cinema panorama. Also on the Italo agenda: a retrospective of animator Bruno Bozzetto and a major Guadalajara market attendance by producers and sales agents of Italian films. A Bilateral Italy-Mexico Forum will analyze new co-production and collaboration opportunities. Also: BEIJING: A popular but controversial documentary on China''s struggles with pollution was inaccessible on China''s video sharing websites on Saturday sparking concern from Chinese Internet users that it had been censored within a week of its launch. ''Under the Dome'' a film by journalist Chai Jing that explains air pollution in straightforward terms spurred a national debate after its release last weekend and quickly garnered hundreds of millions of views on streaming video sites. Its removal will likely be seen as highlighting the government''s priority on maintaining social stability even on an issue like pollution the tackling of which it has said is a top priority and around which it has promised greater transparency. Just on Thursday at the opening of the annual session of parliament Premier Li Keqiang called pollution a blight on people''s lives and vowed to step up efforts to combat it. Signs of the film no longer being accessible on the country''s biggest online video sharing websites started late on Friday. By Saturday morning it was inaccessible on all the major video sites as well as a number of smaller video sites with users getting error messages when they tried to play it. Neither internet regulator the Cyberspace Administration of China nor the State Administration of Press Publication Radio Film and Television responded immediately to requests for comment. Youku Tudou Inc Tencent Holdings Ltd Sohu.com Inc and iQiyi the online video service of Baidu Inc which operate video streaming services did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Saturday. Chai the filmmaker did not respond to requests for comment. The website of Communist Party mouthpiece the People''s Daily which had originally posted the video on its site did not answer repeated calls requesting comment. China operates one of the world''s most sophisticated online censorship mechanisms known as the Great Firewall. Censors keep a grip on what can be published online particularly content seen as potentially undermining the ruling Communist Party. Chai was a well-known journalist on state-run television before making the film which was released just as China''s leaders prepared to hold the annual meeting of the National People''s Congress (NPC) this week. The disappearance of the video was met with anger from many Internet users. ''Some people have the power to completely smother Chai Jing''s ''Under the Dome'' on the Internet but don''t have the power to smother haze in this country'' one Internet user said on the Twitter-like site Weibo.
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