Shelly Townsend has come aboard bicoastal production house Skunk as executive producer where she reunites with exec producer/managing director Matt Factor. She is based at the company’s Hollywood office, with Factor in New York. Townsend was formerly at such shops as Fools and Horses, and Headquarters. She and Factor first met in 1999 at the venerable Propaganda Films–she was an exec producer while Factor headed up East Coast sales. There they helped build the careers of notable directors, and went on to collaborate later at bicoastal Anonymous Content….Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco, has hired Zach Canfield, formerly global director of creative recruiting at Wieden + Kennedy, as its director of talent. In this newly created role, Canfield will be finding new and emerging talent for the whole agency, not just for the creative department….FriendsWithYou, a team that is a recent addition to the director/designer roster of Los Angeles-based Paranoid U.S., has opened a new design studio in Miami and launched a portfolio website (www.fwystudios.com) to showcase its work. FriendsWithYou founders/chief creatives are Samuel Borkson and Arturo Sandoval III….Veteran mixer Steve Bucino has joined Hyperbolic Audio, the N.Y. audio post house launched last year by co-owners Julian Rebolledo and Sean Elias-Reyes. Bucino was most recently with Tonic, New York. His studio background also includes session work at Seattle’s Ironwood Studios, and two years at Water Music, where he engineered and produced numerous independent music projects, while honing his skills working alongside legendary engineers, such as John Agnello, Michael Barbiero and Bob Marlette….
Oscar Winners “I’m Still Here” and “Emilia Pérez” Shed Light On Latin America’s Thousands of People Who’ve Disappeared
If there is a still open wound in Latin America, it is that of the tens of thousands of disappeared people and decadeslong pain that has accumulated in parts of the region such as Mexico and Colombia.
Two visions of the trauma had a central role at the 97th Academy Awards: the Brazilian film "Ainda Estou Aqui" ("I'm Still Here"), which tells the drama of the family of a leftist former congressman who disappeared in 1971 at the height of the military dictatorship; and the musical "Emilia Pérez," about a fictional Mexican drug lord who leaves a life of crime to become a transgender woman and searcher for the disappeared in Mexico.
"We hope that in this way the society will be sensitized," said activist Indira Navarro, who directs the Guerreros Buscadores de Jalisco collective in Mexico and has been searching for her brother, who disappeared in the northern state of Sonora nine years ago.
The Academy Awards' recognition of the films, both of which were nominated in multiple categories, was an unparalleled opportunity to make the problem visible, Navarro said.
"I'm Still Here," by Brazilian Walter Salles, won the Oscar in the category of best international film. "Emilia Pérez," by renowned French director Jacques Audiard, was this year's most-nominated film and won in the categories of best original song and best supporting actress for Zoe Saldaña.
Salles and Audiard's films also had a common denominator of disappearances in Latin America: impunity.
The story behind "I'm Still Here"
"I'm Still Here" was inspired by the book "Ainda Estou Aqui" by Marcelo Rubens Paiva, son of the disappeared former congressman Rubens Paiva. More than five decades after he was taken from his Rio de Janeiro home and... Read More