Director/writer Jason Farrand has signed with Aero Film, Santa Monica, for exclusive commercial representation. Farrand is probably best known as writer/director on the Starz Original series Head Case, which has featured over 140 celebrities in its first two seasons….Bicoastal visual effects house MassMarket has brought Flame artist Marcelo Pasqualino aboard its L.A. shop. He comes over from Framestore, London, where he worked on campaigns for such clients as Audi, Smirnoff and Visa….Los Angeles-based independent agency David&Goliath has hired Rodrigo Butori and Steve Yee as associate creative directors. Butori began his career in Brazil in 1993, and by 2000 was already one of the founding partners of Cápsula, a small creative boutique in São Paulo. Butori left the partnership to try his hand at an international career, moving to Los Angeles and working at agencies such as Saatchi & Saatchi, Ground Zero Advertising, and most recently as associate creative director at TBWAChiatDay. Yee was most recently a senior art director at TBWAChiatDay, Los Angeles, and previously held posts at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco, and Fallon, New York….
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