Mexico City, Mexico — From November 14-17, 2012, leading filmmakers and film enthusiasts from Mexico, the U.S. and around the world will gather in the beautiful Pacific resort of Los Cabos for the first annual Baja International Film Festival. The first international film festival in Mexico to be a true collaboration between the U.S. and Mexico, the Baja International Film Festival will stand alongside world renowned events like the Cannes Film Festival,Venice Film Festival and Sundance.

The program will include screenings of Feature Films, Documentaries, Short Films, and Student Films, as well as nightly galas, award ceremonies, panel discussions and filmmaker receptions, and will feature the work of leading filmmakers from Mexico, the U.S., and around the world. The inaugural Baja International Film Festival has strong support from film industry leaders and is proud to have acclaimed actor, Academy-Award nominee, and environmental activist Edward Norton as an advisor to the festival.

Rodolfo Lopez-Negrete, Chief Operating Officer of the Mexico Tourism Board, said “The Baja International Film Festival will not only raise the profile of Mexico’s film industry and filmmakers, it will also bring visitors and investment to Los Cabos, one of Mexico’s leading tourist resorts, reinforcing its reputation as a world class, luxury destination.” In addition to the Mexico Tourism Board, the festival is endorsed and supported as the Official Festival of Los Cabos by the State of Baja California Sur, and the Los Cabos Tourism Bureau.

Baja International Film Festival co-founders Scott Cross and Sean Cross also founded the Colorado Film Institute and the Vail Film Festival, named by Moviemaker magazine among the “Top Ten Destination Film Festivals in the World.” The Festival is founded and run by a bi-national team of experienced film and business managers. They share a passion to bring the two cultures together through film.

The Festival represents a true collaboration between Mexico and the U.S. and will serve as a bridge between the U.S. and Mexican film industry. The organizers’ goal is to showcase the best filmmaking from around the world and grow the Baja International Film Festival into the Cannes Film Festival of Latin America.

The Baja International Film Festival is currently accepting film entries for the inaugural event to be held from November 14-17 in Los Cabos, Mexico. The festival accepts films from all countries and will award prizes for Best Film in each category, an Audience Award, and a special prize for Best Mexican Film. For submission information, please visit the festival website at www.bajainternationalfilmfestival.com.

Just a short flight from Los Angeles, Los Cabos is well known as a favorite vacation spot for Hollywood’s A-list stars. George Clooney, Jennifer Aniston, Cameron Diaz and Leonardo DiCaprio are just a few of the celebrities regularly spotted enjoying the pristine beaches, luxurious hotels and unsurpassed hospitality of one of Mexico’s premier resorts.

For more information on the Baja International Film Festival, visit www.bajainternationalfilmfestival.com.

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On March 11, 2011, the Great East Japan Earthquake struck off the coast of Japan, leaving 15,372 people confirmed dead and 7,762 reported still missing. In the wake of the largest earthquake in the country’s history, some people drew the courage to revive and rebuild from cherry-blossom season, which began within weeks of the tragedy.

Oscar-nominated this year for Best Documentary Short Subject, ‘The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom’ shows how nature can be a rejuvenating – as well as a destructive – force when it debuts Monday, July 16 (10:00-10:40 PM ET/PT), exclusively on HBO. Directed by Lucy Walker (the Oscar-nominated documentary feature “Waste Land”), this poignant film debuts immediately after the debut of the SXSW Film Festival hit “Birders: The Central Park Effect,” which offers a different look at how nature touches people.

The documentary will also show on HBO on July 18 (12:15 PM), July 24 (4:15 PM) and July 28 (6:00 AM, 3:15 PM).

The film will also be shown on HBO2 on July 18 (9:00 PM).

HBO Documentary Films presents another weekly series this summer, debuting provocative new specials every Monday through July 30. Other July films include: “Hard Times: Lost on Long Island” (July 9); “Birders: The Central Park Effect” (July 16); “Vito” (July 23); and “About Face: Supermodels Then and Now” (July 30).

‘The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom’ is a stunning visual poem about the ephemeral nature of life, and the healing power of Japan’s most beloved flower. The nation is transfixed by cherry blossom season, which runs from late March through April, with many people tracking the blossoms’ short life-cycle and attending “hanami,” or viewing parties, with family and friends.

Walker had originally planned to visit Japan to make a film about the cherry-blossom season, but on March 11, 2011, while she was making final preparations for her trip, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck, triggering tsunami waves of up to 133 feet on Japan’s northeastern coast. Initially unsure whether to continue, she flew to Tokyo with a small film crew and headed north to the Tohuku region, where she captured both the utter devastation and stoic resolve of survivors, many of whom had lost family members and friends.

‘The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom’ opens with harrowing home-video footage, shot from a hill, of a huge wave destroying the town below. A month later, a young woman stands on the same hill, remembering how she “watch[ed] people being consumed by the tsunami.” An older man tells how he tried and failed to save his oldest friend, proclaiming, “I don’t want a house. I don’t want clothes. I don’t want anything. I just want his life back.”

Others tell their stories of survival, escaping in their slippers and seeing whole houses rush toward them on a wave of black water. One couple living at a community center returns to the ruins of their house, hoping to rebuild. Their town is within the 30km exclusion zone around the Fukushima power plant, and many people wear cotton masks as protection from radiation.

Amidst the despair in the days following the tsunami comes a glimmer of hope in “sakura” (cherry blossom), a harbinger of spring in Japan and a national symbol of renewal. One man explains how the cherry blossom reflects the Japanese character, saying, “Each flower is tiny, and you can’t see one individually. But it’s beautiful when you see lots of flowers together. Japanese people see themselves that way too.”

Out of respect for the victims, many viewing parties were canceled this year, but people still visit the blossoms and take pictures. A man who lost his house shows where new plant shoots have sprouted on the beach, commenting that if plants can hang in there, humans can too. A young woman looking at the cleanup and construction adds, “Every year that the trees bloom, they’ll give us the courage to keep going.”

In addition to its Oscar nomination, ‘The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom’ received the Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and was an official selection at the Toronto International Film Festival, the Hamptons International Film Festival and BFI London.

‘The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom’ was directed by Lucy Walker with executive producers Tim Case and Charles V. Salice and producers Kira Carstensen and Lucy Walker. The director of photography was Aaron Phillips, the editor was Aki Mizutani, and the music was produced by Moby.

Image Courtesy of   Kasper Nybo

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Kicking criminal butts and taking the law into his own hands, Danny Trejo (‘Machete’, “Sons of Anarchy”) ignites the screen in the gritty, violent and enthralling film ‘Bad Ass’, arriving on Blu-ray and DVD June 5 from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. Inspired by the viral video of a vigilante citizen taking action into his own hands, ‘Bad Ass’ also stars Ron Perlman (“Sons of Anarchy,” ‘Hellboy’) and Charles S. Dutton (‘Alien 3’).

Decorated Vietnam hero Frank Vega returns home only to get shunned by society leaving him without a job or his high school sweetheart. It’s not until 40 years later when an incident on a commuter bus, where he protects an elderly black man from a pair of skin heads, makes him a local hero and he’s suddenly celebrated once again. But his good fortune suddenly turns for the worse when his best friend Klondike is murdered and the police aren’t doing anything about it.

Directed by Craig Moss (‘The 41 Year Old Virgin Who Knocked Up Sarah Marshall And Felt Superbad About It’), ‘Bad Ass’ is inspired by the Epic Beard Man video that captured two men’s highly charged verbal and brutal physical altercation on a public bus in Oakland, California. Posted to YouTube, the video spread like wildfire and the heroic elder bearded man was anointed Epic Beard Man. The video has garnered more than five million views.

The ‘Bad Ass’ Blu-ray and DVD has a featurette and audio commentary. Both the Blu-ray and DVD are now available for pre-order.

The second big DVD release coming from Twentieth Century Fox is more Noir than a straightforward action flick, though it still promises to deliver on the excitement front.

Hailed as “a crime twist worthy of Hitchcock and dialogue worthy of the Coen Brothers” (Screen Daily), ‘Thin Ice’ arrives on Blu-ray and DVD June 12 from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. Starring Oscar-nominee Greg Kinnear (‘As Good As It Gets’, ‘Little Miss Sunshine’), Academy Award winner Alan Arkin (‘Little Miss Sunshine’), Billy Crudup (‘Almost Famous’, ‘Jesus’ Son’) and Lea Thompson (‘Back To The Future’), this intriguing caper premiered to critical praise at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year.

Mickey Prohaska (Kinnear) is a small-time insurance agent looking for a way to jump-start his business, reunite with his estranged wife (Thompson) and escape the frigid Wisconsin weather. This self-proclaimed master of spin believes that salesmanship is about selling a story — all he needs is a sucker willing to buy it. He hits pay dirt with a lonely retired farmer (Arkin) who is sitting on something much bigger than an insurance commission. But Mickey’s attempt to con the old man spins out of control when a nosy, unstable locksmith (Crudup) with a volatile temper dramatically ups the stakes, trapping him in a spiral of danger, deceit and double-crossing.

The Thin Ice Blu-ray and DVD offers three bonus features including a behind-the-scenes featurettes, deleted scenes and a look at the Sundance premiere. The Blu-ray will feature both the theatrical and Director’s cuts of the film.

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With Jaws came blockbusters. In 1975, Steven Spielberg had become the forefather of the big summer films, but with the release of Life in a Day, arises the genre of cinematic experiment. Life in a Day is a collaboration between Scott Free, Ridley Scott’s production company, and Youtube. On July 24, 2010, people filmed a portion of their lives on camera and then uploaded it via Youtube to Scott Free Productions. About 80,000 people submitted their pieces, amounting to 4,500 hours of video. These submissions were done all around the globe from 192 different nations.

The film was announced just weeks before the mass filming on July 24. In order to achieve many different perspectives in the movie, Against All Odds Productions distributed over 500 digital cameras around the world. After filming finished, every user uploaded his or her footage onto Youtube where it was then reviewed and edited. The editing was done by director Kevin MacDonald, Joe Walker and 25 helpers, and primarily used a trial and error process of eliminating and finding the footage MacDonald felt would make it in the film. Rummaging through the videos took about 6 months. It was then given to Sundance for its world premiere on January 27, while Youtube streamed it over its website in order for the world to see what it made.

After the premiere at Sundance, there was a Q&A session with MacDonald, Walker, Liza Marshall (co-producer), Tim Partridge (co-producer) and 26 of the filmmakers that shot some of the footage. At the Q&A session everyone talked about his or her experiences on the project. One of the questions toward MacDonald was what the intended message was in the film. He responded, “I suppose it sounds like a cliché…[but] the message is about connection, and that we are all connected.” The main obstacle the creators had was the editing. Liza Marshall had said, “…the original cut we saw was 3 hours, and we wanted to keep everything in the 3 hour cut, so we had a really difficult decision process to basically to half of the movie.” Because there was so much footage, another obstacle MacDonald found hard was making these bits and pieces of film into a logical narrative.

This movie hits home with just about everyone.  It makes you feel small. It makes you tear with joy, then shutter with a sea of overwhelming.  It shows the audience that there are other people in the world that are just like them. When watching the movie, you realize that no matter how disagreeable the day is getting, no matter how rainy the sky looks, there is always someone parachuting out of a plane, or eating a juicy watermelon. MacDonald was right, and not in a clichéd way, because what he said is, in fact, true. It connects us by making us realize that people we have never met before do the same things that we do. It does not point out to one person as an individual. It points out everyone as a collective. It is releasing on July 27, 2011. A whole year will have passed since all the events were caught on film. Even if you do not like documentaries, even if you do not like MacDonald or Ridley Scott, see this movie. It opens your eyes to what life is– beautiful. And the best part is that it is not in 3-D.

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