Golden Leopard to IFFR-backed and Dutch co-produced ABRIR PUERTAS Y VENTANAS

International Film Festival Rotterdam

PRESS RELEASE August 18, 2011

Golden Leopard to IFFR-backed and Dutch co-produced ABRIR PUERTAS Y VENTANAS

For the second year in a row, the Locarno Film Festival’s top prize has been awarded to a Hubert Bals Fund supported film. Argentinean-Swiss-Dutch co-production ABRIR PUERTAS Y VENTANAS takes home five awards including the Golden Leopard for Best Film from the 64th Locarno Film Festival.
Milagros Mumenthaler’s début feature film has been supported by the International Film Festival Rotterdam’s Hubert Bals Fund and CineMart as well as by the Netherlands Film Fund through the HBF Plus programme. ABRIR PUERTAS Y VENTANAS will receive its Dutch premiere in IFFR 2012’s main section Bright Future.

The official jury of the International Competition of the 64th Locarno Film Festival awarded its highest honor, the Golden Leopard, to ABRIR PUERTAS Y VENTANAS (BACK TO STAY). The jury also honored María Canale with the Best Actress Leopard for her role in ABRIR PUERTAS Y VENTANAS. Additionally in Locarno, Mumenthalers film was awarded the FIPRESCI Prize by the jury of international film critics and received Special Mentions by the Ecumenical Jury and the Junior Jury.
Last year, the Golden Leopard of the 63rd Locarno Film Festival went to WINTER VACATION by Li Hongqi (China), also supported by the IFFR’s Hubert Bals Fund.

Over the past five years the development of ABRIR PUERTAS Y VENTANAS has been supported in various stages of production by the International Film Festival Rotterdam’s Hubert Bals Fund and CineMart.

Fall 2006, Rotterdam’s Hubert Bals Fund selected Mumenthaler’s first feature film project for a script development grant. With a first version of her script developed at the 2007 Résidence of the Cannes Film Festival and with producers Ruda Cine (Argentina), Alina Film (Switzerland) and associate producer Fortuna Films (The Netherlands) attached, ABRIR PUERTAS Y VENTANAS was selected for CineMart 2008. At Rotterdam’s co-production market, Mumenthaler and her producers launched the project internationally in search of additional financing partners.

In 2009, ABRIR PUERTAS Y VENTANAS was selected for the Hubert Bals Fund Plus-programme. Through this programme, launched in 2006 by the Hubert Bals Fund and the Netherlands Film Fund, Dutch film production companies that co-produce projects already supported by the Hubert Bals Fund, receive a financial grant from the Netherlands Film Fund. As a result of the HBF Plus selection, Amsterdam-based film production company Waterland Film became co-producer of ABRIR PUERTAS Y VENTANAS.

To support its final stages of production, the Hubert Bals Fund gave ABRIR PUERTAS Y VENTANAS a grant for post-production in the fall of 2010. The film will have its Dutch premiere during the 41th International Film Festival Rotterdam that runs January 25 – February 5, 2012.

(End of press release)

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