Mia Maestro: Last News

John Leguizamo thinks the casting of James Franco as Cuban revolution leader Fidel Castro is no bueno.

Salma Hayek had a wonderful time visiting The Pinault Collection, an extensive art collection amassed by her husband, French billionaire François Pinault, and his family. The private collection is at three museums, and she stopped by the Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana in Venice, Italy, to appreciate it.

Manuel Betancourt Hundreds of fish lie dead on a riverbed. A lone (lonely?) cow ambles around late at night in a forest. A flock of birds fly in discordant unison up above. The arresting images of nature gone awry in Francisca Alegría’s “The Cow Who Sang a Song Into the Future” are but the first clues that this rural-set Chilean feature has a distinct ecological interest. This hypnotic tale about how hard it can be to heal earthly and familial wounds marks a singular feature debut from the director of 2016 short “And the Whole Sky Fit in the Dead Cow’s Eye.” Aptly matching its dizzying and obfuscating title, the film opens with a premise that owes much to Latin America’s most treasured literary genre: magical realism. A young woman, with a motorcycle helmet in tow, emerges from the river where she presumably committed suicide decades ago. She washes ashore only slightly disoriented, caring little for the muddied state she’s in. Audiences, who have been offered an extended view of the verdant landscape around this mystery woman, including of the many fish who will soon be found dead in her wake, have heard a choral song that elucidates (though doesn’t quite clarify) what’s happened: “We’ve lived in agony since she passed away,” the voices sing, “but a drowned woman will come back soaked with life. And like her, we will return one day.” Alegría puts us immediately in a world where spirituality and ecology co-exist, where haunting presences have tangible connections with the physical realm.

The stars are stepping out for the premiere of Extrapolations!

EXCLUSIVE: Fidel Castro’s daughter, Alina Fernández, has emphasized to Deadline her endorsement of James Franco playing her Cuban leader revolutionary father in the upcoming independent feature, Alina of Cuba.

James Franco has booked his next movie role.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Five years after her lauded short “And the Whole Sky Fit in the Dead Cow’s Eye” won Sundance’s short film jury award in international fiction, Chile’s Francisca Alegria is bowing her feature debut on Jan. 23 at the Park City, Utah, fest.In “The Cow Who Sang a Song Into the Future,” Alegria continues to further expand the themes in her short.