2022 has already been a fruitful year for Carlos Reygadas. Working in a producer capacity for some time now, he saw the fruit of his labors land back to back festival prizing when the Rotterdam preemed Paz Encina ecological drama EAMI claimed the Tiger Award, and when his creative-collaborator and life partner Natalia Lopez Gallardo won a Silver Bear Jury prize at the Berlinale for Robe of Gems. In our interview with Gallardo, we learned that Reygadas will likely shift outside his native Mexico for his next project. More specifically: Poland. With a tax rebate on film productions in the area of 30 percent — even fellow countryman Michel Franco is possibly looking to film there as well. Update: we learned that the film’s title will be Wake of Umbra.
At what would be the half dozen feature film mark for the Reygadas, he first blasted onto the film seen in Cannes starting with 2002’s Japón (the film received a special mention Camera d’Or prize) and would premiere his next three features there. His last feature, the true family affair drama Nuestro tiempo premiered in Venice (we sat down with the filmmaker back in 2019).
If a 2022 shoot is in the cards then hopefully the current instability of Ukraine will not disrupt neighboring Poland’s foreign film productions. Worth noting: Reygadas was an executive producer Dea Kulumbegashvili’s award-winning debut film Beginning.
Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).
