Annual Top Films Lists

Top 100 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2016: #11. Pablo Larrain’s Neruda

Published on January 13, 2016

Neruda

Director: Pablo Larrain
Writer: Guillermo Calderon

Pablo Larrain has quickly become one of the most important auteurs in the Chilean New Wave of the past decade thanks to his Pinochet trilogy (Tony Manero; Post Mortem; No) and his excellent 2015 film The Club, which won the Silver Bear in Berlin and recently received a Golden Globe nod for Best Foreign Language Film). He’s been incredibly busy, and his next film, Neruda, is a period biopic of Nobel prize winning poet Pablo Neruda. Penned by Guillermo Calderon (who wrote The Club and 2011’s Violeta Went to Heaven), the film stars Luis Gnecco as Neruda, hunted down in 1940s Chile for joining the Communist Party. Gael Garcia Bernal (who starred in No, 2012) and Larrain’s regular cast member Alfredo Castro also star.

Cast: Gael Garcia Bernal, Luis Gnecco, Alfredo Castro, Antonia Zegers, Mercedes Moran

Production Co.: AZ Films, Fabula, Funny Balloons, Participant Media, Setembro Cine

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available. TBD (domestic/international).

Release Date: Larrain is already at work filming his next feature, Jackie, so we expect this to be primed and ready for a reappearance Berlin or to make a bid at Cannes (where No appeared in Directors’ Fortnight).

Nicholas Bell

Los Angeles based Nicholas Bell is IONCINEMA.com's Chief Film Critic and covers film festivals such as Sundance, Berlin, Cannes and TIFF. He is part of the critic groups on Rotten Tomatoes, The Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA), the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and GALECA. His top 3 for 2021: France (Bruno Dumont), Passing (Rebecca Hall) and Nightmare Alley (Guillermo Del Toro). He was a jury member at the 2019 Cleveland International Film Festival.