Actress and producer Eva Longoria appeared on the premiere of the documentary film ‘The Harvest / La Cosecha‘ in Los Angeles, August 3rd, 2011. So far, there is a poor quality picture from the official Facebook movie. Once the HQ photos will be added.
The big buzz about Without Men, Argentine director Gabriela Tagliavini’s film adaptation of James Canon’s Tales From the Town of Widows opening in Los Angeles at the Maya Indie Film Series, seems to be about star Eva Longoria’s lesbian love scene with Kate del Castillo. And if that’s the kind of thing that floats your boat, you might well want to see the film; if not, there is little else to recommend it. There is a lot of sex in the film, but most of it is on the level of the dirty joke. It is neither stimulating, nor exciting. Certainly it is meant to be funny, but more often than not it is merely embarrassing.
Without Men is a comic fairy tale set in a small town “mucho mucho far away,” where all the men, except the local priest, have either been killed by revolutionaries or impressed into their service. Left alone the women are forced to take over, and after a hiccup or two, it turns out they can handle the job as well if not better than their bumbling men folk. They may need the men to keep the race going, but that’s about it. Longoria plays a bossy strong willed woman who becomes the mayor of the town after the men are gone, and while she does eventually get the women to work together as a cohesive community, and demonstrate that women can get along just fine without male supervision, it almost seems to happen in spite of her, rather than as a result of anything she does. If this is meant as a feminist statement, and I would suppose it is, it is feminism ‘lite.’ Still, it is a comedy, so what else could you expect.
Bright vivid colors in the town contrasted with the darker tones of the outer world emphasize the fairy tale quality of the film. It very much echoes the transition from black and white to color in The Wizard of Oz. Indeed the colors pop just as brightly. Oneita Parker’s costumes, except for the few scenes immediately after the men are taken when all the women but one wear widow’s black, burst with color as well. A bright musical score including some catchy songs adds an additional magical element to the film’s mise en scene.
Aside from Longoria, the film features a cast of other well known actors, most of them unfortunately with little to do. Christian Slater is an Anglo reporter who stumbles onto the story and goes off in search of the town. Camryn Manheim is his boss who gets to rant over the phone in a few scenes, once while receiving. . .well why spoil it for those who go to see the film. Oscar Nunez plays the village priest with broad gusto and Paul Rodriguez has little more than a cameo as the rebel leader. Del Castillo’s lesbian feminist is an over the top parody of the typical western’s lone stranger.
While it seems clear that the film aspires to be something more than a comic sex farce, my own feeling is that those aspirations evaporate in the leering sex. Sure there is a statement being made about human sexuality. Sure there is a satiric thrust at Catholic Church teachings on sexual morality. Sure there is some fun poked at the patriarchal social order. The trouble is that these things get lost in lame comic scenes where a madam teaches prostitutes and the rest of the ladies in the village about masturbation, where a virgin is taught how to get a man excited, where pornographic clichés are played out under an office desk. When it comes to the merger of sex farce and satire, Aristophanes has little if anything to worry about from Without Men.
source: blogcritics.org
On television’s Desperate Housewives, Eva Longoria plays man-hungry Gabrielle Solis. She’s even learning how to pole dance for the series’ eighth season, which starts in September. But when her offbeat comedy Without Men opens here Friday, the actress, who divides her time between San Antonio and Hollywood, will make out with another woman – the “Julia Roberts of Mexico,” actress Kate del Castillo.
The indie film that also stars Judy Reyes, Maria Conchita Alonso, Oscar Nu±ez, Paul Rodriguez and Christian Slater, is based on Colombian writer James Ca±n’s novel, Tales From the Town of Widows. Here’s the premise: A remote Latin American pueblo is devoid of men – except for a frisky priest and another dude in drag – who were forced by bumbling guerrillas to fight a civil war. The women are abandoned but soon take charge of rebuilding their all-girl utopia.
But it’s the steamy same-sex subplot scenes between Longoria, 36, as Rosalba, the self-proclaimed mayor, and Del Castillo, 38, as Cleotilde, a shadowy and sexually charged town intruder, that has blogs and celebrity websites hyping the lovemaking, slightly overshadowing the movie’s main subject of solidarity among women. (The film also takes on machismo, religion and political dogma.)
Still, Argentine-born director Gabriela Tagliavini, whose 2003 breakout film Ladies Night remains one of the most successful Mexican movies in that country’s box office history, isn’t complaining.
“There’s nothing like buzz for a movie,” she says from her home in Los Angeles, days before her film’s Hollywood premiere as well as a separate screening at the prestigious Latino International Film Festival, also in L.A. “The lesbian story is just one story.”
To the read interview with director about ‘Without Men’ click on more.
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Another video I found on the Internet you can see on the site. The first one shows the actress Eva Longoria and co-stars Kate del Castillo during a special screening of the film ‘Without Men‘ on 2011 LALIFF in Los Angeles, California (July, 24th) . The recording is done by one of the people who are at the premiere of Eva Longoria shows on the Red Carpet when give give interviews. But much of the film is a record of what has happened just by displaying ‘Without Men‘.
Other videos are short interviews with the actresses on the lesbian kiss and hot scene in their latest film. Speak also about beauty and fashion, among others “Last Season” of Desperate Housewives.
There are more than 400,000 migrant children working the fields in 48 states across the United States. They begin working as early as age 12, their days begin as early as 4 a.m. and their home moves wherever the crop season takes them and their families. The backbreaking labor and transient lifestyle causes them to drop out of high school at four times the national rate. Although other industries have regulations governing the ages, number of hours and conditions under which children can work, agriculture has been largely untouched by the child employment laws that fall under the Fair Labor Standards Act, which was passed in 1938. The Harvest/La Cosecha, a documentary directed by U. Roberto (Robin) Romano and produced by the nonprofit production company Shine Global, is trying to change this.
The movie trails three children and their families as they follow the crop season through Texas, Florida, Michigan, Tennessee, Mississippi and beyond. These children, Victor, Zumela and Perla, often work as much as 30 hours per week and migrate from May through November.
“The kids are never in one place long enough to ever have a real impact made on them in school. They’re so transient that it’s hard to get to know them, deal with their learning issues, and track their progress,” says Augie Orci, executive director of the American Association of Latino Administrators and Superintendents. Under the high-stakes standards of No Child Left Behind, meeting federal guidelines in a district with migrant children can be nearly impossible.
“The movie depicts a drifting, rootless population. The irony is that the people who feed us can’t afford to feed themselves,” says Romano.
The Children’s Act for Responsible Employment was first introduced by Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif.) in September 2009 and advocates stricter limits on child labor in agriculture. Romano and executive producer and actress Eva Longoria have visited Capitol Hill to support this legislation, which currently has over 100 sponsors.
According to executive producer Susan MacLaury, the bill would increase the minimum age for child workers, limit the number of hours they are allowed to work, and raise labor standards for pesticide exposure.
“These children deserve protection under the law,” says Romano. “When we legislate the high road, everyone wins.”
MacLaury says a free downloadable curriculum is being developed for grades 7-12 so that students can learn more about migrant workers and their impact on society. The film will air on Epics TV on Oct. 5 and will then be available on DVD.
source: districtadministration.com
Without men is finally making its way to the big screen in Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago, under a cloud of spicy lesbian scenes by Eva Longoria and Kate del Castillo, one of the most famous Mexican soap opera stars.
Without Men, an independent movie production, is based on the international bestseller Tales From the Town of Widows & Chronicles From the Land of Men by Colombian novelist James Cañón and directed by Argentine Gabriela Tagliavini.
In this comedy, the women of a remote Latin American town are forced to pick up the pieces and rebuild their world when all the town’s men are kidnapped by Communist guerrillas. Without Men is based on real history in Colombia as described by novelist James Cañón and brought to Hollywood by Maya productions, which specializes in titles aimed at Latino and multicultural audiences.
The selection of the book Tales From the Town of Widows & Chronicles From the Land of Men was part of a process; “an interesting process,” says James Cañón. “Basically, a woman from New York [Natalie Moody] read the novel and loved it. Her son [Anthony Moody] is a producer, and so she gave him the book and told him there was a movie in it. He read it and liked it as well. My reaction,” he added, “came later, when they actually bought the rights to produce it. By then, they already had Eva Longoria, Christian Slater and Kate del Castillo on board. I was very happy, not so much because of the impressive casting, but because the Moody-Tagliavini team had made it happen, James Cañón said.
The novelist read the first draft of the movie script, but he wasn’t involved in the production of it. His attitude from the very beginning was: “I wrote my novel. They’ll make their film,” James Cañón said. He thinks it was a healthy way to face the transition of the novel into a film.
James Cañón was born and raised in Colombia and lives in New York. His debut novel, Tales from the Town of Widows & Chronicles From the Land of Men, has been translated into eleven languages and published in over twenty countries.
James Cañón’s book is reflected on Without Men. “The film has the obvious modifications and adaptations that occur when you translate from the literary to the film language,” said James Cañón.
Gabriela Tagliavini is now in New York City waiting for the premiere night. She follows James Cañón’s story and Eva Longoria, who plays Rosalba, the strong-willed woman mayor, who takes charge and helps create a functional, all-female society.
Eva Longoria stars with Christian Slater, María Conchita Alonso, Judy Reyes, comedians Paul Rodríguez, Óscar Nuñez, Judy Reyes (“Scrubs”), and Mónica Huarte.
In Without Man, women are left to rebuild their society, not a common situation in Latin America dominated by an inherently sexist society. In Gabriela Tagliavini’s film, it’s all about the power and the sensuality of the beautiful Latina actresses. Still, it preserves the essence of the novel.
According to James Cañón: “The director also included many dialogues, phrases and even jokes that are in the novel. If the novel is a tragedy with a touch of humor, the film is a comedy with a touch of tragedy.”
source: impre.com
Eva Longoria new movie ‘Without Men‘ appears officially in American cinemas in the Maya India Film Series. MIFS is an event during which the ‘7 cities for 7 days will be showing 7 movies‘, including ‘Without Men‘, where the main role plays Eva Longoria, Christian Slater and Kate del Castillo. ‘Without Men’ hit the screen Friday in Los Angeles, New York and Chicago, and over the next few weeks it will begin showing in San Diego, San Antonio and Miami.
Check out steamy footage of Eva Longoria and Kate del Castillo from ‘Without Men’, then see it at Maya Indie Film Series! I added too pictures from Behind the Scenes.
The Harvest/La Cosecha
Directed by U. Roberto Romano
Distributed by Cinema Libre
Opening at Quad Cinema July 29
Like many ‘worthy cause’-themed documentaries, especially those produced with high-profile activist/philanthropist backing, The Harvest operates less as a film than as an audiovisual petition, the prosaic, formulaic aspect of which diminishes its impact. In addition to celebrity executive producer Eva Longoria, several of the main players behind this project (Rory O’Connor, Albie Hecht and Susan MacLaury, director U. Roberto Romano) are seasoned, award-winning figures in the field of human rights movie-making.
The Harvest traces the experiences and perspectives of three child migrant workers – Zulema Lopez (12), Victor Huapilla (16) and Perla Sanchez (14) – as they travel around the country with their families in search of crops that need picking. They have been doing this grueling, often dangerous manual labor – twelve-to-fourteen-hour days in 100-degree heat, exposed to pesticides – since the age of seven or eight, committing themselves to their parents’ and grandparents’ struggle for subsistence.
The most moving aspect of these stories is also the most tragic: the extraordinary bond of mutual responsibility that ties family members together, yet keeps them locked in the same hopeless, hardscrabble routine year after year, generation upon generation. Zulema’s grandmother and mother are adamant about enabling the children to escape this vicious circle, but the odds stacked against such heartfelt resolve prove insurmountable, because the only prospect of work lies where the next crop awaits harvesting and requires a life of constant travel, which denies the youngsters a stable education. (The school drop-out rate among children who are migrant workers, we are informed, amounts to four times the national average.)
Their displaced existence moreover forces them to mature fast, outside the comfort zone we tend to associate with childhood. You won’t often hear a more pragmatic-sounding twelve-year-old than Zumela, who nurtures no dreams, and believes she may at best one day find certain goals to aspire to. Perla is more ambitious; she wants to become a lawyer, so she can help improve the lot of her people. Victor looks forward to the day when he’ll be able to tell his own kids that he used to work in the fields. The Harvest arouses the most interest when it brings out the indomitable individuality of the three protagonists, not when it implicitly marshals them to sensitize audiences to the concerns of the CARE Act (Children’s Act for Responsible Employment).
The need for a campaign that supports this piece of legislation, geared to end the exemption of agricultural employment from the regulations stipulated in the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act, stands to reason. Given its political agenda, though, The Harvest would have benefited from a more overtly politicized stylistic approach to the subject. Romano’s stated aim of making the narrative as organic and minimally invasive as possible does not account for the grating doses of picturesque vistas, didactic title cards, solemn fades-to-black, rote musical accompaniment and staple montage sequences of road movie tracking shots he layers on. Why downplay the screen presence of the harvesters’ lives by giving them the Lifetime treatment?
source: indypendent.org
The interest sparked by a lesbian scene featuring Eva Longoria and Mexican actress Kate del Castillo has marked the U.S. debut of the comedy “Without Men.”
In the film, Longoria distances herself from her well-known character in “Desperate Housewives” to play the part of a strong-willed widow who winds up becoming the mayor of her town when leftist guerrillas kidnap all the men.
It is a situation that the female residents of the remote town overcome, however, forging a new type of utopian society and the experience fosters a great love for one another among the surviving townspeople.
“It’s good that the people are going to see it out of prurient interest, although the film is more than that,” Argentine director Gabriela Tagliavini – who undertook to adapt the story based on the novel “Tales from the Town of Widows” by Colombian-born author James Cañon – told Efe.
“It’s a human and social proposal but in the form of a daring comedy. We seize on the cliches and we laugh about them,” Tagliavini said, insisting that “it’s not a lesbian drama” and neither is it a feminist allegory.
Longoria “really liked the script,” said the director who, with a very small filming budget, relied on personal relationships to assemble the cast consisting of Longoria, Del Castillo, Christian Slater, Oscar Nuñez, Maria Conchita Alonso and Monica Huarte, among others.
With regard to the already famous sex scene between Longoria and Del Castillo, part of which is shown in the film’s trailer, Tagliavini admitted that the two actresses were “a little nervous and were laughing” about doing the scene.
“Without Men” will hit the screen on Friday in Los Angeles, New York and Chicago, and over the next few weeks it will begin showing in San Diego, San Antonio and Miami. EFE
source: laht.com
After over four years, “The Harvest/La Cosecha” will finally premier this Friday 7/29 at the Quad Cinema in NY for a week run followed by an opening in LA Friday 8/5
The Producers will do a Q&A following the Friday and Saturday night evening screenings in both cities (7:40 in NY and 7:30 in LA)
THE HARVEST/LA COSECHA is the story of the children who work 12-14 hour days, 7 days a week to pick the food that we eat. These children are not toiling in the fields in some far away land. They are working here, in our back yard, in America. Every year more than 400,000 migrant child farmworkers in the US journey from their homes traveling from the scorching sun of the Texas onion fields to the winter snows of the Michigan apple orchards, from the heat of the Florida tomato fields to the damp cherry trees in Oregon. These children are American citizens. All are working to help their families survive while sacrificing the birthright of childhood: play; stability; school. The film profiles three of them as they work through the 2009-10 harvests. Whose families will be “lucky” enough to get work? Which families will be separated? Which will get sick or injured? Will there be enough work to sustain them? Will any manage to keep their dreams alive? The film follows these children as they follow the crops they harvest, their lives governed by climate, demand, trade, and the greater economy. The verite footage of the children and their year of toil is augmented by the children having the chance to speak for themselves about their lives. THE HARVEST/LA COSECHA boasts unparalleled access to life on these farms across the nation and gives us the opportunity to connect with these children who live these unthinkable lives to feed us, and more importantly to them, to feed their families and themselves.
When director Gabriela Tagliavini was casting her latest film, “Without Men,” starring Eva Longoria, Christian Slater and Kate del Castillo, she knew it was crucial to get the sexual chemistry right.
Not between Longoria’s character, an ordinary woman who becomes the “mayor” of a Latin American mountain village where all the males have been forced to join a guerrilla army, and Slater’s character, a zealous gringo journalist.
In the English-language comic fable, adapted from Colombian writer James Canon’s novel “Tales From the Town of Widows,” the key erotic connection involves Longoria and Del Castillo, cast as a seductive interloper who turns up in the suddenly all-female pueblo, as sleek and mysterious as Clint Eastwood strolling into a spaghetti western.
“Kate is a woman that is fierce, she likes a challenge,” Tagliavini said of the Mexican star of TV (“Weeds,” “La Reina del Sur”) and movies (“Under the Same Moon”). “Kate, in one of our [media] Q&As, said, ‘I kiss a lot of ugly guys, so I don’t see what the fuss is about over kissing a woman.’”
“Without Men” hails from the female-friendly genre of magical-libidinal-realism that begat “Like Water for Chocolate” and “The House of the Spirits.” Tagliavini thinks her film’s romantic interludes between Del Castillo and Longoria, the petite Mexican American star of TV’s “Desperate Housewives,” will concentrate the minds of female and male viewers alike, starting at Friday night’s U.S. premiere as part of the Maya Indie Film Series at the Laemmle Sunset 5.
Yet, “Without Men,” like Tagliavini’s breakout hit, the Mexico City-set romantic comedy “Ladies’ Night” (2003), aspires to be more than simply a chick flick with a Spanish accent. In positing a girls-only utopian community, the film pokes fun (mostly gently) at male machismo, political ideology and the moral strictures of the Roman Catholic Church.
And although its same-sex erotic subplot likely won’t cause a stir in laid-back Los Angeles, it may play slightly differently in Latin America, Tagliavini acknowledged. At one Mexico City test-screening, some audience members who praised the movie also expressed discomfort at its sexual politics.
“In their hearts they loved it. In their minds they were a little afraid,” said the Argentine-born director.
Uniting the cinematic sensibilities of diverse audiences has been a goal of the small but ambitious Maya Indie series.
Now in its third year, the series is an offshoot of Maya Entertainment, a multi-platform content and distribution company and theater chain led by movie producer Moctesuma Esparza (“Selena,” “Gettysburg,” “The Milagro Beanfield War”) and Jeff Valdez. After opening in L.A. and New York, the series will move on to San Diego, San Antonio and other cities.
While previous editions have featured a number of Spanish-language films, this year’s is English-dominant. “We would’ve loved to have had a couple of good Spanish-language films,” Esparza said. However, he added, “The Los Angeles reality is a diverse, multicultural reality.”
The other films in this year’s series, which runs through Aug. 4, include “All She Can,” about a small-town Texas girl’s bid to become a champion power-lifter; “Blue Eyes,” a drama that pairs a death-haunted U.S. immigration officer with a young Brazilian woman; “DiDi Hollywood,” which charts a young woman’s fame-seeking odyssey; and “Forged,” a story of Rust Belt redemption.
Another entry, “Where the Road Meets the Sun,” a well-acted, street-poetic fusion of action-thriller, immigrant drama and unconventional buddy movie, written and directed by Yong Mun Chee, reflects the culturally scrambled metropolis that Maya aims to serve.
Two parallel friendships track through that film, which takes place in and around the Los Feliz-Koreatown-Silver Lake area where Yong, a USC film school alum, makes her home. In one, a Japanese hitman struggling with violent flashbacks meets up with Blake, a hotel desk clerk battling memories of a marriage-wrecking affair. In the other, Julio, an illegal immigrant worker, forms an unlikely bond with Guy, a charming ne’er-do-well Brit. The cast includes Will Yun Lee (“Die Another Day”) and Eric Mabius (“Resident Evil”).
“It’s the perspective of an outsider coming to Los Angeles,” said Yong, who was raised in Singapore.
In the same way that L.A. scrambles ethnicity and identity, “Where the Road Meets the Sun” fuses various genre and stylistic elements together in a way that defies expectations. Yong would like to see more films being made with an artistic freedom that mirrors her adopted city’s rich stew of languages, cultures and people.
“If I’m telling an L.A. story, it doesn’t matter what genre it is,” she said. “I think that [mix] should be reflected in the film, but it doesn’t have to be a story about immigrants. It could be a horror movie or a romantic comedy.”
source: latimes.com
To the Gallery I added new photos from 2011 Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival screening of ‘Without Men‘ at the Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles, California on July 24. Check out HQ and MQ photos from this event she wore cream BCBG blouse with cut-out sleeves which she paired with Andrew Gn Spring 2011 loose fitting khaki pants.
A sparkly embellished Judith Leiber clutch and diamond earrings were added to her look and she wore her hair half-down with a teased pouf on top.
Star Pulse hit in Los Angeles premiere of Gabriela Tagliavini’s hilarious romantic comedy, “Without Men,” to ask the cast what they would do without men, or women! Lesbians, sex-toys, alcoholics; we heard it all! But hey, don’t take our word for it… Check out what Eva Longoria, Oscar Nunez and more had to say, for yourselves!
source: starpulse.com