NEWS
Lionsgate/Grindstone picks up thriller 'Blaze You Out'
Mateo Frazier, Diego Joaquin Lopez make directing debut
By John Hopewell
MADRID -- Lionsgate's Grindstone Entertainment has acquired North American rights to Latino-themed dramatic thriller "Blaze You Out," the directorial debut of Mateo Frazier and Diego Joaquin Lopez, who are active in New Mexico's burgeoning film scene.
Produced by former Disney exec Alicia Keyes Touche out of AJK Films, "Blaze" will be released by Lionsgate Home Ent. Grindstone Ent. will handle all U.S. and Canadian rights. 6 Sales picked up rights to the rest of the world just before the American Film Market.
Also co-written by Frazier and Lopez, "Blaze" turns on an aspiring DJ who is forced to venture into her town's heroin trade underworld in order to save her younger sister Alicia's life.
Veronica Diaz-Carranza and Melissa Cordero play Lupe and Alicia. Ensemble cast features a mix of veteran and up-and-coming actors including Elizabeth Pena, Mark Adair Rios, Jeremy Ray Valdez, Q'orianka Kilcher and Raoul Trujillo.
Grindstone's "excitement for the film and its subject matter, along with their commitment to capture the core audience for the movie and cross it over into additional demographics, make them a great fit for us," Keyes said.
The directors "reveal a realistic and uncompromising look at a ruthless underworld that has not been seen before," added Grindstone's Stan Wertlieb.
Wertlieb and 6 Sales' founder Marina Fuentes negotiated the North America deal.
Contact the Variety newsroom at news@variety.com
LIONSGATE/GRINDSTONE ENTERTAINMENT Acquires BLAZE YOU OUT
Susan Smith March 2012
Grindstone Entertainment Group has acquired AJK Films’ Blaze You Out for North America to be released by Lionsgate Home Entertainment. Mateo Frazier and Diego Joaquin Lopez directed the pic, about an unyielding young woman who ventures into the ruthless underworld of her town’s heroin trade in order to save her younger sister’s life. Elizabeth Peña, Veronica Diaz-Carranza, Melissa Cordero, Mark Adair Rios, Jeremy Ray Valdez, Q’orianka Kilcher and Raoul Trujillo star. Grindstone is handling U.S. and Canadian rights; 6 Sales is selling international.
BLAZE YOU OUT: 5 Indy Film Picks for 2013
Susan Smith March 2012
Pay mind folks, especially Festival Programmers and Distributors. Here’s my list of the most exciting American Latino independent fiction films coming through the pipeline ready to break out and make noise in 2013.
All are first features by wildly original voices who are remixing potent multi-cultural heritage and inventing their own unique brand of genre. So much talent! Makes this Chicanita proud.
5. BLAZE YOU OUT – written and directed by Mateo Frazier and Diego Joaquin Lopez and produced by Alicia J. Keyes. Set in the rarely seen mystic world of New Mexico, this young female driven thriller is uniquely atmospheric. Starring the rising young talent, Veronica Diaz Carranza (Mamitas) along with a terrific cast including Elizabeth Peña, Q’orianka Kilcher, Raoul Trujillo and Mark Adair Rios, all who ignite the screen. Diaz stars as Lupe, a DJ who is forced to venture into her town’s heroin trade underworld in order to save her younger sister Alicia’s life. To do so she must confront mysterious occult figures and harness the power within her to connect with the divine that surrounds her.
I was thrilled to hear that Lionsgate picked up the film at AFM a couple months ago. Lionsgate/Grindstone will release the film July 2013. 6 Sales is handling rights to rest of world. Intense and wicked and unlike anything else this is a sizzling genre film to look forward to. In the meantime, check out the press kit, pics and more on their site.
Finding and Championing our own voices – the next generation of independent Latino cinema.
Susan Smith March 2012
---Electrifying female lead character is Lupe in Blaze You Out, played by the vulnerable yet ferocious Veronica Diaz Carranza (Mamitas, Taco Shop). Unlike the common systemic social ills and wayward people that attempt to keep Filly Brown down, Lupe must rival an elemental and ancient evil in this magic realism tale. A modern and not-seen-before mythological darkness and manifestation of evil is captured in this thriller in which Lupe confronts the secret underworld to save her sister. Elizabeth Peña, who is deliciously wicked, and Raoul Trujillo duel in the inherently mystical and native rooted New Mexico, set alongside some ominous mestizo iconography. Brushed with a striking and otherworldly cinematic, the film paints this modern dance with Santa Muerte. An inventive take on the drug ‘sickness’ that rampages these marginalized communities and the secrets that keep them chained, Blaze You Out is the type of film that expands the metaphor. Fierce and unapologetic, the film also stars Q’orianka Kilcher (Pocahantas in The New World), Mark Adair Rios and Melissa Cordero, all who possess magnetic talent.