FILE - This April 12, 2012 file photo shows Kristin Cavallari at the Conde Nast Traveler Hot List Party at The Presidential Suite of Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles. Cavallari and her Chicago Bears quarterback husband Jay Cutler are expecting their second baby. The 26-year-old former star of MTV’s “Laguna Beach” and “The Hills” confirmed the news Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013, on Twitter. The couple have a 14-month-old son and were married last June in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Danny Moloshok, File)
FILE - This April 12, 2012 file photo shows Kristin Cavallari at the Conde Nast Traveler Hot List Party at The Presidential Suite of Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles. Cavallari and her Chicago Bears quarterback husband Jay Cutler are expecting their second baby. The 26-year-old former star of MTV’s “Laguna Beach” and “The Hills” confirmed the news Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013, on Twitter. The couple have a 14-month-old son and were married last June in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Danny Moloshok, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Kristin Cavallari and her Chicago Bears quarterback husband Jay Cutler are one step closer to having their own football team.
Cavallari is pregnant with their second baby. The 26-year-old former star of MTV's "Laguna Beach" and "The Hills" confirmed the news Wednesday on Twitter. She wrote: "We are so excited for Camden to be a big brother!"
Camden is the couple's 14-month-old son.
Cavallari and Cutler were married last June in Nashville, Tenn.
The family splits their time between Nashville and Chicago.
Bacteria and fat: A 'perfect storm' for inflammation, may promote diabetes
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
30-Oct-2013
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Contact: Jennifer Brown jennifer-l-brown@uiowa.edu 319-356-7124 University of Iowa Health Care
Bacterial toxins activate fat cells producing chronic inflammation, which in turn boosts risk of developing diabetes
Making fat cells immortal might seem like a bad idea to most people, but for a team of University of Iowa scientists it was the ideal way to study how the interaction between bacteria and fat cells might contribute to diabetes.
The connection between fat, bacteria, and diabetes is inflammation, which is the body's normal reaction to infection or injury. Inflammation is beneficial in small, controlled doses but can be extremely harmful when it persists and becomes chronic.
"The idea is that when fat cells (adipocytes) interact with environmental agents -- in this case, bacterial toxins -- they then trigger a chronic inflammatory process," says Patrick Schlievert, Ph.D., UI professor and head of microbiology and co-senior author of a new study published Oct. 30 in the journal PLOS ONE. "We know that chronic inflammation leads to insulin resistance, which can then lead to diabetes. So people are very interested in the underlying causes of chronic inflammation."
The UI researchers used immortalized fat cells to show that bacterial toxins stimulate fat cells to release molecules called cytokines, which promote inflammation. By immortalizing fat cells the UI team created a stockpile of continuously dividing, identical cells that are necessary for repeat experiments to validate results, explains Al Klingelhutz, Ph.D., UI microbiologist and co-senior author of the study.
Previous studies have shown that a toxin called lipopolysaccharide (LPS) produced by E. coli bacteria that reside in the human gut, triggers fat cells to produce pro-inflammatory cytokines, and this interaction has been proposed to contribute to the development of diabetes.
The UI team focused on a different bacterium, Staphylococcus aureus (staph), which appears to be important in the context of diabetes for two reasons. First, as people become obese and then progress into diabetes they become very heavily colonized with staph bacteria. Secondly, staph is the most common microbe isolated from diabetic foot ulcers, one of the most common and health-threatening complications of diabetes.
All staph bacteria make toxins called superantigens -- molecules that disrupt the immune system. Schlievert's research has previously shown that superantigens cause the deadly effects of various staph infections, such as toxic shock syndrome, sepsis, and endocarditis.
The new UI study shows that superantigens from staph bacteria trigger fat cells to produce pro-inflammatory molecules. Moreover, the study found that superantigens synergized with LPS from E. coli to magnify fat cells' cytokine responses, amplifying the inflammation, which could potentially boost the likelihood of developing diabetes.
"The E. coli that resides in our gut produces LPS and every day a small amount of this toxin gets into our circulation, but it is generally cleared from the circulation by the liver. However, people colonized by staph bacteria are also chronically exposed to superantigens, which shut down the LPS detoxification pathway," Schlievert explains. "That creates a synergy between the 'uncleared' LPS and the superantigen. All these two molecules do is cause inflammation and cytokine production. So in essence, their presence together creates a perfect storm for inflammation."
The findings suggest that by promoting chronic inflammation through their effect on fat cells, staph superantigens may play a role in the development of diabetes. In addition, the chronic inflammation caused by the superantigens may also hinder wound healing in diabetic foot ulcers. The ulcers, which affect 15 to 25 percent of people with diabetes, are notoriously difficult to heal and can often lead to amputation.
Why immortalize fat cells?
The UI team created immortalized fat cells for their research because primary fat cells (taken directly from fat tissue) are not very useful for lab experiments. Once the primary cells are grown in a dish, they quickly stop dividing and can't be used for repeated experiments. In contrast, the immortalized fat cells allow experiments to be repeated multiple times on identical cells ensuring consistent, reproducible results.
Klingelhutz and his team immortalized immature precursor fat cells by adding in two genes from HPV (the virus that causes cervical cancer) along with a gene for part of an enzyme that controls the length of cells' telomeres -- the pieces of DNA that protect chromosome tips from deterioration. These immortal precursor cells could then be "grown up" in petri dishes and differentiated into normal fat cells.
"The immortal fat cells are a great experimental tool that will allow us to investigate the mechanisms of the inflammation and allow us to test ways to potentially inhibit the response," says Klingelhutz. "That would be a goal in the future."
###
In addition to Schlievert and Klingelhutz, the research team included UI graduate student and study's lead author Bao Vu, and UI research assistant Francoise Gourronc; and University of Minnesota professor David Bernlohr, Ph.D.
The study was funded by a UI Department of Microbiology Development Grant and a research grant from the National Institutes of Health (Grant# AI074283).
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Bacteria and fat: A 'perfect storm' for inflammation, may promote diabetes
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
30-Oct-2013
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Contact: Jennifer Brown jennifer-l-brown@uiowa.edu 319-356-7124 University of Iowa Health Care
Bacterial toxins activate fat cells producing chronic inflammation, which in turn boosts risk of developing diabetes
Making fat cells immortal might seem like a bad idea to most people, but for a team of University of Iowa scientists it was the ideal way to study how the interaction between bacteria and fat cells might contribute to diabetes.
The connection between fat, bacteria, and diabetes is inflammation, which is the body's normal reaction to infection or injury. Inflammation is beneficial in small, controlled doses but can be extremely harmful when it persists and becomes chronic.
"The idea is that when fat cells (adipocytes) interact with environmental agents -- in this case, bacterial toxins -- they then trigger a chronic inflammatory process," says Patrick Schlievert, Ph.D., UI professor and head of microbiology and co-senior author of a new study published Oct. 30 in the journal PLOS ONE. "We know that chronic inflammation leads to insulin resistance, which can then lead to diabetes. So people are very interested in the underlying causes of chronic inflammation."
The UI researchers used immortalized fat cells to show that bacterial toxins stimulate fat cells to release molecules called cytokines, which promote inflammation. By immortalizing fat cells the UI team created a stockpile of continuously dividing, identical cells that are necessary for repeat experiments to validate results, explains Al Klingelhutz, Ph.D., UI microbiologist and co-senior author of the study.
Previous studies have shown that a toxin called lipopolysaccharide (LPS) produced by E. coli bacteria that reside in the human gut, triggers fat cells to produce pro-inflammatory cytokines, and this interaction has been proposed to contribute to the development of diabetes.
The UI team focused on a different bacterium, Staphylococcus aureus (staph), which appears to be important in the context of diabetes for two reasons. First, as people become obese and then progress into diabetes they become very heavily colonized with staph bacteria. Secondly, staph is the most common microbe isolated from diabetic foot ulcers, one of the most common and health-threatening complications of diabetes.
All staph bacteria make toxins called superantigens -- molecules that disrupt the immune system. Schlievert's research has previously shown that superantigens cause the deadly effects of various staph infections, such as toxic shock syndrome, sepsis, and endocarditis.
The new UI study shows that superantigens from staph bacteria trigger fat cells to produce pro-inflammatory molecules. Moreover, the study found that superantigens synergized with LPS from E. coli to magnify fat cells' cytokine responses, amplifying the inflammation, which could potentially boost the likelihood of developing diabetes.
"The E. coli that resides in our gut produces LPS and every day a small amount of this toxin gets into our circulation, but it is generally cleared from the circulation by the liver. However, people colonized by staph bacteria are also chronically exposed to superantigens, which shut down the LPS detoxification pathway," Schlievert explains. "That creates a synergy between the 'uncleared' LPS and the superantigen. All these two molecules do is cause inflammation and cytokine production. So in essence, their presence together creates a perfect storm for inflammation."
The findings suggest that by promoting chronic inflammation through their effect on fat cells, staph superantigens may play a role in the development of diabetes. In addition, the chronic inflammation caused by the superantigens may also hinder wound healing in diabetic foot ulcers. The ulcers, which affect 15 to 25 percent of people with diabetes, are notoriously difficult to heal and can often lead to amputation.
Why immortalize fat cells?
The UI team created immortalized fat cells for their research because primary fat cells (taken directly from fat tissue) are not very useful for lab experiments. Once the primary cells are grown in a dish, they quickly stop dividing and can't be used for repeated experiments. In contrast, the immortalized fat cells allow experiments to be repeated multiple times on identical cells ensuring consistent, reproducible results.
Klingelhutz and his team immortalized immature precursor fat cells by adding in two genes from HPV (the virus that causes cervical cancer) along with a gene for part of an enzyme that controls the length of cells' telomeres -- the pieces of DNA that protect chromosome tips from deterioration. These immortal precursor cells could then be "grown up" in petri dishes and differentiated into normal fat cells.
"The immortal fat cells are a great experimental tool that will allow us to investigate the mechanisms of the inflammation and allow us to test ways to potentially inhibit the response," says Klingelhutz. "That would be a goal in the future."
###
In addition to Schlievert and Klingelhutz, the research team included UI graduate student and study's lead author Bao Vu, and UI research assistant Francoise Gourronc; and University of Minnesota professor David Bernlohr, Ph.D.
The study was funded by a UI Department of Microbiology Development Grant and a research grant from the National Institutes of Health (Grant# AI074283).
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Share
]
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
For the first time in UFC history, Reebok will be represented inside the Octagon.
Welterweight title challenger Johny Hendricks inked a blue-chip sponsorship with the athletic sportswear giant in early October. Now, in advance of his UFC 167 bout against champion Georges St-Pierre, Hendricks' new sponsor has agreed to pay the UFC's sponsorship tax and go to bat for Hendricks on November 16, 2013.
Ariel Helwani reported the news on Wednesday's episode of UFC Tonight after confirming it with Hendricks' agent Oren Hodak of KO Reps and his management, Team Takedown.
While Reebok also sponsors mixed martial arts fighter Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, in the past Reebok refused to pay the UFC's heavy sponsorship tax, which prevented a disgruntled Jackson from wearing any Reebok product during his Octagon farewell at UFC on FOX 6.
This time however, according to Helwani, Reebok has agreed to pay the tax for one fight -- Hendricks' battle against St-Pierre.
Hendricks joins the shortlist of UFC fighters sponsored by major sporting entities, which also includes St-Pierre, UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones, former middleweight champion Anderson Silva, and former heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos.
President Barack Obama smiles after he said that environmental protesters who interrupted his speech were at the wrong event as he speaks at Boston's historic Faneuil Hall about the federal health care law, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013. Faneuil Hall is where former Massachusetts Republican Gov. Mitt Romney, Obama's rival in the 2012 presidential election, signed the state's landmark health care law in 2006, with top Democrats standing by his side. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
President Barack Obama smiles after he said that environmental protesters who interrupted his speech were at the wrong event as he speaks at Boston's historic Faneuil Hall about the federal health care law, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013. Faneuil Hall is where former Massachusetts Republican Gov. Mitt Romney, Obama's rival in the 2012 presidential election, signed the state's landmark health care law in 2006, with top Democrats standing by his side. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Confronted with missteps in his own administration, President Barack Obama has frequently pleaded ignorance, suggesting he couldn't be at fault about things he did not know.
That was the case with the embarrassing healthcare.gov rollout. And, according to a U.S. official, Obama didn't know until recently that the U.S. had secretly monitored the German chancellor's phone for a decade.
It's an argument with benefits but also risks for the White House. Use it too often and the tactic emboldens critics who claim the president is incompetent, detached and not fully in control.
Obama's aides say they deliberate intensively about what to tell the president. They're eager to protect his time and concentration, but want to ensure he has information he needs to make decisions, respond to questions and promote his agenda.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013, before the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on the difficulties plaguing the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Partisan sparks were flying in Congress on Tuesday as Sebelius, President Barack Obama's top health official apologized for wasting consumers' time as they tried to use the crippled website that allows them to buy government mandated health insurance under the overhaul known as Obamacare. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013, before the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on the difficulties plaguing the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Partisan sparks were flying in Congress on Tuesday as Sebelius, President Barack Obama's top health official apologized for wasting consumers' time as they tried to use the crippled website that allows them to buy government mandated health insurance under the overhaul known as Obamacare. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., holds up a letter he wrote to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius asking that she consider waiving "Obamacare" for the 4th Congressional District of Colorado, as she testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee about the difficulties plaguing the debut of the healthcare program, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013, before the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on the difficulties plaguing the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Partisan sparks were flying in Congress on Tuesday as Sebelius, President Barack Obama's top health official apologized for wasting consumers' time as they tried to use the crippled website that allows them to buy government mandated health insurance under the overhaul known as Obamacare. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Here's what some Republicans want to know: If Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius thinks the new health insurance marketplace is going to be so great, why doesn't she get her own coverage from it?
As a Medicare beneficiary, she can't.
But her response to Republicans who pressed her Wednesday to sign up under a health insurance exchange was problematic. She said that because she's part of the federal employee health plan, she's not eligible to switch to the exchanges.
In fact, Americans who have workplace health insurance, as most with coverage do, can drop it in favor of individual policies offered by the exchanges. But doing so would not make financial sense for most.
A look at the back and forth at a House hearing, with underlying facts:
REP. CORY GARDNER, R-Colo.: "You're in charge of this law, correct? Why aren't you in the exchange?"
SEBELIUS: "Because I'm part of the federal employee health benefit plan. ... I'm not eligible for the exchange."
GARDNER: "You can decide to drop your coverage of your employer. You have the choice to decide not to choose ..."
SEBELIUS: "Not true, sir."
GARDNER: "I would encourage you to be just like the American people and enter the exchange and agree to find a way ..."
SEBELIUS: "It's illegal."
GOP Rep. Billy Long of Missouri also tried.
LONG: "You're architect of the whole program and you won't go into it with the rest of the American public."
SEBELIUS: "I did not say that, sir. I think it's illegal for me to."
LONG: "If you can, will you?"
SEBELIUS: "I will take a look at it."
___
THE FACTS:
It would be financially nonsensical for most with federal employee health insurance to step away from it in favor of an individual policy in the exchange. Doing so would mean losing the employer contribution to the health plan. It's also unlikely they would qualify for subsidized coverage available to many who seek insurance in the exchanges because they don't have access to workplace coverage.
But Sebelius' point that she can't do it because her federal employee insurance disqualifies her doesn't hold up.
What does block her from enrolling in an exchange is her status as a Medicare beneficiary, which she did not mention at the hearing. Plans offered by the exchanges cannot be sold to people on Medicare, and her department said in a statement that "the secretary is a Medicare enrollee."
Gardner told the hearing his family chose to have a private policy in Colorado "so we could be in the same boat as every one of my constituents."
But individual private policies are not the norm. Employer-based group coverage is. In that sense, Sebelius is already "just like the American people," as Gardner implored her to become.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Confronted with missteps in his own administration, President Barack Obama has frequently pleaded ignorance — suggesting he could not be at fault about things he did not know.
It's an argument with clear benefits but also inherent risks for the White House. Used too often, the tactic emboldens critics who claim the president is incompetent, detached and not fully in control.
Eager to protect Obama's time and concentration, his aides deliberate intensively about what to tell the president, current and former White House officials said. His advisers act as a triage team for an endless flood of information coming into the White House, continually making decisions about which snippets of data Obama might need.
What makes the cut: Information that's likely to require a presidential decision, come up during a public appearance or inform Obama's longer-term thinking, as well as major developments relating to national security or Obama's domestic priorities.
Everything else, including most of the myriad details of how policies and laws are carried out, remains with staff and agencies. If and when things go wrong, as they invariably do in the sprawling federal government, the White House can seek to sidestep uncomfortable questions by saying the issue never rose to the presidential level.
Month after month, for a full year before healthcare.gov website went live, Obama posed the same questions in regular meetings with his advisers and top health officials: "How's the website? Will it work," according to one official present for the meetings.
But nobody ever signaled to the president that deep-seated problems with the site would lead to a near-meltdown immediately after its debut, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal meetings.
"I told the president that we were ready to go. Clearly I was wrong. We were wrong," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told Congress on Wednesday, shifting the blame from the president to herself.
A similar logic played out this week as a U.S. official said the president didn't learn until recently — five years into Obama's presidency — that the National Security Agency had been secretly monitoring the German chancellor's cellphone for a decade. And the White House said earlier this year that Obama was unaware of an investigation into whether IRS agents improperly targeted tea party groups for extra scrutiny, even though top White House aides knew.
Yet, White House officials said Obama has created a culture wherein aides are expected to err on the side of providing more information, and frequently sends staffers away from meetings with "homework assignments" when all of his questions haven't been answered.
And as the full extent of the healthcare.gov problems became clear, Obama told aides he wished they would have told him more — a directive that's not uncommon from Obama when he's caught off-guard by pitfalls, said Dan Pfeiffer, Obama's senior adviser.
"The things that come back to bite you are the things you didn't know to tell him about," Pfeiffer said. "The last thing you want to do is not tell him something that's bad news that you think he doesn't want to hear."
"That will get you in trouble the fastest," Pfeiffer added.
Ari Fleischer, former President George W. Bush's press secretary, said after Bush was burned by bad information about alleged weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Bush stopped blindly accepting what he was told and began demanding that the CIA and other agencies walk through their logic in front of him.
"You want everybody to be looking over their shoulders, saying 'the boss is watching,'" Fleischer said.
Republicans have pounced on Obama's assertion to claim a failure of leadership when it comes to implementing the health care law, his signature legislative achievement. Said the Republican National Committee: "Will he ever take responsibility for — let alone become aware of — how he's running his government?"
In other cases, such as revelations the Justice Department secretly subpoenaed phone records for Associated Press journalists, the White House has insisted it would be inappropriate for Obama to be informed about law enforcement operations that are supposed to be carried out without political interference.
But officials who have served in Democratic and Republican administrations said it's reasonable Obama wouldn't know that the NSA was listening in on German Chancellor Angela Merkel's phone.
Obama's prime method for digesting intelligence information is the highly classified daily briefing he receives each morning. But the sources for the data points in that report are scrubbed well before it reaches the president, said James Andrew Lewis, a former State Department official and national security expert.
"It doesn't say, 'Oh, by the way, this came from Angela Merkel's cellphone,'" Lewis said. "It's like he doesn't ask the cook, 'Where did you buy the chicken this week?'"
___
AP White House Correspondent Julie Pace contributed to this report.
___
Follow Josh Lederman on Twitter at http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP
A rough-and-tumble, enjoyable yarn about a group of 16-year-old punk-rock wannabes from Guadalajara.
Venue
Morelia Film Festival (Competition)
Director
Samuel Kishi Leopo
Cast
Alejandro Gallardo, Arnold Ramirez, Rafael Andrade Munoz, Moises Galindo, Jaime Miranda, Petra Iniguez Robles
MORELIA -- The teenage members of a Mexican punk-rock band with a single-song repertoire struggle to come up with a second tune so they can compete in a battle of the bands in We Are Mari Pepa (Somos Mari Pepa), the feature debut of 29-year-old director Samuel Kishi Leopo, who expands his eponymous 2011 short into an appropriately rough-and-tumble yet finally very enjoyable yarn.
Though Mari Pepa can’t quite decide whether it’s really the story of the band’s 16-year-old guitar player or, as the title seems to suggest, the story of all of the band members, who all still live all home, Kishi Leopo demonstrates a good eye for youth culture and the foibles of adolescence and manages to imbue his characters with an infectious and youthful spirit that the young actors, all encoring, unaffectedly get across in their characterizations.
This Morelia competition title’s international bow will take place at AFI and the film should pursue a successful world festival tour, with an outside chance of niche pickups, especially in the Hispanosphere.
Alex (Alejandro Gallardo) is the long-locked guitarist of the Guadalajara-based band Mari Pepa (“‘Mari’ stands for marijuana, ‘Pepa’ refers to the female genitals,” Alex explains). The makeshift group further consists of the slightly awkward Rafa (Rafael Andrade Munoz), with a green baseball cap on backwards, behind the drums; the charismatic Bolter (Arnold Ramirez) on vocals and curly-haired Moy (Moises Galindo), the only proud owner of an actual girlfriend, on bass.
Their signature (and only) song is a punk-rock piece whose shouty refrain simply repeats the line “I wanna cum in your face, Natasha,” in English, though it’s made abundantly clear that perhaps only Moy ever got beyond second base. One of the film’s best scenes is a beautifully observed, rather uncomfortable moment when Moy brings his girlfriend along to a rehearsal, with the other boys simultaneously annoyed and intimidated by her presence and in awe and slightly jealous of Moy.
Leopo and co-screenwriter Sofia Gomez Cordova cap off the moment with some tension-defusing humor, when the alien presence in the boys’ midst cluelessly asks if they “know any One Direction songs?” Leopo supplies all his characters with varying reactions that are translated into body language that evolves throughout the sequence, not just when someone has a line of dialog, ensuring the moment feels just right both in the fore- and background.
Though individual scenes feel authentic, the overall structure’s rather loose and there’s not a single narrative throughline. This has several advantages, including the notable absence of an utterly clichéd, battle of the bands-set finale. But it also somewhat diffuses the film’s focus, with Alex clearly the main protagonist but the agile camera also present in the homes of his peers, who have their parents nagging them about college applications and the like.
There’s an surprising scene in which Alex, looking to make some cash after his guitar’s stolen, attends a HerbaLife sales-pitch meeting and he unexpectedly runs into the unemployed father of one of his bandmates, whom he later sees sitting alone in his car in front of his home in what feels like the moment Alex realizes that adult life isn’t necessarily all that it’s made out to be. That said, the film’s portrait of the Mexican middle class mostly lacks any Y tu mamatambien-like social commentary that would put these boys’ adolescent struggles in a larger societal context.
Though Gallardo has great chemistry with his peers, it’s his character’s relationships with adults that provide the most poignant drama, including the scenes with his ailing grandmother (Petra Iniguez Robles,also from the short). This storyline has the most traditional resolution, though Leopo manages to give it its own twist by introducing Alex’s half-brother, a plucky kid who apes his older sibling but who’s clearly still got a lot of growing up to do to get to where Alex is at the film’s end.
Technically, MariPepa’s also got a punky vibe and footage includes some low-grade images shot by Alex on his beloved, if battered, digital camera. The music, written by the director’s brother, Kenji Kishi, is perfect punk-rock wannabe material.
Venue: Morelia Film Festival (Competition) Production companies: Teonanacatl Audiovisual, Cebolla Films Cast: Alejandro Gallardo, Arnold Ramirez, Rafael Andrade Munoz, Moises Galindo, Jaime Miranda, Petra Iniguez Robles Director: Samuel Kishi Leopo Screenwriters: Samuel Kiski Leopo, Sofia Gomez Cordova Producers: Toiz Rodriquez Director of photography: Octavio Arauz Production designer: Rebeca del Real Music: Kenji Kishi Costume designer: Clara del Real Aguiler Editor: Yordi Capo, Carlo Espinoza Sales: Figa Films No rating, 95 minutes
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