Eight projects from Latin America and Caribbean territories have been invited to attend Open Doors’ Projects Hub. Screen profiles the titles eyeing international partners
Caribbean Fever (Ven-Col)
Dir. Diego Andres Murillo
Prod co. Maldito Fantasma
Venezuelan vampire story Caribbean Fever (Fiebre Caribe) from director Murillo is looking to get international partners to bite. Produced by Richard Nieto Fernandez of Maldito Fantasma, Murillo describes his Venezuela-Colombia partnered project as a vampire travelogue, beginning in Queens, New York before journeying to Caracas, Venezuela. “We follow our lead as she searches for a lost love who she almost killed due to her [vampiric] nature,” says Murillo. “In the midst of the journey, as a sort of TV signal interruption, the country’s modern history is reimagined.” Caracas-born Murillo is co-founder of Latin American production company Maldito Fantasma. He left his native country in 2016 due to ongoing socioeconomic and political unrest and settled in New York City. “The hopeless idea of somehow making a living around creating and sharing films or working in other artistic fields fuels me,” he says.
Contact: Richard Nieto Fernandez, Maldito Fantasma
Farewell To Lola (Dom Rep)
Dir. Ivan de Lara
Prod co. Mostly Productions
De Lara’s Farewell To Lola (Un Funeral Para Lola) follows two old musician friends who reunite 10 years on as their adopted dog Lola is about to pass away. An old rivalry threatens to resurface during a crazy night out in the city of Santo Domingo. Producer José María Pimentel hopes to realise potential co-production opportunities “that will upscale our project and broaden our horizons”. A Dominican director and cinematographer, de Lara draws from his education in private music academies and the National Conservatory. “In this particular film, Caribbean music is very important to the vibrancy, sometimes dramatic harmonies and the stories it tells,” he says. De Lara made his feature debut with 2022’s Morena(s), co-directed with Victoria Apolinario, a film about a Dominican immigrant in Buenos Aires struggling to keep her business afloat while dreaming of bringing her teenage son to Argentina. De Lara is also developing documentary Negro, which was selected for Eurodoc 24.
Contact José María Pimentel, Mostly Productions
Her Lightness (Cuba-Mex-Col)
Dir. Rosa Maria Rodriguez
Prod cos. GatoRosafilms, Martfilms, Ciudad Lunar
Writer/director Rodriguez’s feature debut Her Lightness (La Levedad De Ella) is the story of a 42-year-old woman living in Cuba who undergoes a mastectomy for breast cancer. When a tumour returns, she decides against invasive treatment by pretending to be pregnant. She ends her marriage, quits her job and moves into a rented room where she meets a single mother and a new love amid continuing fallout from the lie about her pregnancy. Her Lightness was selected for Bolivia Lab in 2021 and a place at Cali International Film Festival’s Market for Film Producers and Projects (SAPCINE). It also won the 2022 Cine Qua Non Lab-Nuevas Miradas prize, awarded by Cine Qua Non Lab in collaboration with San Antonio de los Baños’ International School of Film and Television, from which Rodriguez is a graduate. She is also founder and executive producer of GatoRosafilms, and the creator of La Burbuja Lab film residency for women from Central America and the Caribbean.
Contact:Armando Capó Ramos, GatoRosafilms
The Periphery (Jam)
Dir. Rebecca Williams
Prod co. Mental Telepathy Pictures
Jamaican filmmaker Williams’ debut feature The Periphery is a folk horror that follows two estranged cousins who reunite in a rural Jamaican town to replace their grandfather’s tombstone just as supernatural forces emerge. Williams’ creative ambition for The Periphery is a “desire to bring our folklore stories into a contemporary context”. Inspired by the work of Luca Guadagnino, Sofia Coppola, Mati Diop, Barry Jenkins and Beyoncé among others, Williams made her directing debut with short film Out Of Many, a poignant exploration of Jamaican youth culture and privilege that played Locarno’s Open Doors Screenings in 2022 and earned her the first-time director award at Grenada’s 1261 Film Festival. The short has travelled to festivals including Pan African, Third Horizon and Aesthetica and continues to be streamed on the Global South diasporas film platform Soleil Space.
Contact: Robert Maylor, Mental Telepathy Pictures
Return Of The Last Mochica Warrior (Peru)
Dir. Fernando Luis Mendoza Salazar
Prod co. Cybermuchik Cine
Mendoza Salazar is a film director, music composer, sound designer and cultural manager based in Trujillo, Peru. After studying electronics, he opted to pursue an artistic career and studied at the Eliseo Subiela film school in Buenos Aires, Argentina. His debut feature Return Of The Last Mochica Warrior (Huaco Retrato) is produced by Silvia Eisleen Arellano Rojas and details the story of a teenager who aspires to be a videogamer in a small town in northern Peru. He loots old ruins that surround his hometown, as his father did in his youth, to pay for visits to cybercafes. The boy’s life changes when the spirit of an ancient warrior contacts him through a video game, and tasks him with recovering a lost treasure looted by his father 17 years ago. “What moves me now is to create a fresh way to tell stories of our ancient cultures inspired by the archaeological heritage and ancestral myths of my country,” says Mendoza, who has produced and directed six shorts. “Making my film gives me an opportunity to combine the two things I most like to do — tell stories and make music,” he adds.
Contact: Silvia Eisleen Arellano Rojas, Cybermuchik Cine
Salvation (El Salv-Mex)
Dir. Ernesto Bautista
Prod co. Burn and Die Films
Bautista’s Salvation (Salvación) marks the first fiction feature developed by Burn and Die Films, the production company he co-founded with producer Melissa Guevara. It details the story of a nurse who realises she is taking care of the person who massacred her family. Bautista lives and works between El Salvador, Mexico and Colombia, and is a visual artist whose work is part of the collections at Reina Sofia Museum in Spain, Italy’s Illy Art Collection and the Museum of Modern Art of Bogota, Colombia. “Fiction for me is a language to understand reality,” says Bautista. “I come from visual arts and literature and I come from a place which faces a hard time dealing with and understanding its past.” Guevara is looking for Open Doors to bring international partners to the production.
Contact:Melissa Guevara, Burn and Die Films
UFOs In The Tropics (Ecu)
Dir. Roberth Mendoza
Prod co. Cinema Verano
Ecuadorian queer science-fiction feature UFOs In The Tropics (Ovnis En El Trópico) from first-time fiction director Mendoza is produced by Cinema Verano’s Isabel Carrasco. Mendoza’s film follows an orchid grower who shares a warning message received from a UFO encounter, all the while facing down a mining company and homophobia. Mendoza’s documentary feature Piñas, Erase Una Vez (2010) premiered at Ecuador Bajo Tierra Film Festival. His latest short film Back To Las Maravillas will world premiere in Open Doors Screenings. “I believe that art has to serve to transform and change, to help us stay here,” says Mendoza. “Nobody is the same after watching a film.”
Contact: Isabel Carrasco, Cinema Verano
Unique Time (Para-Mex-Ger)
Dir. Paz Encina
Prod cos. Sabaté Films, Piano
Paraguayan director Encina’s Unique Time (El único Tiempo) tells of an elderly couple living in exile awaiting news of their son who disappeared during Paraguay’s military dictatorship. Produced by Gabriela Sabaté, the film is a challenge to Encina because it means a return to “pure fiction”. She has been exploring more hybrid formats since her debut feature Paraguayan Hammock premiered in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard in 2006, winning the Fipresci prize. “My creative engine has always been narrating what I know, with the awareness that all images are always political, with the will to become a better person and wishing, no matter what I do, I might transform someone,” says Encina. “I always wish that after seeing one of my works someone is touched, moved, wants to love, to cry, to live.”
Contact: Gabriela Sabaté, Sabaté Films
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