Films by Chile’s Maite Alberdi, Argentina’s Diego Lerman, and Spain’s Pedro Martín-Calero headline the Latin American presence in official selection at this year’s San Sebastian International Film Festival (SSIFF).
Alberdi’s El Lugar De La Otra (literally, The Place Of The Other One), is the first fiction feature from the acclaimed documentary filmmaker, is playing in competition. Alberdi recreates one of the cases from Chilean writer Alia Trabucco Zerán’s essay When Women Kill. Set in Chile in 1955, the film follows the case of writer María Carolina Geel, who kills her lover and the shy secretary who becomes intrigued by the trial. It is produced by Pablo and Juan de Dios Larrain’s Fabula outfit for Netflix.
Alberdi’s The Eternal Memory won the grand jury prize at Sundance in the world cinema documentary competition in 2022 and was also nominated for an Oscar.
Lerman’s seventh film The Man Who Loved UFOs, is a comedy drama starring Leonardo Sbaraglia, Adrian Biniez and Sergio Prina, inspired by a prank about the existence of aliens that played on Argentinian television It is produced byCampo Cine, run by Lerman with Nicolás Avruj, also for Netflix.
Also in competition is Spanish filmmaker Martín-Calero’s The Wailing, a Spain-Argentina-France co-production. The horror title is produced by Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s Caballo Films, alongside Setembro Cine and Tandem Films, with Argentina’s Tarea Fina and France’s Noodles Production. Film Factory is handling sales on the film about three seemingly unrelated young women who are haunted by an invisible, evil entity. Universal Pictures International Spain will distribute the film in Spain.
New talent
Surfacing, by rising Argentinian directors Cecilia Atán and Valeria Privato, is screening in the New Directors strand. It is also produced by Setembro Cine with Tarea Fina and Tandem Films. The film follows a woman whose son comes to live with her after he is released from years in jail. Visit Films acquired North American rights to Surfacing just before San Sebastian.
The Latin Horizons programme includes two world premieres. One is Zafari, directed by Mariana Rondón, the 2013 Golden Shell winner for Bad Hair, and Ramon y Ramón, directed by Salvador del Solar. The film is produced by Peru’s Sudaca Films, with Mexico’s Paloma Negra, Brazil’s Klaxon Cultura Audiovisual, France’s Still Moving, Chile’s Quijote Films, Dominican Republic’s Selene Films and Venezuela’s Artefactos Films. Spain’s Feelsales is handling international rights.
Zafari begins with the arrival of a hippopotamus in a zoo in a small neighbourhood.
The second world premiere in Latin Horizons is Salvador del Solar’s Magallanes, a drama set during Peru’s months-long Covid-19 lockdown. It follows a Peruvian national, confined to his apartment with the ashes of his estranged father, who meets a Spaniard unable to leave the country due to the shutdown of Lima’s airport.
It is produced by Peru’s Tondero, Spain’s El Deseo, and Uruguay’s Valdés Belhot Nicolás and Circular Medi.
Maximiliano Schonfeld’s feature documentary Big Shadow is premiering in Zabaltegi-Tabakalera. Produced by Argentina’s Monte Total, the film begins with the story of the discovery of a man who claimed to speak a lost language called Chaná, inspiring the complete recovery of the language.
SSIF runs until September 28.
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