Organised by Argentina’s national film body INCAA and the Cannes Marché du Film, Latin America’s premiere film market Ventana Sur has announced 12 works-in-progress for this year’s edition (November 28-December 2).
The market’s post-production competition Primer Corte contains three Mexican titles: Goodbye Love from director Indra Villaseñor, about a deported immigrant torn between a drug lord and a peaceful life; Manuela Irene’s summer-set coming-of-age tale Xibalba Monster; and Mexico-Peru co-production The Innocents, a story of sex, rock music and the end of innocence from Germán Tejada, a Clermont-Ferrand winner with his short film El Hueco.
The other titles in Primer Corte are Marcelo Botta’s Brazilian feature Betânia about a woman in her sixties who leaves her isolated house to go live in a small village; Argentinian title Leon, co-directed by Andrea Nachón and Papu Curotto, about the rebuilding of a family after a significant death; and Laura Donoso’s Chilean feature Sariri, about a gang of women challenging patriarchal rules in a remote mining town.
In the Copia Final section for films that are near completion or finished, the slate includes France-Argentina co-production Almamula from Juan Sebastián Torales, a fantastic drama about a teen who suffers homophobic abuse; Emiliano Serra’s Correspondent (Argentina), about a reporter covering the 1978 World Cup who is also a spy; Kattia G. Zúñiga’s The Daughters (Panama-Chile), a coming-of-age story about two sisters travelling from Costa Rica to Panama looking for their father; and Malta (Colombia-Argentina) which portrays a youngster on a journey of self-discovery.
The latter is directed by Natalia Santa, who was the first Colombian female director to premiere at Cannes with The Dragon Defense in 2017.
Rounding out the Copia Final selection are Pierre Saint Martin Castellanos’s Mexican black comedy We Shall Not Be Moved, about a lawyer obsessed with finding the soldier who killed her brother; and Mauricio Calderón’s All The Fires, also from Mexico, a coming-of-age story about a pyromaniac teenager.
With five productions in the line-up, Mexico is the most represented country, followed by Argentina with four and Chile with two. Eight of the 12 filmmakers in Primer Corte and Copia Final are participating with their feature debuts.
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