Blood Window, the Latin American horror and fantasy film platform of Buenos Aires’ audiovisual market Ventana Sur, is to showcase eight features at the Cannes market this year.
Six of the eight features, which are at various stages of production, hail from Argentina.
They include Demian Rugna’s When Evil Lurks which won the Blood Window Screenings Award at Ventana Sur in December 2022. The first Spanish-language production for horror streamer Shudder in co-production with Aramos Cine and Machaco Films, it follows a group of small town residents who learn that a demon is about to be born, threatening the peaceful life of their community.
Help hails from genre specialist Tamae Garateguy whose credits include Pompeya and She Wolf. Produced by Argentina’s Del Toro Films and Furia Films in partnership with Colombia’s Red Vector, Help is set in the 1930s and centres on a young woman sent by her father to a convent whose arrival unleashes supernatural activity.
Argentina’s Del Toro Films is also behind Nicolás Onetti’ Selknam, the only title in the selection with a sales agent already attached –Italy’s Minerva Pictures, which is also co-producing. A San Diego Fantastic Horror festival winner with Anonymous Animals, Onetti delivers a story set at the beginning of the 20th century, when the most dangerous criminals in Argentina were sent to the ‘Prison of the End of the World’ built between mountains and frozen sea, where the Selk’nam, an indigenous Patagonian people, live.
Chuzalongo (aka Red Corn) follows a mythological Andean creature, a child who becomes a monster and feeds on the blood of young women. It’s the first feature of Ecuadorian director Diego Ortuño and is a co-production between Ecuador’s Dominio Digital, Peru’s Audiovisual Films, Spain’s Clack Audiovisual and Canada’s Retrogusto Films.
A Spanish title in pre-production is Joseph Díaz’s debut Bloody Mary about a young woman who tries to flee from a terrifying creature and lands amid a demonic sect. It is produced by Producciones Dosmentes, a label linked to Barcelona-based cinema school ECIB.
Another debut is Diego Bellocchio’s Mitra, Turn Off The Light To See, produced by Argentina’s Montecine and Coruya Cine, about a woman helping people victims of domestic violence in a small Argentinean dark city.
Argentinian director Facundo Escudero presents Two-Faced God, produced by Buenos Aires’ Pensilvania Films, about an orphaned teenager who must invoke old pagan rites to defend the forest where she is living.
In Buzzing, an eight-year old girl becomes mysteriously ill and must face her parents refusing to look for medical help. First-timer Diego Kartaszewicz directs this co-production of young Argentinian company 16:9 and Paraguay’s The Lab.
Women are the main characters in five of the films but Garateguy is the only female director in the line up.
“Latin American genre films are consistently interesting and of a higher creative quality than most other territories,” suggested Julian Richards at London-based production and sales agency Jinga Films. ”They also benefit greatly from the support given to them by government organisations, Argentina’s INCAA and Ventana Sur’s Blood Window. Through Blood Window, Latam genre filmmakers are amongst the most engaged in the world of sales, distribution, markets and festivals. It’s not uncommon to find that at a co-production market, like the recent Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival, more than 70% of the participants are from Latam.”
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