To Kill a Beast‘s Agustina San Martín, Los Silencios‘ Beatriz Seigner and Land of Ashes‘ Sofía Quirós Úbeda are some of the Latin filmmakers who are participating in San Sebastian’s 2022 Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum. The forum shelves out a lot of develop coin by way of different prizes and is currently in its eleventh edition. Of the fourteen selected projects several are second or third features. Argentinean filmmaker Agustina San Martín is moving into her sophomore feature with Todo el mundo. Produced by Sofía Castells (she was an associate producer on the Sundance selected High Tide (read review). Joining her is neighboring Brazilian filmmaker Beatriz Seigner who is already on her fifth project . Titled Voo do Flamingo her latest is a drama about an eleven year-old boy who travels to a largely abandoned beach town to meet his father for the first time. We had interviewed the filmmaker in Pingyao, for her Quinzaine selected Los Silencios. Costa Rican / Argentina-born Sofía Quirós Úbeda also moves into her sophomore project terrain with Madre Pájaro – a tale about a seven-year-old boy Oliver who falls in love with Paloma, a 25-year old neighbor. Previous projects during the years include Azor, La civil, The Mole Agent, and Dos Estaciones. Here are the 2022 projects:
San Sebastian 2022 Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum projects:
Bajo el mismo sol (Ulises Porra, Spain, Dominican Republic)
Set up at Ulla Prida and Alexandra Guerrero’s Wooden Boat Prods., “Bajo el mismo sol” marks Spanish director Porra’s follow-up to “Carajita,” also produced by Wooden Boat and co-directed with Argentina’s Silvina Schnicer, which snagged San Sebastian’s New Directors Award, best film at Guadalajara and prizes at Mar del Plata and Miami.
The Blue Flamingo (“Voo do Flamingo,” Beatriz Seigner, Brazil)
Produced by Brazil’s Abrolhos Filmes and Globo Filmes, and pitched at Rome’s MIA Market in 2020, a drama about a boy, 11, travelling to a largely abandoned beach town to meet his father for the first time. Seigner’s fiction feature follow-up to the multi-prized “Los Silencios.”
Condensed Milk (“Leche Condensada,” Anahí Berneri, Argentina)
From the subtle Berneri, a San Sebastian director winner for 2017’s “Alanis,” “a coming-of-age film about late teenagers and romantic perversions,” she says, based on Mariana Flores’ novel. The first project from Pablo Udenio’s new outfit, Dukka. Producciones.
La Hija del General (Rodrigo Ruiz Patterson, Mexico)
Set up at Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna’s La Corriente del Golfo, a friendship tale between two – very different – women during the Mexican Revolution. Directed by Ruiz Patterson, who scored with 2020 Sundance-selected “Summer White,” a psychologically acute coming-of-age-film.
Inspection on Earth(“Inspección en la tierra,” Mariano Luque, Argentina)
Writer-director-producer Luque returns to San Sebastián, where his first feature, “Salsipuedes,” played at Horizontes Latinos in 2012. Set in the coastal town of Los Molinos Lake, in Argentina’s Córdoba, “Inspection” follows a chronicler and a cameraman who must solve the mystery of an alien invasion. “The pandemic made me rethink the sci-fi genre, I approach it through humor,” Luque said.
Lovers Go Home! (Juan Sebastián Mesa, Colombia)
From Mesa, director of the well-received “Rust,” the meeting of a U.S. war vet and Colombian webcamer, both scared literally by the past. “Lovers” explores “the geopolitics of bodies and characters’ emotional score,” says Mesa. From one of Colombia’s top production houses, Federico Durán’s Rhayuela.
Madre Pájaro (Sofía Quirós Úbeda, Costa Rica-Argentina)
Quirós Úbeda’s sophomore film reunites the same creative team behind her feature debut, 2019 Cannes Critics’ Week player “Land of Ashes,” with producers Mariana Murillo at Costa Rica’s Sputnik Films and Sazy Salim of Argentina’s Murillo Cine on board. In the project, after her mother’s illness, seven-year-old boy Oliver falls in love with Paloma, a 25-year old neighbor.
Rona (Emiliano Torres, Argentina)
A return to the setting of Torres’’ debut “The Winter,” a 2016 Special Jury Prize and cinematography winner at San Sebastian, but this time round for what he calls a ”family drama framed in an existential adventure” as a married Norwegian women, given up for dead in the wilds of Patagonia, determines to make a fresh start in life.
Six Months in the Pink and Blue Building (“Seis meses en el edificio rosa con azul,” Bruno Santamaría Razo, México)
An autobiographical story, written-directed by awarded documentary filmmaker Bruno Santamaría Razo (“Cosas que no hacemos”).” “An opportunity to understand an intimate and familiar event from the past,” in Santamaría Razo’s words, the story, set in the ’90s, follows 10-year-old boy Bru, whose father is diagnosed with HIV, sparking his family’s break-up.
They Burn in the Same Way (“Se Queman de la Misma Forma,” Clarisa Navas, Argentina)
After her powerful breakout, “One in a Thousand,” which opened Berlin’s 2020 Panorama, Navas returns to the corrientes housing projects where she grew up for a doubles tory of mourning and an exploration of life-affirming Argentine rural queer sensibility.
To Die on Your Feet(“Morir de Pie,” María Paz González, Chile)
Paz, an actress playing patients at a medical faculty, stops caring about other pole. “A bittersweet psychological drama laced with dark humor, about contemporary solitude,” says González. Lead produced by Giancarlo Nasi at Quijote Films (“White on White”), the preeminent Chilean production house.
Todo el mundo (Agustina San Martín, Argentina)
Produced by Sofía Castells at Vega Cine, a Buenos Aires-based company, co-producer of Verónica Chen’s Sundance contender “Hide Tide.” San Martín’s feature debut, tropical gothic “Matar a la bestia,” selected by Toronto in 2021, was picked up by The Party Film Sales and acquired for France by Jour2Fête.
Us (“Nosotros,” Helena Taberna, Spain)
Taberna directs -– and also co-writes alongside Virginia Yagüe – the film adaptation of Isaac Rosa’s best-selling book “Feliz final,” a contemporary take on the myth of romantic love. Produced by Iker Ganuza at Spain’s Lamia Producciones, “We are looking for co-production partners and international sales agents,” Ganuza told Variety. RTVE has just acquired Spanish broadcast rights.
Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).
