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Fouth edition of co-production sidebar will run in-person and online.

In the run-up to the hybrid 13th edition of Ventana Sur that starts in Buenos Aires later this month, top brass have unveiled the 16 development titles selected for its Proyecta co-production sidebar organised with San Sebastian Film Festival.

Proyecta filmmakers pitch to producers, programmers and sales agents in search of partners to complete financing and international distribution on co-productions between Latin American and Europe.

The fourth edition of Proyecta will run in-person and online and comprises a pitching session by project representatives on November 30 in Buenos Aires followed on December...

San Sebastian — Carlos Piñeiro’s “Sirena” (“Mermaid”) came into last month’s Sanfic Festival in Santiago Chile buzzing from the news that it had been selected, along with another Sanfic work in progress “The Prince,” to participate in the San Sebastian’s Films in Progress competition.

“Sirena” is a black and white look at the conflict between tradition and modernity. It starts off following the drowning of a well-known engineer in Lake Titicaca, some time in 1984. A commission put together to recover the remains of the man are gathered on a small boat, crossing t0 an island inhabited by a group of indigenous families. Conflict arises when the families who recovered the body refuse to give it up, in fear that it will adversely affect the upcoming harvest. Frustrations boil over and cultures clash as the irritated commission members want little more than to collect the body and leave. One gets drunk,...

Santiago, Chile –- The second feature from Argentina’s Agustín Tsocano, “The Snatch Thief,” was the big winner at this year’s Santiago International Film Festival (Sanfic), snagging best picture and two best actor plaudits.

The closing ceremonies were held Saturday night at Chile’s CorpArtes Cultural Center.

The Argentina, Uruguay and France co-production, sold by The Match Factory, participated in this year’s Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes, where the tale of a guilt-ridden purse snatcher received unanimous strong reviews, including one by Variety’s Jay Weissberg who described it as a “a nicely plotted, unpretentious film… exactly the type of small-scale Latin American indie product that sees significant festival play.”

Marcelo Martinessi, one of Paraguay’s most high-profile filmmakers, won best director for his latest feature “The Heiresses,” which won the Silver Bear for best picture at Berlin in February. Eliran Elya’s “Doubtful” received a special mention.

In the Chilean competition,...

Santiago, Chile — Sebastián Muñoz’ “El Principe” (“The Prince”) is one of two Sanfic Industria works in progress, along with Carlos Piñeiro’s “Sirena,” selected to participate in San Sebastián’s Films in Progress this September.

The feature is based on a dime store, low circulation novel written in the ‘70s that Muñoz found by happenstance, and has spent the last five years refining, along with co-writer Luis Barrales, into the film that screened in rough cut on Tuesday morning in Santiago, Chile.

Set in San Bernardo, 1970 Chile, the film is a homoerotic story that portrays that era of Chilean society through the eyes of a confused young prisoner named Jaime, a history of violence, love and sex among prisoners, all set to a haunting Spanish cover of Nat King Cole’s “Nature Boy.”

A solitary twenty-year-old narcissist, Jaime cuts the throat of his best friend el Gitano, the object of his obsession,...

Sanfic is a showcase for Chile’s cinema as it wins Oscars (“A Fantastic Woman” ), dazzles critics – Variety called Pablo Larrain “the most daring and prodigious political filmmaker of his generation” – and expands in foreign.

No other Latin America cinema, moreover, has crossed over into international filmmaking as much as Chile’s. As this year’s 14th Sanfic bows on Aug. 19, Variety delivers seven takes on now one of Latin America’s premiere fests.

1.Women

Chile is lightyears from genre parity. But its cinema, made by its often highly-educated liberal left, inevitably captures the zeitgeist. Sanfic’s highest-profile new completed Chilean title, fresh off a best director win at Locarno, Dominga Sotomayor’s sensorial “Too Late to Die Young,” chronicles the coming of age of a 16-year-old girl, more through the accumulation of emotions than classic resolutive drama.

“Dry Martina,” which world premiered at Tribeca, is directed by a man,...

Madrid — Omar Zuñiga’s “Los Fuertes,’ Sebastián Muñoz’s “The Prince” and Carlos Piñeiro’s “Sirena” have been selected for the 34th, twice-yearly, Films in Progress, a Latin American pix-in-post competition which runs Sept.24-26 at Spain’s San Sebastián Festival, representing one of the event’s biggest industry attractions for arthouse sales agents and distributors.

Strong on co-productions – a reflection if the bi-lateral and minority co-production funds in place in Brazil, Argentina and Chile – this year’s selection packs five first features – six if you count Argentine Nicolas Savignone’s prior “Los desechables” as a medium-feature – a reminder of the hordes of filmmakers pouring out of film schools in Latin America, powering up production levels dramatically over the last decade.

Some of the first-time filmmakers are, however, already well-known. A New York University’s Graduate Film Program alum, Chile’s Omar Zuñiga co-founded Santiago de Chile-based Cinestación in 2008 with...

Chile’s Santiago-based international film festival, Sanfic, has shared with Variety its list of seven films set to participate in the 2018 Sanfic Industria Latin American Works in Progress section.

The films will compete for the following prizes: The Chemistry Award – $50,000 worth of post-production services towards color correction in HD or 2k resolution; the Avid Media Composer Licensing Software Award – a license for perpetual access to the Avid Media Composer post-production editing software valued at $1,800; Yagan Films Award – sound post-production services valued at $23,000; and the new-to-this-year Malaga Festival Award – guaranteed participation at the 2019 Malaga Festival to be held next March.

A highly-anticipated entry at this year’s Wip is the latest from Chile’s Alejandro Fernández Almendras. Produced by Jirafa Films in Chile, one of the country’s very top film outfits, Paris-based Arizona Films and Film & Roll in the Czech Republic, “Hra” (“The Play”) tells the tale of a small-town Czech playwright,...