Coproduction Forum San Sebastian: Anahi Berneri, Emiliano Torres

New projects by Argentinians Anahí Berneri and Emiliano de Torres, both big winners of San Sebastian, are included in the 14-project lineup for the 2022 Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum in San Sebastian, the Spanish festival’s biggest industry event.

Berneri, who is preparing her sixth feature film, made her debut in 2005 with the Berlin Teddy Award winner A Year Without Love.

Famed as an early co-writer with Daniel Burman and a longtime AD, Torres’ career stretches back to the turn of the century, although it wasn’t until 2016 that he saw his feature film debut, The Winter.

Berneri and Torres are joined in the Forum by potential new titles from established filmmakers such as Chile’s Niles Atallah, Spain’s Helena Taberna and Brazil’s Beatriz Seigner.

At least half of the spots at this year’s Co-Production Forum will be filled by a new generation of up-and-coming directors, debuting since 2016 and gaining spots at Sundance (Rodrigo Ruiz Patterson, ‘Summer White’, 2019), Cannes Critics’ Week (Sofía Quiros, ‘Land of Ashes”, 2019), Berlin Panorama (Clarisa Navas, “One of a Thousand”, 2020) or Toronto (Agustina San Martin, “To Kill a Beast”, 2021).

Ulises Porra’s second feature film, Carajita, won San Sebastian’s prestigious New Directors title last year in a competition that also featured Juan Sebastián Mesa’s second work, The Rust.

10 of the 14 projects would be second or third features. Most of their editions – and those of more mature directors – date from this period: a women’s friendship story (“La Hija del General”); Argentine rural queer sensibilities (“They Burn in the Same Way”); a woman’s renunciation of family (“rona”); contemporary solitude (“To Die on Your Feet”).

Epitomizing a new generation, one project, Manuel Luque’s “Inspection on Earth,” is Sci-Fi, another “Todo el mundo” from Argentinean Agustina San Martín, who garnered attention with her atmospheric genre allegory “To Kill a Beast.” .

Participants of the 2022 Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum in San Sebastian:

“The Blue Flamingo” (“Voo do Flamingo”, Beatriz Seigner, Brazil)

Produced by Brazilian Abrolhos Films and Globo Films,

and starred in Rome’s 2020 MIA market, a drama about an 11-year-old boy who travels to a largely deserted beach town to meet his father for the first time. Seigner’s feature film successor to the award-winning “Los Silencios”.

“condensed milk,” (“Leche Condensada”, Anahí Berneri, Argentina)

From the subtle Berneri, a San Sebastian director who won for 2017’s Alanis, “a coming-of-age film about late teens and romantic perversions,” she says, based on the novel by Mariana Flores. The first project of Pablo Udenio’s new outfit, Dukka. Products.

“La Hija del General” (Rodrigo Ruiz Patterson, Mexico)

Set by Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna’s La Corriente del Golfo, a story of friendship between two – very different – women during the Mexican Revolution. Directed by Ruiz Patterson, he scored with Sundance 2020 Select Summer White, a psychologically astute coming-of-age film.

“Inspection on Earth” (“Inspección en la tierra”, Mariano Luque, Argentina)

Writer, director and producer Luque returns to San Sebastián where his first feature film “Salsipuedes” was screened by Horizontes Latinos in 2012. Set in the coastal town of Los Molinos Lake in Cordoba, Argentina, “Inspection” follows a chronicler and cameraman as they unravel the mystery of an alien invasion. “The pandemic has made me reconsider the sci-fi genre, I’m approaching it with humor,” said Luque.

“Lovers go home!” (Juan Sebastián Mesa, Colombia)

From Mesa, director of the well-received Rust, the meeting of a US war veteran and a Colombian webcamer, both literally terrified by the past. Lovers explores “the geopolitics of bodies and the emotional evaluation of characters,” says Mesa. From one of Colombia’s finest production houses, Federico Duráns Rhayuela.

“Madre Pajaro” (Sofía Quirós Úbeda, Costa Rica-Argentina)

Quirós Úbeda’s second film brings together the same creative team behind her feature debut, Cannes Critics’ Week 2019 attendee Land of Ashes, with producers Mariana Murillo of Costa Rica’s Sputnik Films and Sazy Salim of Murillo Cine of Argentina on board. In the project, seven-year-old boy Oliver falls in love with Paloma, a 25-year-old neighbor, after his mother’s illness.

“Rona”, (Emiliano Torres, Argentina)

A return to the setting of Torres’ debut The Winter, a 2016 Special Jury Award and winner of the San Sebastian Cinematography Prize, but this time for what he describes as “a family drama framed by an existential adventure” as a married Norwegian woman, Abandoned for dead in the wilderness of Patagonia, decides to make a fresh start in life.

“They burn the same way”, (“Se Queman de la Misma Forma”, Clarisa Navas, Argentina)

Following her powerful breakthrough ‘One in a Thousand’ which opened Panorama 2020 in Berlin, Navas returns to the Corrientes housing projects where she grew up for a dual tale of grief and an exploration of Argentina’s life-affirming rural queer sensibilities .

“dying on your feet” (“Morir de Pie”, Maria Paz González, Chile)

Paz, an actress who plays patients at a medical school, no longer cares about other poles. “A bittersweet psychodrama with black humor about the loneliness of the present,” says González. Principal Production by Giancarlo Nasi at Quijote Films (“White on White”), the preeminent Chilean production house.

“Us,” (“Nosotros”, Helena Taberna, Spain)

Taberna is directing – and co-writing alongside Virginia Yagüe – the film adaptation of Isaac Rosa’s best-selling book, Feliz final, a contemporary interpretation of the myth of romantic love. Produced by Iker Ganuza at Lamia Producciones in Spain: “We are looking for co-production partners and international commercial agents,” said Ganuza diversity. RTVE has just acquired the Spanish broadcasting rights.