Anahi Berneri, Emiliano Torres, Beatriz Seigner Set for San Sebastian’s Co-Production Forum
New projects by Argentina’s Anahí Berneri and Emiliano de Torres, both big winners at San Sebastian, plus Brazilian Beatriz Seigner’s next all feature in the 14-project lineup for San Sebastian’s 2022 Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum, the Spanish festival’s biggest industry event.
Now preparing her sixth feature, Berneri debuted in 2005 with Berlin Teddy Award winner, “A Year Without Love.”
More from Variety
Urban Sales Swoops on Carolina Markowicz's Toronto-San Sebastian Title 'Charcoal' (EXCLUSIVE)
San Sebastian Contender 'Kings of the World' Bows Trailer (EXCLUSIVE)
Famed as an early Daniel Burman co-scribe and longtime AD, Torres’ career dates back to the turn of the century, although he only saw his feature debut, “The Winter,” bow in 2016.
Seigner released her first feature in 2010, “Bollywood Dream,” though she is best known for 2018’s “Los Silencios,” a supernatural-laced refugee crisis drama.
Berneri, Torres and Seigner are joined at the Forum by prospective new titles from more seasoned filmmakers such as Chile’s Niles Atallah and Spain’s Helena Taberna.
At least half the berths at this year’s Co-production Forum, however, are taken by a new generation of emerging directors who have debuted from 2016, snagging slots 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 “Carajita” won San Sebastian’s own prestigious New Directors strand last year in a competition that also featured Juan Sebastián Mesa’s “The Rust,” his sophomore outing.
10 of the 14 projects would be second or third features. Their issues – and those of more mature directors – are very much of this age: a female friendship tale (“La Hija del General”); Argentine rural queer sensibility (“They Burn in the Same Way”); a woman’s renouncement of family (“Rona”); contemporary solitude (“To Die on Your Feet”).
Epitomising a new generation, one project, Manuel Luque’s “Inspection on Earth,” is sci-fi, another “Todo el mundo,” is from Argentina’s Agustina San Martín, who caught attention with her atmospheric genre allegory “To Kill a Beast.”
Courtesy of Wooden Boat Producciones
San Sebastian 2022 Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum Contenders:
“Bajo el mismo sol,” (Ulises Porra, Dominican Republic, Argentina)
Set up at Ulla Prida’s Wooden Boat Prods, Spanish director Porra’s follow-up to San Sebastian New Directors winner “Carajita.” Set in 1820, the historically resonant tale of an entrepreneur, a young Chinese woman and Haitian army deserter battling to create a silk factory in the Dominican Republic.
“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, Dukkah Producciones.
“The Fire Doll,” (“La muñeca de fuego,” Niles Atallah, Chile)
Atallah, whose second film, “Rey,” won a Rotterdam Special Jury Prize in 2017, will pitch “The Fire Doll,” about the transformation process experienced by a 12-year-old girl who loses part of her memory and goes to the countryside. Globo Rojo’s producer Catalina Vergara returns to San Sebastian’s Co-production Forum after selection in 2018 edition of “Querida Vera,” by Globo Rojo’s regular director José Luis Torres Leiva.
“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.
Courtesy of Ines Moyano
“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 becomes increasingly attached to 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 double story of mourning and an exploration of life-affirming Argentine rural queer sensibility.
Courtesy of Eugenia Campos de Guevara
“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)
Hot off Cannes prized short “Monster God” and TIFF selected feature debut “To Kill the Beast,” San Martín follows up with a relationship tale between a girl, 15, whose face is deformed by a large scar, and a “dark” goth boy. A title to track.
“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.
Best of Variety
From 'The Sandman' to 'Blonde': Books Made Into Movies and TV Series That You Should Read
Jennette McCurdy's Provocative Book 'I'm Glad My Mom Died' Is Already a No. 1 Bestseller
Sign up for Variety’s Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
