Sanfic Productoras Lab Welcomes Emerging Female Producers from Latin America (EXCLUSIVE)

TIFF announced its Short Cuts section today comprised of 39 live-action narrative, documentary, and animated short films from directors repping 18 countries.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Camila José Donoso (“Naomi Campbel”) is gearing up to shoot her fourth pic, “Antitropical,” with Roberto Doveris’ Niña Niño Films producing. The docu-fiction hybrid will be filmed much like a documentary over various months, starting late October, that will stretch into the next year.

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentA leading light of Latin America’s new generation of female cineastes – think Michelle Garza Cervera, Valentina Mourel – “To Kill the Beast” director Agustina San Martín is teaming with Buenos Aires-based Vega Cine and Cordoba Argentina’s  Gualicho Cine for a new feature, “Todo el Mundo.”Selected for San Sebastian’s 2022 Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum in September, “Todo el Mundo” unspools in a world not so distant from “To Kill the Beast” (“Matar a la Bestia”) or the sensibilities of San Martín. A ’90s-set coming-of-age tale, it turns on the burgeoning relationship between Serena, 15, whose face is deformed after an accident, and Enzo, 17, a “dark” goth boy attracted by Serena’s scar.  Serena begins to skip school, get home late and lie her mother. Her high-school friendships aren’t what they were before.

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentSpain’s Solita Films, the Madrid-based outfit of director-producer brothers José Esteban and César Esteban Alenda, has boarded “Her Ocean,” (“El Mar la Mar”), an addition to the growing canon of LGBTQ dramas now in Latin America. Written and directed by Julián Amaru Estrada and produced by María Paz Barragán at Lima-based Final Abierto, “Her Ocean” is one of the most memorable titles among seven works at this week’s Sanfic Industria Productoras Lab, a novel pitching program and training facility for emerging, first or second-feature women producers in Latin America.“Her Ocean” is also selected for this year’s LabGuion in Colombia and Sapcine in Cali.Now co-developed by Solita Films, the feature project is a LGBTQ coming-of-age drama which builds to a magic realist climax. It turns on Ray, 15, gay, who helps local fishermen in his small town on the coast of Perú until, drunk at a bonfire party on the beach, he kisses his friend Jesús.  Repudiated by his family and the townsfolk, Ray escapes to vibrant jungle city Iquitos, and there finds friends and even competes in the Miss Amazonas trans beauty pageant.

Zsuzsi Bánkuti Appointed Head Of Locarno’s Open Doors

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,” from Argentina’s Agustina San Martín, who caught attention with her atmospheric genre allegory “To Kill a Beast.”San Sebastian 2022 Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum Contenders:“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.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Chilean industry forum Sanfic Industria bows its 11th edition with the launch of new virtual reality and women producers lab sections. Running Aug 11-19, Sanfic Industria will also include its mainstays: WIP Ibero-American, Santiago Lab: Fiction and Documentary, Sanfic-Mórbido Lab, Series Lab, Sanfic Net and Sanfic Series.“By introducing a virtual reality section, we’re betting on new narrative formats,” said Sanfic Industria founder-director Gabriela Sandoval of the Sanfic XR showcase, which will be open to the public at the forum’s official headquarters, Matucana 100.“Making these films accessible to everyone creates a nexus between the public and the films’ creators,” she pointed out.

Holly Jones Paris-based sales company Alief has swooped on international sales rights to horror-political thriller “Matadero” (“Slaughterhouse”), the awaited fiction feature debut of Argentina’s Santiago Fillol, co-scribe on Oliver Laxe’s Cannes winners “Mimosa” and “Fire Will Come.”Co-written by Fillol, “Matadero” world premieres this week in Locarno’s main International Competition.The film takes a stark look at a historic tale through the maniacal lens of U.S. filmmaker Jared (Julio Perillán), as he shoots a big-screen version of a 19th-century text by Argentine writer Estaban Echeverría, exploiting the times and their trappings to create a piece of cinema meant to dig itself into the collective consciousness.

Holly Jones Ecuador-based producer Daniela Fuentes Moncada of Epopeya is introducing the introspective queer feature, “Ñusta,” as part of three regional films on her development slate at Locarno’s Producer’s Lab, an Open Doors initiative spotlighting Latin America and Caribbean talent.Epopeya teams Moncada with founder María de los Ángeles Palacio.Underscoring the project’s industry pulling power, co-producing the project are Director Papu Corotto at Argentina’s HAIN Cine (“Esteros”) alongside Lady Vinces(“Checoslovaquia”) and Silvia Arellano (“En Medio Del Laberinto”) of Peru’sCasa Aguaflorida.The pair bring poignant narratives to life, with Moncada previously backing “La Mala Noche” directed by Gabriela Calvache, a raw portrait of human trafficking that premiered at SXSW and was selected by festivals worldwide, receiving 15 awards and nominations. Epopeya produces animation, documentary and fiction with a focus on forward-thinking narratives.

John Leguizamo thinks the casting of James Franco as Cuban revolution leader Fidel Castro is no bueno.

Zack Sharf John Leguizamo took to Instagram to speak out against the recent casting of James Franco as Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro in the upcoming independent film, “Alina of Cuba.” Variety confirmed Franco’s casting on Aug. 4.

Anna Marie de la Fuente “Kings of the World” (“Los Reyes del Mundo”), by Colombia’s Laura Mora (“Killing Jesus,” “Frontera Verde”) has shared its trailer exclusively with Variety in advance of its world premiere in Spain’s San Sebastian festival and its Oct. 6 theatrical release in Colombia.Said Mora: “We are very happy to finally be able to release the film! It has been a very long and demanding process….

spectacularly axed sister flick “Batgirl.”Both films form part of the DC Extended Universe, with whispers growing that “The Flash” could be the next franchise flick to be canned due to disturbing assault and grooming allegations leveled at lead actor Ezra Miller. But on Thursday, producer Barbara Muschietti reportedly attempted to shut down such speculation, saying the movie is still slated to hit cinemas next summer.

VERIVERY have announced the dates and venues for their forthcoming tour of the United States and Latin America.Yesterday (August 2), the boyband announced the details of the upcoming shows under their ‘PAGE : O’ concert series through a poster on their social media channels. The US leg of their tour will kick off in Boston on September 14, before heading to cities like New York, Orlando and Dallas.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Streaming media company Cinedigm has landed all North American rights to hit Latin horror movie “History of the Occult” from Buenos Aires-based FilmSharks. After a successful run across Latin America, Europe and Asia, it will debut in the U.S.

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentCannes Cinéfondation winner Michael Labarca will hit Locarno’s Open Doors next week with his feature debut project, “Kids Swimming in the Lake,” produced by Venezuela’s Todos Los Ríos, France’s Ticket Shoot Films and Chile’s Oro Films.For Venezuelan movie projects, such international co-productions are not only a virtue but a necessity, “due to the crisis of our public funding for production, our limitation of access to the Ibermedia fund and the complex situation of our country,” said “Kids” producer Patricia Ramírez Arévalo at Todos los Rios.Set in contemporary Venezuela, “Kids Swimming in the Lake” deals with emigration, but from the point of view of those left behind. During constant blackouts, 11-year-old Dayana and her little siblings dream of leaving Venezuela and reuniting with their father, who migrated fleeing the crisis.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Chile’s Santiago Lab, the Santiago Film Festival’s industry initiative to support Ibero-American projects in development, has selected 28 titles, 14 fiction and 14 documentaries, culled out of hundreds of entries from across Latin America and Spain.Some of the titles were picked from other festivals’ industry events such as “Diamante,” from Malaga’s Mafiz; Constanza Figari’s “A Woman Wants to Die,” which Sanfic awarded at Industria Guadalajara this year, along with “MC Silencio,” a Colombian production from Medellin, an emerging audiovisual hub in Colombia, said Sanfic Industry head and festival co-founder, Gabriela Sandoval.The same goes for some of the documentaries such as “The Silence of a Patio” a gripping documentary about the dark history of the Casa de la Beneficencia of Castellón, Spain which was presented at Doc Valencia. Docu “Bloques Erraticos” is the first full-length feature doc of Thomas Woodroffe whose acclaimed shorts include “Austral Fever” and “Holding Desire.” Sanfic Industry leaned on its advisors for the selection.