ELBA-RODRÍGUEZ-MCALLISTER (CINEPLEX)

Elba Rodríguez-McAllister, prexy of top Colombian indie distributor Cineplex, arrived in San Sebastian straight from the Toronto fest, where she’s just bought Jose Luis Cuerda’s post Spanish Civil War story “Blind Sunflowers,” from Sogepaq, and Martin Provost’s French painter drama “Seraphine,” from Roissy.

A pan-Latin American distributor, which handles 15-18 films a year, Cineplex is looking here for “other jewels which San Sebastian offers".

The latest, for Rodríguez-McAllister, has been immigration drama “Frozen River.” “I like the moral values that the film transmits,” she explains.

Currently, Colombia is starting a pilot project of distri­bution of Latin American films via an alternate network backed by nonprofit org Proimagenes en Movimiento and the Colombian Ministry of Culture. Cineplex is involved in the initiative, bringing film titles to local circuits.

At the upcoming Bogota Film Festival, project kicks off with three titles: Enrique Fernandez and Cesar Charlone’s “Pope’s Toilet,” Daniel Burman’s “Empty Nest” and Mariana Rondon’s “Postcards from Leningrad.”
“We are going to demonstrate that through these, Latin American cinema really has a chance of being seen,” says Rodriguez-McAllister.

At San Sebastian Sales Office, Cineplex will make a pre-selection of some 10-15 outstanding Latin American films. After a theatrical release, pics will launch on DVD, pay and free-to-air TV under the brand “Coleccion de Cine Iberoamericano".

LOIC MAGNERON (WIDE MANAGEMENT)

Last year, at San Sebastian’s Cinema in Movement, Loic Magneron’s Wide Management came, saw, and bought the film.

Mahmoud al Massad’s “Recycle” went on to a Sundance world preem, and a U.S. sale, to Icarus/ITVS.

“Recycle” is in many ways an ideal fit for Wide: a small edgy film, in this case a documentary, though Wide hand­les a swathe of fiction features, which comes in on a hot­button issue from an unusual, stereotype-breaking an­gle, presenting a very human portrait of an ex-mu­jahideen, now a cardboard collector in Zarqa, Jordan.

Magneron, head of the Paris-based international sales and production company, will on Monday be joining Anais Clanet, Wide’s head of sales and acquisitions, in San Se­bastian alter the world preem of another unusual Wide­handled film, Chrstian Poveda’s “La vida loca,” about the Mara gangs in El Salvador.

Cinema in Motion, and and sister event, Films in Progress, are events right up Wide street, says the passionate, but affable Magneron.

“Pick-ups on near-completed films are less risky than at script stage. There’s always brand new talent and brand new films.

One of Europe’s companies which works fests hardest, and with hundreds of hours of films, Wide can offer multiple of options to films: “foreign sales, minority co-production equity, or both.”
John HOPEWELL