In what may be highlights of a now firmly established industry meet, Alvaro Brechner’s Memorias del calabozo, Israel Adrián Caetano’s Beneath This Burning Sun and Gerardo Tort’s The Broken Years will be pitched at San Sebastián’s upcoming Europe-atin American Co-production Forum, along with Carlos Ameglio’s Kiken and Marité Ugas’ Contactado.

Now in its fourth edition, the Forum is a fest fixture. It underscores LatinAmerica’s energetic genre build. Set to shoot in part in vast Mad Max-ish sand-dunes in Uruguay, Kiken bears some similarity to John Carpenter’s The Thing, said producer Mariana Secco (Mr. Kaplan, High Five).

The latest projects from directorproducers Mariana Rondon and Marite Ugas, whose Bad Hair won San Sebastian’s 2013 Golden Seashell, Contactado, helmed by Ugas, is an identity theft thriller, turning on “the conflicts of faith and alien cults in Latin America,” per Ugas.

A larger political punch has now returned to Latin American filmmaking. Ozcar Ramírez’s Arte Mecanica, director Gerardo Tort and screenwriter Marina Stavenhagen (Have You Seen Lupita?) team on The Broken Years, about Mexico’s officially suppressed 1970s Dirty War. “Thousands of people were killed over many years and we never knew about it,” said Ramírez.

Produced by Spain’s Oscar-winning Tornasol Films Brechner’s “Calabozo” turns on how three Tupamaro political prisoners of Uruguay’s 1973-85 dictatorship survived 12 years of solitary confinement.

In Burning Sun, Caetano adapts Carlos Busqued’s surrealistic, phantasmagorical novel of violence and corruption in a benighted north Argentine hellhole village. Project is one of the latest from Rizoma, along with Agustín Toscano’s second feature, The Moto-Snatcher, is set against big city migration in Argentina’s San Miguel de Tucuman, 2015 Forum projects still range wide. Prized at Marseille’s 2015 FIDLab edition, Eduardo Williams’ El auge del humano follows three young boys from Argentina, Mozambique and Philippines as they struggle against their depressing jobs.

In Clara sola, her feature debut, Colombia’s Nathalie Alvarez frames in a small and conservative Latin American village the story of a 35 year-old woman that suffers from autism and scoliosis and fights to control her sexual desire.

Designed as a Sweden- olombia- Denmark co-production, The Omission, a drama about a very young girl mother who is emotionally overwhelmed, marks the feature film debut by Argentine writer-helmer Sebastián Schjaer.

Further projects include a second Marseille’s 2015 FIDLab winner, Brazilian Larissa Figueiredo’s second feature, docu-fiction Agontime, addressing the legend of Na Agontime, an Afro-Brazilian priestess.

Produced by Bogota-based Medio de Contencion, Colombian-Belgian coproduction Tantas almas marks the newest project by Nicolas Rincón Gille, well known for his docu trilogy Campo hablado.

Lanza internacional, from Berlinbased Chilean Victor Cubillos, centers on Katy, a 23 year-old gifted pickpocket from a small criminal family in a slum of Santiago.

Also bound from Chile, Theo Court’s Blanco en blanco, a Hubert Bals Fund backed project. is produced by El Viaje Films (Hotel Nueva Isla).

San Sebastian’s Forum has also chosen Ronnie Monroy ama a todas, by multi-awarded Peruvian filmmaker Josué Mendez, and Oliverio y la piscine, directed by Mexican first-timer Arcadi Palerm.

Selected from Ibermedia’s Central- America and Caribbean Film Project Development Workshop, El sueco, from Patricia Ramos will be presented at the Forum, out of competition.

JOHN HOPEWELL / EMILIANO DE PABLOS