Aly Muritiba’s Ferrugem (Rust), Telmo Esnal’s Dantza and Argentine Ezequiel Radusky’s Permanent Staff won big at the 2017 San Sebastián Industry Awards,.

An indication of why Muritiba is one of Brazil’s most courted young directors these days, with new projects set up not only at his own Grafo Audiovisual label but also at RT Features and Gullane, “Rust” builds to a finally searing indictment of misogyny, anchored in a case of sexting which has ghastly consequences. One forceful decision by Muritiba is to tell the story in two parts, Another is totalk about his subject as much via contrasting mise-en-scène of parts one and two rather than on-the-nose dialogue.

Underscoring Rust’s popularity, Muritiba’s second feature swept the board at Films in Progress winning the main 32nd Films in Progress Industry, granted by a powerful alliance of post-production and service houses in Spain, the new Film Factory Award, offering world sales minimum guarantee to the film, and the Caaci/Ibermedia TV Films in Progress Award.

A show-case for movies made in “smaller” European languages – think Basque, Icelandic or Romanian – Glocal in Progress served double vindication for the Basque government. Produced by Txintxua Films, the musical Dantza proved a polished essay at incorporating the choreography and symbols of ancient Basque dance into an international dance feature idiom whose aesthetic punch and production standards bear comparison ith the musicals of Carlos Saura.

Plaudits at the Co-production Forum spread across the board. The 6th Europe-Latin American Co-production Forum Award was won by Ezequiel Radusky (The Others) for Permanent Staff. A social parable about a woman attempting tobetter her lot by opening a canteen in the offices where she cleans, Permanent Staff is produced by Campo Cine, the Buenos Aires shingle run by Argentine auteur Diego Lerman and producer partner Nicolás Avruj.

Structured as a Chile-France-U.S. co-production, the genre-blending The Mole Agent, from Alberdi, a celebrated young Chilean documentary filmmaker, takes place in a world of private investigators and intelligence operatives.

Winner of the Eurimages Development Co-production Award, Claudia Pinto Emperador’s The Consequences is a psychological drama-thriller, produced by Valencia’s Sin Rodeos Films from the Venezuelan- orn director (La distancia más larga). Otherwise, the other two awards at the Co-production Forum both went to Basque productions.

The Arte International Prize was snagged by Akelarre, a witchcraft thriller which ticks most of the boxes of what the Basque film industry wants from a feature project: an arresting subject; a prestigious director, Agüero; private investment channeled via Sorkin Films, run by Kowalski Films and Lamia Producciones; and, announced out of San Sebastián, a sales agent, Film Factory Ent.

Chosen out of projects at the San Sebastian’s co-run development lab, the Ikusmira Berriak Award was adjudicated to Jordi’s Letters, a touching docu-portrait about a 51 year old man who suffers cerebral palsy, Maite Fernández Iriarte directs; it is set up at Leire Apellániz and Aritz Moreno’s San Sebastián-based Sr. & Sra.

JOHN HOPEWELL

EMILIO MAYORGA