Reas, by Lola Arias; Quizás es cierto lo que dicen de nosotras / Maybe it's True What They Say About Us, by Camilo Becerra and Sofía Paloma Gómez; Mi bestia, by Camila Beltrán; Selva / Jungle, by Juan Miguel Gelacio and Esteban Hoyos García; Los domingos mueren más personas / Most People Die on Sundays, by Iair Said, and Sombra Grande / Big Shadow, by Maximiliano Schonfeld, are the six Latin American feature films at the post-production stage to screen for an audience of professionals at San Sebastian Festival’s 71st edition. The six titles, four of which are first or second films, will compete for the WIP Latam Industry and EGEDA Platino Industry Awards.
The Argentinian playwright and writer Lola Arias brings Reas, her second film which, like Teatro de Guerra / Theatre of War (Zabaltegi-Tabakalera, 2018), also moves between reality and fiction. This time round it features former prisoners – women and transgender people – who reconstruct their past and imagine their future in the shape of a musical. At its project stage, Reas won the HEAD Pitchings du Réel Award at Visions du Réel in 2020.
Camilo Becerra and Sofía Paloma Gómez put their name to the co-production between Chile and Argentina, Quizás es cierto lo que dicen de nosotras / Maybe it's True What They Say About Us. Inspired by the case of the Colliguay sect, the film focuses on the relationship between a psychiatrist mother and her daughter, one of its members, set against the backdrop of a murder investigation.
Mi bestia is the first feature from the Colombian Camila Beltrán, who participated in the Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum in 2020, where she won the ArteKino International Award. The film is set in a Bogotá hit by continuous power cuts where rumours fly, saying that the Devil is about to arrive, circumstances that affect the influenceable teen protagonist.
Juan Miguel Gelacio and Esteban Hoyos, also from Colombia, will show their first movie, Selva / Jungle, following the lead figure during his last days in Bogotá after receiving an enigmatic phonecall at work, while a mysterious plague of flamingoes flies over the city.
Los domingos mueren más personas / Most People Die on Sundays is the second film from the Argentinian Iair Said, who uses a sweet and sour comedy tone to follow the vicissitudes of a young homosexual Jew when he has to go home to face his father’s last days. Said’s short films have screened at Cannes and the BAFICI.
Sombra Grande / Big Shadow represents the return to San Sebastian by the Argentinian Maximiliano Schonfeld, who premiered Jesús López in Horizontes Latinos 2021 following its screening at WIP Latam and in 2022 participated in the Ikusmira Berriak residencies programme with Frankenstein. Sombra Grande is set in the Entre Ríos province, an area inhabited by the descendants of German immigrants where a group of friends plan to make a film about a language believed to have been lost.
Many of the films shown in WIP Latam have enjoyed a successful international career: at this edition, two of the titles to have landed awards at WIP Latam 2022, Estranho Camino / A Strange Path, by Guto Parente, and El Castillo / The Castle, by Martín Benchimol, will compete in Horizontes Latinos following their participation in the Tribeca and Berlin Festivals, respectively, while in 2021 Manuel Abramovich’s Pornomelancolía won the Best Photography Award at the San Sebastian Festival after participating in Ikusmira Berriak (2018) and WIP Latam (2021). For more information on the success stories of participants in this initiative, please see here.
WIP Latam Industry Award. Bestowed by the companies Best Digital, Deluxe Content Services Spain, Dolby Iberia, Laserfilm Cine y Vídeo, Nephilim Producciones, No Problem Sonido and Sherlock Films, this award consists of the post-production of one of the participating films until obtaining a DCP subtitled in English and the distribution in Spain of the winning film.
EGEDA Platino Industry Award for Best WIP Latam. Coming with 30,000 euros gross for the majority producer of the winning film.
David, a young middle-class Jewish boy, overweight, homosexual and afraid of flying, returns to Buenos Aires from Europe when his uncle dies. During his time there, David learns that his mother has decided to disconnect his father from the ventilator, the only thing that has kept him alive for years. David returns to his childhood home where he fluctuates between intimate coexistence with his mother and a voracious appetite for filling his existential anguish. While his days in Buenos Aires go by, he will do anything he can to avoid visiting his father, but fate will do the impossible to ensure that the encounter will go ahead.
Bogotá, 1996. The population is frightened because there is a rumour that the devil is going to arrive during an approaching lunar eclipse. Mila, in the turmoil of adolescence, begins to see everything that happens to her as a sign. The world around her seems more hostile and Mila feels that she herself is being transformed.
Ximena, a successful psychiatrist, receives an unexpected visit from her elder daughter, Tamara, after a long time without seeing her. Her stay at a spiritual community has distanced and completely changed her. While Tamara takes refuge in her mother's home, an investigation is opened into the disappearance of Tamara's newborn son in strange circumstances within the sect to which she belongs. Both the law and Ximena will try to find out what has happened to the missing baby.
Yoseli has a tattoo of the Eiffel Tower on her back and was arrested at Ezeiza Airport, accused of drug trafficking. Nacho is a trans boy who was arrested for swindling and started a rock band in jail. They were incarcerated in the same women's prison, but they did not meet until the filming of the movie. Reas is a documentary-musical starring people who were deprived of their freedom. In the former prison of Caseros, they reconstruct scenes of their past life and imagine their future life in a musical where they sing, dance, and perform.
A flock of flamingos has been flying over Bogota in the past few days. Nobody knows where the birds came from, but it's clear that they are lost. Julian is also lost: he has been working in a call centre for five years, living on autopilot, and feeling completely disconnected from life. A mysterious phone call at work pushes him to disappear without a trace. Jungle follows Julian's last days in Bogota, his interactions with the people who mean something to him, and his final journey towards oblivion.
A few years ago a man turned up, claiming to speak an apparently lost language: Chaná. In only a short time dictionaries were published and the language was completely recovered. This man also situated the Chaná people in the same place as the Germans live today along the Volga River, in the Entre Ríos province, where their dialect is disappearing. Inspired by the homonymous book of poems, Sombra Grande is the tale of a group of friends who live in these little German villages while working on a film about the new language.
The WIP Latam initiative is possible thanks to the backing of the Ibermedia Programme and the collaboration of Best Digital, Deluxe Content Services Spain, Dolby Iberia, EGEDA - Sociedad de Servicios para los Productores Audiovisuales, Laserfilm Cine y Vídeo, Nephilim Producciones, No Problem Sonido, Projeto Paradiso and Sherlock Films.
The Industry Department has the support of