Argentine Francisco Lezama's The Two Landscapes, Uruguayan Daniel Handler’s A Loose End, and German director Sara Miro Fischer’s Blue Marks triumphed at the San Sebastián Festival’s Industry Awards ceremony Wednesday, which announced awards for its most major competitions, the Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum, and two pix-in-post strands, the WIP Latam and WIP Europa.

Dear Bastiano, from Spain’s María Elorza, took the Ikusmira Berriak Award, a best project prize at the prestigious San Sebastián development program.

Lezama’s double wins at the Forum mark his second prize scoop this year after walking off with a 2024 best short Berlin Golden Bear for Un movimiento extraño.

Produced by Argentina’s Pionera Cine, developing projects from Lezama and Ignacio Ceroi, the “melancholic comedy” about religious and family tensions, as Lezama puts it, is set during an institutional crisis within the Catholic Church due to Catholics converting to Evangelism. Mercedes, a devout sixty-year-old Catholic, is obliged to host the late tenant’s girlfriend and unrecognized daughter in her home. The film, currently in development, turns on the attempts of a Eucharistic Minister to maintain certain rituals of traditional Catholicism in a town where conversions to Evangelism are gradually changing traditions,” Lezama told Variety.

In the same Forum competition, Colombian Mariana Saffon’s Mar de Leva took the ArteKino International Award, sponsored by French-German pubcaster Arte. In it, Elena prepares for the imminent death of her father and faces a desire she had never thought of having: that of becoming a mother. Project marks the feature debut of Saffon, whose Between You and Milagros snagged best short film at the 2020 Venice Horizons. Rated Colombian director-producer Franco Lolli (Gente de bien, Litigante) and Capucine Mahé at Colombia’s Evidencia Films lead produce. “Accompanying Mariana Saffon in the making of her debut feature is a privilege and a very exciting challenge. Her amazing short film Between You and Milagros already showed a unique sensibility, a strong commitment and a very personal point of view,” Lolli told Variety.

Berlin Silver Bear-winning actor Hendler’s third feature as a director, sporting his hallmark irony, A Loose End won the Industry Award at WIP Latam. It centers on Santiago, a low-ranking policeman, who arrives in Fray Bentos, a small town just across the Uruguay border from Argentina, escaping from the Argentine police force. Penniless but with enough cunning and using his threadbare uniform, he overcomes obstacles and receives the help of local characters, aiming to erase all traces of his past while even dreaming of finding the possible love of his life. None proves a slam dunk.

Cuerpo Celeste, the second feature from Chilean director Nayra Ilic, took the Egeda Platino Industria Award. It tracks the life journey of Celeste, a teenager forced to deal with the death of her father while her mother deals with a personal crisis. Ilic’s debut feature, Square Meter, screened in competition at the Palm Springs Festival in 2011.

Produced by Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin in co-production with Arkanum Pictures and RBB, feminist drama Blue Marks turns on siblings Rose and Sam. After learning that rape allegations brought against Sam are true, Rose must learn how to deal with her brother’s guilt. Miro Fischer wrote the film’s screenplay with Agnes Maagaard Petersen.

A narrative diptych, treating memory as invention, while other elements are experimental non-fiction, Dear Bastiano turns on a love letter sent in WWII by an Elorza family member of political and historical import. The hybrid represents the latest work from Elorza, a well-known figure on the San Sebastián film scene, whose To Books and Women I Sing received a Special Screening at the 2022 San Sebastián Festival.

John Hopewell