MADRID — New York’s Visit Films announced at Buenos Aires’ Ventana Sur market, that the company has secured distribution in Mexico and Spain on Maria Alché’s directorial debut, “A Family Submerged.”
In Mexico, the film was snagged by top indie production and distribution company Interior 13 Cine, distributors for Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra’s Colombian Oscar-hopeful “Birds of Passage.” Spanish distribution went to Surtsey Films, experts in theatrical placing of festival hits like Panos Cosmatos’ Sitges best director winner “Mandy” and Árpád Bogdán’s “Genesis,” a winner at Spain’s Valladolid Film Festival.
The film is held up as a case of a successful independent Argentine film which has not only charmed critics and won festival prizes but snagged a prestige sales agent and now broken out to commercial sales in key, major territories for a Spanish-language movie.
“A Family Submerged” turns on Marcella, played by Argentine film and theater actress Mercedes Morán, a middle-aged mother and wife in mourning after the unexpected death of her sister. Marcella wanders the halls of her home, as if in a trance, becoming ever more distant from her husband and children. After meeting one of her daughter’s friends, Marcella finds light through an illicit affair with the younger man.
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The film, which premiered in the Filmmakers of the Present section at August’s Locarno Film Festival before winning the Horizontes Award at San Sebastian in September, marks the feature debut of an acclaimed actress who broke through in Lucrecia Martel’s “A Holy Girl,” and has impressed with her short films “Gulliver” – a competitor at Locarno in 2015 – and “Noelia,” which won special mentions in Chile and Portugal and best short film at Bafici.
It’s produced by Barbara Francisco, whose impressive credits include Rodrigo Moreno’s “The Custodian,” a Berlin Alfred Bauer award winner for innovation, Santiago Mitre’s standout debut “The Student,” and the jury’s favorite film at the 2016 Tribeca Festival, Daniel Burman’s “The Tenth Man.”
Production companies involved include a number of international movers and shakers in Francisco’s Pasto Cine. Brazil’s Bubbles Project (“Loveling”) and TvZero (“Gabriel and the Mountain”), Germany’s Pandora Filmproduktion GMBH (“High Life”), and Norway’s 4 ½ Fiksjon (“Out Stealing Horses”).
According to Visit, negotiations for Mexico began at the Los Cabos Film Festival in November and closed yesterday at Ventana Sur.