Chile’s ‘A Fantastic Woman’ editor Soledad Salfate has boarded Costa Rican-Mexican title “Matryoshka” by Maricarmen Merino, which snagged two key awards at the Santiago Documentary Lab of Chile’s Sanfic Industria.
Produced by Merino and Mexican producers Karla Bukantz and Paulina Villegas of Puchunka Cine, “Matryoshka” throws a spotlight on Merino’s mother, Patricia Mora Castellanos, who was born and married into powerful families of Costa Rica’s political left. A trailblazing feminist and activist, Mora Castellanos was the first congresswoman from Costa Rica’s left-wing party and is now running for Vice President of Costa Rica’s communist party. The docu follows Mora Castellanos’ rise in politics following her husband’s death when she took his place to lead the leftist party.
“Editing is extremely fundamental to a documentary so we’re thrilled to have Soledad on board,” said Villegas, who lists “Matryoshka” as one of the documentaries they are producing at their new company, Puchunka Cine, which focuses on stories about women and above all, that give them a voice. Salfate won a 2018 Premio Platino award for her editing of Sebastian Lelio’s Oscar-winning “A Fantastic Woman” and has also worked on Lelio’s “Gloria Bell,” his English-language remake of his acclaimed drama, “Gloria.”
“Matryoshka” has already gone through various industry spaces, including the 2021 Costa Rica Film Festival where it won a cash prize, as well as DocMontevideo 2021 and Plataforma IB in DocsMX, among others. It recently won the IDFA Spotlight Award in the Netherlands and has been invited to participate in the IDFA Academy as a result.
According to Villegas, Puchunka Cine is also producing Michelle Ibaven’s third film “Ruptures” (“Sobre Rupturas y sus Grietas”), which won multiple awards on the MX Platform at DocsMex. These include an invitation to participate in the Guadalajara Film Festival co-production market, the IDA award, an insurance discount from LCI and the Marketing Movie Runner award. “This week we participate with this project in Dok Leipzig and soon the Gabriel Figueroa Film Fund,” she added.
“We are really very happy with how our projects are progressing, especially since our company has just been created,” she said.
The Santiago Documentary Lab was part of Chile’s Sanfic Industria event, which ran from Oct.27 to Nov. 4.