Key Chilean projects being moved at this year’s European Film Market:
Alis
Directors: Clare Weiskopf and Nicolás van Hemelryck
Casatarántula produced this Chile-Colombia-Romania doc along with Pantalla Cines and Defilm. Produced by Alexandra Galvis and Radu Stancu, it world premieres at Berlinale’s Generation 14plus sidebar. The Bogota, Colombia-set doc follows 10 teens at a public boarding school in a therapy exercise where they construct a narrative around a make-believe classmate dubbed Alis.
International sales: Latido Films
Cazadora
Director: Martín Duplaquet
A thriller set in a dystopian future in which a mother and her teen, on a hunting trip in the mountains, have a chance encounter with a woman that triggers some bizarre changes, merging the personalities of the two women. The film is penned by Valeria Hofmann and Antonio Luco, produced by Francisca Barraza of Funky Films with Platforma Post.
International sales: House of Film
The Cow Who Sang a Song into the Future
Director: Francisca Alegría
An expansion of the themes in her Sundance-winning short, “And the Whole Sky Fit in the Dead Cow’s Eye,” Alegría’s feature debut world-premiered at Sundance 2022 in the World Cinema section. Mia Maestro plays Magdalena, whose return from the dead is a catalyst for change in her troubled family, played by Leonor Varela and Alfredo Castro.
International sales: The Match Factory
Immersion
Director: Nicolás Postiglione
Co-written with filmmakers Moises Sepúlveda (“The Illiterate”) and Agustín Toscano (“The Snatch Thief”), Postiglione’s debut feature stars Alfredo Castro as the patriarch of a family whose lakeside holiday goes awry. The thriller is co-produced by Juntos Films, Araucaria Cine, Primate Lab and Mexico’s Whisky Content.
International sales: Latido Films
(Im)Patient
Director: Constanza Fernández
The drama, which premiered at 2020’s Busan Intl. Film Festival, plumbs the hot-button issue of health care through the eyes of a prominent bioethics doctor, who is suddenly felled by the little-understood Guillain-Barré syndrome. Produced by Roberto Doveris’ Niña Niño Films.
International sales: TVCO
Phantom Project
Director: Roberto Doveris
An indie comedy, which made its world premiere in Rotterdam’s main competition, turns on Pablo, a struggling 30-year-old actor who scrapes by, making a living as a simulated patient and in alternative therapy sessions. His life spirals out when his flatmate moves out, leaving his collection of plants, his dog, a cardigan and a ghost.
International sales: Patra Spanou Film
A Place Called Dignity
Director: Matias Rojas
Lead-produced by Giancarlo Nasi (“White on White”), this co-production includes Nasi’s Quijote Films, Autocroma of Argentina, Germany’s Klinkerfilm, France’s Mandra Films and Séptima Films in Colombia. Pic, which competed at the Tallinn Black Nights Festival, is a dramatization of the events around Paul Schaefer, a former Nazi soldier who set up a German-speaking colony in rural Chile. Protected by Pinochet’s regime, Schaefer ruled over a culture of torture, child abuse and murder for decades.
International sales: New Europe Film Sales
To Kill the Beast
Director: Agustina San Martín
First seen at the Toronto fest, San Martin’s feature debut revolves around Emilia, 17, who comes to work at a hostel on the edges of Brazil’s Amazon jungle where she must face the truth behind her brother’s disappearance and unearth revelations about herself.
International sales: The Party Film Sales
The Stolen Kids
Director: Matias Bize
Participating in the Berlinale Series Market, this fact-based dramatic series, which is in development, dives into Chile’s dark history when some 20,000 of its children were adopted illegally by Europeans from the 1960s to 2000. These children are now searching for their biological parents. Maria Elena Wood Prods. and Mega Global Entertainment are producing the project.
International sales: Mega Global Entertainment.