31/03/2025 - Ana Cristina Barragán’s The ivy stands particularly tall among the winners of the Films in Progress section

The movies gracing the Films in Progress section, unfolding within the wider Cinélatino – Toulouse Film Meetings, are always worth keeping an eye on, since they often make their way to major international festivals, as happened with César Augusto Acevedo’s Horizonte [+see also:
film review
film profile] last year (unveiled several months later in Toronto’s Discovery section), Lillah Halla’s Power Alley [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Lillah Halla
film profile] (screened in Cannes’ Critics’ Week in 2023), Manuela Martelli’s 1976 and Andrés Ramírez Pulido’s La Jauria [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (also discovered in Cannes, within the Director’s Fortnight and Critics’ Week respectively in 2022).

For this 2025 edition of the event, rather than awarding a Grand Prize, the Cinélatino team have decided that each of the nine partner juries will choose their favourite titles from among the six films in competition, without any value-based hierarchy between the different trophies awarded.

That said, Equatorian director Ana Cristina Barragán’s 3rd feature film, The Ivy – which follows on from Alba [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (unveiled in the IFFR’s Bright Future line-up in 2016) and Octopus Skin (presented in San Sebastián’s Horizontes Latinos section in 2022) - steals particular focus on the winners list, having nabbed itself two trophies (the Special Ciné+ Prize and the CCAS Prize). The story revolves around Azucena who spies on a group of teenagers living together like siblings in an orphanage. She’s 30 years old but stuck in the past on account of a life-altering event. Although their social worlds keep them apart, Azucena searches for something within this group, focusing particular attention on 17-year-old Julio. Theirs is an encounter shaped by pain, attraction, the Oedipus complex, laughter and tenderness… Production is steered by Equator’s Boton Films together with Mexico’s BHD Films, French firm Ciné-Sud Promotion and Spain’s Guspira Films.

The limelight was also stolen by two first feature films: the Brazilian production Paisagem de inverno by Marco Antonio Pereira (winning three awards) and the Argentine-French film Hijo mayor by Cecilia Kang (winning two prizes – co-produced by In Vivo Films).

The full list of winners is as follows:

Films in Progress 44

CCAS Prize
The Ivy - Ana Cristina Barragán (Equator/France/Mexico)
Special Mention
Marte al anochecer - Edgar Sajcabún (Guatemala/Panama/Norway)

A Fabrica Studio Prize
Bambúmoon - Rubén Mendoza and Rubén Tabcharani (Colombia)

Cercle Rouge Productions Prize
Paisagem de inverno - Marco Antonio Pereira (Brazil)

Eaux Vives Productions Prize
Paisagem de inverno - Marco Antonio Pereira

French Kiss Studio Prize
Paisagem de inverno - Marco Antonio Pereira

TitraFilm Prize
Hijo mayor - Cecilia Kang (Argentina/France)

Ciné+ Special Prize
The Ivy - Ana Cristina Barragán

European Distributors and Operators Prize (Europe Distribution and CICAE)
La hija cóndor - Álvaro Olmos Torrico (Bolivia/Uruguay)

Le Film Français Prize
Hijo mayor - Cecilia Kang

Films in Progress 20

BRLab Prize
Roberto Creciente - Matías Ferreyra (Argentina)

Apifa Inspiration Prize
Memoria - Mariana Canelones (Venezuela)

Producers Network Prize (Marché du Film – Cannes Film Festival)
Saudade - Luiza Botelho (Brazil)

(Translated from French)