As part of its commitment to building bridges between the European and Latin American film industries, the Films in Progress section, organised by the San Sebastián International Film Festival in conjunction with Cinélatino, Rencontres de Toulouse, welcomed six new South American projects to its 34^th edition.

The star of this year’s show was The Sharks [+lire aussi :
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fiche film] by debut director Lucía Garibaldi, which took both the Films in Progress Industry Award (for post-production) and the Film Factory Award (for presales of distribution rights). The project centres on a teenager at a seaside resort, who seems to be the only one unaware that sharks have been gathering at the coastline — a premise that serves as point of departure for a reflection on the sense of being lonely while surrounded by people. The film is produced by Montelona Cine (Uruguay) and Trapecio Cine (Argentina).

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Among the other featured projects, two in particular stand out, also from Uruguay and/or Argentina. Mateína, by erstwhile short filmmakers Joaquín Peñagaricano and Pablo Abdala, produced by Jengibre Producciones (Uruguay), Coelho Voador (Brazil) and HC Films (Argentina), is a surreal comedy set in Uruguay in 2045, in a dystopian future where it’s forbidden to drink Yerba mate. In contrast, Ni héroe ni traidor, directed by Argentine Nicolás Savignone and produced by Napango, casts backwards to the Argentina of 1982, to tell the story of a young man called up to fight in the Falklands War just when he is coming to the end of his military service.

Two other projects come courtesy of Chile: The Prince [+lire aussi :
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fiche film], artistic director Sebastián Muñoz’s first film, produced by El Otro Film, Niña-Niño Films and Argentina’s Le Tiro, follows a young man drawn in to a relationship of “black love” with an older inmate in a 1970s Chilean prison, while Los fuertes, directed by Omar Zúñiga Hidalgo and produced by Cinestación (award-winning director Dominga Sotomayor’s company), also explores a relationship between two men — in this case, the romance is set in a remote village in southern Chile.

Finally, the Bolivian film Sirena, Carlos Piñeiro’s directorial debut, produced by Socavón Cine, also dives into the past, spiriting audiences to Lake Titicaca in the year 1984, where the drowning of a renowned engineer sparks a search that ends up pitting his colleagues against the local Aymara community.

Representatives of each selected project had the opportunity to meet with the festival’s professional delegates on the days of the industry events, to help them find potential collaborators and secure any outstanding funding — all six are currently at the final editing or post-production stages.

The next edition of Films in Progress will take place on 22 and 23 of March as part of the 31^st Cinélatino, Rencontres de Toulouse.