The San Sebastián International Film Festival’s industry programme has wrapped by handing out its awards across five sections: WIP Latam, WIP Europa, the Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum, Ikusmira Berriak and the Lau Haizetara Documentary Co-Production Forum. The teams behind projects primarily in development and post-production were offered opportunities to present their work to a set of experts and juries.

WIP Europa is dedicated to films with mostly European production behind them, as the name suggests. This section screens up to six movies in post-production for sales agents, producers, distributors, programmers and more. This year, both of the section’s prizes (the WIP Europa Industry Award and the WIP Europa Award) were claimed by Los Angeles-based Kosovar director Val Jashari’s In a Manner of Speaking. The film follows a US fugitive with Albanian roots who runs a bar in Pristina; his life changes after a police raid, when he is forced into hiding with a woman trying to escape her own demons.

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The WIP Latam section is the counterpart for late-stage films with mostly Latin American co-production. The WIP Latam Industry Award went to Juan Sebastián Mesa’s Lovers Go Home!, an unexpected story of intimacy that also participated in the Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum in 2022. Tatiana Huezo’s Galerna won the EGEDA Platino Industria Award for the Best WIP Latam, consisting of a €30,000 prize. The film follows two very different people working together to scout actors in the Mexican countryside, where they encounter situations “testing their tolerance, their resistance and their fragility”.

The Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum, consisting of 15 projects, handed its Best Project Award (a cash prize of €30,000) to Felipe Solari Yrigoyen’s The Amateurs, an eccentric crime-comedy set at a film and comic convention in Patagonia. The DALE Award!, given out by the European Film Agencies Association (EFAD) and the Conference of Ibero-American Audiovisual and Cinematographic Authorities, was accompanied by €10,000 and went to Ingrid Pokropek’s The Illusions, in which the shooting-star-granted wishes of three strangers in Buenos Aires are mixed up, entangling them all in unexpected ways.

Organised by the festival and EPE-IBAIA (the Association of Independent Audiovisual Producers of the Basque Country), the Lau Haizetara Documentary Co-Production Forum awards were the culmination of workshops, pitching sessions and individual meetings; Alfonso García’s The Hammock won the €5,000 EPE-IBAIA – Elkargi Award. Ikusmira Berriak, a programme of residencies and project development culminating in final presentations, concluded by giving out three awards. Basque filmmaker Ekain Albite’s Akira, which took home two prizes, centres on a Georgian man living in the Basque countryside, who receives a surprise visit from his cousin.

A variety of films from past editions of San Sebastián’s industry programme have premiered this year, including Bruno Santamaría Razo’s Six Months in a Pink and Blue Building (Cannes Critics’ Week), Fernando Eimbcke’s Flies (Berlinale Competition), Fernanda Tovar’s Sad Girlz (Berlinale Generation 14plus) and Simón Vélez’s Gemstones (Berlinale Forum).

Here is the full list of award winners:

WIP Europa awards

WIP Europa Industry Award
In a Manner of Speaking – Val Jashari (Kosovo/Montenegro)
Production: Wavemaker Films, Live Productions

WIP Europa Award
In a Manner of Speaking – Val Jashari

WIP Latam awards

WIP Latam Industry Award
Lovers Go Home! – Juan Sebastián Mesa (Colombia/Spain/Canada/France)
Production: Rhayuela Films, Potenza Prods, Camera Oscura, Dublin Films, El Sol Ermitaño)

EGEDA Platino Industria Award for the Best WIP Latam
Galerna – Tatiana Huezo (Mexico/Spain)
Production: Pimienta Films, Elastica Films

Europe–Latin America Co-Production Forum awards

Europe–Latin America Co-Production Forum Best Project Award
The Amateurs – Felipe Solari Yrigoyen (Chile/Argentina/Mexico)
Production: Quijote Films

DALE! (Development Latin America–Europe) Award
The Illusions – Ingrid Pokropek (Argentina/Spain)
Production: 36 Caballos

ArteKino International Prize
Mourning Sound – Selma Cervantes (Mexico)
Production: Teorema

Ikusmira Berriak awards

Casa Wabi – ESCINE Award
The Spirit Healer Is Away for the Weekend – Inês Nunes (Portugal)
Production: Foi Bonita a Festa

Tanta Award
Akira – Ekain Albite (Spain/Georgia)
Production: Maluta Films

Sideral Award
Akira – Ekain Albite

Lau Haizetara Documentary Co-Production Forum awards

EPE-IBAIA – Elkargi Award
The Hammock – Alfonso García (Spain)
Production: Basque Films

Music Library & SFX Award
Shady Birds – Zaira Zanguitu (Spain)
Production: Señor y Señora

Dogwoof Award
Different Colors of Sabir – Safaa Khatib (Palestine/Italy)
Production: Philistine Films, Ginevra Films