Colombia’s Juan Sebastián Mesa and Tatiana Huezo, two leading Latin American filmmakers, won San Sebastián’s Industry Awards in the festival’s WIP Latam. 

Top plaudits at the San Sebastián Co-Production Forum served by contrast to highlight first or second time directors, though two are already fast emerging auteurs. 

The caliber of production companies behind multiple projects – Roma producer Pimienta Films, Michel Franco’s label Teorema, Quijote Films, behind Cannes 2025 Un Certain Regard winner The Gaze of the Flamingos Colombia’s Rhayuela, producer of The Awakening, Elastica, behind Alcarràs  – underscore San Sebastián, with Cannes, into Europe’s most significant Latin American meet and mart and the vital role co-production and sales agents represent for the region’s now often beleaguered industries, shorn or reduced in state aid. 

WIP Latam

Targeting sales agents, distributors and fest execs with pix-in-post, Lovers Go Home! reps the latest from Mesa. A multi-country co-production shot in Canada and Colombia, it follows Alejandra, a single mother who works as a webcam performer in a Medellin studio and her unlikely bond with disabled war veteran Andrew. The two begin a series of virtual conversations ranging from sexual requests to trivial challenges.

Few Mexican directors have impacted so much internationally than Tatiana Huezo, first in a documentary and then fiction space, winning a Cannes 2023 Un Certain Regard Special Mention for Prayers for the Stolen and Berlin Encounters Best Director in 2025 with The Echo. Galerna, uniting Pimienta and Elastica Films, follows Lúa and Noé, casting directors searching remote Mexico for natural actors for a sci-fi, where their journey challenges their prejudices. 

WIP Europa

In a Manner of Speaking from first feature filmmaker Val Jashari, and Wavemaker Films, Live Productions Kosovo-Montenegro co-production, turns on Zeka, an Albanian-American fugitive running a bar in Prishtina, who suddenly sees her hidden life upended by a police raid. Cornered, Zeka leaps onto a balcony and meets Vlora, a woman from a remote village trying to disappear. 

Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum

Produced by Chile’s Quijote Films (The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo) and Argentina’s Gentil Cine, The Amateurs, from Felipe Solari Yrigoyen, is set at an eccentric convention populated by people dressed as iconic movie characters where the original Maltese Falcon statuette vanishes and a Russian guest. The Amateurs shows “how ordinary people, in a remote corner of South America and far from Hollywood, are forced to step up when circumstances spiral beyond their control,” says Solari.   

The Illusions, directed by Ingrid Pokropek, centers on three Buenos Aires strangers making wishes on a shooting star, only for a cosmic mixup to grant each other’s desire, setting fame, grief and love on a collision course. Pokropek says “the world of The Illusions is luminous in the middle of darkness.” 36 Caballos produces with Spain’s Jaibo Films. The project has secured ICAA minority co-production support and gone through Berlinale Talents Project Market, EAVE Puentes and ECAM Forum.

Another top Forum winner, backed by Teorema, Mourning Sound marks Selma Cervantes’ first feature, starring Yalitza Aparicio, which premiered at Sundance 2023. In it, after years abroad, Karina returns to Mexico after her mother’s death. Estranged from a country that no longer feels like home, she and her brother Nacho find a way to bridge their differences by their tradition of being sonideros: DJs locally.

Ikusmira Berriak

A double winner at San Sebastián’s Ikusmira Berriak Akira, Albite’s first solo feature is a nighttime road movie following Vakhtang, a Georgian scrap dealer on the Basque coast, whose cousin Giorgi’s arrival leads them into the Lemoiz nuclear plant and onward through cold borderlands. 

“My films grow from spending time with people and places, allowing fiction to emerge from those encounters,” the director told Variety.

The Spain-Georgia-France co-production explores exile and “the quiet unraveling of familiar worlds.”  

Portuguese filmmaker Inês Nunes’ The Spirit Healer is Away for the Weekend won a third prize at Ikusmira Berriak. It tracks Sharon, an unsuccessful actress returning to an Algarve town where her image has become an object of worship, amid heat, and the disconnect tourism places there. It was selected for Ikusmira Berriak 2026, following Nunes’ Cannes-selected short The Loneliness of Lizards.

SAN SEBASTIAN INDUSTRY AWARDS 2026

15th EUROPE-LATIN AMERICA CO-PRODUCTION FORUM AWARDS

Best Project Award

The Amateurs / Los Inexpertos. Felipe Solari Yrigoyen, Chile, Argentina, Mexico)

Dale! Award

The Illusions / Las ilusiones. Ingrid Pokropek, Argentina, Spain

Artekino International Prize

Mourning Sound / El último sonidero. Selma Cervantes, Mexico

WIP EUROPA

WIP Europa Industry Award

In a Manner of Speaking / Me Fjalë Tjera. Val Jashari, Kosovo, Montenegro)

IKUSMIRA BERRIAK

Casa Wabi-Escine Award

The Spirit Healer Is Away for the Weekend. Inês Nunes, Portugal

Tanta Award

Akira. Ekain Albite, Spain, Georgia

JOHN HOPEWELL, CALUM McLENNAN