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Z365" or "Festival all year round" is the new strategic point of the Festival in which converge investigation, accompaniment and development of new talents (Ikusmira Berriak, Nest); training and cinematic knowledge transfer (Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola, Zinemaldia + Plus, Filmmakers' dialogue); and investigation, disclosure and cinematic thought (Z70 project, Thought and Discussion and Research and publications).
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Twelve films produced, directed or set in Latin America will compete for the Horizontes Award. Las herederas (Marcelo Martinessi), opening film of the section, Familia sumergida (Immersed Family, María Alché), La noche de 12 años (A Twelve-Year-Night, Alvaro Brechner), Figuras (Figures, Eugenio Canevari), Cómprame un revólver (Buy Me a Gun, Julio Hernández Cordón), Enigma (Ignacio Juricic Merillán), Sueño Florianópolis (Ana Katz), Ferrugem / Rust (Aly Muritiba), Nuestro tiempo (Our Time, Carlos Reygadas), Marilyn (Martín Rodríguez Redondo), Los silencios (Beatriz Seigner) and El motoarrebatador (The Snatch Thief, Agustín Toscano) make up the Horizontes Latinos selection at the 66th edition of the San Sebastian Festival.
María Alché (Buenos Aires, 1983) played the leading part in Lucrecia Martel’s La niña santa in 2004. Having directed short films which have screened and won awards at festivals including Locarno, Rotterdam, BAFICI or Toulouse, Familia sumergida (The Immersed Family), her first feature, was selected for San Sebastian’s Films in Progress last year and screened in the Cineasti del Presente section of the recent Locarno Festival.
Last year, Ferrugem / Rust, by the screenwriter, producer and director (Mairi, Brazil, 1979), a tale of two classmates, a school trip and a shared video, won in 2017 Films in Progress Industry Award. Muritiba’s previous feature, Para minha amada morta (To My Beloved, Films in Progress 26), won the Global Filmmaking Award at Sundance and was also screened in Horizontes Latinos.
The work of Carlos Reygadas (Mexico City, 1971) has always been warmly received at international festivals: in 2002 Japón (Japan) received a special mention in the first works category at Cannes; with Stelle Licht (Silent Light) he won the Jury Prize in 2007 at the French festival; and Post Tenebras Lux received the Best Director Award in 2012, once again at Cannes, as well as being selected for Horizontes Latinos. His latest film, Nuestro tiempo (Our Time) to screen in Horizontes Latinos, will premiere in the official selection at Venice.
Alvaro Brechner (Montevideo, 1976) wrote and directed in 2009 his first feature film, Mal día para pescar (Bad Day to Go Fishing), presented at the Cannes Festival Critics’ Week. The second, Mr. Kaplan (2014), was a Goya candidate for Best Foreign Film in the Spanish Language. The project of his third film, La noche de 12 años (A 12-Year-Night), received a Special Mention at the Festival’s Co-Production Forum in 2015 (at that time entitled Memorias del calabozo). This feature film, which describes the macabre experiment trialled by Uruguay’s military dictatorship on the Tupamaros guerrilla movement, will be presented in the Orizzonti section of the Venice Festival.
The first feature film by Julio Hernández Cordón (Raleigh, USA, 1975), Gasolina (Gasoline), earned the Films in Progress Industry Award in 2007 and the Horizontes Award in 2008. In 2015 he competed at Locarno with Te prometo anarquía (I Promise You Anarchy) and participated in Horizontes Latinos. Cómprame un revólver (Buy Me a Gun), a dystopia set in a Mexico marked by the disappearance of women, was presented at the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes.
Ana Katz (Buenos Aires, 1975) debuted as a director with El juego de la silla (Musical Chairs, 2002), which participated in Films in Progress 2 and landed a special mention in Made in Spain. The following year, in 2003, she was a member of the Zabaltegi-New Directors jury. Una novia errante (A Stray Girlfriend, 2007) won the Films in Progress Industry Award and premiered at Un Certain Regard in Cannes. Los Marziano (The Marziano's Family) screened in San Sebastian’s Official Selection in 2001 and in 2014 she participated once again in Films in Progress with Mi amiga del parque (My Friend From the Park, World Cinema Screenwriting Award in Sundance). Her latest work, Sueño Florianópolis (Florianópolis Dream), received at Karlovy Vary the FIPRESCI, Special Jury and Best Actress accolades (the latter for Mercedes Morán), who joins Gustavo Garzón to play a couple who, despite having separated, decide to spend the holidays with their teenage children as planned.
Having participated with his short films at Berlin and Venice, Marcelo Martinessi (Asunción, 1973) competed at the Berlinale with his first feature film, Las herederas (The Heiresses), which harvested the Alfred Bauer Prize –going to the film which opens new perspectives on cinematic art–, the Silver Shell for Best Actress (Ana Brun) and the FIPRESCI Prize, among others. In San Sebastian his tale of two women who have been living together for 30 years will collect the Sebastiane Latino Award at the first screening of the film, which will open the section.
The first feature film by the actor, screenwriter and director Agustín Toscano (San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina, 1981), Los dueños, (The Owners) co-directed with Ezequiel Radusky, won a special mention at the Critics’ Week in 2013. El motoarrebatador (The Snatch Thief), his second film, about a thief who seriously injures a woman, was selected for the Festival’s Co-Production Forum in 2015 and premiered at the Directors’ Fortnight.
Marilyn, the first feature film by Martín Rodríguez Redondo (Buenos Aires, 1979), was selected for the Co-Production Forum in 2014, won the European Distributors and Exhibitors Award in Toulouse in 2017 and premiered in the Panorama section at the last Berlin Festival. Marilyn narrates the experiences of a 17 year-old farmhand who discovers his sexuality in a hostile atmosphere.
The first steps of the Argentine filmmaker Eugenio Canevari have close ties to San Sebastian: his short film Gorila Baila participated in the International Film Students Meeting and Paula, his first work, was selected for Films in Progress 2014 and premiered in New Directors in 2015. His second feature, Figuras (Figures) looks at the story of an Argentine immigrant in Spain who has ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis).
Beatriz Seigner debuted behind the camera in 2009 with Bollywood Dream, the first co-production between Brazil and India, which was selected for more than twenty international festivals. She has also directed the non-fiction film Between Us, A Secret, co-written with Walter Salles, now at the post-production stage. Los silencios (Silences), which won the Films in Progress 33 Award and European Distributors and Exhibitors Award and presented at the last Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes, is set on a small island in the middle of the Amazon, landed on by a family fleeing the Colombian armed conflict.
Enigma, coming from Films in Progress in Toulouse, is the first feature film by Ignacio Juricic Merillán, focussed on a woman who receives the offer from a television programme to tell the story of her daughter’s murder, causing clashes amongst her family and each one’s versions of the events.
The eight first and second films in the selection (Familia sumergida / Immersed Family, Ferrugem / Rust, Las herederas / The heiresses, El motoarrebatador / The Snatch Thief, Marilyn, Figuras, Los silencios y Enigma) are also contenders for the Youth Award.
Asunción, Paraguay. The relationship between Cela and Chiquita is deteriorating. Particularly since they started selling off the riches they had inherited to help manage their complicated financial situation. When Chiquita, the most dynamic of the two, is sent to prison for fraud, Chela is obliged to leave the comfort of her petit bourgeoisie existence and start running a sort of taxi service with her own car, mainly for a group of elderly women. One day she meets Angy - the daughter of one of her clients - a younger and hugely extoverted woman. Together with her sudden work, this new relationship will deeply affect Chela's life and trigger an internal revolution.
Mexico, sometime in a near future... Women are disappearing and a girl called Huck wears a mask to conceal her gender. She helps her dad, a tormented addict, to take care of an abandoned baseball camp where the narcos gather to play. The father tries to protect her as he can. With the help of her friends, a group of lost boys who have the power of camouflaging themselves in the windy desert, Huck has to fight to overcome her reality and to defeat the local capo.
In the Argentinian city of Tucumán, Miguel makes a living as a motochorro, a thief who snatches people's belongings from his motorbike. Stealing her bag from Elena, an old woman, he ends up hurting her badly. After the brutal incident, Miguel is plagued by guilt and can't get his victim out of his mind. In an attempt to do the right thing, he conceals his true identity from the Elena and starts looking after the injured and unsuspecting old woman. The closer he gets to her, the more he becomes entangled in his own lies. Afraid of telling Elena the truth, and still haunted by the past, Miguel is unable to find true redemption.
Nancy receives the offer from a TV programme on unsolved mysteries to participate in the episode telling the story of her daughter, a young lesbian beaten to death, a crime for which no-one has been found guilty eight years after it was committed. Nancy confronts her family and each one’s version of the events, as she decides whether or not to participate in the space and learn more about the person her daughter was.
It's summertime in a hot and empty Buenos Aires. Marcela's world is shaken when her sister dies, leaving her completely out of sorts. Still grieving, she must deal with clearing out her flat. One of her daughter’s young friends, Nacho, appears on the scene, eager to help, a presence which leads to shared road trips and adventures. During these confusing days, people and conversations from another time will mingle, prompting questions, while the imminence of everyday life closes in on her.
Tati is a 16-year-old girl, joyful and lively, who likes to share her happiest moments on social networks. She eagerly looks forward to a weekend trip with her school friends. She knows this may be a good opportunity to get to better know Renet, her mysterious classmate. Renet belongs to a family where things are not openly said, merely suggested, and most often in silence. The current unspoken matter between father and son is the departure of Renet's mother, who left David, her ex-husband, alone to care for the boy. David is a teacher at the school where Tati and Renet study. The hot topic at school is a video shared among the students in which the girl appears in a compromising situation.
Stella, an Argentine immigrant living in Spain, suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and needs constant attention. Paco, her long-time partner, helps her to move, eat, and communicate. Valeria, Stella's daughter, visits them sporadically and, anguished by her mother's visible deterioration, finds an way of escape by going out to party. While they wait for an answer about the chance of subsidised housing, they try to cope with the situation through humor and love. A real family performing in a real story.
September 1973. Uruguay is under the control of military dictatorship. The Tupamaros guerrilla movement has been crushed and out of action for a year. Its members imprisoned and tortured. One autumn night, three Tupamaros prisoners are taken from their prison cells in a secret military operation that will last for twelve years. From then on they will be hauled around different camps all over the country, subject to a macabre experiment; a new kind of torture aiming to break the limits of their mental resistance. The military order is clear: “since we couldn’t kill them, we’re going to drive them insane”. For more than a decade, the prisoners will be kept in isolation in tiny cells where they spend most of their time with hoods on, tied up, deprived of their basic needs, with hardly any food, and seeing how their senses are reduced to a minimum. With their bodies and minds pushed beyond the limits, La noche de 12 años (A Twelve-year Night) tells us how they managed to survive.
Nuria, Fabio and their mother Amparo arrive on a small island in the middle of the Amazon Jungle, on the border between Brazil, Colombia and Peru. They have escaped from the Colombian armed conflict in which their father disappeared. One day, he reappears in their new house. The family is haunted by this strange secret and discovers that the island is inhabited by ghosts.
Marcos, a 17 year-old farmhand, discovers his sexuality in a hostile atmosphere. Nicknamed "Marilyn" by the other village teenagers, he becomes an object of desire and discrimination. Marcos feels increasingly more penned in.
A family lives in the Mexican countryside raising fighting bulls. Esther is in charge of running the ranch, while her husband Juan, a world-renowned poet, raises and selects the beasts. When Esther becomes infatuated with a horse trainer, named Phil, the couple struggles to find its way through the emotional crisis.
Couple Pedro and Lucrecia travel to Brazil with their teenage children. They have recently decided to separate, but to spend the holidays together as planned all the same. Marco, the Brazilian renting their summer house to the family, and Larissa, his ex-girlfriend, befriend Pedro and Lucrecia. On the beaches, among the waves, karaoke and water excursions, overlapping romances emerge together with an attraction that will rub off on the children on all sides. Parents and siblings have fun as they test the "Brazilian happiness". While endless samba awakens the tourists from their lethargy, they separate to indulge in the passion and exploration, in the mirror, of more liberal and unexpected versions of themselves.
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