Multi-prized Latin American directors Federico Veiroj, Theo Court, Alicia Scherson and Daniel Hendler head a muscular project lineup at San Sebastian’s Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum, the Festival’s industry centerpiece which underscores this year a welling sea-change in the region’s filmmaking.

The Forum runs Sept. 25-27. Mixing top cineasts and anticipated feature debuts – from Dominican Génesis Valenzuela and Argentine Lucila Mariani – the Forum captures Latin America filmmaking at a time of building sea change.

Two trends dominate. One is genre: Films that are genre pics or enrol genre tropes or genre blend.

Argentina’s The Message, for instance, is “a Spielberg film shot by Cassavetes, a cross between an exciting sci-fi adventure film with an intimate and moving story of characters,” says director Iván Fund.

Awarding grants, an ACAU Uruguay jury described Hendler’s A Loose End as a Western, romcom, road movie and procedural, sluiced with singular sense of humor.” Veiroj’s Fauna, the same jury said, “revisits classic ‘40s film noir adapted to the ‘90s.” 

The selection also often turns on one of the central concerns of Latin American filmmaking: Identity.

Three Bullets investigates the 1992 murder of Dominican immigrant Lucrecia Pérez by four Spanish neo-Nazis. But director Valenzuela reconsiders the crime as she reconstructs her own identity as a “human being/ woman/Afro-Caribbean/filmmaker.”

Barbara Sarasola-Day’s Little War is inspired by her own childhood in an Anglo-Argentine community in Argentina on the cusp of the 1982 Malvinas/Falklands War where, “with the mind of an almost six-year-old girl, she tried to “understand whether or not we were the enemy,” recalls Sarasola-Day. 

Social issues remain. But projects often explore them via broader entertainment formats. Three Dark Nights, for example, is “a detective mystery with overtones of a psychological thriller” which exposes roiling social fractures, uncovering “complex cultural and social conflicts,” says Jamie Weiss at El Viaje Films.

Straight social realism certainly has not disappeared. But Latin America’s arthouse sector is reaching out for broader audiences.

San Sebastian’s 2023 Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum Agua Caliente, (Juan Pablo González, Ana Isabel Fernández, Sin Sitio Cine, Mexico, U.S.)

After a devastating break-up, Ana María, a renowned actress, reluctantly travels to rural Mexico to lead a workshop. Co-directed and written by González, behind Sundance winner Dos Estaciones, and Fernández, Dos Estaciones’ co-writer.

The Days Off, (Los Días Libres, Lucila Mariani, MaravillaCine, Argentina)

Cousin Male tells Bego (11), who’s at a summer camp, that she can switch realities by shifting, a viral technique on TikTok. However, when everyone around her faints and falls ill, she begins to realize that things might be more complicated than just an internet trend. Lead-produced by Paula Zyngierman and Leandro Listorti’s MaravillaCine in Buenos Aires.

Fauna, (Federico Veiroj, Cinekdoque, Uruguay)

Adapting Mario Levrero’s modern classic novel, a situation comedy from Veiroj, Fauna turns on a world-weary private investigator, asked by Fauna to rescue another woman, Flora. He falls in love with both women. Written by Veiroj, Agustina Liendo (La Sudesestada), Pablo Trapero co-scribe Martín Mauregui and Martin Feldman.

I’m Fine, (Estoy bien, Alicia Scherson, Globo Rojo Films, Chile)

Currently under wraps, the possible next feature from Scherson a founding mother of the Novíssimo Cine Chileno with Play and director of Il futuro, with Rutger Hauer.

Little War, (Barbara Sarasola-Day, Pucará Cine, Argentina, Netherlands)

The latest as a director from Sarasola-Day (White Blood), a biographical fiction inspired by the director’s English grandmother. Set in 1982 in an Anglo-Argentine community in Argentina, as the Falklands War is about to unfold, Judy, 55, dying from cancer, determines to pass on in times of war, the “weapons” she believes her little granddaughter will need for life after she is gone.

A Loose End, (Un Cabo Suelto, Daniel Handler, Cordon Films, Uruguay)

A second chance psychological drama as a low-ranking Argentina cop flees to Uruguay. The third feature from acting star Hendler (100 Days to Fall in Love).

The Message, (El Mensaje, Iván Fund, Rita Cine, Argentina)

A girl who works as a pet medium and her guardian are summoned to a research center for interspecies communication to decipher mysterious messages. From Fund (The Lips, Dusk Stone.)

Nostalgia for the Future, (Nostalgia del futuro, Florencia Colman, Tarkio Film, Uruguay, Argentina)

A father tries to rebuild his worn-out marriage and the bond with his daughters, as daughter Eloisa embarks on a journey to satisfy her own desires. Virginia Bogliolo produces at Uruguay’s Tarkiofilm, alongside Juan Álvarez Neme of Argentina’s Un Puma.

Okonomiyaki, (Gabe Klinger, Raccord Produções, Brazil, Chile, France)

Rio de Janeiro’s Raccord produces a new project by Klinger (Porto (2016), about “the messy process of leaving childhood,” says Klinger. 

Red Nest, (Ninho Tinto, Alice Stamato, Val Hidalgo, Plato Filmes, Brazil)

A Thiago Briglia (Por Onde Anda Makunaíma?) and João Pereira Lima production at Platô Filmes, the Roraima-based company focused on producing film and TV content related to the Amazonia.

The Reserve, (La reserva, Ezequiel Yanco, Isoi Cine, Argentina, Mexico, Spain)

Blurring boundaries between fiction and reality, the film is sets in La Pampa, following a director as he prepares to shoot a thriller in a region marked by the genocide of the Indigenous population. 

These Were All Fields, (Todo esto eran mangas, Daniela Abad Lombana, La Selva Cine, Colombia)

Set up at Medellín’s La Selva Cine (The Kings of the World), Fields tells the story of a teenager who has to face the truth about her father’s hidden life.

A Thousand Pieces, (Mil Pedazos, Sergio Castro San Martín, Latente Films, Chile, Argentina, Germany)

Castro San Martín defines the film as “a spiritual journey, an existentialist road movie.

Three Bullets, (Génesis Valenzuela, Colectivo Cinematografico 81, Dominican Republic)

The runaway triple winner at a high-caliber Locarno Open Doors last week. A hybrid fiction-doc-come-essay, Three Bullets will mix colonial history, displacement and criminal investigation. 

Three Dark Nights, (Theo Court, El Viaje Films, Spain, Chile)

A Haitian day labourer on a Chilean hacienda is found dead the day of his wedding. Court’s noir-ish follow-up to his impressive White on White, a Chilean Oscar entry.

John Hopewell, Emiliano de Pablos