Invercine, Gema Films and Gaman Cine are bringing their latest productions to Sanfic Industria’s WIP Iberoamericana, presenting eight projects from filmmakers working across Latin America and Spain. The selection includes fiction features, documentaries and hybrid works focused on identity, memory, ageing, art and social conflict.
Among the highlighted projects is “Zambra,” directed by Paula Leonvendagar and backed by Chile’s Invercine. The film follows writer Alejandro Zambra in Mexico as he spends time with his young son, works on a novel and reflects on literature, language and the creative process. Zambra’s novel “Poeta Chileno” is being adapted by Oscar-winning director Sebastián Lelio.
Invercine, led by Macarena and Matías Cardone, has produced premium series including “News of a Kidnapping,” “Dignity,” “Ramona” and “Mary & Mike.”
Argentina’s Gaman Cine, co-founded by Emiliano Torres and led by Nicolás Gil Lavedra, is presenting “The Other Voice.” Directed by Agustina Pérez Rial, the documentary offers an intimate, first-person portrait of Argentine singer Mercedes Sosa, including her exile from Argentina between 1979 and 1982 and her correspondence with friends. The film is based on more than 100 letters.
Gema Films, founded by producer Gema Juárez, is behind “Hot Springs,” the debut feature of cinematographer-turned-director Armin Marchesini Weihmuller. The film follows siblings Evangelina and Luis, both over 80, during a stay at a spa hotel. It explores ageing, dependence and their determination to continue living. Gema Films has also produced “Reas,” “The Castle” and “Pornomelancholy.”
The programme also includes “The Grass Along the Path,” directed by Fernando Lavanderos and co-produced by Cinestación, the company headed by Dominga Sotomayor and Omar Zúniga. Set in a Chilean coastal town in 1990, the coming-of-age drama follows Pinky, an insecure teenager whose meeting with Valentina challenges the violence and rigid gender roles of his social environment.
Colombia is represented by “The Cry of Serankwa,” the second feature from Yull Núñez. Spoken in Iku, an Indigenous language from Colombia’s highest mountains, the film follows two friends whose failed ritual to save the world leads one of them away from the mountains. Years later, he returns as a mining engineer with a project that threatens his ancestral community’s ecosystem.
Nicolás Videla directs “The Criminal Record of Madame Wittmann,” about the return to Chile of Evelyn Wittmann, a 73-year-old transgender vedette whose life intersects with a lost documentary by Hernán Garrido. Videla’s previous work includes “Naomi Campbel,” “El Diablo es Magnífico” and “Travesti Odyssey.”
The selection also features “La Residencia,” directed by Panama’s Mariel García Spooner. The film follows three friends in their mid-60s who create a social club for seniors while confronting financial uncertainty and the fear of losing their independence. The cast includes Colombian actors Xilena Aycardi and Marcela Carvajal.
Yurieth Romero Velásquez’s “Las Visitantes” follows five women who meet every Sunday while waiting to visit incarcerated relatives. Their lives become more closely connected after two prisoners escape. The Colombian, Puerto Rican and Mexican production focuses on the experiences of women, particularly Afro-Caribbean women, who support and care for loved ones in prison.
Leonvendagar, Pérez Rial and Marchesini Weihmuller are among the emerging directors represented in WIP Iberoamericana. The projects will be brought to market as part of Sanfic Industria’s industry programme.
Sources: Variety.