Sanfic Industria’s 2024 Work in Progress Offers Arresting Emerging Talents, Affecting Portraits of Latin America’s Challenges (EXCLUSIVE)

Francesc Relea’s “The Last Witness,” Alejandra Carpio’s “Concert for a Single Voice” and Martín Boulocq’s “Criminal Body” feature in an expanded Sanfic Industria Ibero-American Work In Progress, one of the industry centerpieces at the 20th Santiago Intl. Film Festival in Chile.

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Usually eight entries, titles were increased to 10 this year, Gabriela Sandoval, Sanfic Industry told Variety, given that submissions were up 50% on 2023.

That reflects the post-pandemic recovery of production in Latin America, plus the ever larger appeal of profile at Sanfic Industria, the key summer film industry event in the region.

With Sanfic Industria’s Sanfic Morbido Lab showcasing the powerful build in genre across Spain and Latin America, including this year new projects from Caye Casas and Guillermo Amoedo, Sanfic Ibero-American WIP has genre movies, whether sci-fi “The Clearing” or the movie shot in “Criminal Body.”

Featuring five women directors, the Ibero-American WIP underscores the last-decade build in gender parity in Latin American filmmaking, still a work in progress, especially in the directors of movies.

Titles place women front-and-center, fore-fronting a soon-to-be truncated mother-child relationship (“The Days With Her”), women’s “strength and resilience” (“The Beauty of the Moment”), and their passions other than motherhood, uncomprehended by their offspring (“Concert for a Single Voice”).

These are films made by resolute cinematographic film-makers.

“I’m interested in films that construct language,” Scarvaci tells Variety . “The Days With Her” bears him out in the feature’s extended reaction shots, in-frame framing and character positioning: All shot set-ups serve a larger dramatic point.

Other WIP entries nail the major battles that filmmakers and Latin America are fighting on multiple fronts: Still roiling neo-colonialism (“Criminal Body”), including in the film industry; the obstacles to and need for reconciliation (“Death Brought You Back”); the struggle to establish and preserve an historical memory, one daughter’s belated mission in “Will They Ever Come Back?”

Bio doc “The Last Witness” portrays the extraordinary Luis Poirot, appointed as a young shutterbug official photographer of Salvador Allende’s 1970 presidential campaign; he is still snapping photos of portraits, events – such as a famed Los Bunkers concert during the 2019 Estallido – near 55 years later. “I’ve been obsessed by memory, that we shouldn’t forget things. That’s why I became a photographer,” Poirot says, opening not only his archive but his heart about, for example, the torture and murder of his friend Victor Jara by Pinochet’s security forces.

The 2024 Sanfic Industria Ibero-American WIP Lineup:

“The Beauty of the Moment,” (“La Belleza del Instante,” Manuel Berisso, Rodrigo M. Malmsten, Spain, Belgium)

Inés, a painter, becomes pregnant, discovers she has Huntington’s disease. With her relationship with the child’s father over, she faces up to her fate through the love of friends and passion for her art. Shot in academy ratio, the film captures the fickleness of illness intimately, moving from the trivial to the unrelenting.  Ines, played by Moro Anghileri, hangs in.  “I’m Inés. I’m alive” she says in voiceover. Luminosa Ventures Films, Uxen 7 Arts and Be Revolution Pictures produce.

“The Clearing,” Maira Carrasco (Chile)

Produced and distributed by Cine UDD and written by Carrasco and Valentina Reyes, “The Clearing” is set in modern-day Santiago and tells the story of a young medical student who enters a virtual reality world to reunite with the love of his life, who recently passed away. According to Carrasco, her vision was to “capture a unique cinematic experience that combines drama and science fiction elements in a realistic and moving way.”

“Concert for a Single Voice,” (“Concierto para una sola voz,” Alejandra Carpio Valdeavellano, Peru)

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From Peru’s Invisible Producciones, taking the initial POV of Nicolás, a Peruvian part of a European student elite – living in Paris in 2007, up for a scholarship to study in London – before he is forced to re-meet his mother in Lima, who abandoned him for political activism. A powerful set up. “Despite everything that can separate us – human beings are able to connect, no matter how different we are or however opposed our ideas,” says Carpio Valdeavellano.

“Criminal Body,” (Martín Boulocq, Bolivia, Argentina, France and Germany)

From Bolivia Cq Films, Argentina’s Maravillacine, France’s L’Œil Vif and Germany’s Weltfilm, a genre hybrid that offers elements of horror, documentary and fiction filmmaking. The movie within a movie revolves around two locals in a sleepy Bolivian hamlet, where an American film crew recruits them to play pivotal roles. Miguel, a bodybuilder, plays a minotaur-like monster; Marcos, a peasant, provides his bulls for the shoot. Together, they navigate a symbolically unsettling experience.

“The Days With Her,” (“Los Diás con Ella,” Matias Scarvaci, Argentina)

Alejandra, serving 12 years in Buenos Aires’ Eceiza prison, looks after two-year-daughter Aithana knowing they’ll be separated when Aithana is four, “The Days with Her” is born with a loss and deals with the desperate search  for reparation. “I’m interested in strong characters in stories with social content, films with a singular gaze, that can articulate different layers of meaning, that construct language,” Scarvaci tells Variety .

“Death Brought You Back,” (“La muerte te vio volver,” Sebastián Cuevas, Chile)

After her mother’s illness and a looming inheritance bring her back to her childhood home, Silvia’s tasked with navigating strong emotions while attempting to mend long-neglected relationships. An affecting tale of reconciliation and forgiveness, the project is produced by Catalina Alarcón at Amanda Puga’s Southern-Chilean outift Praxia and Santiago-based Mala Films. Paula Armstrong co-wrote alongside Cuevas.

“The Last Witness,” (“El Ultimo Testigo,” Francesc Relea, Chile, Spain)

Featuring Isabel Allende, Pablo Larraín and Alfredo Castro, depicting Chilean photographer Luis Poirot as he opens up his archive from snaps of Allende on his 1970 campaign trail to the bombarded presidential Palacio de la Moneda after Pinochet’s 1973 coup; Pablo Neruda at his desk in Isla Negra; snaps of friend Victor Jara. Pic ends in 2023 with Poirot snapping his 1973 photos of La Moneda, projected onto the palace’s facade. A buzzed-up potential section highlight.

“Laureano,” (Claudia Ccapatinta, Peru)

Through intimate camerawork, the narrative follows engaging elderly Quechua speaker Laureano as he tends to community lands in exchange for housing. After his mother dies, he faces a daunting decision-staying in the village he’s always called home or relocating with family to the city. Produced by Jaisia Figueroa at Nomada Producciones and Lazaro, the project was awarded top prize at WIP Labs in Bolivia, Vancouver.

“Water Never Hurt,” Ana Clara Bustelo (Argentina, Uruguay)

Argentina’s Pez Dorado Compañia Creativa and Uruguay’s La Mayor produce this fictional story about a nine-year-old girl involved in a horse-riding accident and operated on without her consent. “‘Water Never Hurt’ invites us to rethink our societal conception of childhood as fragile, weak, and delicate,” the film’s producers tell Variety . “It proposes an alternative where children can make decisions about their lives, even at a young age, enabling dialogue within the family.”

“Will They Ever Come Back?” (Ángela Carabalí, Colombia)

Angela and her sister Juliana journey through Colombia in search of the Indigenous lands where their father, a farmer of African descent, was disappeared. For 30 years, Angela has resisted the victim label, but a dream of her father urging her to find him forces her to confront her past. Sandelion Productions and Carabalí Films & New Media produce. Supported by the Sundance Institute and the William Graves Fund, the doc-feature has participated in various labs, including the Sheffield DocFest MeetMarket and Colombia’s BAM.

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