Eighteen films from different Latin American countries will compete in the Horizontes Selection at the San Sebastian Film Festival, to take place from 20-29th September.
This showcase of movies made throughout the year in Latin America consists of films not released in Spain, some of which have won awards at international festivals, such as El asaltante, Baixio Das Bestas, A casa de Alice, Párpados azules and La sangre iluminada. Eleven of these titles come from Films in Progress.
Films included in the Horizontes Selection will compete for the Horizontes Award, carrying €35,000.
Made in Spain will also feature a carefully chosen selection of the most interesting Spanish films of the year and, together with the formerly announced projects presented at Films in Progress 12, will complete the three parts of the Horizontes Latinos section completely dedicated by the Festival to Spanish and Latin American films.
More Live coverage on fest21.com Blogging by day.
HORIZONTES SELECTION
LA ANTENA (THE AERIAL)
Argentina
Director: Esteban Sapir
Cast: Valeria Bertuccelli, Alejandro Urdapilleta, Julieta Cardinali, Rafael Ferro, Florencia Raggi
An entire city loses its voice as it endures the throes of a long, harsh winter. The evil, unscrupulous Mr. TV, sole owner of the images on the local screens and of a wide range of goods made under his own personal label, implements a sinister secret plan to eternally dominate each of the souls inhabiting the place. To achieve his wicked ends, he pays for the creation of a dangerous machine transmitting hypnotic TV images inducing compulsive purchase of the products bearing his brand name. Second feature film from the director of Picado fino (1994).
AÑO UÑA
Mexico
Director: Jonás Cuarón
Cast: Diego Cataño, Eireann Harper, Mariana Elizondo, Katie Hegarty, Liboria Rodríguez, Emilia García, Salvador Elizondo, Fernando Becerril
Año Uña is the impossible romance between Molly, a 21-year-old American, and Diego, a Mexican in the throes of puberty. Molly travels to Mexico, where she rents a room in Diego's house. A close relationship immediately develops between the two. Diego, who had previously been consumed by desire for his cousin, Emilia, redirects his obsession towards Molly. Molly enjoys Diego's flirtations, finding the attention and respect missing from her relationships with other boyfriends. The relationship continues to grow until Molly returns to New York. Diego decides to run away and win Molly's heart. First feature film by Alfonso Cuarón’s son, told based on the photographs which he himself took over a one-year period.
EL ASALTANTE (THE MUGGER)
Argentina
Director: Pablo Fendrik
Cast: Arturo Goetz, Bárbara Lombardo, Maya Lesca, Guillermo Arengo, Germán De Silva, Verónica Piaggio
The entire action of El Asaltante takes place in a single morning. A man is about to implement a meticulously prepared plan. The camera follows him throughout. The audience becomes a privileged witness to the most intimate moments of anxiety and despair preceding a life or death decision.
Selected for Films in Progress 11 and for the Cannes Critics’ Week and Award for Best Actor (Arturo Goetz) at the Buenos Aires Festival.
AURORA BOREAL
Mexico
Director: Sergio Tovar Velarde
Cast: José Luis Martínez, Renato Bartilotti, Miguel Ramos Arizpe, Erika Rosales
In the Mexico of 1994, Mariano, a tormented teenager, has decided to take his own life, but not before first of all recording himself on video explaining his reasons for doing so. The result is a nostalgic, moving portrayal of the soul of a young boy seeking redemption for a family tragedy sparked by himself years earlier.
Selected for Films in Progress 11.
BAIXIO DAS BESTAS (BOG OF BEASTS)
Brazil
Director: Cláudio Assis
Cast: Mariah Teixeira, Fernando Teixeira, Caio Blat
Baixio das Bestas is a small community entrenched within its secular culture, and paralysed within its own authority and morality: a decadent land-owning culture. The little urban centres surrounding our small village radiate a certain idea of the future, of possibilities. The Old Grandfather, Heitor, is an ambiguous moralist. He earns a little money by invading the privacy of his young grand-daughter, Auxiliadora. Cicero is a young man who lives in a town including the district of Baixio das Bestas. He is the son of a well-known local family. Once he has set eyes on Auxiliadora he has an uncontrollable desire to have her.
Winner of the Tiger for Best Film at Rotterdam Festival.
EL BAÑO DEL PAPA (THE POPE’S TOILET)
Uruguay
Director: Enrique Fernández, César Charlone
Cast: César Troncoso, Virginia Méndez, Virginia Ruiz, Mario Silva
It’s 1988 and Pope John Paul II is on the point of visiting Melo; 50,000 people are expected to attend. The poorest locals believe that selling food and drink to the multitude will just about set them up for life. Beto, however, decides to build a toilet in front of his house and charge for its use.
Selected for Films in Progress 9 and for Un Certain Regard at Cannes Festival.
EL BÚFALO DE LA NOCHE
Mexico
Director: Jorge Hernández Aldana
Cast: Diego Luna, Liz Gallardo, Gabriel González, Irene Azuela, Camila Sodi
Gregorio is a 22-year-old schizophrenic with two great loves: his adored girlfriend Tania, and his best and trusted friend, Manuel. While Gregorio goes in and out of psychiatric hospitals, Manuel and Tania start meeting in secret, striking up an intense romance behind his back and eventually falling in love. Gregorio commits suicide, but not before designing a plan to drive the lovers into the depths of madness.
A CASA DE ALICE
Brazil
Director: Chico Teixeira
Cast: Carla Ribas, Berta Zemel, Zécarlos Machado, Vinicius Zinn, Ricardo Vilaça
São Paulo, in a working-class district. Alice, a 40-year-old woman and manicurist has been married for the last 20 years to a taxi driver. They live with Alice’s mother, who cooks, cleans, and does the household laundry, listening all day to her favourite radio programme. Alice and Lindomar have 3 children living with them. Alice’s marriage is undergoing a crisis and Lindomar doesn’t try to hide his adventures with teenage girls. None of the three siblings pay much attention to their mother and they treat their grandmother with lack of respect. Alice’s life in the female working world contrasts strongly with the powerful masculine presence in her home.
Selected for Films in Progress 9 (2006). TVE Award at Films in Progress 10. Participated in the Panorama Section of Berlin Festival. Earned a Special Mention from the Grand Jury at Miami Festival and the Special Jury Prize, Award for Best Actress and Fipresci Award at Guadalajara Festival.
FIESTAPATRIA
Chile-Peru
Director: Luis R. Vera
Cast: Adela Secall, Marcela Osorio, Nelson Brodt, Tatiana Astengo, Patricio Contreras, Katty Kowalesko, Tiago Correa, Sergio Hernández, Rosa Ramírez
Fiestapatria is a metaphor on the social and moral state of Chile and a provocative testimony of the period from the start of the Pinochet dictatorship until today. Featuring a gallery of characters representative of Chilean society, the movie tells the tale of two families who meet at a country house to celebrate the national holidays and the engagement of their children, Macarena and Alvaro. Shortly before the expected happy ending to the event, the young Macarena discovers the family’s best kept secret.
Selected for Films in Progress 10, winner of the TVE award in this section.
LAS NIÑAS (THE GIRLS)
Chile
Director: Rodrigo Marín
Cast: Antonia Santa Maria, Sofia Oportot
An intimate, realistic tale about the relationship between two women. A disease, an apartment and music. A little window looking out onto the enormous, complex landscape of the contemporary female soul. A production with only 20 pages of screenplay, 24-hours of filming, three digital cameras and two actresses who had never met before they started shooting. A daring proposal from new Chilean cinema.
Selected for Films in Progress 11.
UNA NOVIA ERRANTE (A STRAY GIRLFRIEND)
Argentina
Director: Ana Katz
Cast: Ana Katz, Carlos Portaluppi, Daniel Hendler, Catherine Biquard, Arturo Goetz, Marcos Montes, Erica Rivas, Silvina Sabater, Nicolás Tacconi, Violeta Urtizberea
Ines and her boyfriend have a bitter argument while travelling on a long-distance bus. They are going off-season to Mar de las Pampas, a resort where they have planned to spend a short holiday. The bus stops. Ines gets off carrying her heavy bag across her shoulder, suddenly realising that her boyfriend hasn’t followed her. The bus leaves. She’s alone on the open road. Ines wanders through the woods, learns archery and meets kind strangers who become ephemeral friends. Meanwhile, she tries to win back the man she loves.
Winner of the Industry Award at Films in Progress 10 and selected for Un Certain Regard at Cannes Festival.
OTÁVIO E AS LETRAS (OTAVIO AND THE LETTERS)
Brazil
Director: Marcelo Masagão
Cast: Doninette Mazonas, Arieta Corrêa, Fábio Malavoglia
Otavio silences all the words and has one special way of capturing the feminine beauty. The film is a disturbing diagnosis of a city and its population sick from their writing, letters and graphics. We are being drowned and we are drowning ourselves in our writing, in our graphics, in our representations. We suffer profoundly from this evil. And the film says: “This is how we are living today”; it doesn't explain, it doesn't analyse - it leaves us alone with our disease. It's a disease that comes from afar, that keeps on eating at us, bit by bit.
Selected for Films in Progress 11.
PÁRPADOS AZULES (BLUE EYELIDS)
Mexico
Director: Ernesto Contreras
Cast: Cecilia Suárez, Enrique Arreola, Ana Ofelia Murguía, Tiaré Scanda, Luisa Huertas
Winning a dream holiday for two in a place called Playa Salamandra, Marina realises that she has no-one to share it with and decides to invite Victor, a complete strange, to go with her. Together they discover that to fall in love they don’t need idyllic settings or ideal situations; there’s no way you can gaze lovingly into someone else’s eyes without that special something.
Selected for Films in Progress 10, Best Ibero-American Feature Film, Award for Best Screenplay and Youth Award at Guadalajara Festival, Critics’ Week at Cannes Festival.
POR SUS PROPIOS OJOS (THROUGH HER OWN EYES)
Argentina
Director: Liliana Paolinelli
Cast: Ana Carabajal, Luisa Núñez, Maximiliano Gallo, Mara Santucho
A film student is writing her thesis on prisoners’ wives. She meets a woman who asks her to visit her son in jail in exchange for an interview. Despite trying to get out of the situation, she finally she enters the prison to find that their two worlds clash.
Films in Progress 11 Award (Toulouse).
LA SANGRE ILUMINADA (ENLIGHTENED BLOOD)
Mexico
Director: Iván Ávila Dueñas
Cast: Gustavo Sánchez Parra, Joustein Roustand, Enoc Leaño, Flor Payán, Jorge Zárate, Joaquín Cosío, Leticia Gutiérrez, Pilar Padilla, Raúl Méndez, Ari Brickman, Octavio Castro, Iván Rafael González
Six characters tell us about their strange shared life. Every so often, a rare mathematical phenomenon situates them before specific coordinates. At the centre of this crossing, one life changes to be continued in the body of another. At the crossing of two roads, a strange mutation takes place. It’s time for a new corporal change for one of these six characters, who narrate their complex existence through their switching from one body to another, forming a network of collective memories and experiences. From the director of Adán y Eva (todavía).
SATANÁS (SATAN)
Colombia
Director: Andrés Baiz
Cast: Damián Alcázar, Marcela Mar, Blas Jaramillo, Teresa Gutiérrez
Passion, violence and secrets clash when three characters put their dreams and fears to the test. A beautiful woman swindles rich men in the quest for a better life. A priest, madly in love with his housekeeper, is tormented with the burden of a secret confided to him by a woman from his congregation. A bitter teacher and war veteran dreams of shaking off the tedium with one of his pupils. Their actions will have devastating consequences.
A VIA LÁCTEA (THE MILKY WAY)
Brazil
Director: Lina Chamie
Cast: Marco Ricca, Alice Braga, Fernando Alves Pinto
Heitor and Julia are a couple. It’s late afternoon in São Paulo and they are having a violent argument over the phone. Heitor decides to go and see her to sort things out face to face. Beside himself with worry, he jumps into the car and sets off for her house. On the way there, in the streets of São Paulo at the start of the evening rush hour, Heitor observes the city and the city starts interfering in his thoughts.
Selected for Films in Progress 10 (2006) and for Cannes Critics’ Week
EL VIAJE DE LA NONNA
Mexico
Director: Sebastián Silva
Cast: Ana Ofelia Murguía, Verónica Langer, Rodrigo Murray, Julio Bracho, Jimena Ayala, Martín Altomaro, Alejandra Gollás, Ximena González–Rubio, Jorge Zárate, José Carlos Rodríguez, Cecilia Suárez
La Nonna, grandmother to the Todaro family, forgets everything. Everything that is except wanting to go to Italy, birthplace of her beloved deceased husband, with the whole family, before her mind obliterates their memory too. Cornered by La Nonna’s insistence and wanting to grant her a last wish, they decide to take her on the journey she longs for so badly. They all set out on an adventure in search of images for the grandmother’s memory; a voyage of twists and surprises, but, above all, of love. What matters most, that she goes or that she remembers she went?
MADE IN SPAIN
BAJO LAS ESTRELLAS, Félix Viscarret (Spain)
BOLBORETA, MARIPOSA, PAPALLONA, Pablo García (Spain)
DE PROFUNDIS, Miguelanxo Prado (Spain-Portugal)
DOS MIRADAS, Sergio Candel (Spain)
LA INFLUENCIA, Pedro Aguilera (Spain-Mexico)
INVISIBLES, Mariano Barroso, Isabel Coixet, Javier Corcuera, Fernando León de Aranoa, Wim Wenders (Spain)
LA LÍNEA RECTA, José María de Orbe (Spain)
LADRONES, Jaime Marqués Olarreaga (Spain)
UNA MUJER INVISIBLE, Gerardo Herrero (Spain)
PUDOR, Tristán and David Ulloa (Spain)
LA SOLEDAD, Jaime Rosales (Spain)
TERESA, EL CUERPO DE CRISTO, Ray Loriga (Spain-UK-France)
UNO DE LOS DOS NO PUEDE ESTAR EQUIVOCADO, Pablo Llorca (Spain)
YO, Rafa Cortés (Spain)
¿Y TÚ QUIÉN ERES?, Antonio Mercero (Spain)
Chatelin Bruno 
