San Sebastian Co-Production Forum: Anahi Berneri, Emiliano Torres

New projects by Argentina’s Anahí Berneri and Emiliano de Torres, both big winners at San Sebastian, plus Brazilian Beatriz Seigner’s next all feature in the 14-project lineup for San Sebastian’s 2022 Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum, the Spanish festival’s biggest industry event.

Berneri, now in production of her sixth feature, debuted 2005 with Berlin Teddy Award Winner. “A Year Without Love.”

Famed as an early Daniel Burman co-scribe and longtime AD, Torres’ career dates back to the turn of the century, although he only saw his feature debut, “The Winter,”Bow in 2016.

Seigner’s first feature was released in 2010. “Bollywood Dream,” though she is best known for 2018’s “Los Silencios,”A supernaturally-laced drama about refugee crises.

Berneri, Torres and Seigner are joined at the Forum by prospective new titles from more seasoned filmmakers such as Chile’s Niles Atallah and Spain’s Helena Taberna.

At least half the berths at this year’s Co-production Forum, however, are taken by a new generation of emerging directors who have debuted from 2016, snagging slots at Sundance (Rodrigo Ruiz Patterson, “Summer White,” 2019), Cannes Critics’ Week (Sofía Quiros, “Land of Ashes,” 2019), Berlin Panorama (Clarisa Navas, “One of a Thousand,”2020 ) or Toronto, (Agustina S Martin, “To Kill a Beast,” 2021).

Ulises Porra’s second feature “Carajita” won San Sebastian’s own prestigious New Directors strand last year in a competition that also featured Juan Sebastián Mesa’s “The Rust,”His second outing.

10 of the 14 projects are second or third features. Their issues – and those of more mature directors – are very much of this age: a female friendship tale (“La Hija del General”); Argentine rural queer sensibility (“They Burn in the Same Way”); a woman’s renouncement of family (“Rona”); contemporary solitude (“To Die on Your Feet”).

Epitomising a new generation, one project, Manuel Luque’s “Inspection on Earth,”Sci-fi is another name for science fiction “Todo el mundo,” is from Argentina’s Agustina San Martín, who caught attention with her atmospheric genre allegory “To Kill a Beast.”

San Sebastian 2022 Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum Contenders:

“Bajo el mismo sol,” (Ulises Porra, Spain, Dominican Republic)

Set up at Ulla Prida and Alexandra Guerrero’s Wooden Boat Prods., “Bajo el mismo sol” marks Spanish director Porra’s follow-up to “Carajita,” also produced by Wooden Boat and co-directed with Argentina’s Silvina Schnicer, which snagged San Sebastian’s New Directors Award, best film at Guadalajara and prizes at Mar del Plata and Miami.

“The Blue Flamingo,”(“Voo do Flamingo,” Beatriz Seigner, Brazil)

Produced by Brazil’s Abrolhos Filmes and Globo Filmes,

and pitched at Rome’s MIA Market in 2020, a drama about a boy, 11, travelling to a largely abandoned beach town to meet his father for the first time. Seigner’s fiction feature follow-up to the multi-prized “Los Silencios.”

“Condensed Milk,”(“Leche Condensada,” Anahí Berneri, Argentina)

From the subtle Berneri, a San Sebastian director winner for 2017’s “Alanis,” “a coming-of-age film about late teenagers and romantic perversions,” she says, based on Mariana Flores’ novel. The first project from Pablo Udenio’s new outfit, Dukka. Producciones.

“The Fire Doll,” (“La muñeca de fuego,”Niles Atallah Chile

Atallah, whose second movie is “Rey,”In 2017, won the Rotterdam Special Jury Prize. “The Fire Doll,”The transformation of a 12-year old girl who loses a part of her memory. She moves to the country. Globo Rojo’s producer Catalina Vergara returns to San Sebastian’s Co-production Forum after selection in 2018 edition of “Querida Vera,” by Globo Rojo’s regular director José Luis Torres Leiva.

“La Hija del General,”(Rodrigo Ruiz Patterson, Mexico)

Set up at Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna’s La Corriente del Golfo, a friendship tale between two – very different – women during the Mexican Revolution. Ruiz Patterson, who won the 2020 Sundance-selected award for his direction of this film. “Summer White,”A psychologically acute coming of age-film.

“Inspection on Earth,”(“Inspección en la tierra,” Mariano Luque, Argentina)

Writer-director-producer Luque returns to San Sebastián, where his first feature, “Salsipuedes,”Horizontes Latinos, 2012. Set in the coastal town of Los Molinos Lake, in Argentina’s Córdoba, “Inspection”The story follows a reporter and a cameraman as they attempt to unravel the mystery of an alien invasion. “The pandemic made me rethink the sci-fi genre, I approach it through humor,” Luque said.

“Lovers Go Home!”(Juan Sebastián Mesa, Colombia)

Mesa is the director of the highly-received “Rust,”A meeting between a Colombian war vet and a webcamer from the U.S., both of whom are literally terrified by the past. “Lovers” explores “the geopolitics of bodies and characters’ emotional score,” says Mesa. From one of Colombia’s top production houses, Federico Durán’s Rhayuela.

“Madre Pájaro,”(Sofía Quirós Úbeda, Costa Rica-Argentina)

Quirós Úbeda’s sophomore film reunites the same creative team behind her feature debut, 2019 Cannes Critics’ Week player “Land of Ashes,” with producers Mariana Murillo at Costa Rica’s Sputnik Films and Sazy Salim of Argentina’s Murillo Cine on board. In the project, after her mother’s illness, seven-year-old boy Oliver falls in love with Paloma, a 25-year old neighbor.

“Rona,”(Emiliano Torres, Argentina)

A return to the setting of Torres’’ debut “The Winter,” a 2016 Special Jury Prize and cinematography winner at San Sebastian, but this time round for what he calls a ”family drama framed in an existential adventure” as a married Norwegian women, given up for dead in the wilds of Patagonia, determines to make a fresh start in life.

“Six Months in the Pink and Blue Building,” (“Seis meses en el edificio rosa con azul,” Bruno Santamaría Razo, México)

An autobiographical story, written-directed by awarded documentary filmmaker Bruno Santamaría Razo (“Cosas que no hacemos”).” “An opportunity to understand an intimate and familiar event from the past,” in Santamaría Razo’s words, the story, set in the ’90s, follows 10-year-old boy Bru, whose father is diagnosed with HIV, sparking his family’s break-up.

“They Burn in the Same Way,”(“Se Queman de la Misma Forma,” Clarisa Navas, Argentina)

After her breakout performance, “One in a Thousand,” which opened Berlin’s 2020 Panorama, Navas returns to the corrientes housing projects where she grew up for a doubles tory of mourning and an exploration of life-affirming Argentine rural queer sensibility.

“To Die on Your Feet,”(“Morir de Pie,” María Paz González, Chile)

Paz, an actress who plays patients at a medical school, gives up caring about the other pole. “A bittersweet psychological drama laced with dark humor, about contemporary solitude,” says González. Giancarlo Nai, Quijote Films (Lead Producer)“White on White”), the preeminent Chilean production house.

“Todo el mundo,” (Agustina San Martín, Argentina)

Produced by Sofía Castells at Vega Cine, a Buenos Aires-based company, co-producer of Verónica Chen’s Sundance contender “Hide Tide.” San Martín’s feature debut, tropical gothic “Matar a la bestia,” selected by Toronto in 2021, was picked up by The Party Film Sales and acquired for France by Jour2Fête.

“Us,” (“Nosotros,” Helena Taberna, Spain)

Taberna directs -– and also co-writes alongside Virginia Yagüe – the film adaptation of Isaac Rosa’s best-selling book “Feliz final,”A contemporary interpretation of the mythology of romantic love. Produced by Iker Ganuza at Spain’s Lamia Producciones, “We are looking for co-production partners and international sales agents,”Ganuza was interviewedVariety. RTVE recently acquired Spanish broadcast rights.