“La Verónica" and "Night Shot” have been added to the already announced Chilean films in selection, that include "The mole agent" and "Correspondencia", which will participate in the Perlak and Zabaltegi-Tabakalera sections respectively.
As the 68th edition of the San Sebastián Film Festival approaches, taking place between September 18th and 26th, several titles have already been confirmed in the most prestigious sections of the festival. Today the big announcement was one of the most important competitions for Latin American filmmaking, Horizontes Latinos, a space that will be screening two Chilean films.
Horizontes Latinos revealed that it will include the films La Verónica, a new feature film by Leo Medel, and the documentary film Night Shot by director Carolina Moscoso, recent winner of the FIDMarseille international competition. Along with these, another seven films from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico will be exhibited with the participation of Germany, France and Spain.
Having premiered his latest film Hotel Zentai at the 2018 Raindance Film Festival, Leo Medel returns two years later with a pop thriller about the connection and disconnection that virtuality generates. La Verónica (cover photo), produced by Merced, is a fiction feature starring actress Mariana Di Girolamo (Ema), who plays a popular model on social media and who discovers that she is the main suspect in the murder of his daughter.
"It is a very risky film, it makes me very happy that we can premiere internationally at the San Sebastian Film Festival, one of the most important in the world and which has been a fundamental platform for the cinema of our country," said Medel, after the announcement.
After its world premiere at Horizontes Latinos of the Hispanic contest, the film will begin its international festival circuit, as a prelude to its commercial premiere. The actors Patricia Rivadeneira, Ariel Mateluna, Antonia Giesen, Willy Semler, Josefina Montané, Coco Páez and María Jesús Vidaurre also star. The film required rigorous work on the part of Mariana di Girólamo, who is on screen in all the scenes of the film for 104 uninterrupted minutes, always in the forefront.
"La Veronica"
“It was an unprecedented process, extremely interesting. My character is in every scene and every shot of the film, so I had to establish an intimate, almost modest relationship with the camera, which was tremendously challenging. In addition, Verónica is a character who has a lot to express, a lot to liberate and figure out, so it required a process of a lot of study and permanent dialogue with Leonardo and the whole team. Luckily, I have been working with them for years, we have done many projects together, each one more challenging than the last. It is always a pleasure to work with Leonardo because I know that he challenges me as a performer ”, says Di Girolamo.
In its own right, Night Shot, produced by El Espino Films, is a multi-layered cinematographic documentary that explores the wounds of rape, the re-victimization caused by the judicial processes and how friendship helps heal. In a video-diary format, the film takes personal experience to reflect on the prevalent silence in the face of abuse in a sexist society.
"Night Shot"
Last year, Night Shot received the Special Prize of the Jury of the Chilean Feature Film Competition of the 26th Valdivia Film Festival. At that time, its director, Carolina Moscoso, commented: “What is going today is the collective awareness of abuse at all levels and that is what Night Shot is all about. Our pain has been relegated to an intimate and personal dimension, when in reality it is systemic and its response must be collective ”.
The producer of the documentary Macarena Aguiló, added "many centuries ago, in The Metamorphosis, Ovidio related the story of how Filomena´s rapist cut her tongue so that she could not denounce him, weaving a tapestry of what it takes to denounce him. Night Shot is that tapestry: diverse images, observations of surroundings, daily life with friends, archives without a clear destination, with which she weaves and plastically shapes pain, anger, joy and the different states with which she lives after this experience ”.
The Horizontes Latinos selection is made up of feature films previously unreleased in Spain, wholly or partially produced in Latin America, which are directed by creatives of Latin American origin or which have themes linked to Latino communities around the world. The nine films compete for the Horizontes Award, which corresponds to 35,000 euros for the director and the distributor of the film in Spain.
BIG CHILEAN PRESENCE IN SAN SEBASTIÁN
In addition to Horizontes Latinos and as is common every year, our country will be present in various sections of the Spanish event. In the Perlak category, the film The Mole Agent, by director Maite Alberdi, will participate, after having peaked international interest since its premiere at Sundance. The official trailer for the film was recently released.
Similarly, in the Zabaltegi-Tabakalera category, Correspondencia will participate, a Spanish-Chilean film co-directed by Carla Simón and Dominga Sotomayor. The film deals with the correspondence shared between the two directors “in which they share little bits of their life and what has led them to tell the stories they tell on the big screen, helping them become the creators that they are today. Reflections about cinema, family, inheritance and motherhood are intersected with realities that modify the perception that filmmakers have of the world ”.
The Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum, an industry activity whose mission is to stimulate the development of film projects between Europe and Latin America, selected Delirio, by Alexandra Latishev Salazar, a project from Costa Rica and Chile, produced by La Linterna Films and Cyan Films (Chile).
In addition, the new series Inés del alma mía will be presented at the San Sebastián Festival through the Spanish Radio and Television Corporation, RTVE. Directed by the Spanish Alejandro Bazzano and the Chilean Nicolás Acuña, it narrates a historical drama set in the 16th century and based on the homonymous novel by Isabel Allende.
