After a long period of virtual markets, CinemaChile returns in person and in hybrid format to the new edition of Marché du Film at Cannes, always in support of the national delegation. With joy and excitement we begin two weeks loaded with reencounters, meetings, and screenings.
With 5 Chilean producers participating in the Producers Network Spotlight, 12 films in the CinemaChile Screening Room, and the launch of the new International Chilean Film Catalogue — with 139 works that will go out into the world during the coming year — the market activities demonstrate a total reactivation of our industry.
At the festival, Dominga Sotomayor arrives to present The Year of the Everlasting Storm in the Special Screenings section, a film co-directed alongside renowned directors such as Jafar Panahi, Laura Poitras, and Apichatpong Weerasethakul, among others.
Find out about that and much more, here!
Chile yells ‘present’ at the Producers Network
This year, CinemaChile is the only Iberoamerican partner institution in the Producers Network, the section of Marché that fosters meetings with seasoned producers from all over the world to stimulate co-productions.
And for the fifth consecutive year, we’ll once again host the Chile Spotlight, which this year falls on July 8th.
In-person as well as in hybrid-virtual format, the 5 producers will present their new proposals, which include:
>>> Gabriela Sandoval (Storyboard Media) will present Maybe It's True What They Say About Us by Sofía Gomez and Camilo Becerra, produced alongside Carlos Núñez who is also participating in Producers Network. The film is a fiction in development and this duo’s second co-direction after Trastornos del sueño (Trieste, 2018).
>>> Alejandra García (Wood Producciones) will present the second feature-length project by Manuela Martelli, called El deshielo; besides sharing new details about 1976, her first feature. Martelli has directed short films Land Tides (Chile Factory, Quincena 2015) and Apnea (Toulouse, 2010).
>>> Dominga Sotomayor (Cinestación) brings, in her role as producer, La hierba de los caminos, the fourth fiction film by Fernando Lavanderos following his award-winning run with Lost North (Gramado, 2015).
>>> Alejandro Ugarte (Infractor Films) seeks sales agents for Black Eyed Maria, directed by Benjamin Brunet, recently shot in the South of Chile, following its participation in WIP spaces such as the Co-Production Market and Pitching Forum at MIA in Italy.
>>> Giancarlo Nasi (Quijote Films) arrives at Cannes with two projects that will begin filming during the coming months: the long-awaited new film by Fernando Guzzoni entitled Blanquita (the director’s third feature), and the first feature by Felipe Gálvez, The Settlers, an international co-production between Argentina, Denmark, and Chile.
International Chilean Film Catalogue 2021
Another year, another catalogue of national cinema for the world!
The publication’s release took place, as has become the tradition, within the context of Marché and marks the beginning of national participation in the French industry encounter. This year, 139 films form part of this new edition, which you can now take a look at below!
The catalogue’s new projects, which will premiere during the next 12 months, construct a multi-focal narrative about a world in reconstruction and include works by filmmakers with extensive careers as well as those with new perspectives.
The feature films include 32 fictions and 17 documentaries, narrating the new proposals of seasoned creators such as Matías Bize (Mensajes privados), Cristián Sánchez (Date una vuelta en el aire), Paola Castillo (Frontera), Pablo Perelman (Testimonios para el centenario de Gabriel Valdés), Bernardo Quesney (History and Geography), and Constanza Fernandez (Impatient), among many others.
Short films are also leading the reactivation of Chilean cinema with 90 new proposals, among which are 46 fictions and 32 documentaries, in addition to a historic year for animation with 12 shorts.
Soon, in our editorial section QUICK LOOK, we will be revealing all the details about these multiple cinematic perspectives, highlighting new creators, first films, films directed by women, and new trends in our cinema.
Screening Room Cinema Chile will show 12 national films
“The CinemaChile Screening Room” is a virtual movie theater in which the market’s accredited attendees will be able to watch 12 Chilean films that represent the best of this year’s filmic harvest, covering fiction, documentary, and animation. During 9 days, different titles will be available, with documentaries presented in alliance with Chiledoc and fictions along with the sales agent of each film.
The program includes films that made waves at international festivals in 2020 and 2021, such as: The Strong Ones by Omar Zúñiga (Meik Cine); Pacto de fuga by David Albala (Meik Cine), Veronica by Leo Medel (Films Boutique); Karnawal by Juan Pablo Félix (Betafilms), in addition to one of the most successful Chilean animated features of late, Nahuel and the Magic Book by Germán Acuña (Latido).
Also participating are feature-length documentaries that premiered at prestigious festivals and that trace the future of Chilean non-fiction cinema, including The Sky is Red by Francina Carbonell and Night Shot by Carolina Moscoso (Compañía Cine), in addition to Gaucho Americano by Nicolás Molina.
Other documentaries in the Screening Room are beginning their international circuit, seeking to connect with programmers and distributors, such as Frontera by Paolla Castillo, Onkel Gunter by Juan Francisco Ruimalló, and El instante eterno by Sebastián Moreno.
With 24 functions of 12 films over the course of 9 days, the CinemaChile Screening Room represents the variety of our talents and their proposals, revealing new perspectives and styles of cinema.
Dominga Sotomayor in the Official Selection
For Chilean filmmaker Dominga Sotomayor, this edition of Cannes is a very special occasion because, just as she tells us, “I have had films as a producer, but never as a director in the festival.”
The Year of the Everlasting Storm is composed in the context of the unprecedented pandemic that we have experienced as a society, weaving together a love letter to the power of cinema and its narrators.
It was shot last year at the height of the health crisis, and it’s Sotomayor’s first release since the highly praised epistolary documentary Correspondence (2020) co-directed with Carla Simón.
Prior, Sotomayor had participated in Cannes as a producer of the film Muere monstruo muere by Alejandro Fadell (Un certain regard, 2018). In addition, the development of her first feature film Thursday Till Sunday (2012) took place at the festival’s Cinefondation Residency.
Sotomayor has become an inspiration for a whole generation of female directors, not only because of her filmic legacy, but also for making history in becoming the first woman to win the award for Best Direction in Locarno in 2019.
