Another year has gone by and, as usual, the San Sebastian Festival welcomes Chilean cinema with great anticipation and enthusiasm. This year, our country establishes its presence with an Argentine-Chilean co-production in Horizontes Latinos (Piedra Noche by Iván Fund), a short film at Nest Film Students (Algo así como la nocheby Alván Prado) and the new projects by Nayra Ilic, Cristián Leighton and Álvaro Aponte at the Co-Production Forum. Maite Alberdi, the first Chilean director nominated for an Oscar, participates as a jury member in the Official Section of the Festival.

For our executive director, Constanza Arena, this appearance is “an investment that emphasizes our consolidated values, like the director Maite Alberdi's participation in the jury, in the relevance of the growing co-productions with neighboring countries, as is the case with Argentina in Piedra Noche. Above all, this year highlights the future of Chilean cinema: the fact that three Chilean projects appear in the Co-Production Forum is something really important for cinematography in our country.”

MAITE ALBERDI: JURY FOR THE OFFICIAL SELECTION

There's no doubt that director Maite Alberdi has had a spectacular year, continuing to shine with her prestigious participation as a Jury of the Official Section of San Sebastian, where 16 feature films will compete for the Concha de Oro (Golden Shell), the highest award of the festival.

The jury is chaired by Georgian director Dea Kulumbegashvilil, winner in 2020 of four awards in San Sebastian for her debut film Beginning.

“It is an honor to be part of the jury of the Official Section and share it with people whose works I follow, in a year in which the majority of us on the deliberating body are women, which is a sign of change. I am also an admirer of many of the directors in the competition, so it will be a pleasure to see their films. San Sebastián is a Festival that has helped my career, as it did with El Agente Topo, which received a huge boost from the Audience Award," Alberdi said.

Alberdi's latest film, El Agente Topo made history by being nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary, a milestone that consolidated her position as one of the most powerful voices in documentaries in the world. It was also nominated for a Goya for Best Ibero-American Film.

San Sebastian supported El Agente Topofrom its development stage, selecting it for the Co-Production Forum in 2017. Three years later, it was shown at the festival, where, as Alberdi mentions, it won the City of Donostia Audience Award for Best European Film 2020.

Alberdi's international career dates back to 2011, when she premiered her first feature film, El Salvavidas. She directed La Once, which was nominated in 2016 for the Goya award for best Ibero-American film. That same year, she premiered the short film Yo No Soy De Aqui, nominated for the European Film Awards, and the feature Los niños, which won 10 international awards. She is a member of the Hollywood Film Academy.

PIEDRA NOCHE AT HORIZONTES LATINOS

After a visit with Venice Days, Piedra Nocheby Iván Fund lands at Horizontes Latinos, a section that brings together outstanding films from Latin America. It was co-produced by the Chilean producer Catalina Vergara (Globo Rojo Films) with Argentine producers Rita Cine and Insomnia Films.

Piedra Noche is a film about devotion, about having to live with the belief systems of others, and the tenderness of this mutual covenant to overcome our pain. Alfredo Castro stars alongside Maricel Álvarez, Marcelo Subiotto, and Mara Bestelli. (Sales: Elle Driver). It won the WIP LATAM Industry Award at San Sebastian 2020.

ALGO ASÍ COMO LA NOCHE AT NEST STUDENT 

The short film Algo así como la noche, de Alván Prado, will participate in Nest, the international meeting of film students at the San Sebastian Film Festival

The story transports us to a cold April afternoon, at the foot of a mountain, where Marcos and Ivan will have to decide whether to cover up or take responsibility for an action they have just committed.

Prado holds a degree in performing arts as well as for film and theatre directing. He directed the short film Victor (2014) and the feature film Mi Galaxia (2015), the latter of which he made jointly with a Canadian team.

4 PROJECTS IN THE CO-PRODUCTION FORUM

 This year, four Chilean projects are participating in the Europe - Latin America Co-Production Forum, dedicated to promoting productions in different stages of development.

Cuerpo celeste, by Nayra Ilic (Chile, Italy, and France)

Director Nayra Ilic made her mark on contemporary Chilean cinema with her debut film, Metro Cuadrado (2010), which premiered in 2011 at the Palm Springs festival.

Since then, there is an international audience eager to continue viewing her directing vision and, fortunately, her second feature film, Cuerpo Celeste , is in the process of development.

The project shows us the death of Celeste's father, and her mother who wants to sell her old beach house, and Celeste, who still does not accept his death, sees his soul wandering around the place.

It had a great showing at WIP spaces, winning the award for Best Project of the Chilean Cinema of the Future at the Valdivia Festival 2019 and participating in the selection of the Torino Film Lab Feature Lab Next 2020. It obtained the Ibermedia 2020 Fund and the CORFO 2020 Development Fund.

It is produced by Florencia Rodríguez and Dominga Ortúzar (Oro Films), who arrive in San Sebastián after going through the Toronto Film Festival with Matar A La Bestia, the first film by the Argentinian director Agustina San Martín, premiering in the Discovery section.

El porvenir de la mirada by Cristian Leighton (Chile)

This new project by Storyboard Media focuses on human Rights violations in Chile during the 2019 social upheaval, focusing on the victims suffering eye injuries from police forces. It is a complex and profound issue that addresses the crisis of neoliberalism and its impact on the bodies of citizens.

"This film is not only important for us as directors or producers, but we think it is a fundamental film for Chile and for the cinematic depiction of our history and our memory, " said the director of the film, Cristián Leighton.

Leighton has been working for more than 20 years on various cultural documentaries, all of which take a deep look at the construction of identity and belonging. His works, exhibited at festivals such as FIDMARSEILLE, NYFF, FIDOCS, and BAFICI, address themes that include interculturality and injustice.

This is the first time he has worked with Storyboard Media, run by Gabriela Sandoval and Carlos Nuñéz, one of the most important production companies in Spain. Last year, they premiered El Cielo Está Rojoby Francina Carbonell in IDFA, where it participated in two competitions being positioned as one of the most important documentaries of the year.

El porvenir de la mirada is also produced by Sebastián Lelio, winner of the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film for Una mujer fantástica

Sarah, Álvaro Aponte (Puerto Rico, Chile)

Sarah is an innovative Latin American co-production by Puerto Rican director Álvaro Aponte, produced by Chilean producer Quijote Films. It was developed and written at the Cinefondation residence in Cannes 2019.

The project, which will be Aponte's second feature film, tells the story of a young piano prodigy who must live with the abandonment caused by his mother's sudden illness and his lack of any relationship with his father. In search of love and support, he takes refuge in his best friends, but soon he must choose between continuing to run away from reality or fulfilling his own desire.

“Sarah is a film that I have a lot of faith in, and a lot of hope for. I think it is a beautiful project, a very humanistic project, that addresses the universal family conflicts that occur in Puerto Rico but that also occur in other parts of the world,” Aponte said to the news outlet El Nuevo Día.

Volver a casa, Catalina Alarcón

The Lau Haizetara documentary co-production forum will include Volver A Casa, by Catalina Alarcón, a Chilean production by Mimbre Films & Pequén Producciones.

The documentary has as its producers Daniela Camino & Josephine Schroeder, telling the story of Franco, an inmate in the Valparaiso prison who leads a virtual reality workshop where participants can see their families again using this technology. This virtual and experimental journey invites viewers to create realistic scenarios for their VR experiences, while surviving the violence of the prison.

Volver a casa is a transmedia project that began in 2017 with the goal of democratizing access to cinema and technology by building a virtual bridge from the inside of the prison to the outside world. The documentary includes three subprojects with that work in parallel in different stages: a short film, feature film and film workshops, and virtual reality in prisons.