Tribeca 2021 has begun! One of the most important events for our cinema.
A trampoline for Chilean cinema that this year includes two national films in its selection: Nando (Alec Cutter, Shorts: Go big) and Primera (Vee Brano, Tribeca Online Premieres).
The short by Cutter, co-produced between Chile, the United States, and Brazil, will premiere on June 10th. Produced by Chile’s Igal Albala, the film portrays Latin American inequality through the point of view of a child. Meanwhile, Brano’s documentary, Primera, takes the social uprising to the festival’s virtual screens starting on June 12th.
The award-winning history of Chilean cinema at Tribeca
2020 cemented the importance of Tribeca for Chilean cinema, when Gaspar Antillo won the award for Best Director for Nobody Knows I’m Here, produced by Rocío Jadue, Head of Latin American Film at Fabula. Its success at the festival and later distribution via Netflix managed to get it out to a broad audience, despite the pandemic.
In previous years, Tribeca has been a key step in the career of big national directors like Che Sandoval (Dry Martina, 2018), Julio Jorquera (My Last Round, 2011) and Sebastián Lelio (The Sacred Family, 2006), and this year, it continues to prove itself as a key festival for the international careers of new talents.
From the favela to the world
Igal Albala, the Chilean producer of Nando, is one of Chile’s new voices that Tribeca has launched into the international sphere. The short seeks to act as a visual tribute to the beauty and dreams of a child who lives surrounded by a harsh reality in the favelas of Brazil.
“The concept was, in a way, to explore that dichotomy between a very impoverished, dangerous favela that is really only steps away from Maracanã Stadium, so the luxury that the stadium represents contrasts with the tough reality of the favela,” said Albala.
The short film includes the masterful voice of Brazilian singer and actor Seu Jorge, who directs a poetic narration that represents the stages of metamorphosis of a caterpillar.
“Tribeca is a festival that went out on a limb for us since the beginning, because they were looking for a message of hope. For me, premiering at such a relevant, important festival like this is something that I hadn’t imagined in my wildest dreams,” commented Albala.
Albala is a producer at Calibre 71 and has been part of COPA90 and the FIFA Digital Team during the FIFA U-17 World Cup in Brazil.
His broad experience has led him to work for a varied network of documentaries, producing in more than eight countries in Latin America.
“Alec Cutter and I both worked for Copa 90, and in 2018 we were made to collaborate on a short documentary in a favela in Sao Paulo. There, we formed a very good relationship, we realized that we had a sensibility to want to tell more human stories,” commented Igal.
Justice for Chile
Chilean-American director Vee Brano will premiere Primera in Tribeca Online, as the only Latin American documentary in the Online Premieres section.
Primera presents testimonies from two parents as activists and protagonists of the Chilean social uprising that began in October 2019, along with images of the violent police repression and the resistance of the protesters in the streets.
Brano’s main idea with this documentary was simply to record the State’s abuse against the protesters.
Along the way, he was able to see that he had testimonies within his reach from people like Felipe Riquelme, a father who was wounded in the eye by riot bullets, as well as Camila Miranda, who was brutally stricken and wounded. At that moment, Brando realized that the potent material recorded could be turned into a documentary with global reach. And where better to arrive at such a diverse and transversal audience than Tribeca.
