As Ventana Sur settles into its stride in its first edition in Montevideo, Uruguay, Screen highlights 10 projects expected to make a splash at t
As Ventana Sur settles into its stride in its first edition in Montevideo, Uruguay, Screen highlights 10 projects expected to make a splash at the leading Ibero-American audiovisual market.
The titles are at various stages in the production cycle and the filmmakers are in Montevideo looking to establish meaningful partnerships.
Selections include stories of vampires grappling with transformation, quests, coming-of-age stories, coastal erosion, and a project from the inaugural Latam Series Market.
Ventana Sur runs through December 6.
The Condor Daughter (Bol-Per-Uru)
Section: Copia Final
Director: Álvaro Olmos
The Condor Daughter marks the second fiction feature from Olmos, who has directed documentary and television, after 2018 relationship drama Wiñay. The recent film centres on Clara, a teenage Quechua midwife gifted with a singing voice that alleviates the pain of childbirth. The community regards her voice as a divine blessing that must be cherished, however Clara escapes to the city to become a singer. Olmos, a producer with Empatía Cine, collaborates with Ayara Producciones. He is currently producing Yashira Jordán’s Diamond, a standout title at 2022 Locarno Open Doors.
Mu-Ki-Ra (Col-Sp)
Section: Animation! Wips by Annecy
Director: Estefanía Piñeres
Piñeres’ feature debut is an adventure musical project that uses cut-out and time-honored animation techniques. It tells the story of a 13-year-old girl who enlists the support of a magical vintage woman and an anteater as she ventures deep into the jungle to confront Mu-Ki-Ra, the blue monster that kidnapped her younger brother Martín. The co-production between Colombia’s Letrario and Spain’s Abano Producións, who produced European animator Alberto Vázquez’s Annecy 2022 anti-war fable Unicorn Wars, targets children in the four-to-nine age bracket, Mu-Ki-Ra has already secured international sales representation through Barton Films.
The Nature Of Invisible Things (Bra-Chil)
Section: Copia Final
Director: Rafaela Camelo
Brazilian director and screenwriter Camelo, co-director of the 2023 Berlinale tiny As Miçangas, is nearing completion on her feature debut about a 10-year-old girl who forms a powerful bond with another girl while spending the summer at the hospital where her mother works. Camelo belongs to the Paradiso Foundation network and won support for her feature project Blood Of My Blood, including best script honours at 2019 BAL-LAB in France.
The Bovine With The Curved Horns (Col)
Section: Primer Corte
Director: Omar E. Ospina Giraldo
The production from La Fortaleza Films marks the filmmaker’s feature debut, after his tiny El Video premiered at BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival in 2022. Set against the backdrop of the massacres in 2000 of dozens of people in the Colombian marshlands, the story weaves sea folklore and oral storytelling tradition into the tale of a boy whose father goes missing on an extended fishing expedition.
Vainilla (Mex)
Section: Primer corte
Director: Mayra Hermosillo
Mexican filmmaker Hermosillo, an accomplished actress who has worked with internationally renowned directors such as Alejandra Márquez Abella, Rodrigo Prieto, and Amat Escalante, presents her feature directorial debut. Set in the behind schedule 1980s, Vainilla is told through the eyes of eight-year-old Roberta as a family of seven women spanning generations struggle to save their house from foreclosure. Stacy Perskie’s Redrum, whose credits include Prieto’s Pedro Páramo and Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Bardo, is producing. Hermosillo’s tiny In Lucia’s Skin came out in 2018.
Love Kills (Bra)
Section: Blood Window Screening
Director: Luiza Shelling Tubaldini
Brazilian Tubaldini’s genre thriller marks her first solo feature after co-directing the period romance Perdida. Produced by Filmland Internacional, Love Kills takes place in the world of vampires around Sao Paulo and focuses on Helena, a bloodsucker grappling with the gradual erosion of her humanity. Shelling has produced some of the most commercially successful Brazilian comedies in recent years, such as Qualquer Gato Vira-Lata (2011) and Divórcio (2017). The filmmaker is preparing for a busy 2025 and plans to direct Two Bandits and Encontradas for Disney Brazil.
Borealis (PR)
Section: Blood Window Screening
Director: Heixan Robles
Puerto Rican director and cinematographer Robles presents a sci-fi thriller that begins when a solar flare wipes out the memories of an entire community, leaving the protagonist Thalía with the challenge of somehow finding her missing daughter. Robles trained at NYU and received Emmy nominations as a cinematographer for television and tiny film. Borealis is his second feature-length directorial work after the upcoming Era del Silencio. As a cinematographer, he has worked on acclaimed projects such as Douglas Pedro Sánchez’s La Última Gira, winner at the New York Latino Film Festival.
Birds (Col)
Section: Proyecta
Director: Fabián Hernández
Bogota-based Hernández’s second feature follows his debut and 2022 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight selection A Male. Birds paints an intimate portrait of Freddy, a teenage man who struggles with his identity when he joins a remote battalion, where he forges a special connection with a disciplined soldier, suffers a nervous breakdown, and flees. Birds is produced by Manuel Ruiz Montealegre through Medio de Contención Producciones.
Beyond The Edge (Bra-Fr)
Section: Proyecta
Director: Jô Serfaty
The Brazilian filmmaker’s fiction feature debut takes place in a coastal village threatened by the encroaching sea, as a former summer resident returns and stirs memories in a fisherwoman and her teenage granddaughter. Beyond The Edge is produced by Clarissa Guarilha, the Rio-based producer behind the 2023 Cannes Critics’ Week FIPRESCI Prize winner Power Alley. Serfaty’s hybrid documentary Un Film de Verão won awards at Mar del Plata and Barcelona’s L’Alternativa festival.
Couple’s Apartment (Arg)
Section: Latam Series Market
Director: Azul Lombardía
Lombardía, renowned for hit Netflix series According To Roxi and Don’t Break Me, which climbed to the number one spot in Argentina, is one of 11 projects participating in the inaugural Latam Series Market of Ventana Sur’s ‘Rio de la Plata’ edition. The comedic series follows three married couples, all friends, who rent an apartment for a week to give each other a break from married life. Lucas Mirvois of La Maldita produces.
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