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With an eye on indigenous communities and the women that dutifully anchor them, Bolivian multi-hyphenate Álvaro Olmos Torrico brings his introspective second feature, “The Condor Daughter” (“La hija cóndor”), to Montevideo for Ventana Sur’s Copia Final showcase, touting the fiction prodction at this year’s market, which runs Dec. 2-6.

Via Bolivia’s Empatia Cine (“The Visitor”), Olmos Torrico is producing budding Bolivian helmer Yashira Jordán’s 2021 Ventana Sur buzz title “Diamond,” (“Diamante”) alongside Buenos Aires-based Maravilla Cine, and has directed several documentaries leading up to his 2019 full-length debut feature “Wiñay,” all films that allow his protagonists’ self-reflection to spill into rich on-screen narratives.

“I find internal journeys very inspiring, they represent the perfect form of conflict for me. The sensitivity of my characters is my own,” Olmos Torrico told Variety. “I question the role of people in time and space, mainly female characters – almost always inspired by my mother.

Chile’s Bf Distribution, among the leading distributors in Latin America, has picked up Latin American and Spanish distribution rights to “El Silencio de Marcos Tremmer” with Bf Distribution partners Carlos Hansen and Matias Cardone of Invercine Chile boarding the pic as executive producers.

Shot in the Dominican Republic, Uruguay and Madrid, it was helmed by Spanish director Miguel García de la Calera and is currently in post.

The film stars Benjamín Vicuña, Adriana Ugarte (Pedro Almodovar’s “Julieta”), Daniel Hendler (a Berlin best actor winner for “Lost Embrace”) and Felix Gomez (“La caza”).

“Given its A-list cast of Latin American and Spanish talent, we plan to release it next year in Chile, Argentina and Spain to start,” said Cardone.

Vicuña plays Marcos Tremmer, a prosperous Uruguayan ad executive residing in Madrid, who is madly in love with his wife, Lucía (Ugarte). However, one day, Marcos uncovers a grim truth...

’Three Bullets’ by Génesis Valenzuela wins three prizes, with Gloria Carrión’s ’Pantasma’ also honoured.

The Dominican Republic director Génesis Valenzuela was the big winner at today’s (August 8) awards ceremony for Locarno’s talent development programme Open Doors.

The artist-filmmaker received three awards for her debut feature project Three Bullets (Tres Balas) described as “a visually enthralling journey intertwining colonial history, displacement and criminal investigation.”

The hybrid project employing narrative strategies from fiction, documentary and essay cinema investigates the murder of Dominican immigrant Lucrecia Pérez in Spain by four neo-Nazis in 1992. It is produced by Wendy B. Espinal.

Three...

A revolution is working through Latin American filmmaking. It’s powered by new gen cineastes, educated at top film schools, very often women, who are questioning pretty much everything everywhere all at once, re-representing themselves and questioning what can make up a movie these days.

Locarno’s Open Doors is a case in point. Five takeaways on this year’s lineup:

Recalibration of a Sense of Self

“Three Bullets,” at Open Doors Projects Hub, is made by Dominican Génesis Valenzuela, an alum of San Sebastian’s prestigious Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola, which plumbs the murder of Dominican immigrant Lucrecia Pérez, shot and killed by four neo-Nazis, the same year that Spain celebrated its conquest of Latin America. Valenzuela will come in at the film as she reconstructs her own identity as a “human being/woman/Afro-Caribbean/filmmaker.” “The driving force of this film is the desire for emancipation, both from...

Directors Paz Fábrega and Gloria Carrión among those presenting projects.

Rotterdam Tiger Award winning filmmaker Paz Fábrega and exiled Nicaraguan director Gloria Carrión are among those set to present projects at this year’s edition of the Locarno Film Festival’s Open Doors programme.

The initiative, aimed at supporting independent cinema from the global south and east, is entering the second of a three-year cycle focused on Latin America and the Caribbean and takes place August 3-8 as part of the Locarno Film Festival.

Scroll down for full list of projects and participants

Open Doors will present eight projects in its Projects’ Hub co-production initiative,...

The Locarno Film Festival has announced the line-up for the 21st edition of its Open Doors program, which will focus on filmmakers from underrepresented countries in Latin America and the Caribbean for the second year running.

The program runs online in July and onsite during the festival’s Locarno Pro Days industry sidebar, running from August 3 to 9.

The eight films in development selected for its Project Hub coproduction platform include Milky Way (Vía láctea) from Costa Rican director Paz Fábrega, whose Cold Water of the Sea won the Tiger Award in Rotterdam in 2010.

Further projects include exiled Nicaraguan director Gloria Carrión’s animated hybrid work Pantasma; Jamaican director Gibrey Allen’s Raised by Goats; first-time Venezuelan filmmaker Carlos Zerpa’s Loa. Kill Your Masters (Loa. Mata a tus amos) as well as vampire western Last of the Kings by Peruvian director Victor Checa. His first feature The Shape of Things to Come...

Alpha Violet represents international sales.

Kino Lorber has acquired all US rights from Alpha Violet and CAA Media Finance to Alejandro Loayza Grisi’s Bolivian eco-drama and Sundance grand jury prize winner Utama.

‘Utama (Our Home)’: Sundance Review

The distributor plans a theatrical release later this year on the story about an elderly Quechua couple in the highlands, Virginio and Sisa, who must come to terms with environmental change amid a harsh drought.

While Virginio insists on sticking to tradition and a time-honoured way of life, a visit from their grandson Clever brings the couple’s lives and future choices into sharp focus.

Alpha Violet represents international sales.

Kino Lorber has acquired all US rights from Alpha Violet and CAA Media Finance to Alejandro Loayza Grisi’s Bolivian eco-drama and Sundance grand jury prize winner Utama.

‘Utama (Our Home)’: Sundance Review

The distributor plans a theatrical release later this year on the story about an elderly Quechua couple in the highlands, Virginio and Sisa, who must come to terms with environmental change amid a harsh drought.

While Virginio insists on sticking to tradition and a time-honoured way of life, a visit from their grandson Clever brings the couple’s lives and future choices into sharp focus.

U.K.-based Wildstar Sales has locked its first sale of Tribeca title “The Perfect David” with specialty distributor Tla Releasing, which has secured rights to the U.S., Canada, U.K. and Ireland.

“The Perfect David” (“El Perfecto David”) world premiered at Tribeca and is described as “a probing depiction of the pressures on a high-school bodybuilder to conform to a perfect image of masculinity.”

The feature debut of Argentine commercials director Felipe Gómez Aparicio, a multiple Cannes Lions winner, who co-wrote it with Leandro Custo, “The Perfect David” turns on 16-year-old David (played by newcomer Mauricio di Yorio) whose mother (Umbra Colombo), a troubled multi-disciplinary artist, demands that he get into perfect shape by the time he turns 17. In his desperate attempt to please his mother, he spends most of his days at a gym and starts taking dangerous steroids. As he spirals further into a cycle of physical and emotional turmoil,...

Netflix’s first Uruguayan original, “Togo” by Israel Adrian Caetano, is set to bow in the spring, most likely in April. Described by Caetano as an urban Western, “Togo” marks Caetano’s first film since 2015.

“Seven years have passed since I made ‘The Lost Brother’ [‘El Otro Hermano’]; I’m back with my first love,” said Caetano who has been working on TV series aside from taking a pandemic-induced hiatus in recent years.

The film is currently in post at Federico Moreira’s LAMAYORCine, which produced and provided post-production services to Sundance World Competition entry “Utama.”

“Federico and I have been wanting to work together for some time now, but he’s on board only as the sound director here; hopefully next time,” said Caetano whose company, La Expresion del Deseo, partnered with Luis Ara’s Trailer Films and Ignacio Jaunsolo’s Ska Films to co-produce “Togo.”

The titular Togo, played by Argentine...

The producers of Sundance world dramatic competition entry “Utama,” Bolivia’s Alma Films and Uruguay’s LAMAYORCine, have re-teamed for “Los Abrazos” (“The Embrace”), the sixth fiction feature of Marcos Loayza.

The father of “Utama” director Alejandro Loayza Grisi and a lauded filmmaker in Bolivia, Loayza’s credits include his career-launching 1995 drama “A Question of Faith” (“Cuestion de Fe),” adventure pic “Averno” and the docu series “Planet Bolivia” where his son served as Dp.

“’Los Abrazos’ is in quite an advanced phase and we hope to shoot it by the end of this year or early next,” said Federico Moreira of LAMAYORCine who is hoping to enlist an Argentine co-producer for the drama which they expect to film on location in Bolivia, Uruguay and Argentina. Alejandro Loayza Grisi will likely serve as Dp. Alma Film’s Santiago Loayza Grisi is Alejandro’s brother.

“There’s a good energy among the father and sons,...

U.K.-based Wildstar Sales has acquired world rights to Tribeca world premiere “The Perfect David” (“El Perfecto David”), a probing depiction of the pressures on a high-school bodybuilder to conform to a perfect image of masculinity.

A standout at the 2019’s Ventana Sur, where it was screened in its Copia Final final-cut-stage showcase, “The Perfect David” reps the latest movie from Argentina’s Oh My Gómez!, which broke out to attention with its first movie, Marco Berger’s “Plan B.,” a sales hit at the 2009 inaugural Ventana Sur. Its credits also include “The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be Quiet,” Ana Katz’s 2021 Sundance World Cinema player and Rotterdam winner.

“The Perfect David” also marks the feature debut of Argentina’s commercials director Felipe Gómez Aparicio, a multiple Cannes Lions winner who became in one year the world’s 13th most awarded director, according to The Gunn Report, a comprehensive global listing of top advertising talent.

Condor Entertainment acquires French rights

Paris-based Alpha Violet has picked up worldwide sales rights excluding Bolivia and Uruguay to Alejandro Loayza Grisi’s anticipated Utama and will show footage at the virtual Cannes market next month.

The sales agent has licensed French rights on the Bolivia/Uruguay drama to Condor Distribution, whose slate includes Quo Vadis, Aida?, and First Cow. Buyers have been tracking the Alma Films production since it won three key awards at Films In Progress 39 in Toulouse earlier this year.

Currently in post, Utama is expected to land prestige festival slots this year and is set against...