Chile’s Sanfic Reveals Project Lineup for March’s Online Industry Section (EXCLUSIVE)

Chile’s Santiago International Film Festival (Sanfic), which is preparing for its rescheduled, entirely digital industry section which will run March 18-25, ahead of its traditional in-person festival, scheduled for August, has revealed the projects’ lineup for its Santiago Lab Fiction, Documentary and Series sections.

Sanfic’s brand new Series Lab, headed by Agustina Lumi and Alejandra Marano, has selected six Chilean productions or co-productions representative of the region’s impressive push into original TV production with the legs to travel to international broadcasters and platforms – see Fabula’s Amazon Prime Video pickup “La Jauria” or Germany-Chile co-production “Dignity” for German platform Joyn.

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Santiago Series Lab is highlighted by Kathy Harder’s “Silver Bridges,” from “Invisible Heroes” producers Parox. The series was first announced at MipCancun 2018 and dramatizes the origins of Chile’s cocaine trade. Another standout can be found in International Emmy winner Hernán Caffiero’s “Anonymous Voices,” produced by BTF Media. The series is based on the heartbreaking true story of an abused mother and murdered child which led to the founding of 19 de Diciembre, an organization dedicated to fighting violence against women in Chile.

“We see this first Series Lab as a kind of pilot program,” said Sandoval. “We have opened other parts of Sanfic Industria to more Latin American projects, not just those from Chile and the Southern Cone, and this is another platform we might consider expanding to all of Latin America. So, the March event will hopefully inform what we do in August and beyond, but at a larger scale.”

Among the exciting lineup for this year’s Santiago Lab: Fiction, for feature films currently in development, are Guadalajara and Málaga award-winning filmmaker Juan Cáceres’s sophomore effort “Kaye,” starring Latin Grammy Nominee Pablo Chill-E; former Sanfic short film award winner Leticia Andrea Akel Escárate’s highly-anticipated feature debut “Shadow”; Berlin 2020 standout “My Name is Baghdad”; director Caru Alves de Souza’s next feature “Lonely Hearts”; L.A.-based genre specialist Juan Pablo Arias Munoz’s second feature “Karukinka”; and “Slay the Dragon,” the latest from former Berlin Crystal Bear special mention and Generation 14Plus Jury-winner Roberto Doveris (“Las Plantas”).

For this year’s Documentary section, Sanfic has enlisted Colombian producer and festival veteran Consuelo Castillo to aid in curating a slate of 20 Ibero-American projects looking to move into production. In addition to projects selected by Sanfic, several titles come from strategic alliances with other festivals and markets such as the Malaga Festival Fund & Co-Production Event (MAFF), the Salon de Productores of Cali in Colombia, Spain’s DocsValencia, DocsMx from Mexico and Argentina’s Fidba.

“We were thrilled with the final selection,” Sanfic Industria head Gabriela Sandoval told Variety. “There is a strong presence of female directors and producers, especially in the case of Chile region projects, which will bring a very strong mix to the Lab space.”

Santiago Lab: Fiction

“Beach House,” (Kim Elizondo Navarro, Costa Rica)

“Celestial Twins,” (Niles Atallah, Chile)

“Animals,” (Andrés Waissbluth, Chile)

“Slay The Dragon,” (Roberto Doveris, Chile)

“Kaye,” (Juan Cáceres, Chile)

“Mars,” (Victor Vidangossy, Chile)

“The Mulatto Twist,” (Nina Marin, Colombia)

“Karukinka,” (Juan Pablo Arias Muñoz, Chile)

“Bad Mother,” (Catalina González Piffre, Chile)

“Premier League,” (Ariel Gracián Broitman, Argentina)

“Tiger’s Son,” (Edwin Cortes, Colombia)

“A Sad Girl,” (Fernanda Tovar, Mexico)

“Viral,” (Alexa Centurión, Peru)

“Shadow,” (Leticia Andrea Akel Escárate, Chile)

“When I see you,” (Pamela Canales Navarrete, Chile)

“Boy Man,” (Paula Romaní, Chile)

“Lonely Hearts,” (Caru Alves de Souza, Brazil)

Santiago Lab: Documentary

“The Sleeping Elephant,” (Daniela Moreno Wray, Ecuador)

“Muyeres,” (Marta Lallana, Spain)

“Seeking la Singla,” (Paloma Zapata, Spain)

“Custodio, The Tiger of the East,” (Jorge Acevedo, Chile)

“Green Desert,” (Meliza Luna Venegas, Chile)

“Mirages,” (Ángela Gómez Méndez, Colombia, Cuba)

“A Condor Passed,” (María José Zapata, Ecuador)

“The Broken R,” (Ricardo Ruales, Ecuador, Italy)

“Carropasajero,” (Juan Pablo Polanco, Colombia)

“Where is Uncle Coco?” (Michael Leitón, Argentina, Costa Rica)

“I Was Killed by the Chilean State,” (Roberto Pino Almeyda, Chile)

“Transmutation,” (Ana Benítez, Ecuador)

“On the Wall,” (Juan Francisco González, Chile, Peru)

“Celiana,” (Irene Boleda, Argentina)

“Anna Borges do Sacramento,” (Aida Esther Bueno Sarduy, Argentina, Brazil, Spain, Cuba)

“The Aesthetic,” (Isay Peña, Mexico)

“Keno,” (José Henríquez)

“Atlas, Maps of Memory,” (Marcela Bruna Castro, Chile)

“The Menstruates,” (Antonia Varas Cubillos, Adriana Araya Chazarro, Chile)

“Lost Men,” (Andrés Madrigal Alvarado, Costa Rica)

Sanfic Series Lab

“Anonymous Voices,” (Hernán Alberto Caffiero, Chile)

“Silver Bridge,” (Kathy Harder, Chile)

“Pelican Squad,” (Leandro Herrera, Chile)

“Dubois,” (César González, Chile, Italy)

“Operation Rosellini,” (Samuel León, Chile)

“Insomniac,” (Constanza Lobos, Chile)

Series Participating in Workshops & Pitching

“Zorroridad,” (Daniela Pérez, Chile)

“Irrelevants,” (Antonia Forch, Chile)

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