Evolution Mallorca Revives Pitch Event With Oscar Winner Kim Magnusson

Evolution Mallorca brings back Evolution Pitch on Oct. 28–Nov. 4, with two-time Oscar-winning producer Kim Magnusson sitting on the jury of the festival's revived pitching competition.

The pitch returns as part of the festival's 15th edition on the Spanish island. Founder Sandra Lipski told Variety: "It was a dream of mine to bring it back this year. The pitch is very interesting and an opportunity for us to create even more chances for filmmakers to connect and for those who are ready to shoot their next feature to find the support of established filmmakers."

Evolution Pitch works on a simple mechanism. Each selected feature project gets five minutes in front of a panel of international film professionals — producers, directors and financiers. The event opens doors to development, financing, co-production and industry support. The winning project takes home a one-year subscription to Largo.ai, an AI-driven script-analysis platform whose founder and CEO, Sami Arpa, also sits on the jury.

Who judges the pitches?

Magnusson ("I'm Not a Robot," "Helium") arrives with his film "Family" screening at the festival. He's joined by:

• Xavi Font, producer of "Sirāt"
• Director Russell Goldman, in Mallorca with "Sender"
• Writer-director Gabriela Ortega ("Huella"), screening "Marga en el DF"
• Pedro Barbadillo, producer and former director of the Mallorca Film Commission
• Sami Arpa, founder and CEO of Largo.ai
• Screenwriter-director Bora Dagtekin ("Turkish for Beginners")

The selection process was deliberately strict. "We asked all projects on Script Lab to send us a pitch deck, and then we chose seven projects from that," Lipski said. "There are certain guidelines you need when presenting your film to Oscar-winning producers."

Why bring the pitch back now?

Lipski got the idea over the summer at Portugal's Fest – New Directors/New Films Festival. "I was so inspired sitting there. I felt like I needed to bring it back to Mallorca," she said, adding that strong Script Lab submissions made the timing right: "We had so many great Script Lab submissions, so we felt we wanted to use what we already had and amplify it."

A theme emerged among the seven selected projects: nostalgia. Lipski sees it as a reaction to the AI boom. "We have advanced so much in the last two years, with the whole AI boom, that I am seeing storytellers revert to more nostalgic storytelling, a lot of simple relationship and family stories," she said. "It's like going back to the roots of what really matters, which I think is really beautiful."

What are the seven pitching projects?

The lineup runs from a queer Western to an animated war film:

• "No Shade at Noon" (Sheila Pye, Ally Mackie): A screenwriter retreats to a secluded Mallorcan monastery and uncovers Agatha Christie's forgotten journey during her famous 1926 disappearance.
• "Camino" (Annabella Fazio): A young mosaic artist and a gender-fluid cowboy flee a struggling horse-rewilding ranch across the badlands. Fazio's first feature script.
• "Under the Same Sky" (Isabella Rose): Two women rowing 3,000 miles across the Atlantic spot a drifting migrant boat from West Africa.
• "Demasiado Lejos" / "Too Far Away" (Javier Chacartegui, Lluís Ortas): A 13-year-old girl moves back in with her estranged father in Son Verí, told across three timelines.
• "A Place to Fall" (Marina La Ruina): A hotel worker gives her dead dog a surreal farewell journey through the Serra de Tramuntana.
• "Flutter" (Núria Amigo): An animated film about a six-year-old girl in a war-torn land who leaps into the void with a starving cat and turns into a cloud of butterflies.
• "Ones" (Marcos Callejos): A 70-year-old inherits a Mallorcan llaüt (traditional fishing boat), an urn of ashes and a last wish.

What does this change for filmmakers?

For the seven selected writers, the stakes are concrete: five minutes in front of producers with Oscar credentials, plus a Largo.ai subscription for the winner. The wider Script Lab program, split into feature and short film sections, carries 17 feature and 14 short projects — including "SOS Magaluf," "Modern Lovers" and "The Grim Reapers" — giving the festival a full development pipeline it last tested before the pitch went dormant.

If the revived format connects financiers to even one ready-to-shoot feature, Lipski will have the second life for Evolution Pitch she spent the summer chasing.