Sanfic Industria Showcases Eight Ibero-American Works in Progress

Eight new films from Latin America's leading production houses arrive this year at WIP Iberoamericana, the industry centerpiece of Santiago's Sanfic Industria. Three companies anchor the lineup: Chile's Invercine, Argentina's Gema Films and Gaman Cine.

The slate turns on big names and first features alike. "Zambra," directed by Paula Leonvendagar and backed by Invercine, follows poet and novelist Alejandro Zambra — whose "Poeta Chileno" is currently being adapted by Oscar winner Sebastián Lelio ("A Fantastic Woman"). Invercine, led by Macarena and Matías Cardone, built its reputation on premium series including "News of a Kidnapping," "Dignity," "Ramona" and "Mary & Mike."

Agustina Pérez Rial directs "The Other Voice," an intimate first-person portrait of Mercedes Sosa, lead produced by Nicolás Gil Lavedra ("Las grietas de Jara") at Gaman Cine, co-founded with "El invierno" director Emiliano Torres. Gema Juárez's Allen's Gema Films, behind "Reas," "The Castle" and "Pornomelancholy," produces "Hot Springs," the debut of DP-turned-helmer Marchesini Weihmuller, nominated for his cinematography on Clarisa Navas' "One in a Thousand."

Cinestación, headed by Dominga Sotomayor ("La Perra") and Omar Zúniga ("The Strong Ones"), and previously behind "Chile '76," co-produces "The Grass Along the Path," directed by Fernando Lavanderos of the mid-2000s "Novíssimo" Chilean Cinema movement. Nicolas Videla, a leading director on Chile's LGBTQ scene, helms "The Criminal Record of Madame Wittmann."

What does this change for emerging directors?

Leonvendagar, Pérez Rial and Marchesini Weihmuller are just beginning their careers, and WIP Iberoamericana gives them a platform alongside more established names. The strand also highlights a second-chance later-life dramedy from Panama's Mariel García Spooner, whose 2021 debut "Algo Azul" became an HBO Max U.S. pickup and a Prime Video buy for Latin America, and "Las Visitantes" from Afro-Colombian producer-director Yurieth Romero Velásquez, producer of the Premios Macondo-nominated short "El hombre sin cabeza."

"The Cry of Serankwa" marks the second feature from Yull Núñez, whose debut "El Silencio de los Palafitos" earned an honorable mention at Miami's Ibero-American Film Festival. The film is spoken in Iku, an Indigenous language in Colombia's highest mountains.

A closer look at the eight titles

• "The Cry of Serankwa" (Yull Núñez, Cinequipos Producciones, Colombia): Two Iku best friends, Marcelo and Anibal, prepare a rite to save the world from ecological decimation. The ritual fails; Anibal leaves, and years later returns as a mining engineer with a project that threatens his ancestral village. The film "invites us to reflect on our relation with the environment, life and death," Núñez tells Variety.
• "The Grass Along the Path" (La Forma Cine/Cinestación): In a Chilean coastal town circa 1990, insecure teenager Pinky belongs to a gang marked by violence and rigid gender roles, challenged when he meets Valentina. Produced by Clara Taricco ("La Once," "Yo no soy de aquí," "Los Niños"); Lavanderos also directed fest favorite "Lost North" and the Chilean documentary hit "Eterno."
• "Hot Springs" (Armin Marchesini Weihmuller, Argentina): Over 80, Evangelina and her brother Luis vacation at a hot springs hotel. "A film built around apparently trivial conversation, but every word and silence talks about the passage of time, of bodies which fail and an obstinacy to go on living," Marchesini Weihmuller tells Variety.
• "The Other Voice" (Gaman Cine, Fiørd Estudio, Mercado Films, Lorolo, Vorágine, Unafilms; Argentina, Spain, Brazil): Drawing on over 100 letters, the documentary captures Sosa in exile from 1979 to 1982. "When I sing, nobody notices my pain," she writes to friend Hugo Otero.
• "The Criminal Record of Madame Wittmann" (Nicolas Videla, Anastasia Benavente, Cinespecie, Chile): The return of legendary trans vedette Evelyn Wittmann, now 73, whose story crosses with the lost documentary "Prontuario" by Hernán Garrido. Benavente starred in and Cinespecie produced Videla's "Travesti Odyssey."
• "La Residencia" (Mariel García Spooner, Hello October, Panama): Three friends in their mid-60s create a seniors' social club. Starring Xilena Aycardi and Marcela Carvajal, the film is a triple Málaga Festival WIP winner in final post-production. "The film explores friendship, the fear of growing older and above all the possibility of starting over without losing who you are," says García Spooner.
• "Las Visitantes" (La Caracola Films, Belle Films, Pablo Mondragón; Colombia, Puerto Rico, Mexico): Five women meet every Sunday in a prison entry line, their lives intertwining further after an escape planned by two of them. "'Las Visitantes' focuses on women, especially Afro-Caribbean, who sustain, care and resist from outside, revealing the emotional loads, shame and emotional economies implied by loving someone in prison," says Romero Velásquez.
• "Zambra" (Paula Leonvendagar, Invercine, Tierra de Juego Foundation, Chile): Zambra's daily round with his young son in Mexico, his latest novel and a book signing in Chile. "A profound reflection on literature, exploring the nature of its language, the creative processes through which it emerges and the technology it represents," Leonvendagar ("Creo") tells Variety.

With three directing debuts and a triple Málaga winner in the same batch, WIP Iberoamericana positions itself again as the testing ground where Latin America's next festival titles secure financing and distribution.