Twelve films set in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba and Mexico complete the Horizontes Latinos section at the 2022 San Sebastian International Film Festival.

Horizontes Latinos showcases films not yet released in Spain, made from all those totally or partially produced in Latin America, directed by filmmakers of Latino origin, or set against the subject or backdrop of Latino communities in the rest of the world.

All of the films in the Horizontes Latinos section compete for the Horizontes Award, coming with 35,000 euros for the director and distributor of the work in Spain.

MI PAÍS IMAGINARIO / MY IMAGINARY COUNTRY
PATRICIO GUZMÁN (CHILE)
Country(ies) of production: France – Chile
OPENING NIGHT FILM

“October 2019, an unexpected revolution, a social explosion. One and a half million people demonstrated in the streets of Santiago for more democracy, a more dignified life, a better education, a better health system and a new Constitution. Chile had recovered its memory. The event I had been waiting for since my student struggles in 1973 finally materialized”. (Patricio Guzmán)

LA PIEL PULPO / OCTOPUS SKIN
ANA CRISTINA BARRAGÁN (ECUADOR)
Country(ies) of production: Ecuador – Greece – Mexico – Germany – France
Cast: Isadora Chávez, Juan Francisco Vinueza, Hazel Powel, Cristina Marchán
CLOSING NIGHT FILM
WIP Latam 2021

Seventeen-year-old twin brothers Iris and Ariel live with their mother and elder sister Lía on a beach full of molluscs, birds and reptiles. The teenagers have grown up isolated from the continent, in an unconventional relationship between siblings and with a transcendental connection to nature. Curious to discover what lies beyond the ocean, Iris decides to leave the island and head for the city. The shopping centers, the noise, the search for his absent father, the separation from his twin and his mother’s absence define the importance of the love for his siblings and of his identity in nature.

1976
MANUELA MARTELLI (CHILE)
Country(ies) of production: Chile
Cast: Aline Küppenheim, Nicolás Sepúlveda, Hugo Medina, Alejandro Goic
Proyecta 2018

1976, Chile. Carmen goes to the beach to supervise the renovation work on her house. Her husband, children and grandchildren come and go during the winter holidays. When the family priest asks her to look after a young boy who is secretly staying with him, Carmen enters uncharted territory, far removed from the peaceful life to which she is accustomed.

CARVÃO / CHARCOAL
CAROLINA MARKOWICZ (BRAZIL)
Country(ies) of production: Brazil – Argentina
Cast: Maeve Jinkings, Cesar Bordón, Jean Costa, Camila Mardila, Romulo Braga, Pedro Wagner

Brazil, 2022. In a remote area in São Paulo’s countryside, a rural family who lives beside a charcoal factory accepts a proposal to host a mysterious foreigner. The home soon becomes a hideout as the so-called guest happens to be a highly wanted drug lord. The mother, her husband and child will have to learn how to share the same roof with this stranger, while keeping up appearances of an unchanged peasant routine.

DOS ESTACIONES
JUAN PABLO GONZÁLEZ (MEXICO)
Country(ies) of production: Mexico – France – USA
Cast: Teresa Sánchez, Rafaela Fuentes
Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum 2019
WIP Latam 2021

María García, heiress to a tequila factory in Jalisco, tries to keep her business afloat in a market dominated by foreign corporations. As her situation deteriorates, she grows closer and closer to Rafa, her new manager. When a persistent plague and an unexpected flood cause irreversible damage, María is forced to do everything she can to save her community’s main source of economy and pride.

EL CASO PADILLA / THE PADILLA AFFAIR
PAVEL GIROUD (CUBA)
Country(ies) of production: Spain – Cuba

Havana, spring 1971: The poet Heberto Padilla has just been set free and appears before the Cuban Writers’ Union where he pronounces a statement of “heartfelt self-criticism”, declares himself to be a counterrevolutionary agent and throws accusations of complicity at many of his colleagues present at the event, among them, his wife. A month previously, his arrest under the accusation of endangering the security of the Cuban state had mobilized prominent intellectuals all over the world, who wrote a letter to Fidel Castro calling for the release of the poet, whose only sin had been to dissent through his poetic work. The writer’s mea culpa, the recording of which is shown for the first time to the public, marks the narrative line of a story including the testimonies of Gabriel García Márquez, Julio Cortázar, Mario Vargas Llosa, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jorge Edwards and Fidel Castro.

LA JAURÍA
ANDRÉS RAMÍREZ PULIDO (COLOMBIA)
Country(ies) of production: France – Colombia
Cast: Jhojan Stiven Jiménez, Maicol Andrés Jiménez, Carlos Steven Blanco, Ricardo Alberto Parra

Eliu, a country boy, is incarcerated in an experimental young offenders institution, deep in the heart of the Colombian tropical forest, for a crime he committed with his friend El Mono. Every day, the teenagers perform hard manual labour and endure intense group therapy, under the menacing gaze of the camp guard Godoy. One day, El Mono is transferred to the same centre, and with him comes the past that Eliu is trying to escape.

RUIDO / NOISE
NATALIA BERISTAIN (MEXICO)
Country(ies) of production: Mexico
Cast: Julieta Egurrola, Teresa Ruiz

Julia is a mother, or rather, one of many mothers, sisters, daughters, colleagues, who have had their lives torn apart by the widespread violence in a country waging a war against its women. Julia is searching for Ger, her daughter. And in her search, she will weave through the stories and struggles of the different women she will meet.

SUBLIME
MARIANO BIASIN (ARGENTINA)
Country(ies) of production: Argentina
Cast: Martín Miller, Teo Inama Chiabrando, Azul Mazzeo, Joaquín Arana, Javier Drolas

Sixteen-year-old Manuel lives in a small coastal town. He plays bass in a band with his best friends. One of them is Felipe, with whom he shares a strong friendship from a very young age. Manuel is dating Azul, a relationship that they are intensely exploring. But when the moment comes to have their first time together, Manuel feels something completely new that makes him see Felipe with different eyes. Routine situations of that friendship change tenor. Manuel tries to figure out if the impulse is mutual. The challenge is not to put the friendship at risk, something that inevitably ends up being tested.

TENGO SUEÑOS ELÉCTRICOS
VALENTINA MAUREL (COSTA RICA)
Country(ies) of production: Belgium – France – Costa Rica
Cast: Reinaldo Amien Gutiérrez, Daniela Marín Navarro, Vivian Rodríguez, Adriana Castro García
Proyecta 2020

Eva can’t stand the fact that her mother wants to renovate the house and get rid of the cat, which, disoriented since the divorce, pees everywhere. Eva wants to go and live with her father, who, disoriented like the cat, is experiencing a second adolescence. And Eva follows him while he tries to reconnect with his desire to become an artist and find love again. But like someone who crosses an ocean of adults without knowing how to swim, Eva will also discover the rage that gnaws at him, and that without knowing it, she has inherited from him.

VICENTA B.
CARLOS LECHUGA (CUBA)
Country(ies) of production: Cuba – France – USA – Colombia – Norway
Cast: Linnett Hernández Valdés, Mireya Chapman, Aimée Despaigne, Ana Flavia Ramos, Pedro Martínez
WIP Latam 2021

Vicenta Bravo is a woman with a special gift for reading cards and fortelling people’s future. Every day folk flock to her home looking for solutions to their problems. Vicenta lives happily with her son, until he decides to leave Cuba and everything starts to fall apart. Thrown into a crisis that prevents her from seeing what’s happening around her, Vicenta will embark on a journey taking her inland to a country where everyone seems to have lost their faith.