A Ravaging Wind (El viento que arrasa), a cinematic adaptation of Selva Almada’s homonymous novel by Argentinian filmmaker Paula Hernández will open the Horizontes Latinos section of the 71st edition of San Sebastian film festival. Alfredo Castro, Sergi López, Almudena González and Joaquín Acebo star in this tale of a preacher and his daughter who’s car breaks down during their latest mission to spread the gospel.

A year after participating in this section with Charcoal, Brazilian filmmaker Carolina Markowicz returns with her second feature film, Toll (Pedágio), which will close the section. In the film, a highway toll worker, is desperate because her son is gay and would do anything to change his condition.

A total of twelve stories set in Argentina, Chile, Mexico and Brazil make up Horizontes Latinos, a selection feature films, not yet released in Spain, from among all those totally or partially produced in Latin America, directed by moviemakers of Latino origin, or which are set against the backdrop or subject 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 of the film and its distributor in Spain. Films in the Horizontes Latinos section which are the first or second works by their director (in this case, Alemania, Blondi, Clara se pierde en el bosque, Heroico, Los colonos, Pedágio and Tótem) also compete for the TCM Youth Award, decided by a jury of 150 students aged between 18 and 15 years.

Films in Horizontes Latinos at 2023 San Sebastian

A RAVAGING WIND (EL VIENTO QUE ARRASA)
PAULA HERNÁNDEZ (ARGENTINA)
Country(ies) of production: Argentina – Uruguay
Cast: Alfredo Castro, Sergi López, Almudena González, Joaquín Acebo
OPENING NIGHT FILM
Gripped by the blind faith of her father, Reverend Pearson, Leni accompanies him on his evangelical mission. A banal accident forces them to stop at El Gringo’s garage. When the Reverend becomes obssessed with saving the soul of Tapioca, the mechanic’s son, Leni realises the time has come to take her fate into her own hands.

TOLL (PEDÁGIO)
CAROLINA MARKOWICZ (BRAZIL)
Country(ies) of production: Brazil – Portugal
Cast: Maeve Jinkings, Thomás Aquino, Kauan Alvarenga, Aline Marta, Isac Graça
CLOSING NIGHT FILM
Suellen, a toll booth attendant, realizes she can use her job to raise some extra money illegally. But this is only for a noble cause: to send her son to an expensive gay conversion workshop led by a renowned foreign priest.

ALEMANIA
MARÍA ZANETTI (ARGENTINA)
Country(ies) of production: Argentina – Spain
Cast: Maite Aguilar, Miranda De La Serna, María Ucedo, Walter Jakob
Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum 2021

Sixteen-year-old Lola is studying for her resits when the possibility of a semester in Germany comes up. Lola wants to go, but her family, bogged down by her elder sister’s psychiatric problems, don’t want her to make the trip. The lack of stability and exhaustion in the ties with her family prompt Lola to go ahead with her idea and set out to find new experiences that make her see both herself and the circumstances that surround her with different eyes.

BLONDI
DOLORES FONZI (ARGENTINA)
Country(ies) of production: Argentina – Spain – USA
Cast: Dolores Fonzi, Carla Peterson, Rita Cortese, Toto Rovito, Leonardo Sbaraglia
Blondi and Mirko are best friends. They love living together, listen to the same music, watch the same films, they like smoking grass, going to concerts, they share the same friends, everything is perfect between them… but even if they look almost the same age, Blondi is Mirko’s mother.

CLARA GETS LOST IN THE WOODS (CLARA SE PIERDE EN EL BOSQUE)
CAMILA FABBRI (ARGENTINA)
Country(ies) of production: Argentina
Cast: Camila Peralta, Agustín Gagliardi, Julián Larquier Tellarini, Florencia Gómez García, Maitina De Marco, Pedro García Narbaitz, Martina Chamorro
Clara is on her way out of the city on a family trip to the outskirts. She receives a message from Martina, her childhood friend, the person she’d been with the night of the tragedy at the República Cromañón club, strongly suggesting the idea of motherhood. This shot of the present day and reality in a series of WhatsApp texts, home videos and family lunches sparks an exhaustive look back at her own adolescence and that of her friends in a city ravaged by the crisis and by a tragedy.

THE CASTLE (EL CASTILLO)
MARTÍN BENCHIMOL (ARGENTINA)
Country(ies) of production: Argentina – France – Spain
Cast: Justina Olivo, Alexia Caminos Olivo
WIP Latam 2022

Having worked as a housekeeper all her life, Justine’s former employer leaves her an enormous mansion deep in the Argentinian pampa. The only condition is that she must never sell it.

THE ECHO (EL ECO)
TATIANA HUEZO (EL SALVADOR)
Country(ies) of production: Mexico – Germany
El Eco is a remote village in northern Mexico where life is made up of very simple things. Being a child there is a unique experience from day one: closely linked to nature, animals and people. But also to love, intimacy and the cycles of life. And to education, at least for the youngest generation.

A STRANGE PATH (ESTRANHO CAMINHO)
GUTO PARENTE (BRAZIL)
Country(ies) of production: Brazil
Cast: Lucas Limeira, Carlos Francisco, Rita Cabaço, Tarzia Firmino
WIP Latam 2022

David is on the way to his hometown in Brazil to present a movie at a film festival. As he arrives, the Covid-19 pandemic starts to spread rapidly over the country. A lockdown is enacted, the festival is suspended and David’s flight back home is canceled. Alone, David needs a place to stay and sees no alternative other than to reach out to his father, Geraldo, an eccentric man with whom he has not spoken for over ten years. As David arrives at Geraldo’s apartment, strange things start to happen.

HEROIC (HEROICO)
DAVID ZONANA (MEXICO)
Country(ies) of production: Mexico
Cast: Santiago Sandoval, Fernando Cuautle, Mónica del Carmen, Esteban Caicedo
Luis, an adolescent of native American origin, enrols at a military academy in the quest for a better future. Both he and his new mates are subjected to a brutal hierarchical system, designed to turn them into perfect soldiers.

THE SETTLERS (LOS COLONOS)
FELIPE GÁLVEZ (CHILE)
Country(ies) of production: Chile – Argentina – UK – Taiwan – France – Denmark – Sweden
Cast: Mark Stanley, Camilo Arancibia, Benjamín Westfall, Alfredo Castro, Mishell Guaña, Agustín Rittano, Mariano Llinás, Sam Spruell, Adriana Stuven, Luis Machín, Marcelo Alonso
Chile, early 20th century. A rich landowner hires three horsemen to fence the boundary of his extensive property and open a route to the Atlantic Ocean through the vast Patagonia. The expedition, made up of a young mixed-race Chilean, an American mercenary, and led by a reckless British henchman, soon turns into a “civilizing” incursion.

LOS IMPACTADOS
LUCÍA PUENZO (ARGENTINA)
Country(ies) of production: Argentina
Cast: Mariana Di Girolamo, Germán Palacios, Guillermo Pfening, Osmar Nuñez, Moro Anghileri
The injuries suffered by Ada when she is struck by lightning during a storm in the countryside affects her both physically and psychologically. As well as the visible consequences, she is worried about a series of strange symptoms she can’t control: visual and auditory hallucinations, electric shocks and momentary confusions that end up distancing her from her former life. She finds support in a group of lightning survivors and the doctor in whom they have blind trust. For Ada, the road to electrophilia will be a voyage of no return.

TOTEM (TÓTEM)
LILA AVILÉS (MEXICO)
Country(ies) of production: Mexico
Cast: Naíma Sentíes, Montserrat Marañon, Marisol Gasé, Teresita Sánchez, Mateo García Elizondo
Seven-year-old Sol is at her grandfather’s house helping to prepare a surprise party for her father. As the day goes on, a strange and chaotic atmosphere gradually invades the situation, crumbling the foundations that keep her family together. Sol will understand that her world is about to undergo an enormous change, one that will open the road to the mystery of celebrating life.