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Chile’s Villano Producciones and Storyboard Media are teaming with Viven Film (Switzerland) and Chilean actor-producer Benjamín Vicuña to sign a co-production agreement for the feature film “Simulacro” during this year’s Cannes market. Directed by Juan Ignacio Sabatini, the film is a political-sports thriller based on a real event that shocked the world of football.

Set in Brazil, “Simulacro” dramatizes the 1989 scandal during a World Cup qualifier between Chile and Brazil, when Chilean goalkeeper Roberto Rojas staged an injury during the match at the Maracanã Stadium. The incident sparked global outrage and exposed deep-rooted issues within the sport.

“The Condor Rojas case was a milestone in my life and in the life of an entire generation of a country and, why not say it, a scar on world football,” Vicuña tells Variety. “Being able to make a movie and reveal what really happened, how that moment was built, what is true,...

In just four weeks, “Denominación de Origen,” the second feature from Chilean director Tomás Alzamora (“La Mentirita Blanca”), has gone from a modest regional comedy screening in a handful of theaters to a full-blown national cinematic phenomenon.

With over 40,000 admissions sold and counting, this not-quite docu-comedy has far exceeded expectations, both commercially and culturally, becoming one of the most-watched Chilean films of the year. And the small-town-set story has done so without a major marketing campaign, with a diminutive budget and with non-professional actors.

In its first week, “Denominación de Origen,” produced by Alzamora and his long-time producer Pablo Calisto at their label Equeco, drew 10,000 admissions across just 29 theaters. By the second week, it not only maintained momentum, but it grew: 15,000 new admissions and an expansion to 37 theaters. In its third week, with 49 theaters nationwide, the film held steady with another 15,000 viewers, totaling 40,000, making it the second-most watched Chilean film...

Storyboard Media, one of Chile’s most established production companies, has joined Chilean director Camilo Becerra’s coming-of-age drama “The Sky That We Paint” as co-producer, teaming up once again with Becerra following their successful collaboration on his last film, “Maybe It’s True What They Say About Us.”

Following its 2024 world premiere at the San Sebastián International Film Festival and subsequent screenings in Göteborg, Chicago and Havana, Becerra’s previous feature earned critical acclaim and was later picked up by Prime Video for distribution across Latin America. His new project, “The Sky That We Paint,” is shaping up to be equally ambitious.

The film tells the story of three troubled teenagers – siblings Ana (15) and Matías (16) and Iggy (16) – as they navigate adolescence, trauma and taboo. United by grief and a desire for escape, their bond deepens into an intense and ultimately destructive relationship that leaves lasting scars. Years later, Ana...

Santiago, Chile — Climaxing Saturday night with an awards, ceremony, where Santiago Maza and Diego Luna passion project “State of Siege” took top honors, Santiago de Chile’s Sanfic and industry arm Sanfic Industria delivered a vibrant edition, confirming the joint event as one of the three key festival-markets in South America.

This year’s double event also reflects larger change at work coursing through industries in Latin America and much of international. Following, seven takeaways and highlights from the 2024 event, which runs Aug. 18-25 in Santiago de Chile.

Sanfic Still Grows

Other key festivals around Latin America have seen their budgets slashed by governments, though the Rio de Janeiro Film Festival this October and Mexico’s Guadalajara Festival next June could be staging a comeback. Meanwhile, Sanfic and Sanfic Industria have held and indeed grown, recuperating pre-pandemic levels of 40,000 ticket sales by 2023.

Submissions for Sanfic Industria’s key sections, for example,...

Santiago, Chile — This is the age of turbulence and film festivals are not immune. Decimated in many cases by public-sector cuts or Covid-19, they haven’t stopped evolving after the pandemic as they hone new priorities, react to both a sometimes volatile political context and the state of cinemagoing worldwide if a round table at Chile’s Sanfic Industria last week, titled Film Festivals’ Present and Future, was anything to go by.

Panel speakers took in honchos at three top Latin American events – Sanfic artistic director Carlos Nuñez, Rio de Janeiro Film Festival director Ilda Santiago and Estrella Araiza, managing director of Mexico’s Guadalajara Festival.

Panellists also included reps at two fests notable for the presence of Latin American movies: José F. Rodríguez, senior programmer at Tribeca, which regularly awards movies from the region such as Uruguay’s “Don’t Let Me Go” this year, and Javier García Puerto,...

Sanfic Industria, the industry section of the Santiago International Film Festival running over August 18-25, is showcasing a slew of promising new fiction and non-fiction projects at its Santiago Labs. “We were overwhelmed by the number of entries this year, a 55% uptick from 2023,” said Sanfic Industria director Gabriela Sandoval, a co-founder of the festival.

Out of the 28 selected Santiago Lab projects, 12 are directed by women. “Among our many objectives, we have always aimed to expand opportunities for women filmmakers by equipping them with the essential tools and creating pathways for their success,” said Sandoval, a producer herself at Storyboard Media alongside festival co-founder Carlos Nuñez. She added that nearly 50% of the Santiago Lab projects are produced by women.

Some projects are presented by established producers like Chile’s Lucas Engel, who backed such notable dramas as “Tengo Miedo Torero” and “Los Huesos.” Lauded filmmaker Nicolás Videla, who identifies himself as binary,...

Chile’s most prominent film event, the Santiago Int’l Film Festival (Sanfic) celebrates its 20th edition with 10 Chilean titles in competition, chosen from a record 40 submissions this year.

“We usually receive an annual average of 25 entries of which we select eight to nine titles,” said festival director Carlos Nuñez who co-founded the festival with Gabriela Sandoval who runs the industry section.

He attributes the proliferation of films this year, in part, to the urge of young, upcoming filmmakers to make their mark in the world of cinema. “Most of the directors in our selection are young and only making their first or second films,” Nuñez pointed out, adding that most of the titles are debut features. This year’s crop has only one female director but many of the producers behind them are predominantly women, he noted.

Out of the 10 films, four are marking their world premieres while three...

Chile’s Storyboard Media brings its latest documentary venture to Berlin, a project centered on Jorge González, a Latin American music legend frontman of Los Prisioneros.

Set to be shown at the EFM, the doc feature charts the life and legacy of a musician whose songs became anthems of resistance during Pinochet’s dictatorship in Chile, and are still played loud when protests flare.

Their hit song “Tren Al Sur” captured a longing for escape and with its opening chorus line “And don’t call me poor” a punchy naming of inequality and judgment that rested over Chile under Pinochet, and indeed after.

Titled simply “Jorge,” the film tracks his tumultuous journey through music, politics and a a life-changing stroke in 2015 that nearly claimed his life, and his realization he will not be able to perform regularly on stage again.

“Jorge” marks the directorial debut of Nicolás Pavie who met...

For the third year in a row, Prisa Audio, the Prisa Media platform that integrates all of the Group's digital audio production, has consolidated its position as the world's leading Spanish-language audio producer and the second largest company in the world, behind the U.S. company iHeart Media. The data was published in Triton Digital's Streaming Metrics Monthly Rankings, the benchmark in measuring the digital audio industry. In 2023 alone, Prisa Audio will have a balance of 616 million downloads and 1,053 million listening hours, representing an annual growth of 12% and 9.7% over the previous year.

In 2023, Prisa Audio will add more than fifty new podcasts to its catalog. Of all its productions, many are at the top of the weekly lists of audio aggregators: Nadie sabe Nada, Estirando el Chicle, Criminopatía and Titania are just some of them. These figures have allowed Prisa Audio to increase its revenues over the past year.

As it plays in competition at San Sebastian’s Works In Progress Latam strand, Buenos Aires-based sales agency Meikincine has swooped on international sales rights for mother-daughter relationship drama “Maybe It’s True What They Say About Us” (“Quizás Es Cierto Lo Que Dicen De Nosotras”).

Produced by Storyboard Media, the film is directed by Chilean filmmaking duo Camilo Becerra (“El último sacramento”) and Sofía Paloma Gómez (“Quiero morirme dentro de un tiburón”).

“We’re very happy to work with Storyboard Media again, this time in the company of Murillo Cine and Morocha Films, and excited to accompany the film’s international journey,” Julia Meik of Meikincine told Variety. “It’s important for us to be able to bring this very strong story, inspired by a brutal real case, to audiences around the world. The dynamics of family ties, especially those of women, take on great relevance,” she added.

“It...

San Sebastian’s pix-in-post showcases have often launched standout movies, such as Sebastian Lelio’s “Gloria,” winner of the Films in Progress Award at the 2012 edition, plus notable directors, such as Jayro Bustamante, whose praised debut “Ixcanul” played at the festival in rough cut in 2015 before winning the Alfred Bauer prize for innovation at 2016’s Berlinale, breaking out handsome sales.

San Sebastian’s 2023 Co-Production Forum registers two trends: Films that are genre pics or enrol genre tropes or genre blend; an exploration of identity.

Thus year’s San Sebastian Wip Latam skews in another direction. “The films and stories are very grounded in reality, either by there hybrid formal move between fiction and non-fiction, their singular take on daily matters or the very social issues they address,” Javier Martín, San Sebastian Latin American delegate, told LatAmCinema.com.

Yet genre surfaces in disparate ways: the mix of coming of age, apocalypse...

Chile’s Santiago International Film Festival (Sanfic) celebrates its 19th edition with a vibrant lineup packed with works from first-time Chilean filmmakers, with six debut features out of nine contenders in the fully in-person festival running August 20-27.

“It was tough. We had at least 30 submissions to the Chilean film selection, which we narrowed down to these nine,” said artistic director Carlos Nuñez, who added that three of them are world premieres.

The selection touts five documentaries – a reflection of the boom in non-fiction filmmaking in recent years. Among them is the poetic “A Brief Space in Time” (“Breve espacio de un tiempo”), which world premieres at Sanfic and turns on a Mapuche couple living off their ancestral Wallmapu land.

Pepe Rovano’s debut docu feature “Bastard, the Inheritance of a Genocide,” also world premiering in Sanfic, revolves around the son of a genocidal criminal who seeks to make reparations...

In what marks a first for Chile’s Storyboard Media, Baremo Films of Mexico has boarded its psychological thriller “Quizas es cierto lo que dicen de nosotras” (“Maybe It’s True What They’re Saying About Us”), which has been shooting in Santiago since Feb. 1 and will wrap later this month.

Written and directed by Sofía Gomez (“Trastornos del sueño”) and Camilo Becerra (“Perro muerto”), the co-production also involves Chile’s La Jauria Cine as well as Argentina’s Murillo Cine and HDArgentina.

“We’re delighted to have our first co-production with Mexico, which is such an important market, given its relevance in terms of promotion and visibility in our region,” said Storyboard Media’s Gabriela Sandoval and Carlos Núñez.

The co-production pact with Baremo Films’ Pablo Modragon was closed at the Berlinale, said Sandoval.

“Few films so powerfully combine such a stark anecdote with deep and intimate spiritual mastery...

Prisa Audio sets the gold standard in the industry by clocking up 574 million downloads and 971 million listening hours last year – a year-on-year increase of 39% and 17%, respectively. The figures, provided by Triton Digital’s Streaming Metrics Monthly Ranker, are testament to Prisa’s leadership as an audio producer. With 1,200 podcasts, and partnerships with Podimo, Amazon Music, Audible, Spotify and Penguin Random House, Prisa Audio tops the weekly aggregator charts with podcasts such as Nadie sabe Nada, Estirando el Chicle and Hoy en El País. The audio division's advertising revenue grew 43% over the previous year.

Prisa Audio, the Prisa Media platform that integrates all of the Group's digital audio production, strengthened its lead in Spanish-language production worldwide in 2022, yet another key milestone in Prisa's ongoing commitment to leading the transformation of quality journalism and entertainment.

Last year, the division clocked up 574 million downloads and 971 million listening hours – representing year-on-year growth of 39% and 17%, respectively.

After its debut at Sundance in January, where it earned the World Cinema Dramatic Competition award for directing, Ukrainian wartime drama “Klondike” nabbed top honors for best international film at the Chile’s 18th Santiago International Film Festival (Sanfic).

“Klondike,” written, directed and edited by Ukrainian filmmaker Marina Er Gorbach (“Omar and Us”), tells the story of expectant couple Irina and Anatoly who live in the village of Grabove, near the Russia-Ukraine border during the high conflict that coincides with downed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. The couple faces devastation up-close as Irina refuses to relocate, even as troops close in.

Best director went to Chile’s Roberto Baeza for his documentary effort “Punto de Encuentro,” a gripping portrait of filmmakers striving to recreate the story of their fathers, tortured and imprisoned under the dictatorship.

Tyler Taormina (“Ham On Rye”) feature “Happer’s Comet,” which examines alienation by focusing on characters from his Long Island hometown,...

Focusing on Chile’s large cinematic prowess, Sanfic’s Chilean Film Competition is set to hone in on national filmmaking and a few promising co-productions from budding and established Latin American talent.

Efforts backed by industry leaders Roberto Doveris, Alicia Scherson and Mexico’s Inti Cordera illustrate that Chilean filmmakers are pulling in further support by relaying poignant, far-reaching narratives.

The Chilean Film Competition was announced by the Sanfic 18, Santiago International Film Festival which will run Aug. 14-21 as a hybrid event.

Highly-anticipated projects include “Villa Olímpica,” produced, in part, by Cordera, who’s previously partnered with the likes of National Geographic and Discovery to bring engaging documentary series to the fore, and fantasy feature “Piedra Noche,” which reunites ingenious Argentine filmmaking duo Santiago Loza (“Extraño”) and Iván Fund (“Hoy No Me Tuve Miedo”)

Young talents bowing their first feature attempts are also represented in projects like Fernando Saldivia Yañez...