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German sales outfit Patra Spanou Film (“Blue Moon”) has acquired international rights to “The Pleasure Is Mine” (“El Placer Es Mío”), the debut feature from Brazilian-born screenwriter and director Sacha Amaral, whose prior efforts on short “Billy Boy” earned him a slot at the Cannes Cinéfondation program in 2021.

The boutique sales agency has also shared an exclusive first-look teaser with Variety ahead of the drama’s premiere in international competition at this year’s Bafici in Buenos Aires, running April 17-28.

“Films from Argentina have been ruling the arthouse film scene for decades, and talents like Sacha Amaral are to thank for this. With ‘The Pleasure Is Mine,’ he created characters and places of raw beauty, intense and rich dialogues and a main character whose charm – despite his flaws – is irresistible,” Spanou told Variety.

“Audiences from all over the world can engage in the story of this young person, navigating his life without a compass,...

Verena Kuri: 'What we wanted above all is to work with this haunting absence of this disappeared woman' Photo: Courtesy of Venice Biennale College Argentinian Verena Kuri and Canadian Sofía Brockenshire’s debut feature One Sister (Una Hermana) was one of four selected for this year’s Biennale College programme at Venice Film Festival, which shepherds low-budget films from development to distribution in the space of a year. The drama focuses on the impact that the disappearance of a woman has on her family and, in particular, on her sister (Sofia Palomino), who is seen battling bureaucracy and wandering the fringes of their rural town in a bid to find answers. We caught up with the fimmakers at Venice to talk about the film and its echoes in the present day through the Ni Una Menos (Not One More) protests against femicide and gender violence in Argentina.

Verena Kuri...