Marie De-La-Fuente: Last News

Anna Marie de la Fuente Some of Colombia’s most prominent producers have banded together to form PI, a new association of independent producers led by Cristina Gallego, behind Oscar-nominated “Embrace of the Serpent” and “Birds of Passage,” who is an official jury member at this year’s 71stSan Sebastian Film Festival. “Colombia has become a production destination for major companies due to its tax benefits, which has led to growth, experience, and job opportunities within the sector,” Gallego told Variety. “However, members of PI view with particular concern the need for attention, updates, and the evolution of national and departmental policies that support the continued production of Colombian cinema, its voices, its artists, and its filmmakers,” said Gallego who will preside over the association along with director-producer Franco Lolli (“Gente de Bien”) as vice president while Diana María Bustamante (“Memoria,” “Land & Shade”) and Manuel Ruiz Montealegre (“Amparo”) serve as legal representatives.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Prime Video Latin America has snapped up streaming rights to Katina Medina Mora’s latest film “Latido” (“Heartbeat”), starring Oscar-nominated Marina de Tavira (“Roma”). This is the third feature from Medina Mora, whose credits include episodes of Netflix hit “Emily in Paris,” Apple TV+’s “Swagger” and romantic drama, “LuTo,” her debut feature picked up by Netflix. Its trailer debuts exclusively on Variety. “Latido,” which has its world premiere at the Mill Valley Film Festival and its Mexican premiere at the Morelia Film Festival, turns on 45-year-old Leonor, played by De Tavira, who works for an NGO that supports young athletes.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Canary Islands-based filmmaker Paula Bilbao, whose debut documentary “Inshallah,” about the Las Raíces migrant camp in Tenerife, won the Audience Award at the MiradasDoc festival this year, is turning to fiction in her upcoming dramedy “A Supermarket in Tigaday.” Among the projects in the development showcase at MIA’s Spanish Screenings on Tour, “A Supermarket in Tigaday” focuses on Fer, a frustrated musician, who returns home after a 20-year absence to bury his estranged father. He turns to the music of his past to deal with his grief but to his great surprise, he finds that his father is still alive and that he must prove himself to earn his inheritance, a tiny supermarket in the town of Tigaday.

Anna Marie de la Fuente In what signals a new source of financing for Central Asia’s nascent film industry, Mountain View, California-based tech company inDrive, best known for its bid-based ride hailing service, is getting into the film business. The tech giant, founded by CEO Arsen Tomsky, has launched Alternativa Film Project, a global non-profit film initiative aimed at supporting emerging filmmakers from less developed film industries, starting with Central Asia this year.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Aya Films has snatched all U.K. and Ireland rights to the Dominican Republic’s “Ramona” from Paris-based film company Alief SAS ahead of its BFI London Film Fest premiere. The docu-fiction hybrid, which had its world premiere at the 2023 Berlinale’s Generation 14Plus sidebar, will have its U.S.

Anna Marie de la Fuente In the debut feature of Mexican filmmaker-siblings Mariana and Santiago Arriaga, revenge is indeed a dish best served cold. Competing at the Venice Film Festival’s Orizzonti sidebar, the coming-of-age road movie “A Cielo Abierto” turns on two teen brothers who are bent on avenging the death of their father in a road accident. They are joined by their new stepsister who, unaware of their intentions at first, later becomes a willing accomplice.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Work in Progress project “Patio de Chácales” (“A Yard of Jackals”) by Chilean editor-turned-director Diego Figueroa swept the 12thSanfic Industria awards Saturday where a slew of development prizes was doled out to multiple participants across the various sections of the forum. Equeco’s upcoming “Germain, the Black Angel” proved a big winner, grabbing three awards in the Santiago Lab – Fiction strand. Among the Santiago Lab – Documentary participants, “Mordaz” from Chile’s Cinespecie also took home three prizes.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Dusseldorf Germany-based Patra Spanou Film has snagged psychological suspense-thriller “Delirio” by Alexandra Latishev, a co-production between Chile’s Cyan Prods and Linterna Films of Costa Rica. Backed by Costa Rica’s El Fauno fund and the Ibermedia program, the drama turns on 11-year-old Masha who, with her mother Elisa, moves into her ailing grandmother’s house.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Sisterly love ruled at Chile’s 19th Santiago International Film Festival (Sanfic), which wrapped on Aug. 27 where female directors and actors clinched the top prizes. Israeli-Ukrainian drama “Valeria is Getting Married” by Michal Vinik and Kattia Zuñiga’s “Sister & Sister” snagged the preeminent Chilean festival’s best film plaudits, adding to their trove of accolades since their respective world premieres.

Anna Marie de la Fuente After a series of talks, upstart Madrid-based international sales agency Feel Sales has nabbed all worldwide rights, with the exception of Chile, to “Allanamiento” (“Breaking and Entering”), the investigative police thriller in official competition at the 19th Santiago Int’l Film Festival (Sanfic). Feel Sales Acquisitions head Yvette de los Santos closed the deal with producer Camila Rodó Carvallo of Pira Films. Directed by Tomás Gonzales Matos, the drama first participated at Sanfic’s Works in Progress section and was later presented at the Cannes Marché du Films last year.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Netflix is toasting Mexico’s National Day of Cinema on Aug. 15 with a slew of projects, many of them tapping the country’s wealth of literary classics and original storytellers. Working with some of the most prominent local filmmakers, the streaming giant is also reaffirming its $300 million commitment to Mexican cinema and series and its #QueMéxicoSeVea (“Let Mexico Be Seen”) initiative.

Anna Marie de la Fuente In what marks the most ambitious film from Peru’s leading producer Tondero and, most likely, Peruvian cinema in recent times, Pedro Almodóvar’s El Deseo, Infinity Hill (“Argentina 1985”) and Tondero have joined forces to co-produce a drama based on the hostage crisis that took place at the Japanese embassy in Lima in 1996. El Deseo executive producer Esther Garcia and Infinity Hill co-founder/chief creative officer Axel Kuschevatzky were in Lima to attend Tondero’s 15th anniversary festivities and for Garcia to receive a tribute from the ongoing 27th Lima Film Festival, which runs Aug.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Now on its fourth year, the Santiago Film Festival’s Morbido-Sanfic Lab features an ever more diverse selection from Ibero-America. As Morbido founder-CEO Pablo Guisa said of this year’s edition: “It has projects from multiple countries, several produced or directed by women as well as one LGBTQ-themed project and, for the first time, a documentary.” Vampire creatures abound in this crop.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Unfolding alongside Chile’s Santiago International Film Festival (SANFIC), Sanfic Industria runs August 20-26, promising a busy schedule that includes Iberoamerican Works in Progress (WIP) and a variety of labs that encompass fiction, documentaries, genre films, sustainable development, series, women producers’ projects, XR etc. Some of the 11 sections will be in a hybrid or online format.  At its July 19 press conference, Sanfic Industria head Gabriela Sandoval will highlight the premiere of two hotly anticipated Chilean series that will screen at the annual event.  Both shows are expected to debut later this year on Chilean television before passing on to streaming platforms. Recipients of the Chilean National Television fund, both deal with women’s themes in distinct genres. 

Anna Marie de la Fuente Execs from Amazon Studios, TelevisaUnivision and Televisa debated on the current state of the telenovela and the impact AI will have on it in the not-so-distant future.  Among the multiple events at Conecta Fiction, the panel titled ‘Mexico: Broadcasters & Platforms’ saw Ángel Inzunza, development executive of original content at Amazon Studios in Mexico, Vanesa Rosas, VP of streaming partnerships and business operations at TelevisaUnivision, and Guillermo Quesada, script and content advisor for Televisa, debate on how the telenovela has been impacted by the advent of streamers. Moderator Alejandro Palma of Mestizo Lab played devil’s advocate, asking probing questions to tease their views on the current television landscape in Mexico.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Sometimes dreams do come true. When Disney legend Andreas Deja was 11 years old, “The Jungle Book” played at his hometown in Germany and after watching it, he was hooked. He remembers how it cast a spell on him and how he knew right there and then that he wanted to take part in the Disney magic. With the help of his English teacher, he wrote to the Mouse House and to his surprise received a reply. Deja relates: “It basically said that if I was serious about the animation done at Disney, I first had to become an artist in my own right.” From that day on, he began his deep dive into the world of animation, poring over magazines, newspapers and books and later enrolling in art school. While at school, he wrote to Eric Larson, one of the legendary Nine Old Men of Disney lore, who after looking at Deja’s work said he thought he “had what it took.”

Anna Marie de la Fuente Speaking for nearly an hour at his master class, one of the key highlights of the Annecy Animation Festival this week, maestro filmmaker Guillermo del Toro kept his packed-to-the rafters audience enthralled – and in stitches – as he extolled the virtues of stop-motion animation and of embracing flaws. Having just won a best animated feature film Oscar for his long-gestating stop-motion version of the classic tale “Pinocchio” gave his talk even more heft.   “Stop-motion is, in my opinion, the most beautiful of all the forms of animation because it’s the most intimate, and is quite literally a connection between the animator and a physical model,” he said, adding: “It’s is the closest thing to playing with your toys.”

Anna Marie de la Fuente A Blue Demon Jr. Lucha Libre Universe is in the works. Candle Media’s Exile Content Studio and L.A.-based film company Moxie 88 have joined forces to produce a range of content based on Mexican wrestling icon, Blue Demon Jr. The new 360-degree pact aims to expand the use of Blue Demon Jr.’s likeness in the areas of film, television, animation and merchandising on a worldwide scale. As the adopted son of Blue Demon, the legendary 1950s Mexican wrestling (Lucha Libre) icon who inspired hundreds of comic books and nearly 30 feature films, Blue Demon Jr. has continued the noble tradition, stamping his own style on the wildly popular sport. He became the first Mexican and second masked wrestler to claim the prestigious NWA World Heavyweight Championship and has sold out shows at Madison Square Garden.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Wes Anderson’s “Asteroid City,” fresh from its triumphant world premiere at the Cannes fest, opens the 38th Guadalajara Film Festival (FICG) which touts new sections this year, including a branded series showcase and midnight screenings of Italian fright maestro Dario Argento’s horror films. Eva Longoria’s feature directorial debut, “Flamin’ Hot,” which had its West Coast premiere at the LA Latino Film Festival (LALIFF) May 31, marks its Mexican debut at the fest. The Series Showcase includes Patricia Martinez’s fact-based “La Narcosatánica,” which will stream on the rebranded Max, and Maite Alberdi’s “Libre de reir,” a Gato Grande production, which centers on inmates in a Mexican prison who enroll in a stand-up comedy workshop. Alberdi’s Sundance-winning docu “The Eternal Memory” also vies for a prize in the festival’s documentary sidebar.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Sonora, among the top podcast platforms in Spain, has tapped leading Chilean scribes Enrique Videla and Paula del Fierro to write a couple of serial podcasts for it. Their credits include Amazon Original “La Jauria” (“The Pack”), showrun by Lucía Puenzo (“The German Doctor”) and produced by Pablo and Juan de Dios Larrain’s Fabula. Both are also co-writers of Movistar’s “Los Prisioneros” and Chilean-German co-production, “Dignidad.” “We’re delighted to add Chilean creative talent to Sonora. The original content that Del Fierro and Videla will write for our platform will join one of our most outstanding fiction creations, ‘Retornados,’ a science fiction thriller written and directed by Chilean scriptwriter, Julio Rojas,” said Gabriel Sáenz de Buruaga, CEO and founding partner of Sonora. Rojas is also one of the writers on “La Jauria” and the scribe of Spotify’s most successful Spanish-language podcast, “Case 63.”

Anna Marie de la Fuente With the writers’ strike dragging on, unscripted content is expected to dominate programming grids. A panel organized by C21 Media at the L.A. Screenings Independents on the format’s outlook in Latin America could not have been more timely. Rising costs, shifting consumer tastes, the advent of streaming platforms and the sway of social media have indeed posed new challenges, even to such mainstays as Banijay’s “Big Brother.” One of Banijay’s biggest reality shows, it first broadcast in 1999 in the Netherlands and was syndicated to more than 60 countries worldwide. “It was a gigantic challenge when we decided to produce ‘Big Brother’ again after 10 years had passed since the last edition,” said Guillermo Pendino, VP content and programming, FTA Brands, Latam Sur, Paramount (Argentina-Chile). “It was no longer the same world, there were the platforms, the social networks and you had to speak to a new audience, an audience that didn’t even know what ‘Big Brother’ was because they were still very young the last time it was broadcast,” he noted. “From Paramount we see the unscripted format as a great opportunity, especially at Telefe Argentina and Chilevisión,” he said.