Ulises Porra: Last News

Pablo Sandoval Set to be unveiled at this week’s San Sebastian Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum, “Bajo el Mismo Sol” has secured a first co-production deal ahead of the festival.  Argentina’ Pucará Cine has boarded the project, reteaming with lead producer Wooden Boat Productions in the Dominican Republican on director Ulises Porra’s third feature. Both production companies co-produced Porra’s most recent movie, “Carajita” (2021), co-directed by Silvina Schnicer, which won the New Directors award at last year’s San Sebastián, swept Guadalajara, and collected hardware at Argentina’s Mar del Plata and the Miami Film Festival.

Callum McLennan Laura Ferrés’ “The Permanent Picture” has been acquired by Be For Films. The deal is announced a fortnight before the film screens at Malaga WIP where it ranks as the most buzzed of the section’s titles.  The debut follows Ferrés success with short “The Disinherited,” which won the 2017 Cannes Critics’ Week Leica Cine Discovery Prize, in addition to grabbing Goya and Gaudi gongs. It depicts the director’s own father reluctantly facing the end of the family business. “The Permanent Picture” is produced by Spain’s Fasten Films, in co-production with Le Bureau (France), and Volta Production (Spain).

One of a Thousand,” 2020 ) or Toronto (Agustina San Martin, “To Kill a Beast,” 2021).Ulises Porra’s second feature “Carajita” won San Sebastian’s own prestigious New Directors strand last year in a competition that also featured Juan Sebastián Mesa’s “The Rust,” his sophomore outing.10 of the 14 projects would be second or third features. Their issues  – and those of more mature directors – are very much of this age: a female friendship tale (“La Hija del General”); Argentine rural queer sensibility (“They Burn in the Same Way”); a woman’s renouncement of family (“Rona”); contemporary solitude (“To Die on Your Feet”).Epitomising a new generation, one project, Manuel Luque’s “Inspection on Earth,” is sci-fi, another “Todo el mundo,” from Argentina’s Agustina San Martín, who caught attention with her atmospheric genre allegory “To Kill a Beast.”San Sebastian 2022 Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum Contenders:“The Blue Flamingo,” (“Voo do Flamingo,” Beatriz Seigner, Brazil)Produced by Brazil’s Abrolhos Filmes and Globo Filmes,and pitched at Rome’s MIA Market in 2020, a drama about a boy, 11, travelling to a largely abandoned beach town to meet his father for the first time.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Claudia Sainte-Luce’s “El reino de Dios” (“The Realm of God”) and “Carajita” by Silvina Schnicer and Ulises Porra took home the bulk of the prizes in their respective categories, the Mayahuel for best Mexican film and best Ibero-American film at the 37th Guadalajara Int’l Film Fest (FICG), which wrapped June 18.Festival highlights included a conversation, albeit by remote, between festival director Estrella Araiza and Guadalajara native Guillermo del Toro who talked about the making of his upcoming stop-motion animation feature, “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio.” The film, set to bow on Netflix in December, was filmed with 20 animators in more than 60 sets in Canada and Guadalajara, Del Toro revealed. Sainte-Luce’s coming-of-age drama about a young boy’s struggle with his faith as he’s about to take his first communion, which world premiered at the Berlinale’s Generation Kplus sidebar, also won FICG’s Mezcal awards for best cinematography, actor and director as well as the Mezcal Youth Jury award for best film.In her acceptance speech, Sainte-Luce dedicated her multiple recognitions to her grandmother who had recently died.Dominican Republic drama “Carajita,” by Silvina Schnicer and Ulises Porra, adds another clutch of prizes which includes the HBO Ibero-American Feature Film Award it won at the 39th Miami film fest in March.Co-produced by Wooden Boat Productions (Dominican Republic) and Pucará Cine (Argentina), the drama turns on the relationship between a young girl and her nanny that transcends race and class.