With this year’s edition of Blood Window, the genre focused program in the larger Ventana Sur production market, all wrapped up we can now sit back and take a moment to reflect on the past week’s events.
This was my first trip down to the tenth annual Latin American film market held in Buenos Aires, Argentina. This was the sixth edition of Blood Window itself and though I have covered co-production markets over the years in the past, specifically Frontieres at Fantasia, Blood Window still managed to be a fresh and new experience for me.
While I had the larger film festival of Fantasia to go to when my market coverage was complete Ventana Sur and Blood Window are all business, baby. It is about getting your film made and getting it out into the World once completed.
Pitch Sessions at Blood Window took place over two days during the market and did not take place until midway through the week, leaving a couple days before hand for filmmakers to polish their presentations. There were a handful of Market and Work in Progress screenings to go to over Monday night and Tuesday and I moderated a panel about recognizing potential in a production in its early stages with Raven Banner’s Andrew Hunt, Jinga Films’ Julian Richards and Demian Rugna, director of Aterrados (Terrified). Nothing like diving in head first I had never moderated a panel before, and one in front of a largely local Spanish speaking audience, so I let the gentlemen speak from their own filmmaking and film sales experiences while cracking wise to keep the mood loose.
Other than the pitches taking place over two mornings the other more glaring difference was that two of the market’s jurors, Bifan’s Thomas Nam and Sitges’ Monica Garcia Massague would ask the filmmakers questions about their projects right after their presentation. Other than being able to think on your feet after making your presentation what was also clear was what the market was looking for from each project – do you think your film will perform well internationally or just locally? With a number of international producers and sales agents in attendance they would be more inclined to invest or partner with a project that could place anywhere, something that we had touched on in our panel only the day before.
I have attended enough co-production markets over the years to know that out of even the most successful markets only a couple projects will make back onto the festival circuit and have some kind of international sales and distribution arrangement. Though statistics and percentages may be against all the projects I have chosen a handful of projects that stood out for various reasons. Some have a better chance of reaching an international audience, some I deem worthy of mention for what they mean to a trend in the industry that needs addressing. Others I like for their sheer audacity and ambition.
Let us have a look shall we?
While it is safe to say that many distributors and producers are growing weary of hearing how many filmmakers were children of the 80s. One trope of 80s cinema still has enough of a draw though and that is the children in peril genre cinema and there were a couple projects on the first day of pitching that got our attention that way. The first project, Bedtime, from Roberto San Sebastian, director of The Night of the Virgin, ponders what if violence of a film like Home Alone were real? He, along with Kevin Iglesias Rodriguez have pitched the project in previous markets and we have covered it already but we are still fans of the idea of a young boy fighting off evil in his own home.
The second project of a similar ilk comes from Brazil, Beto and the Moon’s Dog. The story is set in the 60s and is about Beto, a ten year old boy who is passionate about comics and westerns. He accepts the challenge to find a revolver with infinite bullets an during his quest will face monsters that are a unique part of Brazil's culture. The production from director Jose Araripe Cavalcante Junior comes with the promise of use of practical effects for its monsters questions were raised if there were a universality to these monsters and would they be scary to anyone outside of Brazil. Moon Dog suggests werewolf to us so we think if this project can get off the ground, yeah, werewolves are pretty universal.
One of the entries from the international projects is Vishal Furia's Bogie No. S4, a claustrophobic horror flick from India set on a train. Talking with our own Josh Hurtado before the market, it is a wonder that nothing like this has ever happened before, given the importance of the train to every day life in India. Yet the horror genre is not as popular in India as the method of transportation, so here we are.
Based on staggering suicide statistics on train routes in the country Furia ponders what would happen if you were to be caught on a train with the souls of the dead. Imagining the passenger cars as morgues Furia will turn an every day commute into a ride of terror.
Their budget has been confirmed, the lead has been booked, and Bogie No. S4 will go to camera in May or June. The production predicts the film will be ready to go by the end of 2019.
One of the projects that by all appearances stands the best chance of garnering international interest will be Ruben Montero's Fiesta. Here is how.
The story of Fiesta is going to be a rape and revenge film. I know, I know. Yes, we may be at the tipping point on rape and revenge films. But, if handled well, like Coralie Fargeat's Revenge this could turn out really good.
Calling it Death Proof meets Hard Candy, Fiesta will be set against the backdrop of the running of the bulls in San Fermines. A young woman goes there to have fun and party and runs afoul of a group of men whom she will subsequently hunt down and murder. There is an interesting little twist among the group of men that I will not unveil for now.
There is real potential here to garner international interest by diversifying your cast as much as possible. This is also set against the running of the bulls, an event which nearly everyone on the planet must know of so the setting of the story is familiar. You have an internationally known event that draws visitors from around the World. Simply be reaching out to all regions when casting this film you can draw the attention of multiple fan bases.
We are advocates of and for female filmmakers around the World and when it was announced in the Fall that filmmaker Sandra Arriagada was working with Trauma's Lucio A. Rojas to make a horror anthology called 28, to be directed by Latin American women, we should have jumped on board then. Thank goodness we were able to catch this past week.
28 alludes to the female cycle and will be an anthology of six short stories with female directors and cast from six corners of Latin America. We know that Gigi Saul Guerrero will direct the one chapter from Mexico. We also found out this week that What The Waters Left Behind's Victoria Maurette will star in the chapter from Argentina. The subgenres will be slasher, psychological horror, black comedy, fantasy and gore and will go through the six fertile stages, from 11 to 55 years, from a young girl to menopause. The shorts will present six powerful protagonists, no dasmels in distress, so no classic Scream Queens nor virginal Final Girls.
What should appeal to international buyers and distributors is the goal to build a brand, a movement, that can go to different countries and regions with the same format.
The final project I chose to highlight from this year's pitch sessions is a possible project from Chile called The Building.
A young woman named Mica falls from the top floor of the titular building. Her death sets off a sequence of events that will reveal how the six other residents in the building are all linked together, and more importantly how they were all brought to the building against their will and tasked with keeping Mica alive.
The premise sounds neat enough but the real ambition for the film is to shoot it single take, moving from room to room, in and out of the building, from resident to resident, as the pieces of the puzzle are put together.
The other interesting note, though it has no bearing to the actual outcome of the project if it finds the right partnerships that will see it through to the production, is that the director Vuk Lungulov-Klotz is transgender. Again, that really does not have anything to do with the content of the project but that is a line of festival programming, and a built in audience, that only a few have access to.
Speaking with the project's producer Pablo Pinto it sounded like there was a lot of interest in the project, and not just as a single take film. Potential partners were asking how deep the project could go into each character, suggesting that taking the story and delivering it another way would be a possibility. Pinto ensures us that if it could not go as a single take film, as fun as that would be to see, the story could be delivered in other formats.
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