January 27, 2022
The programming of the Rotterdam Film Festival and its industry space is known for defending and promoting a radical and innovative cinema, and this year Chile arrives with productions that are pushing the limits of the film canon.
Director Roberto Doveris (The Plants, Berlinale 2016) arrives at the Tiger Competition with his long-awaited second film, Phantom Project, while two short films by emerging directors, Diego Escobar (The Name of Things, Tiger Shorts) and Camila Donoso Astudillo (Uninhabited, Short & Mid-length program) will premiere at the festival that will last from today until February 6.
As part of the industry section, Théo Court (White in White, Venice 2019) is taking part in the prestigious co-production market, Cinemart, with his new project Three Dark Nights, one of the most outstanding titles in the selection according to Variety magazine. While in Cinemart Immersive,a space dedicated to virtual reality and video games is Echo Blast, the new project of the talented media artist and filmmaker, Natalia Cabrera (Hypha, Sundance 2020).
Phantom Project, the long-awaited second film by Roberto Doveris is the new bet, as is “independent and unclassifiable that reflects the way of living the 30s while being an artist, with sporadic works, failing relationships and an adult world full of demands”, says the director.
The film follows the interest that Doveris showed in his award-winning feature debut, The Plants (Grand Prix Generation 14+, Berlinale 2016) in mixing cinematographic genres, references to pop culture and portraiture to friendship and the coming-of-age, with tenderness, humor and touches of eccentricity. He also makes a comeback due to working again with Argentine singer and actress Violeta Castillo, and Chilean Ingrid Isensee and Juan Cano.
Its world premiere in the Rotterdam Official Competition honours Doveris as a director with a particular and bold voice, who has also produced the recent films such as The Im(pa)tient by Constanza Fernandez (Busan, 2021) and The Prince by Sebastian (Venice Days, 2019)
Phantom project
Also competing in the Tiger Competition, under the selection of Tiger Shorts is The Name of Things, the new medium-length (42′) documentary by Diego Escobar that meditates on the unknown,pain, and the ways in which to name is to invoke and generate new ways of understanding the world and yourself.
This selection in Rotterdam means a great international leap for the career of Escobar, who has explored various formats and genres in his previous short films, including The Longest Day (SANFIC, 2019), Here (Ficvaldivia, 2019) and Porta Furba (Guanajuato, 2018), among others.
The name of things
Chilean animation is present in Rotterdam with Uninhabited, an experimental stop-motion short film, directed by Camila Donoso Astudillo and produced by Amanda Puga (Praxia Producciones) who walks through the emotional scenarios of a woman in the last moments of her life. World premiered at the Guadalajara Film Festival, Donoso’s short mixes animation with plastic arts to create an original, dark and magnetic work.
Donoso is a director, producer and art director of several audiovisual projects linked to stop motion animation, including her first short film, Camposanto, premiered in Chilemonos having received awards around the world. For her part, Puga is a talented creative producer of projects such as La gambeta (Catalina Alarcón) and The Journey of the Humpback Whale (Nelson Romero).
Theo Court
Théo Court’s new project, Three Dark Nights, takes us back to the 21st century in the Chilean countryside. It tells the story of a countryman who makes a deal with the devil, a pact that causes disastrous effects: a young Haitian appears dead in the park of the mansion owner of the territory and the rural and feudal community is immersed in an intense investigation.
The same as in White on White, Theo Court’s film that won the Venice Silver Lion and was the Chilean candidate for Oscar 2022, Three Dark Nights examines how past violence resonates in the present, revealing the complex human and social foundations of Chile.
Produced by Quijote Films in co-production with El Viaje Films, the project is in its first stage of development and is looking for Cinemart co producers in Europe and Latin America, private investors, and an international sales agent.
On the other hand, Natalia Cabrera arrives at Cinemart Immersive with Echo Blast, a video game in virtual reality that makes the user participate within the project, through Atchi, a bat that looks for its lost colony. As the viewer navigates the night using echolocation, various obstacles are overcome and the real mission turns clear: to restore the confidence of the characters after situations of domestic abuse.
Echo Blast
Based on the original screenplay by Natalia Cabrera and Sebastian Gonzáles, the video game looks in Rotterdam for partners from the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France and around the world.