March 21, 2022
For the first time of this 2022 we will go back to a face-to-face festival, with a stand, meetings and supporting the powerful Chilean delegation that participates in this new edition of the Malaga Film Festival and its industry event, Mafiz.
“It is 25 years of the Malaga Film Festival that have arrived in full force out of their commitment to Spanish speaking cinema, acting as a solid bridge with Latin America and a real support for the audiovisual industry” said Constanza Arena, our executive director.
The world premiere of Matías Bize’s long-awaited film, Private Messages, marks the Chilean presence in the Festival’s official competition, alongside the co-production Ámame (Chile, Argentina, Brazil and the Netherlands) by Leonardo Brzezicki, produced from Chile by Quijote Films.
In the “Retrospective Award to Mercedes Morán” cycle participate two Chilean films starring the acclaimed Argentine actress: Neruda by Pablo Larraín (Fénix Award for Best Feature Film, 2016), produced by Fábula, and Spider by Andrés Wood (Best Film, Guadalajara Festival 2019), produced by Wood Producciones.
In the Official Selection of Mafiz are the new titles of talented authors such as Bernardo Quesney (History and Geography, WIP), Juan Cáceres (Kaye, MAFF) and Gabriel Montiel (Témpano, Málaga Talents).
In addition, a delegation of 13 Chileans will be participating face-to-face in the market, including APCT President Gabriela Sandoval (Storyboard Media); producer of Beast, the Chilean short film nominated for an Oscar, Tevo Díaz (Trebol3) with his partner Kamila Velíz (Trebol3), Maria Paz Eberhard (Yagán Films), who will participate as a jury member of Mafiz, along with producers Adrián Solar (Céneca); Pablo Calisto (Equeco) and Alejandro Ugarte (Infractor Films), among others.
Matías Bize filmed Private Messages during the first months of the pandemic, delving into those dark feelings that the world was living, portraying the loneliness and disconnection that is brought up by distance.
“The film interrogates us about our private world, about our secrets, our pains and about what we have kept quiet and hidden sometimes for years. So, I hope that Private Messages manages to connect and excite the audience, and it is the audience themselves who complete the film with their own stories and experiences,” Bize told us.
The international cast includes his close collaborator, Blanca Lewin, and also Nicolás Poblete, Antonia Zegers, Néstor Cantillana, the Spaniards Vicenta Ndongo and Alex Brendemühl, the Argentinean Veronica Intile and the singer (Me llamo) Sebastian, who was in charge of the music score.
After his latest feature En tu Piel (2018) and winning the Goya for Best Spanish American Film in 2011 with La vida de los peces, Bize has not stopped creating and building himself as one of the most prolific voices in Chilean cinema. He’s already preparing his next film, so world audiences won’t have to wait long for Bize’s next film.
Also competing in the official selection of feature films is Ámame, the new co-production between Chile, Argentina, Brazil and the Netherlands, co-produced by Chile’s Giancarlo Nasi (Quijote Films).
The LGBTQ+ drama directed by Leonardo Brzezicki (Ruda Cine, Argentina) tells the story of Santiago, an emotionally broken man who desperately seeks to love and be loved. Everything seems to fall apart when Laila, his daughter, decides to leave him, marking the relationship between the two.
This year, CinemaChile, created by ProChile and APCT to promote Chilean cinema and the audiovisual industry in the world, will have a stand at the Mafiz, where the production coordinator Annika Madrid, international press agent Violeta Medina and executive director Constanza Arena will participate.
They will be carrying out a strong agenda with meetings, presenting film catalogues and series, and supporting and accompanying all Chileans present during the event, to give press coverage, to make the whole world aware of the great achievements of Chilean cinema,
“With this comeback by being finally on-site at Mafiz we will be supporting the Chilean audiovisual industry, which continues to show its diversity of proposals in places that allow projects to advance as is the Malaga Film Festival,” says Arena.
For his part, ProChile’s Commercial Director in Spain, Sebastián Pillado, points out that “we are very happy for the return to this annual event of a Chilean delegation as representative as this one of our film industry, which will undoubtedly strengthen the connections and commercial ties between both industries and make visible the upcoming premieres as well as to share consolidated works at international level”.
History and Geography, selected in the WIP of Mafiz, is the third film by Bernardo Quesney, after Special Effects (Best Film, Digital Film Festival of Lima, 2012); Natural Disasters (International Festival of the New Latin American Cinema of Havana, 2014). It follows the characteristic tone of Quesney, full of dark humor and pop touches, which reflect on the negative facets of the human being.
Starring Amparo Noguera, who plays a television actress who decides to return to her hometown to stage a play about the conquest of Chile. There, she tries to regain the artistic recognition she thought she had lost, but discovers she never had.
Produced by Pablo Calisto (Equeco), the film is in a final stage of post-production and looking for a world premiere, having participated in Guadalajara Construye, SANFIC Lab and Primer Corte de Ventana Sur.
“The WIPs are very enriching instances for projects since you immediately have contact with the jury members and international audience. It’s good to watch if someone laughs at the show. You also get an overdose of information from your movie that you get to channel when you get home,” says Quesney.
The MAFF section includes Kaye, the second feature by Juan Cáceres, which is in the script writing stage and is a co-production between Chile (Alejandro Ugarte, Infractor Films) ; France (Promenades Films) and Belgium (Transit Transat).
Cáceres, who was previously awarded in Malaga with his first film, Perro Bomba (Best Ibero-American Film, 2019) will land again in Spain with a project that places the audience in an atmosphere between drug trafficking, trap music and neighborhood solidarity. The film follows Yeka (12) who loses her best friend to a gun bullet without culprits, going through injustices, community encounters and resistance.
After an exclusive interview with Variety, Cáceres said that “if you want to make honest cinema from marginalized territories, we have to do it with certain methodologies that confront the power hierarchies of hegemonic cinema”.
Director Gabriel Montiel represents Chile in the prestigious selection of Málaga Talents. There he will present Témpanos, a fiction drama in development stage, which follows his particular interest in inquiring into a historical view of the indigenous peoples.
The project is about a French anthropologist who arrives in Patagonia to record the shamanic songs of the last Selk’nam woman, while she mourns the death of her daughter. Both women begin an intimate and transformative journey. Produced by Luis Cifuentes (Lucho Films), the film is looking for international co-producers.
During his career, Montiel has specialized in a film with a regional theme and focused on the indigenous peoples of southern Chile, such as La Costa (2015) and Kintullanka (2015), and participating in various workshops and film laboratories such as CortosLab, Mapulab, Surmic and BioBioCine.
Meanwhile, CinemaChile’s Executive Director, Constanza Arena, participates as an international mentor to Malaga Talents.
“Being part of an institution like Málaga Talents is for me the synonym of pride and a tremendous honor that I undertake with humility, and with the joy also that CinemaChile is part of professional instances based on networks, camaraderie and training. Spaces like this enrich not only the selected participants, but also all of us who are part of the diverse richness of Ibero-American cinema,” says Arena.
