Younger talents won out at San Sebastian’s Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum this year which allotted two top awards to “Do Not Let Me Die Alone,” from Chile’s Francisco Rodríguez Teare and Nicaraguan Laura Baumeister’s “What Follows Is My Death.”
The second feature by Rodriguez Teare whose “Otro Sol” won Latin American Feature at Mar del Plata. Here a miserable delivery boy gets by disposing of mummies recovered in Iquique, North of Chile. “The Chinchorro mummies emerge as figures that guide the characters’ journey, inviting us to explore the memory of bodies that transcend death,” says producer Rodrigo Díaz. Project teams Chile’s Axolotl and Mimbre Films with Belgium’s Michigan.
Baumeister’s second feature after the high-profile Toronto player and San Sebastián winner “Daughter of Rage,” begins on a full moon night in the Mexican desert, Virginia, a young Nicaraguan migrant, is rescued by Aurora, a sheep shearer. They fall in love, as Virginia completes her transformation into a nahual woman. The project is a “transgender story, narratively speaking: risky and entertaining” which “plays with the mixing of genres, starting from a realistic register and then taking the phenomenon of migration as a metamorphosis,” Baumeister has told Variety.
Two Latin American star auteurs were also in the prize hunt, Uruguay’s Álvaro Brechner winning the Artekino International Award for “La piel de león,” re-teaming Brechner (“Bad Day for Fishing,” “Mr. Kaplan”) and Oscar winner Tornasol Media (“The Secret in Their Eyes”) after Venice Horizons screener “A Twelve-Year Night,” which won Brechner an adapted screenplay Spanish Academy Goya.
Also at San Sebastián to present “Olmo,” backed by Brad Pitt’s Plan B Ent, in Horizontes Latinos, Eimbcke (“Olmo,” “Duck Season”) won the top WIP Latam award out for “Flies,” on a loner woman, Olga, who suddenly is left to care for a 9-year-old boy. Renowned Mexican character actor Teresita Sánchez plays Olga; top Mexican producer Michael Franco produces, as on “Olmo.”
The Egeda Platino Industria Award went to “We Were No Longer Five,” from Colombian directorial duo Esteban Hoyos García and Juan Miguel Gelacio Ramírez, a fantasy-tinged tale of a mother who has lost track of her son in Colombia’s armed conflict.
German-Ukrainian director Tatjana Moutchnik swept WIP Europa with her feature debut “February, Seven Days,” a family drama about two estranged brothers reunited by their mother’s funeral, just as Russia invades the Ukraine.
The Ikusmira Berriak Award, backed by Spanish production-distribution-sales company Sideral, went to buzz title “La Koreana, un poema ferromagnético de luz y memoria,” which looks likely to be backed by a major Spanish company, after runs at Porto/Post/Doc, Berlinale Visitors plus the San Sebastián’s Ikusmira Berriak residency, where 2023 Berlin winner Estíbaliz Urresola boarded as a producer.
SAN SEBASTIAN INDUSTRY AWARDS 2025
14th EUROPE-LATIN AMERICA CO-PRODUCTION FORUM AWARDS
Best Project Award
“Do Not Let Me Die Alone,” (Francisco Rodríguez Teare, Chile, Belgium)
Dale! Award
“What Follows Is My Death,” (Laura Baumeister, Nicaragua, Mexico, Spain)
Artekino International Prize
“La Piel del León,” (Álvaro Brechner, Uruguay, Spain, Brazil)
Casa Wabi-Escine Award
“Do Not Let Me Die Alone,” (Francisco Rodríguez Teare, Chile, Belgium)
QCinema Award
“What Follows Is My Death,” (Laura Baumeister, Nicaragua, Mexico, Spain)
WIP LATAM
WIP Latam Industry Award
“Flies,” (Fernando Eimbcke, Mexico)
Egeda Platino Industria Award For Best WIP LATAM
“We Were No Longer Five,” (Esteban Hoyos García, Juan Miguel Gelacio Ramírez, Colombia, USA)
WIP EUROPA
WIP Europa Industry Award
“February, Seven Days,” (Tatjana Moutchnik, Ukraine, Germany, Austria)
WIP Europa Award
“February, Seven Days,” (Tatjana Moutchnik, Ukraine, Germany, Austria)
IKUSMIRA BERRIAK AWARD
Sideral Award
“La Koreana, un poema ferromagnético de luz y memoria,” (Joana Moya Blanco, Spain)
Callum McLennan contributed this article.
