Cannes Docs

Runtime: 66'

Expected release: July, 2023

Production stage: Post-production

Budget: €200.000 (95% in place)

1st feature: Yes

Looking for: Festivals, Buyers, Gap Financing, Communications, Marketing, Strategic Guidance

Synopsis:

In a small town in Chile, rural life deals with an electricity grid providing power to the rest of the country. A child ventures out among hundreds of transmission towers, transformers, and thermal power stations and giving himself over to chasing rabbits. In the darkness, the threatening presence of the large-scale industrial complex reveals the workings of an unequal system.

Director’s profile:

Isabel Reyes Bustos is a Chilean journalist and documentary filmmaker born in Concepción. She has wide experience in investigative journalism, screenwriting and production. Her films deal with themes related to socio-environmental conflicts and issues of social relevance. She is the executive director and founder of Dos Be Producciones, where she is currently directing her first film “IN THE SHADOW OF LIGHT”. She is also the director of the documentary project in development “DRY VOICES” and producer of “THE SAFEST PLACE”, a documentary in development awarded by SANFIC Santiago Lab and DocsMX.

Co-Director’s profile:

Ignacia Merino Bustos is a Chilean director and producer born in Santiago. She is the founder of the production company Dos Be Producciones, where she directs her first feature documentary “IN THE SHADOW OF LIGHT”, in which she explores socio-environmental issues narrated by an observational and experimental approach to electricity. In her company, also produces the documentary in development “THE SAFEST PLACE”, awarded by SANFIC Santiago Lab and DocsMX. Her current work as a producer at the company Tres Tercios, specializes in non-fiction series, animation and short films, such as “SO THEY SAY” and “WE WILL BURN”. She began her career as an executive producer at Invercine & Wood, where she worked on the fiction series “MARY & MIKE” (Warner), “DIGNITY” (Amazon) and “NEWS OF A KIDNAPPING” (Amazon).

Producer’s profile:

María José Díaz has worked as an investigative journalist for TV series and produces non-fiction films in cinematic and XR formats. Her work is based on themes that explore different layers of the human condition and nature, told through narratives and platforms linked to innovation. María José is the producer of the documentary feature film “IN THE SHADOW OF LIGHT”, co-director and producer of the virtual reality project “ANCESTRAL SECRET VR” and producer of “KNOWING YOUR NATURE”, a mixed reality project in development. She is the founder of Galgo Storytelling, a creative lab to tell stories with technology and member of the Steering Committee and Communications Director of the National Film Festival of Ñuble, Chile.

Runtime: 80'

Expected release: October, 2023

Production stage: Post-production

Budget: €265.200 (85% in place)

1st feature: No

Looking for: Festivals, Sales Agents / Distributors, Buyers, Strategic Guidance.

Synopsis:

Margarita, a young Mapuche academic, discovers in an unknown archive in Berlin the testimonies of Mapuche prisoners who were expelled from their territories during the military invasions that founded Argentina and Chile. Moved by the discovery, she embarks on a journey to retrace the deportation routes of her ancestors.

Director’s profile:

Paula Rodríguez Sickert studied Architecture at the HdK and Film and Television at the DFFB in Berlin. Her work mainly portrays social and cultural issues related to Latin America. Some of her documentaries, such as Primeros pasos and Los hijos de Pinochet (Arte-SWR, Germany), have won awards at international film festivals, and together with others, such as Isabel Allende (Arte NDR, Germany), have been distributed on different television channels around the world. Her latest work is the renowned documentary about the artist Alfredo Jaar, “JAAR el lamento de las imágenes”. He has directed reports in different parts of the world, for the German international channel Deutsche Welle and the German Agency for International Cooperation GIZ.

Producer’s profile:

Producer, screenwriter and director of documentary films. She directs the production house Errante; Founder and Executive Director of the Chilean Documentary Corporation CCDoc, and Chief Executive of the sectorial brand Chiledoc. She teaches Film and TV at the Universidad de Chile and Audiovisual Direction at the Universidad Católica. Since 2020 she is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences AMPAS. His productions include the Chilean-Brazilian co-production Haydee and the Flying Fish, the award-winning Canadian-Chilean co-production Cielo, and Allende My Grandfather Allende, Best Documentary at the Cannes Film Festival 2015. He has directed award-winning documentaries in different national and international festivals such as Frontera, Genoveva, 74m2, La última huella and Niños del paraíso.

Runtime: 80', 52'

Expected release: February, 2024

Production stage: Editing

Budget: €205,000 (100% in place)

1st feature: Yes

Looking for: Festivals, Sales agents / distributors

Synopsis:

El Menor is an intimate portrait of Efraín (15), a marginal teenager without family, who in a few months becomes a worldwide phenomenon in freestyle music battles. Efrain faces sudden fame without anyone emotionally close to him. In that loneliness, but surrounded by hundreds of thousands of fans, Efrain begins to gradually disappear behind “El Menor”, his artistic persona.

Director’s profile:

Audiovisual Communicator and Master in Documentary Filmmaking. He is director and screenwriter of the short films “La última escena” (2013) and “Un cuento de amor, locura y muerte” (2015) which accumulated more than 70 selections in festivals such as Toronto (TIFF), IDFA, Clermontt-Ferrand, FicValdivia and more than 20 awards in festivals such as Krakow, Chicago, Camerimage, among others. Director of the transmedia project “Los Reyes del Parque”, which includes the feature film currently in development “El Menor”.

Producer’s profile:

Film and TV director and producer. His short films “El Elefante Blanco”, “Última Cena” and “Huésped” have been selected and awarded in multiple festivals in countries such as Cuba, Holland, Portugal and Chile. Has been assistant director to Nicolás Acuña, Pepa San Martín, Carmen Castillo, among others. Is producer of the feature film “Gran Avenida” by Moisés Sepúlveda, the TV series “Libre” by Juan Pablo Sallato and the feature film “La Hija del Pacífico” by Juan Olea. Partner and producer at Juntos Films.

Runtime: 90'

Expected release: May, 2024

Production stage: Editing

Budget: €135.000 (83% in place)

1st feature: Yes

Looking for: Festivales, Sales Agents, Distributors, Co-Producers, Gap Financing

Synopsis:

Fresia, a young Pewenche girl who has lived all her life in a community that mistrusts Chilean institutions, must gradually move away from her home and territory because she is pregnant. Fresia visits clinics for her maternity check-ups, travels to cities she does not know and finally enters a public hospital, where after a long wait she gives birth to her baby, Dalila, who is born with the cleft palate.

Director’s profile:

Born in 1982 in Kiev, in a Chilean-Russian family. Living in Chile since the age of 10, he first studied Medicine. From 2006 to 2009 he worked as a general practitioner in the Pewenche territory of the Bio-bio river. During that time he was the chief of the maternity department at the Santa Barbara hospital, and in 2007 he was the founder of the Intercultural Health Team. Then, he graduated as a film director at the EICTV in San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba. In 2012 he was selected at Nikita Mikhalkov’s Film Academy in Moscow. He’s been guest teacher of film directing at the Escuela Veracruzana de Cine Luis Buñuel and the Universidad Veracruzana in Mexico. Previous documentary works include his co-direction with the Mapuche filmmaker José Carihuentro “Pentukuwün, Viajando con Imágenes” (24 min, 2016); “Arbenin’s Mask” (50 min, 2017) and “Through the Wall”, feature- length documentary.

Producer’s profile:

Michel Toledo is a chilean director, screenwriter and producer. He studied Film at the University of Valparaíso, Chile; Advanced Screenwriting at EICTV, Cuba and has a Master’s degree in Film and Digital Image from the University of Sydney in Australia. He is the founder and creative director of Totem Productions, a company dedicated to create audiovisual projects for film, television and digital media. He develops audiovisual works in short, feature film and serial formats, both in the documentary and fiction genres. He also works as an academic in the University of Viña del Mar, where he teaches photography and production in the degree of Film Studies and Audiovisual Communication and transmedia production at the Master’s Digital Communication and Transmedia from the same university. Actually he is in charge of research and creation for the film studies department.