Running Sept. 21-23, the Forum also frames new projects by fast emerging new talents such as Ingrid Pokropek, Giorgio Giampà and Azul Vanni
Some of Latin America’s greatest arthouse directors –Celina Murga, Mariana Rondón, Santiago Loza, Matias Mariani and Christopher Murray– feature among 15 projects set to be unveiled at San Sebastián’s 2026 Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum, the Spanish festival’s biggest industry centerpiece.
The selection also frames hot emerging director such as Ernesto Martínez (The Devil Smokes”) and first features which are sure to create interest. One case in point: Selma Cervantes’ “Mourning Sound,” set up at Teorema, founded by Michel Franco and partner Eréndira Núñez Larios and behind award-winning films such as “Memory,” “New Order,” “Heroic,” “Flies,” “Chronic” and “From Afar.”
Galvanised by new and emerging talent, the 2026 lineup also serves as a tribute to what outgoing San Sebastián Festival director José Luis Rebordinos has achieved with the Forum: Consolidating it as Europe’s most significant Latin American meet and mart when a presence at co-production platforms has become ever more essential for the survival of so many Latin American filmmakers.
Selected for the Forum, “The Rehearsals” marks Murga’s follow-up to “The Freshly Cut Grass,” presented by Martin Scorsese and a Tribeca best screenplay winner, and Murga’s fourth fiction film – after “Ana and the Others” (2003), “A Week Alone” (2007) and Berlin competition contender “The Third Side of the River” – films often displaying a large sense of place and unspoken but keenly observed emotions.
Mariani impressed highly with his Berlin Panorama title “Shine Your Eyes,” a Netflix pick-up for the world. “‘Nature Boy’ began when I asked myself: what would it be like to be the father of an alien?” Mariani told Variety of his new Forum project.
Rondón, behind another 2026 Forum project, “Looking for Sam,” won San Sebastián’s top Golden Shell in 2013 with “Bad Hair,” and, more recently, “It Would Be Night in Caracas,” a gripping thriller, Variety said, with Edgar Ramírez (“American Crime Story”) and Natalia Reyes (“Terminator: Dark Fate”).
San Sebastián-bound with “Giant Stones,” Murray competed in Venice 2016 main competition with “The Blind Christ” and at Sundance with “Sorcery” in 2024.
“The Amateurs,” (“Los Inexpertos,” Felipe Solari Yrigoyen, Chile, Argentina)
Produced by Chile’s Quijote Films (“The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo”) and Argentina’s Gentil Cine, and set at an eccentric convention populated by people dressed as iconic movie characters where the original Maltese Falcon statuette vanishes along with a mysterious Russian guest. “The Amateurs” shows “how ordinary people, in a remote corner of South America and far from Hollywood, are forced to step up when circumstances spiral beyond their control,” says Solari about his potential feature debut.
“Ash Mother,” (“Mamá Ceniza,” Tana Gilbert, Chile-Germany)
Blending archival research with hand-drawn rotoscoping, Gilbert’s follow-up to “Malqueridas,” Grand Prize winner at Venice Critics’ Week 2023, revisits a mother who killed her daughters during Chile’s nitrate crisis. Producer Paola Castillo says the technique creates “an ethical distance, without revictimizing.” Chile’s Errante produces with Germany’s Dirk Manthey Film, in a project connecting that historical case with mothers facing similar judgments a century later.
“Diario Inconsciente,” (Santiago Loza, Argentina-Uruguay)
Thirty years after a young man entered psychiatric hospitalization carrying a notebook and camera, Loza reconstructs those days through documents and recreations, rooted in a deeply personal experience from his own youth. Varsovia Films produces with Uruguay’s Monarca Films, while Compañía de Cine has boarded international sales. Now finalizing its script and financing, the project is, in Loza’s words, “a poetic tale of survival” that also explores mental health, friendship and filmmaking.
“Dirty Face,” (“Cara Sucia,” Ignacio Acconcia, Spain-Uruguay)