LA CIUDAD DE LOS DIOSES IS A SHORT FILM ABOUT THE INITATION RITUALS OF YOUNG CHILEANS SEEKING TO JOIN CRIMINAL GANGS.
Sebastián Salazar Claro (Adela Moreno y Ana Escario | El Estudio)
The project La ciudad de los dioses by Chilean filmmaker Sebastián Salazar Claro has won the first edition of the “Work in Progress” call at the Huesca International Film Festival—a platform designed to promote, support, and provide visibility to Ibero-American short films in the advanced stages of post-production.
La ciudad de los dioses, which explores the initiation rites of children and adolescents from vulnerable, broken Chilean families as they are recruited into criminal gangs, was selected over four other competing projects from Spain, Costa Rica, Brazil, and Uruguay. Thanks to this award, the project will receive support from Mexican production company Chemistry for its final production phase, and distribution assistance from the platform Festhome.
Aragonese producer J. Alberto Andrés Lacasta, who moderated the event held in the Blue Room of the Huesca Casino, praised the festival’s initiative, which attracted 80 submissions. “What really stood out was the raw and authentic vision presented by Sebastián. We evaluated not only the film’s cinematic quality and the direction of actors, but also the formal proposal and the potential projection of the film. We valued what this award could contribute to a Latin American film with European prospects,” he emphasized.
The jury was composed of filmmakers and producers Gaizka Urresti, Vicky Calavia, José Ángel Delgado, and J. Alberto Andrés Lacasta himself; Chus Fenero from the Women’s Film Showcase of Huesca; Natalia Martínez from Aragón TV; Ari del Castillo from Mexican production company Chemistry; and Moisés Tuñón from Festhome.
The other four finalist projects in the Work in Progress call were: Nossos heróis caminham de olhos vendados (Brazil), presented virtually by André Lorenz Michiles; Bicho (Uruguay), also presented virtually by the team from Guazuvirá Cine; Mañana sí que sí (Spain), with director Eva Vázquez de Reoyo in attendance; La emulsión del tiempo (Costa Rica), presented by director Pablo Wong.
A TOTAL OF SIX PROJECTS FROM THE BASQUE COUNTRY, MADRID, CATALONIA, AND ARAGON SELECTED FOR THE FIRST EDITION OF THE HIFF PITCHING CALL
Six projects from the Basque Country, Madrid, Catalonia, and Aragon were selected in the first edition of the HIFF Pitching Call to support new talent and the creation of short films by emerging Spanish professionals. This initiative is designed as a meeting space for young professional short filmmakers and producers who want to support upcoming talent across various genres.
From the Basque Country, Itsas epel (Warm Sea), directed by Aroa Fernández Lazcano and produced by Janire Varela Fernández, is a fiction drama that asks: “What would you do if you couldn’t pay your electricity bill in the middle of winter?”
From Aragon, Femenino singular by Isabel Genís is a fiction drama in which Amara, a young elite athlete, faces an unexpected diagnosis—an early onset of menstruation—at the most critical moment in her career.
From Catalonia, El equilibrio by Joel Munu is a dystopian fiction short about a 23-year-old pool lifeguard trying to make amends with parents who lost their child to drowning at his workplace.
From Madrid came Framed (The Rules of the Game) by Sara Martínez Sanz and Yangxi Chen, where during the filming of a scene with a female lead surrounded by men, moral questions arise about the male gaze in cinema; as well as Desde 1996 by Siro Morcillo, a comedy in which Manzano, a young deliveryman, makes his usual Monday delivery to a tavern—only to discover something horrific inside the walk-in freezer.
Also from Madrid, the comedy short Otra movida, by Rocío Torres García and Ana María Ruíz, directed by Carla Molina, tells the story of a pioneering former DJ who returns to her hometown after forty years. Reconnecting with an old flame, she revisits the lost ambitions of the Movida Madrileña and tries to reclaim them.
