Chile’s Latente Films is teaming with Argentine outfit HD Argentina and Germany’s Orinokia to produce Chilean writer-director Sergio Castro San Martin’s project “Mil pedazos” (“A Thousand Pieces”), selected for the San Sebastian Festival’s Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum this September.
A creator and co-director of TV series such as Amazon Original “La Jauria” and Disney+’s “Llévame al cielo” – both produced by Pablo and Juan de Dios Larraín’s Fábula –Castro San Martín’s feature debut, “The Mud Woman,” had its world premiere at the 2015 Berlinale.
“A Thousand Pieces” marks Castro San Martín’s return to the San Sebastian co-production forum after attending in the 2017 edition with “The Saddest Goal.”
In development, and scheduled to shoot first half 2024 in the Chilean region of Coquimbo, “A Thousand Pieces” is produced from Chile by Eduardo Pizarro at Latente, a company based in La Serena, Coquimbo’s capital city, alongside Matías de Bourguignon and Cristóbal Güell.
From Germany, producers take in Rodolfo Cova – behind multi-awarded titles such as Lorenzo Vigas’ Venice Golden Lion winner “Desde Allá” and Jorge Thielen Armand’s “La Fortaleza”– and Jurgen Jencquel at Hamburg-based Orinokia. Lucía Van Gelderen and Gonzalo Bubis, both from HD Argentina, also produce.
Chilean thesps Daniel Muñoz (“Rara,” “Brujería,” “Taxi para tres”) and Julieta Figueroa (“El Cielo, la Tierra y la LLuvia”, “Verano”, “Vendrá la muerte y tendrá tus ojos”) are attached to star.
The story, co-written by Castro San Martín and reputed Argentine scribe-director Clarisa Navas (“Las mil y una”), starts with Ana, an extrovert eight-year-old girl who prepares a vacation trip with her parents, Miguel and Isabel, to visit the place where she was born.
The trip is interrupted by a tragic accident in the desert that leaves Isabel in coma, while Ana dies in her father’s arms. Miguel decides to make the trip on his own and bury Ana’s body.
Defined by Castro San Martín as “a spiritual journey, an existentialist road movie,” the idea of his second fiction film is to work with “excess” in the sense of “something that is surplus, that overflows, an event that is so overwhelming that it breaks with logic or convention.”
“’A Thousand Pieces’ is a story about communication, the unknown dimensions of non-verbal communication, and the human/animal relationship,” he explained.
“Thus, the film involves relationship mirrors, telling a love story from another place, from the imagined and the intuitive through hinge characters that unite the worlds of Ana, Isabel and Miguel,” he added.
“A Thousand Pieces'” producers will attend San Sebastian looking for minority co-producers and a sales agent.
The Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum takes place Sept. 25-27 as part of the 71st edition of the San Sebastian Film Festival, which runs Sept. 22-30.
