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Colombia’s Juan Sebastián Mesa and Tatiana Huezo, two leading lights on the Latin American film scene, won San Sebastián’s Industry Awards in the festival’s WIP Latam.
Top plaudits at the San Sebastián Co-Production
Forum served by contrast to highlight first or second time directors, though two are already fast emerging auteurs.
The caliber of production companies behind multiple projects – Roma producer Pimienta Films, Michel Franco’s label Teorema, Quijote Films, behind Cannes 2025 Un Certain Regard winner “The Gaze of the Flamingos,” Colombia’s Rhayuela, producer of “The Awakening,” Elastica, behind “Alcarràs” and – underscore the achievement of San Sebastián Festival director José Luis Rebordinos into building up San Sebastián into, with Cannes, into Europe’s most significant Latin American meet and mart and the vital role co-production and sales agents represent for the region’s now often beleaguered industries, shorn or reduced in state aid.
WIP Latam
Targeting sales agents, distributors and fest execs with pix-in-post, “Lovers Go Home!” reps the latest from Mesa, whose 2019 short, “Swamp,” played Sundance and feature “La Roya” San Sebastián’s New Directors competition. A multi-country co-production shot in Canada and Colombia, it follows Alejandra, a single mother who works as a webcam performer in a Medellin studio and her unlikely bond with disabled war veteran Andrew. The two begin a series of virtual conversations ranging from sexual requests to trivial challenges.
Few Mexican directors have impacted so much on the international scene than Tatiana Huezo, first in a documentary and then fiction space, winning a Cannes 2023 Un Certain Regard Special Mention for Prayers for the Stolen and Berlin Encounters Best Director in 2025 with “The Echo.” “Galerna,” uniting Pimienta and Elastica Films, follows Lúa and Noé, casting directors searching remote Mexico for natural actors for a sci-fi production, where their journey challenges their prejudices and vulnerabilities.
WIP Europa
“In a Manner of Speaking,” from first feature filmmaker Val Jashari, and a Wavemaker Films, Live Productions Kosovo-Montenegro co-production, turns on Zeka, an Albanian-American fugitive running a bar in Prishtina, suddenly sees her hidden life upended by a police raid. Cornered, Zeka leaps onto a balcony and meets Vlora, a woman from a remote village trying to disappear for reasons of her own in a story described as a redemption tale.
Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum
Produced by Chile’s Quijote Films (“The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo”) and Argentina’s Gentil Cine, “The Amateurs,” from Felipe Solari Yrigoyen, is 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.
“The Illusions,” directed by Ingrid Pokropek, centers in three Buenos Aires strangers making wishes on a shooting star, only for a cosmic mix-up to grant each someone else’s desire, setting fame, grief and love on a collision course. Pokropek says “the world of ‘The Illusions’ is luminous in the middle of darkness.” 36 Caballos produces with Spain’s Jaibo Films. In advanced development for a fall 2027 shoot, the project has secured ICAA minority co-production support and passed through Berlinale Talents Project Market, EAVE Puentes and ECAM Forum.
Another top Forum winner, backed by Teorema,“Mourning Sound” marks Selma Cervantes’ first feature, following the success of her short film “Sweatshop Girl,” starring Yalitza Aparicio, which premiered at Sundance 2023. In it, after years abroad, Karina returns to Mexico following her mother’s death. Estranged from a country that no longer feels like home, she and her brother Nacho find a way to bridge their differences through their family’s tradition of being sonideros: DJs at popular neighborhood dances.
Ikusmira Berriak
A double winner at San Sebastián’s Ikusmira Berriak, one of Spain’s most prestigious development programs, “Akira,” Ekain Albite’s first solo feature is a nighttime road movie following Vakhtang, a Georgian scrap dealer on the Basque coast, whose cousin Giorgi’s arrival leads them into the abandoned Lemoiz nuclear plant and onward through wintry borderlands.
“My films grow from spending time with people and places, allowing fiction to emerge from those encounters,” the director told Variety.
Co-written with Anna Llargués, the Spain-Georgia-France co-production explores exile and “the quiet unraveling of familiar worlds.” Albite previously co-directed “Negu Hurbilak,” which earned a special mention in Locarno’s Filmmakers of the Present section after premiering internationally there in 2023 competition.
Portuguese filmmaker Inês Nunes’ “The Spirit Healer is Away for the Weekend” won a third prize at Ikusmira Berriak. It tracks Sharon, an unsuccessful actress returning to an Algarve town where her image has become an object of worship, amid heat, and the disconnect tourism places there. It was selected for Ikusmira Berriak 2026, following Nunes’ Cannes-selected short “The Loneliness of Lizards.”
SAN SEBASTIAN INDUSTRY AWARDS 2026
15th EUROPE-LATIN AMERICA CO-PRODUCTION FORUM AWARDS
Best Project Award “The Amateurs,” (“Los Inexpertos,” Felipe Solari Yrigoyen, Chile, Argentina, Mexico)
Dale! Award “The Illusions,” (“Las ilusiones,” Ingrid Pokropek, Argentina, Spain)
Artekino International Prize “Mourning Sound,” (“El último sonidero,” Selma Cervantes, Mexico)
WIP EUROPA
WIP Europa Industry Award “In a Manner of Speaking,” (“Me Fjalë Tjera,” Val Jashari, Kosovo, Montenegro)
IKUSMIRA BERRIAK
Casa Wabi-Escine Award “The Spirit Healer Is Away for the Weekend,” (Inês Nunes, Portugal)
Tanta Award “Akira,” (Ekain Albite, Spain, Georgia)
Tanta Award “Akira.”
