My Brothers Dream Awake by Claudia Huaiquimilla
The 74th edition of the Locarno International Film Festival is taking place this coming week from Wednesday, August 4 to Saturday, August 14, in person in Locarno, Switzerland. The festival aims to offer a unique location from which to discover the best of national and international filmmaking: from fiction to documentaries, from feature films to shorts, from new cinematic frontiers to the rediscovery of treasures from the past.
With eleven competitive sections and over four thousand titles being screened throughout the festival, Locarno’s lineup this year features eight different Latin American titles across several categories representing Chile, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Costa Rica.
The section “Concorso Cineasti del Presente,” which selects first and second feature films directed by emerging global talents, will present three Latin American titles: My Brothers Dream Awake / Mis hermanos sueñan despiertos by Chilean director Claudia Huaiquimilla; Zahorí by Argentine director Marí Alessandrini; and Mostro, by Mexican director José Pablo Escamilla. My Brothers Dream Awake, a Chilean production and director Huaiquimilla’s second feature, follows two young brothers who live in a juvenile prison. Zahorí, a co-production between Argentina, Chile, France and Switzerland and Alessandrini’s first feature, takes place on the Patagonian Steppe and depicts a friendship between a young thirteen year old girl and an elderly Mapuche man. Mostro, director Escamilla’s debut feature, centers two teenage factory workers and the disappearance of one of them. All three titles are having their world premieres at this year’s edition of Locarno.
Four Latin American titles have been selected for the “Pardi di Domani: Concorso Corti d’Autore” section, which screens short and medium-length films by independent filmmakers or film school students who have not yet tried their hands at feature films. Brazilian production The Infernal Machine / A Máquina Infernal, by Francis Vogner Dos Reis, is a 30-minute tale “about the apocalypse of the working class.” Also from Brazil is Leonardo Martinelli’s short film Neon Phantom / Fantasma Neon, following a delivery man, João, who dreams of owning a motorcycle. A co-production between Costa Rica and Mexico, Costa-Rican director Kim Torres’ short film Suncatcher / Atrapaluz tells the story of the socially awkward Lila and her encounter with a cyborg. Last is Argentine director María Silvia Esteve’s short film Creature / Criatura, an Argentine-Swiss co-production about pain taking the form of a living being.
In the “Panorama Suisse” section, an independent category within the festival, Paraguayan director Arami Ullón’s second documentary feature Nothing But the Sun / Apenas el Sol has been selected. A co-production between Switzerland and Paraguay, the documentary follows the struggles of the Ayoreo indigenous community in Paraguay.
Although not a new release, the 1997 Chilean-French co-production Docteur Chance by F.J. Ossang will also be screening as part of the “Histoire(s) du Cinéma” section of the festival, dedicated to the history of cinema and offering works from filmmakers and artists to whom the Festival dedicates special tributes.
