Oscar Isaac in Frankenstein by Guillermo del Toro
The Venice Film Festival has unveiled this morning the official selection for its 82nd edition, and Latin American cinema is set to enjoy a rare and meaningful level of visibility at this year’s event. While the region’s presence at Venice has historically been modest—often limited to few titles across various sections—this year’s lineup includes a notable range of films from across Latin America, showcasing a diversity of voices and styles.
In the festival’s official competition, Mexican director Guillermo del Toro returns with Frankenstein, his highly anticipated reimagining of the classic tale for Netflix. As the only Latin American filmmaker vying for the Golden Lion, del Toro’s inclusion underscores both his global stature and the ongoing challenge for Latin American directors to secure space in Venice’s most prestigious section.
Guillermo del Toro has maintained a long and meaningful relationship with the Venice Film Festival. In 1997, his film Mimic screened in the festival’s Mezzanotte section. Nearly a decade later, in 2006, he served as a juror for the Luigi De Laurentiis Award for a Debut Film. His most celebrated moment at Venice came in 2017, when The Shape of Water premiered at the festival and won the Golden Lion for Best Film; the movie went on to receive 13 Academy Award nominations and multiple wins. The following year, in 2018, del Toro returned to Venice as President of the Jury for the festival’s 75th edition.
Acclaimed Argentine filmmaker Lucrecia Martel (La ciénaga, Zama) will present her long-gestating documentary Nuestra Tierra (formerly known as Chocobar) as a world premiere in the Out of Competition (Non-Fiction) section. Known for her formal rigor and incisive political sensibility, Martel’s return to the Lido with a nonfiction work marks a major moment in the festival’s nonfiction slate.
The film is the story of Javier Chocobar, who was killed while resisting the eviction of his Indigenous community from their ancestral lands in Argentina. His death was recorded and shared in a video on YouTube. This new feature documentarylunpacks over 500 years of historical “reason” behind this violence—both with gun and camera—and situates it within the land tenure systems that have shaped Latin America.
Elsewhere, the Venice Spotlight section will feature Un cabo suelto by Uruguayan director Daniel Hendler and La hija de la española, a new film by Venezuelan-Peruvian duo Mariana Rondón and Marité Ugás (Bad Hair). Adapted from Karina Sainz Borgo’s novel, La hija de la española delves into questions of exile and national identity with a keen sense of urgency.
The Orizzonti competition, which focuses on new trends in world cinema, includes five Latin American films—a significant number for the region. These are Hiedra by Ecuadorean director Ana Cristina Barragán, Pin de Fartie by Argentine director Alejo Moguillansky, En el camino by Mexican filmmaker David Pablos, The Souffleur by Argentine director Gastón Solnicki shot in Austria and starring Willem Dafoe, and Barrio triste, the debut feature by Colombian-American visual artist Stillz.
This year’s slate brings together a range of filmmakers from across Latin America, mixing well-known names with emerging voices pushing formal boundaries. While films from the region have made occasional appearances at Venice in the past, their presence has often felt sparse or isolated. The 2025 edition marks a noticeable shift, with a stronger, more cohesive showing that offers a clearer window into the region’s evolving cinematic landscape.
