In a welcomed and overdue development, Latin America has achieved gender parity in the region’s Oscar submissions this year, as nine of the 18 productions selected for the Best International Feature Film competition at the 93rd edition of the Academy Award are directed by female-identifying filmmakers.
Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela, have all selected fiction and non-fiction films directed by women, marking a milestone for the region. The group of nine filmmakers includes three directors with a solid filmography: Paula Hernández, Maite Alberdi, and Leticia Tonos, while the rest of the group are participating at the Oscars with their first or second feature film.
Of these nine films, it’s also important to note that three are documentaries — also part of a larger international trend for countries to submit non-fiction contenders, after last year’s success of the Macedonia-submitted documentary Honeyland, which became the first film to score nominations for both Best Documentary and Best International Feature Film.
Meet this year’s Latin American female directors vying for the Oscar for Best International Film:
Argentina: Paula Hernández, The Sleepwalkers
An alumna of Buenos Aires’ prestigious Universidad del Cine, Paula Hernández is a leading filmmaker of her generation. She has directed five feature films starting from her much-lauded 2001 debut feature Inheritance. Her fourth feature, The Sleepwalkers had its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival and won the top prize for Best Film at the Havana Film Festival. Starring Érica Rivas (Wild Tales), the film follows Luisa, who is spending her New Year holiday with her husband and her 14-year-old daughter — a sleepwalker at the crucial moment of teenage awakening — at her mother-in-law’s country house with other family members. Nevertheless, what was hoped to be a leisurely summer vacation turns out to be an explosive occasion. Hernández premiered her most recent film The Siamese Bond / Las siamesas at the Mar del Plata Film Festival last November. It will have its international premiere at the Miami Film Festival this March.
Brazil: Bárbara Paz, Babenco: Tell Me When I Die
Winner of the Venice Classics Award for Best Documentary in Cinema, the debut feature by actress-director Bárbara Paz is a heartfelt film on her husband’s final years of life, Argentine-born Brazilian filmmaker Hector Babenco, who died of cancer in 2016. “I have already lived my death and now all that is left is to make a film about it,” so said Babenco (Pixote, Kiss of the Spider Woman) to his wife when he realized he did not have much time left. She accepted the challenge to fulfill the last wish of her late partner: to be the main protagonist in his own death. In this tender immersion into the life of one of the greatest filmmakers from South America, Babenco himself consciously bares his soul in intimate and painful situations. Paz has a prolific acting career in theater, television, and cinema.
Chile: Maite Alberdi, The Mole Agent
A leading Latin American documentary filmmaker, Chilean director Maite Alberdi has created a strong filmography focused on intimate portraits of small worlds. She has directed The Lifeguard (2011), Tea Time (2015), I'm Not from Here (2016), and The Grown-Ups (2016). In 2013 she was selected as a Global Shaper by the World Economic Forum, and in 2018 she became a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Her most recent film, The Mole Agent, had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, has played at numerous international festivals, and was recently broadcast as part of PBS’ POV series. It marks the first time Chile selects a documentary film as its Oscar contender.
Costa Rica: Sofía Quirós Ubeda, Land of Ashes
Costa Rica has selected Land of Ashes, the debut feature by Sofía Quirós Ubeda, which had its world premiere in the Critics’ Week selection at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. The film follows teenager Selva, who lives in a Caribbean coastal town. After the sudden disappearance of her only motherly figure, Selva is the only one left to take care of her grandfather, who doesn’t want to live anymore. Between mysterious shadows and wild games, she debates whether or not she should help her grandfather achieve his desire, even though this might mean going through her last years of childhood alone. Quirós Ubeda’s short film Selva (2017) premiered at the Critics’ Week and played in over 40 international film festivals.
Dominican Republic: Leticia Tonos, A State of Madness
For a third time — after Love Child in 2011 and Cristo Rey in 2014 — a film directed by Leticia Tonos will represent the Dominican Republic at the Academy Awards. The Caribbean island has selected her period drama A State of Madness / Mis 500 locos as the country’s Oscar hopeful. Set in 1953 during the cruel dictatorship of Leónidas Trujillo and based on the book by Dominican psychiatrist Antonio Zaglul, the stylish film tells the true story of Dr. Zaglul who was appointed as new director of the Nigüa Psychiatric Hospital after a group of mental patients escaped. Nevertheless, it’s difficult for him to tell if madness lives inside or outside the hospital’s walls. Tonos studied at the London Film School, where her thesis was an adaptation of the Junot Díaz short story “Ysrael”.
Honduras: Gloria Carrión, Days of Light
Honduras has submitted an Oscar candidate for the second time, choosing the Central American omnibus film Days of Light. Produced by the countries of the region — Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador — each of the six episodes imagines a local story under the premise that a solar storm has created a blackout in Central America. The Nicaraguan episode is directed by Gloria Carrión. She is a screenwriter and director and has written and directed a series of short documentary and fiction films that have been screened in national and international film festivals. She has a Masters Degree in Documentary Filmmaking from the Film School of Buenos Aires, Argentina; and a Master of Science. in Environment and Development from the London School of Economics. In 2017, she premiered her debut documentary Heiress of the Wind at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA).
Peru: Melina León, Song Without a Name
Melina León is a Peruvian director based in Lima and New York. Her debut feature Song Without a Name — selected as Peru’s Oscar contender — premiered at the 2019 Cannes Director’s Fortnight 2019. The film has been selected to over 100 international film festivals winning several awards including Best Director at the Thessaloniki Film Festival, Best Film at the Stockholm Film Festival, and the Cinevision Award for Best Emerging Director at the Munich Film Festival. Set in Peru in 1988, the film is inspired by a true account of child trafficking originally reported by Ismael Leon, her father. An MFA film graduate of Columbia University, her short film El Paraíso de Lili, also set in Peru in 1988, made its international debut at the 47th New York Film Festival.
Uruguay: Leticia Jorge Romero, Alelí
Uruguay has selected the comedy Alelí, the second feature film by director Leticia Jorge Romero, as the South American country’s Academy Awards contender. Jorge Romero studied Media at the Catholic University in Uruguay, and worked with Ana Guevara in the short films El cuarto del fondo (2007) and Summer Runners (2008), as well as in their debut feature So Much Water, which played in numerous film festivals including Berlin, Miami, Guadalajara, BAFICI, and London BFI. Alelí, a black comedy about a dysfunctional family, marks her first film as a solo director.
Venezuela: Anabel Rodríguez Ríos, Once Upon a Time in Venezuela
Filmmaker Anabel Rodríguez Ríos’ first feature Once Upon a Time in Venezuela is competing as the Venezuelan Oscar contender and premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2020. The film follows residents of a small fishing village as they prepare for the parliamentary election. Once the village of Congo Mirador was prosperous; now it is decaying and disintegrating — a prophetic reflection of Venezuela itself. Since its premiere, Once Upon a Time in Venezuela has been featured in The Hollywood Reporter, RogerEbert.com, and more and has screened at DOC NYC, Hot Docs, and DocMX. Rodríguez Ríos is based in Vienna, Austria, and she earned a master’s in filmmaking at the London Film School. Her short film The Barrel, part of the “Why Poverty?” series, went to over 50 international film festivals, including Hot Docs and IDFA and was awarded with a TFI Latin America Grant.
