Querido Trópico by Ana Endara
The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) announced yesterday the lineup for its Centrepiece program, previously known as Contemporary World Cinema, which honors and celebrates global cinematic achievements. Featuring 47 titles, this year’s lineup includes five Latin American films and co-productions.
Having its world premiere is Beloved Tropic / Querido trópico, the debut narrative feature by Panamanian documentarian Ana Endara. This tender and atmospheric drama stars Chilean actress Paulina García (Gloria) and Colombian actress Jenny Navarrete (The Other Son). Set in Panama City, the film explores the relationship between two dissimilar lonely souls who accompany each other for a time: a high-class woman, from whom early dementia is taking everything she has been, and her immigrant caregiver, who harbors a secret.
Following its world premiere in the Golden Lion competition at the Venice Film Festival, the Argentine film Kill the Jockey / El jockey by Luis Ortega will have its North American Premiere at TIFF. Starring Nahuel Pérez Bizcayart (120 Beats per Minute), the film follows Remo Manfredini, a legendary jockey whose self-destructive behavior is beginning to outshine his talent and threaten his relationship with his girlfriend Abril. On the day of the most important race of his career, which will clear him of his debts to his mobster boss Sirena, he has a severe accident, disappears from the hospital, and wanders the streets of the city. Free from his identity, he starts to discover who he is truly meant to be. But Sirena wants him found, dead or alive.
Colombian director Andrés Baiz (Griselda, Narcos) will have the world premiere of his latest film Pimpinero: Blood and Oil / Pimpinero: sangre y gasolina. Set in the early 2010s, the gripping thriller takes place in the treacherous desert bordering Colombia and Venezuela, where gasoline smugglers, or pimpineros, risk their lives transporting illegal fuel. The film stars music star Juanes, along with Alejandro Speitzer, Alberto Guerra, and Laura Osma.
Two Chilean co-productions will also have their world premieres in the Centrepiece sidebar: The Exiles / Los Tortuga by Spanish director Belén Funes, an emotionally intelligent drama focusing on a mother-daughter relationship complicated by unprocessed grief and financial strife, starring Chilean actress Antonia Zegers (The Club); and The Mother and the Bear by Chinese-Canadian director Johnny Ma, about an anxious widow who travels from Korea to Winnipeg to be with her grown daughter, who has had a bad fall, but discovers she doesn't really know her daughter at all.
The 49th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival will take place September 5-15, 2024, in Canada.
