When Clouds Hide the Shadow (Cuando las nubes esconden las sombras) by José Luis Torres Leiva will open Horizontes Latinos of the 2024 San Sebastian International Film Festival. In When Clouds Hide the Shadow, the actress and director María Alché travels to the world’s southernmost point to shoot a film.

The Freshly Cut Grass (El aroma del pasto recién cortado) which earned Celina Murga Best Screenplay at the Tribeca Festival and tells the parallel story of two love affairs set in the university environment will close Horizontes Latinos.

Horizontes Latinos showcases feature films, not yet screened in Spain, from among all those produced totally or partially in Latin America, directed by filmmakers of Latin origin or which take Latin communities in the rest of the world as their backdrop or subject matter.

All of the films in the Horizontes Latinos section compete for the Horizontes Award, coming with 35,000 euros for the director and distributor of the film in Spain.

Horizontes Latinos 2024 Lineup

Cuando las nubes esconden las sombras / When Clouds Hide the Shadow
José Luis Torres Leiva (Chile)
Country(ies) of production: Chile – Argentina – South Korea
Cast: María Alché
Opening Film
María, an actress, heads for Puerto Williams to star in a movie. A bad storm prevents the film crew from arriving on time, leaving her to get by on her own. Looking for help to ease her severe back pain, she meets the locals of the world’s southernmost city and a pending story in her life. This is the tale of waiting and an accidental encounter between María, the continent’s most meridional nature and its inhabitants.

El aroma del pasto recién cortado / The Freshly Cut Grass
Celina Murga (Argentina)
Country(ies) of production: Argentina – Uruguay – USA – Mexico – Germany
Cast: Joaquín Furriel, Marina de Tavira, Alfonso Tort, Romina Peluffo
Closing Film
Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum 2020

Pablo is a university lecturer, married and with two sons. He starts a secret affair with one of his female students, not realising the consequences. Meanwhile, Natalia, a university lecturer, married and with two daughters, starts a secret affair with one of her male students. Two stories that alternate and mirror one another; one featuring a man, the other a woman.

Cidade; Campo
Juliana Rojas (Brazil)
Country(ies) of production: Brazil – Germany – France
Cast: Fernanda Vianna, Mirella Façanha, Bruna Linzmeyer, Kalleb Oliveira
Two tales of migration between city and countryside. In the first part, after a tailings dam disaster floods her hometown, rural worker Joana moves to São Paulo to find her sister Tania, who lives with her grandson Jaime. Joana struggles to thrive in the working city. In the second part, after the death of her estranged father, Flavia moves to his farm with her wife Mara. The nature forces the two women to face frustrations and cope with old memories and ghosts.

Dormir de olhos abertos / Sleep With Your Eyes Open
Nele Wohlatz (Germany)
Country(ies) of production: Brazil – Argentina – Taiwan – Germany
Ikusmira Berriak 2018

A coastal city in Brazil. Kai arrives from Taiwan for holidays with a broken heart. A broken air conditioner sends her into Fu Ang’s umbrella store. He could become a friend, but the rainy season doesn’t arrive and his shop disappears. While looking for Fu Ang, Kai discovers the story of Xiaoxin and a group of Chinese workers in a posh skyscraper. Kai finds herself strangely mirrored in Xiaoxin’s tale.

El Jockey / Kill the Jockey
Luis Ortega (Argentina)
Country(ies) of production: Argentina – Mexico – Spain – Denmark – USA
Cast: Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, Úrsula Corberó
Remo Manfredini is a legendary jockey, but his 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 that will clear him of his debts from his mobster boss Sirena, he has a severe accident, disappears from the hospital and wanders the streets of Buenos Aires. Free from his identity, he starts to discover who he is truly meant to be. But Sirena wants him found, dead or alive.

La piel en primavera / Skin in Spring
Yennifer Uribe Alzate (Colombia)
Country(ies) of production: Colombia – Chile
Cast: Alba Liliana Agudelo Posada, Eduardo Arango, Cristian López
Proyecta 2018
WIP Latam 2022
Sandra is the new security guard at a shopping centre. Running into a bus driver on her first day at work leads to an affair between them. Sandra gets to grips with her sex life and sets out on a road to freedom through her own experience with desire.

Los domingos mueren más personas / Most People Die on Sundays
Iair Said (Argentina)
Country(ies) of production: Argentina – Italy – Spain
Cast: Iair Said, Rita Cortese, Antonia Zegers , Juliana Gattas
WIP Latam 2023

David returns to his home in Buenos Aires only to learn that his mother has decided to pull the plug on Bernardo, his father lying in coma. He oscillates between the intimate coexistence with his mother, alienated by the pain of the imminent loss of her husband, and a ravenous desire to fill his existential anguish. He spends his days learning how to drive, oscillating between the past and the present and trying to have sex with anyone showing him the least bit of attention.

Querido Trópico / Beloved Tropic
Ana Endara (Panama)
Country(ies) of production: Panama – Colombia
Cast: Paulina García, Jenny Navarrete
A tropical garden provides the setting for the meeting between two lonely souls who accompany one another for a time: that of an upper-class woman from whom dementia is taking all she ever was, and that of her caretaker, a lonely immigrant, alienated from the world by a terrible secret.

Quizás es cierto lo que dicen de nosotras / Maybe It´s True What They Say About Us
Sofía Paloma Gómez (Chile), Camilo Becerra (Chile)
Country(ies) of production: Chile – Argentina – Spain
Cast: Aline Küppenheim, Julia Lübert, Camila Roeschmann
WIP Latam 2023

Inspired by true events. Ximena, a successful psychiatrist, receives an unexpected visit from her eldest daughter, Tamara, back from a long period cut off from the world as the member of a sect. A police investigation is launched while the girl takes refuge in her mother’s house as it transpires that Tamara’s newborn son disappeared within the sect in strange circumstances. Both the law and Ximena will try to find out what has become of the missing baby.

Ramón y Ramón
Salvador Del Solar (Peru)
Country(ies) of production: Peru – Spain – Uruguay
Cast: Emanuel Soriano, Álvaro Cervantes, Darío Yazbek Bernal
Having received the ashes of his father, with whom he had no more than a distant relationship, Ramón meets Mateo during lockdown. Despite their differences, a profound connection grows between them, prompting them to question themselves. Mateo decides to accompany Ramón on the journey to scatter the ashes in Huancayo. On the way, Ramón will realise that he was looking for answers to the wrong questions, and that he must heal from within in order to move on.

Reas
Lola Arias (Argentina)
Country(ies) of production: Argentina – Germany – Switzerland
Cast: Yoseli Arias, Ignacio Rodríguez, Carla Canteros, Noelia LaDiosa, Estefy Hardcastle, Paula Asturayme, Cintia Aguirre, Pato Aguirre, Jade de la Cruz Romero, Julieta Fernández, Laura Amato, Daniela Borda
WIP Latam 2023

Yoseli has a tattoo of the Eiffel Tower on her back and has always wanted to travel, but she was arrested at the airport for drug trafficking. Nacho is a trans man who was busted for fraud and formed a rock band in jail. Gentle or tough, blond or shaven, cis or trans, old-timers or new arrivals: in this hybrid musical everybody recreates their life in a Buenos Aires prison.

Simón de la montaña / Simon of the Mountain
Federico Luis (Argentina)
Country(ies) of production: Argentina – Chile – Uruguay – Mexico
Cast: Lorenzo Ferro, Pehuén Pedre, Kiara Supini, Laura Nevole, Agustín Toscano, Camila Hirane
Simon is 21 years old. He introduces himself as a mover’s helper. He claims not to know how to cook or clean the bathroom, but he does know how to make a bed. Recently, he seems to have become a different person…

Sujo
Astrid Rondero (Mexico), Fernanda Valadez (Mexico)
Country(ies) of production: Mexico – USA – France
Cast: Juan Jesús Varela, Yadira Perez Esteban, Sandra Lorenzano, Alexis Jassiel Varela, Jairo Hernández Ramírez, Kevin Uriel Aguilar Luna, Karla Garrido
After a cartel gunman from a small Mexican town is murdered, Sujo, his beloved four-year-old son, is left an orphan and in danger. Sujo narrowly escapes death with the help of his aunt who raises him in the isolated countryside amidst hardship, poverty, and the constant peril associated with his identity. When he enters his teens a rebelliousness awakens in him, and like a rite of passage, he joins the local cartel. As a young man, Sujo attempts to make his life anew, away from the violence of his hometown. however, when his father’s legacy catches up with him, he will come face-to-face with what seems to be his destiny.

Zafari
Mariana Rondón (Venezuela)
Country(ies) of production: Peru – Venezuela – Mexico – France – Brazil – Chile – Dominican Republic
Cast: Daniela Ramírez, Francisco Denis, Samantha Castillo, Claret Quea, Juan Carlos Colombo, Varek La Rosa, Beto Benites
Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum 2019

In a small zoo, the arrival of the hippopotamus Zafari is celebrated by neighbours of opposing social classes. Ana, Edgar and their son Bruno watch all the action from the windows of their decadent high-class building. Amidst a chaos of food, water and electricity shortages, the family has to solve everyday problems and the lack of basic needs while trying to find a solution to escape. Ana scavenges for food in the abandoned apartments, but strange noises in the dark corridors frighten her more and more. In a world that has become wild, Zafari is the only one who still has enough to eat.