ECAM Incubator: 2023 Projects – Selection

Fast constructing as one in every of Spain’s main hotbeds for rising producer and artistic expertise, the Madrid Film School’s ECAM Incubator, now on its sixth version, has picked 5 promising titles for its 2023 program.

Aimed at Spanish administrators, screenwriters and producers, the Incubator program is open to administrators’ debuts in addition to second or third characteristic tasks. Each title will obtain an endowment of 10,000 Euros ($10,736) in direction of its improvement. Creative groups hailing from exterior of Madrid have their journeys lined.

Out of the 25 tasks which have handed by means of the Incubator over the previous 5 editions, 21 have acquired Spanish Academy Goya nominations.

Many of the previous ECAM tasks have participated in distinguished movie festivals, together with Venice, Rotterdam, the Berlinale and San Sebastian.

A Drill Down on the Five 2023 Projects:

“Catorce de Marzo” (“March 14”)

The characteristic debut of Canarian Alberto Gross Molo, who made his mark with quick movies “Grietas” and “Solos,” is impressed by Gross’s personal childhood. Produced by Laura Egidos Plaja, Albert Aynés Clapés of Contraria and David Aymerich of Ayhe Productions, it activates two younger kids, aged 6 and 12, who face what might be their final day collectively at their mother and father’ divorce listening to. Here they’re made to determine which father or mother they wish to dwell with from that day ahead.

“I wish to present what it might probably imply for kids to be in the midst of their mother and father’ divorce and to be concerned in any such judicial course of. Somehow every part begins from the necessity to perceive why a toddler has to reply to a decide if he prefers to dwell along with his mom or father. Just as a father or a mom can’t select between their kids, neither can kids select between their mother and father,” mentioned Gross who co-wrote the movie with Tomàs Bayo Encontra.

“Catorce de Marzo” participated within the packages Ekran+ 2021, My First Script (Zagreb Film Festival) 2021 and Faberllull 2022. It was additionally a finalist in final yr’s Julio Alejandro SGAE Screenplay Award.

“¿Es usted secuestrable?” (“Are You Kidnappable?”)

A documentary by Mansalva Films founders Carlota Bujosa Cortés and David Castro González which focuses on non-fiction cinema and stop-motion animation.

Developed at Eurodoc, Mallorca Talents Lab and the Mentoring Project of L’Alternativa Desarrolla amongst others, the doc activates director Bujosa Cortes’ aunt Carmen, who some 45 years in the past, was held captive for almost three days throughout a airplane hijacking that criss-crossed the globe.

“Identity, belonging, subjectivity or one’s personal reminiscence appear to be my nice songs as a creator,” mentioned Bujosa Cortes of her characteristic debut. “My aunt Carmen, who is aware of me properly, someday recommended that I make a movie about one in every of her experiences, her prime, most likely most-told story: her delirious and surreal letter of introduction, the time when, aged 24, she discovered herself caught for nearly three days on a hijacked airplane and touring midway world wide.”

Castro González’s quick movies as director and screenwriter have been chosen and awarded at festivals similar to Encounters (U.Okay.), Filminute (Canada), Huesca Festival, Cinema Jove, the Valladolid Film Festival, Torrelavega Festival, Medina del Campo and the Almería Festival. He has produced the cease movement quick “Everything is Lost” (2022) by Carla Pereira and Juanfran Jacinto, a undertaking financed by the Community of Madrid and Movistar+ amongst others, and has been awarded the IV Animario-Plaza Rio 2021 prize.

 “Yo no moriré de amor” (“I Won’t Die for Love”)

Produced by José Esteban Alenda and César Esteban Alenda’s Solita Films whose first worldwide co-production “El despertar de las hormigas,” made in 2019 with Costa Rica, premiered at Berlinale’s Forum. It additionally turned the primary Central American movie to be nominated for a Goya.

Based on her personal expertise as a caregiver of her mom who suffered from Alzheimer’s, Marta Matute’s debut characteristic revolves round 20-year-old Claudia who refuses to forsake her youth to be her mom’s caregiver. “From the age of 19 to twenty-eight, I devoted a big a part of my life to caring for my mom. Now I’m thirty-four and my reminiscence of these years nonetheless lingers. ‘I Will Not Die for Love’ was born with the goal of accompanying and making seen all these younger individuals who turn out to be early caregivers of their mother and father,” mentioned Matute. 

Based in Madrid, Solita Films has been producing auteur-driven and style options for greater than 10 years. Its co-production with Puerto Rico, “La Pecera,” directed by Glorimar Marrero, world premiered at Sundance and had its European premiere ultimately week’s Göteborg Festival.

Solita Films at present has in publish “Alemania” by María Zanetti, a co-production with Juan Pablo Miller of Tarea Fina (Argentina) and documentary “Hija del Volcán,” helmed by Jenifer de la Rosa, in co-production with Mexico’s Mayéutica Prods, Auna Prods. and Cebolla Films. It s additionally creating slow-burning thriller “Deliver Us from Evil”; the claustrophobic horror movie “Waka Waka” and fantasy younger grownup drama, “Alma and the Seven Monsters.”

“Mal gent” (“Bad People”)

Barcelona-born Sara Gutiérrez Calve’s sophomore characteristic followsthe intersecting tales of three characters: Rosario, Marinela and Pepe, who’re all dealing with their very own private crises. When they meet at a marriage they’ve all been invited to, they must smile on the cameras and faux that every part is ok.

The dramedy, set in a village in Gironès, is produced by Inés Massa and Nadine Rothschild, founders of latest shingle Materia, who’ve a number of tasks underway, amongst them the debut characteristic movie of Blanca Camell who simply participated within the Locarno Festival together with her quick movie “Castells” and “Who Are We? Baró d’Evel,” the following documentary by Salvador Sunyer.

Given their reference to France and Latin America, Materia seeks to determine co-productions, amongst them “Where Trees Bare Meet,” Alexis Franco’s debut characteristic, in co-production with Nadia Martinez (Argentina) and Pulpa Films (U.S.), Roberto Minervini and Denise Lee’s manufacturing firm, and by providing its manufacturing companies in Spain to international productions.

Gutiérrez, who accomplished her research with a movie directing course at UCLA, made her directorial and screenwriting debut with “Yo la busco,” co-written with Núria Roura and produced by Nanouk Films, which premiered on the Malaga Film Festival in 2018 and was awarded the Silver Biznaga for finest actor for Dani Casellas and the Movistar+ Award within the Zonacine Section. The movie was additionally nominated for finest movie on the XI Premios Gaudí.

“Una cabeza en la pared” (“Head on the Wall”)

In Manuel Manrique’s drama, it’s been three years for the reason that abolition of bullfighting in Spain and his lead character Rafael Jesús now not finds his motive for being. He wanders the streets attempting to suit into this new world the place he feels utterly out of contact. “Every step he takes leads him farther away from the sand and nearer to the blood,” the synopsis reads. 

“In my technology, we grew up with the best of what makes a person that as we speak is quick fading. We all wished to be that sturdy male who protects his flock in any respect prices however who, as soon as he’s alone, has the soul of a poet,” mentioned Manrique who has produced and directed greater than 10 quick movies, lots of which display screen on Movistar +, Amazon Prime and Filmin.

He gained the perfect quick movie award on the Malaga Festival with  “Nowhere.” Alongside Diego Saniz, he co-founded Kabiria Films, which final yr produced their first characteristic movie, “The Applicant.” 

Saniz has had in depth expertise in scriptwriting and course, with 4 quick movies underneath his belt, amongst them “Te jodes y bailas” and “It’s Better Like This.” He has additionally edited a lot of movies together with “Regresa el cepa” and “Vampus Horror Tales.”