One of Argentina’s new filmmaking talents to watch, Sundance Institute Latin Fellowship recipient Ana Bovino has just received private funding for her documentary project “The Nights” (“Las noches”) from heavyweight doc player Jane Ray, founder of Cat Flap Media and consultant artistic director of UK funding body The Whickers.
Shopped at various co-production markets including Chile’s Conecta 2025 where it won the Cannes Docs Award and a ticket for this year’s Cannes Docs Spotlight, Bovino’s film debut is now competing for the €15,000 ($17,200) Last Push Award at the ECAM Forum co-production market in Madrid, running over June 9-11.
Born out of Bovino’s wish to reimagine the Middle Eastern folktales “One Thousand and One Nights” and Sheherazade’s quest to free women from violence through storytelling, “The Nights” is a portrait of La Pichi, a larger-than-life woman living on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, who turns her life into stories, night after night. “Born in a territory and body on the margins, she uses humor, imagination, and irreverence to reclaim her voice and identity,” reads the logline.
Asked how she found La Pichi, Bovino said she came to her in 2020, as part of an open casting for “The Nights” which was initially meant to be a filmed theatre play with a diverse range of amateur actors as narrators “à la Sheherazade.”
