Sirimiri Films, founded by Estibaliz Urresola, director of Berlinale winner “20,000 Species of Bees,” is teaming with Lazona Zinema, the Basque division of Lazona (“Spanish Affair,” “Gigantes,” “No Rest for the Wicked”) to produce “La Koreana,” one of Spain’s banner new talent titles.
The projected feature debut of Basque writer-director Joana Moya, “La Koreana” leapt to notice last September at San Sebastián when it won the Sideral Ikusmira Berriak Prize, the top plaudit at one of Spain’s foremost development labs where Moya attended its 2025 residency.
“La Koreana” will now be brought to market at the Locarno Festival’s Match Me!, a large co-production and networking meet running Aug. 7-9 which will feature Lazona Zinema’s Jesús Choya among its producers lineup.
Put through Noka Ekoizpena, a San Sebastian-based women-focused mentorship and production acceleration program, “La Koreana” is set across three timelines, one in 1890 and another around 1960, set at a gigantic iron mine mountain running for miles in La Arboleda, in the Basque province of Bizkaia.
In 1890, the miners seem trapped in time. Around 1960, Manuela, “La Koreana,” arrives at the mine from her native Andalusia to join her husband. But the mine is already in ruins.
