Some of Latin America’s greatest arthouse directors –Celina Murga, Mariana Rondón, Santiago Loza, Matias Mariani and Christopher Murray– feature among 15 projects set to be unveiled at San Sebastián’s 2026 Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum, the Spanish festival’s biggest industry centerpiece.
The selection also frames hot emerging director such as Ernesto Martínez (The Devil Smokes”) and first features which are sure to create interest. One case in point: Selma Cervantes’ “Mourning Sound,” set up at Teorema, founded by Michel Franco and partner Eréndira Núñez Larios and behind award-winning films such as “Memory,” “New Order,” “Heroic,” “Flies,” “Chronic” and “From Afar.”
Galvanised by new and emerging talent, the 2026 lineup also serves as a tribute to what outgoing San Sebastián Festival director José Luis Rebordinos has achieved with the Forum: Consolidating it as Europe’s most significant Latin American meet and mart when a presence at co-production platforms has become ever more essential for the survival of so many Latin American filmmakers.
Selected for the Forum, “The Rehearsals” marks Murga’s follow-up to “The Freshly Cut Grass,” presented by Martin Scorsese and a Tribeca best screenplay winner, and Murga’s fourth fiction film – after “Ana and the Others” (2003), “A Week Alone” (2007) and Berlin competition contender “The Third Side of the River” – films often displaying a large sense of place and unspoken but keenly observed emotions.
