A total of 14 projects with European participation will be under the spotlight at Catapulta Cine — a programme that aims to support new art-house films of all genres and styles and help their creators whip them into release-ready shape. As always, the emphasis is on groundbreaking, innovative filmmaking from every corner of the world. A key date in the film industry calendar, it’s part of the 11th UNAM International Film Festival (FICUNAM; read more here) hosted by the Metropolitan Autonomous University in Mexico City. The festival will take place online between 24 and 27 March, with a line-up of 20 feature films, plus six in the Primer Corte section and another six in Work in Progress.

Highlights of the Desarollo 1 programme include After, a new film by Oliver Laxe (Fire Will Come [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Oliver Laxe
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scheda film]) produced by Leire Apellaniz, in which three men find themselves trapped in a villa in Majorca.

This programme will also feature Pantheras, by Portuguese director Salomé Lamas (produced by Primeira Idade); The French Teacher (Brazil/Portugal/France), the second full-length feature from Ricardo Alves Jr., ably assisted by Thiago Macêdo Correira; and The Human Surge 3 (Argentina/France/Portugal/China), directed by Eduardo “Teddy” Williams and produced by Jerónimo Quevedo (Un puma), plus a selection of other projects with funding from Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Chile.

Meanwhile, Desarollo 2 includes four European (co)productions: Bajo risco, set on La Graciosa in the Canary Islands in the 17th century, directed by Spanish duo Helena Girón and Samuel Delgado and produced by their own company, La Banda Negra; Dengue, a love story set in Calcutta by Prantik Basu, produced by Fulgurance (France) and The Film Kitchen (Netherlands); I Am Here but You Can’t See Me (Lebanon/Spain/France), the début film from Feyrouz Serhal, with support from Felipe Lage (Zeitun Fims) and Ze, by Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir, produced by Mongolian company Guru Media and France’s Aurora Films.

Four European titles have also made it to the Primer Corte section: A Woman Escapes (Canada/France/Turkey), by Sofia Bohdanowicz, Burak Cevik and Blake Williams, financed by Maison du Bonheur Films Inc., Fol Films and BM Films; Jesús López [+leggi anche:
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scheda film], directed by Inês T. Alves and produced by Portuguese company Oublaum Filmes. Finally, the two European films selected for the Work in Progress section both hail from France: Magdala [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Damien Manivel
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intervista: Manuel Abramovich
scheda film], by Manuel Abramovich in coproduction with Argentina (Gema Films) and Brazil (Desvia).

Participants will be online from 8 am to 9 pm between 24 and 27 March for one-on-one talks with national and international delegates and jurors. One outstanding film will be selected for the Desarrollo award (MX$200,000), presented by the Metropolitan Autonomous University. Three winners will be chosen from the Primer Corte section: the best project overall (MX$100,000) and two runners-up (MX$10,000). You can find out more about Catapulta 2021’s selected films, criteria and jury line-up here.