Colombia’s Federico Durán, long associated with Rhayuela Films (“Alias María”) where he remains a shareholder, has officially launched his new company El Sol Ermitaño at the San Sebastian Film Festival where the first of its slate, “Lovers Go Home!” participates at the festival’s pix-in-post program, WIP LatAm. Directed by Juan Sebastián Mesa (“The Nobodies”), the drama follows the virtual relationship between a webcam model living in Medellín who develops an unlikely relationship with a U.S. war veteran. It stars Ángela Cano (“One Hundred Years of Solitude”) and Dave Dewar, and is a co-production involving El Sol Ermitaño and Rhayuela Films (Colombia), Potenza Producciones (Spain), Dublin Films (France) and Camera Oscura (Canada).
Seeing it receive increasingly significant recognition fills me with enormous pride,” said Durán, who joins Sebastián Mesa and producers Carlo D’Ursi and David Hurst at the drama’s WIP presentation. Our team has deep roots in Medellín, where I made my first feature film 27 years ago, and where we are shooting several productions this year. This is fundamental to our philosophy, as we define ourselves as an associative company, working from the local toward the global.
That is why we currently have co-production projects with France, Spain, Canada, Chile, Brazil, Argentina and Mexico, with sales potential and recognition projected worldwide,” he told Variety. The project has received support from Colombia’s FDC, Ibermedia, Spain’s ICAA, Nouvelle-Aquitaine in France, Telefilm Canada and SODEC in Canada. Its development trajectory has also included Carolina Foundation Screenwriting Workshop, the Chalet Mauriac residency and Cinéma en Développement at the Toulouse Film Festival.
On October 29, “The Awakening” (“El Despertar”), the posthumous film by Jaime Osorio Márquez, will be released theatrically in Colombia by Cinecolor following its screenings at the Guadalajara, Sitges and BIFF film festivals. Produced in association with RCN Estudios and co-produced by Rhayuela Films, the supernatural thriller stars Claudio Cataño (“One Hundred Years of Solitude”), Andrea Olaya, Alejandro Buitrago, Héctor Sánchez and Carlos Mariño. Its sales agent Latido Films has already reported multiple sales worldwide.
Also in post is “La Unión,” the debut feature of Catalan director Cordelia Alegre, which has recently wrapped. The project is a co-production with Rara Colectivo Audiovisual (Colombia), Dos Soles Media and WKND (Spain). El Sol Ermitaño’s slate includes fiction series and feature films in development with Ibero-American creators that include Matías Rojas-Valencia, Carlos Mariño, Rodrigo Triana, Jorg Hiller, Andrés Borda and OpenVizor, among others.
The 74th San Sebastian Film Festival runs Sept. 18-26.
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