The industry arm of the Santiago Film Festival showcases the next wave of filmmaking talent alongside seasoned storytellers with proven track records, led by Nicolas Acuña (‘Besieged’) and ‘The Red Hangar’ producers Brava Cine Sanfic Industria, the industry section of the Santiago International Film Festival (Sanfic), is turbocharged for an even stronger edition this year. Running concurrently with the festival, which runs Nov. 2 – 8, Sanfic Industria unspools Nov. 2-6 with Sanfic co-founder Gabriela Sandoval at the helm. Now on its 15th year, Sanfic Industria has several new additions to its programming, led by the participation of the Sitges’ Woman In Fan Lab initiative, a newly expanded Santiago-Guadalajara Queer Incubator backed by Netflix, the inaugural online Fantastic WIP, a selection of genre pix in post, and Books at Berlinale 2027 to mark Chile’s guest of honor involvement at the Frankfurt Book Fair next year.
Several prizes, in cash and kind, are at stake. Sanfic Industria has launched a call for application to Books at Berlinale. This is aimed at Chilean producers with literary adaptation projects in advanced development stage and a proven track record in international co-productions.
Two winners will be selected from eight projects. Their teams will participate in person on Nov. 6 in a day of business meetings and a pitch session in English. The winners will represent Chile at Books at Berlinale 2027, with accreditation fees, travel and accommodation covered.
According to Sandoval, they’re also reviewing six selected projects for its new online initiative, Fantastic Work in Progress, further bolstering Sanfic’s genre push, which began some seven years ago with Sanfic Mórbido LAB, led by Pablo Guisa. Inviting the participation of Sitges Film Festival’s female genre directors initiative Woman in Fan for the Southern Cone of Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay, was a no-brainer. It has a number of male directors, which is great, but there are also many impressive female genre filmmakers from the Southern Cone,” said Sandoval.
Its Santiago Lab for fiction and documentary projects has been luring more established directors to join the new voices since last year. From some 300+ applications, 16 fiction and 17 documentary projects were selected. A lot of the projects have genre elements, not necessarily fantasy or horror, since those have their own dedicated lab, but they do incorporate elements of the fantastic.
We’re also seeing quite a few thrillers, especially political thrillers, and science fiction is really starting to gain ground. At the same time, many projects explore social and political issues, such as forced displacement and how these can be brought to the screen. So, overall, there’s a really interesting mix of genres and themes.” Sanfic Industria will be honoring Fabula producer Juan de Díos Larraín (“The Count”) for his contributions to Ibero-American cinema at the opening ceremony, which opens with the AIDS drama starring Rami Malek, “The Man I Love” by Ira Sachs.
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