Lima Festival: FiGa Films Nabs Lukas Valenta’s Nudist Drama ‘A Decent Woman’ (EXCLUSIVE)
FiGa Films, one of the most energetic of Latin American art-film sales companies, has picked up international rights to “Los decentes” (“A Decent Woman”), Argentina-based director Lukas Valenta Rinner’s follow-up to his award-winning debut, sci-fi feature “Parabellum.”
An Argentina-Korea-Austria co-production, teaming Buenos Aires and Salzburg-founded prodco Nabis Film Group with South Korea’s Jeonjou Cinema Project, “A Decent Woman” follows a housemaid working at an exclusive gated community on the outskirts of Buenos Aires that embarks on a journey of sexual and mental liberation in a nudist swingers-club, beside the high security fence.
The film world premieres Friday, Aug. 13 at the Sarajevo Film Festival and looks set for a major fall festival.
“We’ve known Lukas for several years and have admired his ambition and talent as a producer-director. He brings something very fresh to Argentine film industry, being an Austrian residing in Buenos Aires,” FiGa co-founder Sandro Fiorin told Variety.
“We are thrilled to be able to represent such an unusual film. We are confident it will do extremely well festival-wise,” added Fiorin, talking from the Lima Film Festival.
Fiorin and late partner Alex Garcia launched FiGa in 2006. Aimed to nourish emerging Latin American talent, the company rapidly surpassed the role of a simple sales agent, also offering production consultancy services, helping filmmakers to find production partners, and advising through the post-production process while securing vital festival slots.
Recent films in FiGa’s catalogue also include “Where I Grow Old,” a Brazil-Portugal co-production backed by both the Tribeca Film Institute and the Berlinale’s World Cinema Fund, which marks the first fiction feature of Brazilian Marilia Rocha.
Turning on the halting bonding between two Portuguese women looking for a new life in Brazil, “Old” has just been selected by September’s San Sebastian Film Festival to play in its newly competitive Zabaltegi Tabakalera sidebar, where the Spanish festival is billing it as one of the highlights of the section.
A San Sebastian’s 2013 Films in Progress player – then with the working title of “Sobrevivientes” – Venezuelan Rober Calzadilla’s “El Amparo” represents one of FiGa’s strongest bets for the second half of the year.
The film is inspired by a true-event, Venezuela’s 1988 El Amparo Massacre, when soldiers and special force police killed 14 fishermen, alleging that they were guerrilla operatives.
Further standout titles handled by FiGa include Brazilian Eryk Rocha’s “Cinema Novo,” a film essay that investigates the eponymous Brazilian film movement one of whose leading lights was his father Glauber Rocha. “Cinema Novo” won the L’Oeil D’Or for best documentary at Cannes this year.
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