Los Cabos: Luis Salinas Preps ‘Brooklyn,’ ‘The Waves,’ ‘Tribus’ at Mexico’s Machete
Machete Producciones burst onto the international scene from the get-go, producing Michael Rowe’s “Leap Year,” which won Cannes Camera d’Or, its first feature award, and Diego Quemada Diez’s “La Jaula de Oro,” which walked off with one of the big prizes at Cannes’ Un Certain Regard in 2013.
Now Machete Productions producer Luis Salinas is at it again, working with company partner Edher Campos, to develop three features: “Brooklyn Treehouse” and “Las olas “ (“The Waves”) and “Tribus.” Latter two titles, as “Leap Year” and “La Jaula,” are again first features.
“Brooklyn Treehouse” is a futuristic comedy thriller directed by Isabel Šuba (“Men Show Movies & Women Their Breasts”), which is set to be shot in U.S. with a U.S., Mexican and European cast, Salinas said. Penned by Swiss-born but Mexico-based screenwriter Alexander Albrecht, it turns on four young people who share an apartment with a French artist in New York. They join his eccentric movement which opposes individualism.
The feature debut of Lucero Sanchez Novaro whose half-hour short “Mauve” was a highlight at Mexico’s Morelia Fest last year, showing a ability to plumb the confusion and pain of a young girl whose best friend has just been killed in a road accident, “Waves” revolves around the emotional lives of three sisters spending the summer with their disenchanted marine biologist father in Baja California.
A legit director who won the New Director Award of Mexico’s Theater Journalists Assn. (APT), Del Rio will in “Tribus” deliver a big screen makeover of his own theater play about a deaf-and dumb youth whose life is transformed when he falls in love.
Working as an executive producer, Salinas is also developing a 13-episode TV series for Televisa’s SVOD service Blim. He will also serve as a line producer on Alejandro Springall’s next feature “Sonora.”
“As a producer, I like to develop projects side-by-side with the director, from a honest story, and not just to buy scripts and produce the somebody else’s ideas,” Salinas told Variety.
He added: “Working closely with a writer and building little by little a film’s crew through to a successful movie is the biggest prize for a producer.”
Founded in 2008, Machete Producciones’ movies are deeply grounded in Mexican issues and talent – a plus when it comes to international appeal and co-production.
At this week’s Los Cabos Fest, Machete will present with Yanick Létourneau at Canadian production house Peripheria Juan Andrés Arango García’s “X500,” which plays in the Mexico First sidebar Thursday, a film whose co-production was negotiated at Los Cabos.
Machete’s omnibus feature “La habitación” (“Tales of Mexico”) screens in Special Presentations.
The next upcoming Machete feature is a co-production with Poland, U.K. and France: Wiktoria Szymanska’s “13 Summers Underwater” which explores different forms of afterlife in a creative docu-fiction format. It is completing post-production.
Related stories
Los Cabos Winners 'Habitacion,' 'Carrion,' 'William' Head to Cannes
5th Los Cabos Expands TV Showcase Launches Financing Program (EXCLUSIVE)
Get more from Variety and Variety411: Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Newsletter
