Berlinale: Kino Bureau Sells Argentine Nine-Pack to Mubi
BERLIN — Alejandro Fernández Mouján’s “Damiana Kryygi” and Laura Citarella and Verónica Llinás’ “Dog Lady” are some of the nine independent Argentinean films sold to streaming site Mubi by Juan Facchini and Rita Falcón’s Kino Bureau, a Buenos Aires-based sales company.
“Kryygi” is a documentary on an Aché girl, from eastern Paraguay, which won best documentary at the 2016 Biarritz Latin America Film Festival.
Competing at the 2015 Rotterdam fest, Laura Citarella and Verónica Llinás’ observational arthouse portrait “Dog Lady” turns on a mysterious woman living with ten dogs in a Buenos Aires suburb.
“There is a growing interest in Latin American cinema among international audiences, as well as in films produced outside of the U.S.,” Falcón stated.
Other films licensed are “About 12,” the directorial debut of actor Martin Shanly; a pubescent dramedy about a posh school misfit, “Kryygy” is co-produced by Gema Films and Oceano Films; and “About” FROM 2MCine and Nabis Filmgroup.
The rest of features are all produced by Argentinean collective El Pampero Cine.
“This deal will allow our programmers to curate some of the best contemporary Latin American films at a global scale,” Mubi’s director of acquisitions Quentin Carbonell told Variety.
Editor-director Alejo Moguillansky directs three titles: “The Golden Bug,” co-directed by Fia-Stina Sandlund, following an Argentine-Swedish co-production in Buenos Aires shooting a biopic of the 19th-century realist author and proto-feminist Victoria Benedictsson; “Castro” which won best Argentine film at 2009’s Bafici; and “The Parrot and The Swan,” a dance, fiction and documentary mix.
Other features are Laura Citarella mystery comedy’ “Ostende,” Mariano Llinás mystery drama “Extraordinary Stories” and –also directed by Llinás– the documentary “Balnearios.”
“Unlike classic channels, which look for cast-driven films or recognized brands, these new platforms demand a wide range of genres and styles, relying especially on good stories.” said said Facchini.
With Mubi, which focuses on arthouse, the audience is looking for new contents, different to what is available on traditional channels,”
Founded 11 years ago in Silicon Valley by Efe Cakarel, the VOD platform, which is rather like an onlinene cinematheque, is present in more than 200 countries.
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