San Sebastian: Latido Films, Colombia’s 64-A Films Strike Sales Alliance (EXCLUSIVE)

SAN SEBASTIAN — Madrid-based Latido Films and Colombia’s 64-A Films have pacted for Latido to take world sales rights on two anticipated films from top Colombian director Carlos Moreno (“Dog Eat Dog,” “All Your Dead Ones”).

The move comes as Latido, one of the most prominent sales companies in the Spanish-speaking world, heads into San Sebastián with buzzed-up Toronto world premiere “Killing Jesus,” which plays in New Directors.

The partnership sees Latido taking world sales rights outside producer territories on Carlos Moreno’s “Lobos Perdidos” (Lost Wolves) and “Lavaperros” (Dogwashers), both produced by 64-A Films, one of Colombia’s top production companies headed by Diego Ramírez. Both are scheduled to shoot in 2018, extending and completing Moreno’s trilogy begun by “Perro Come Perro” (“Dog Eat Dog”).

A 2008 Sundance-selected movie produced by Ramirez, “Dog Eat Dog” brought down the flag on a new Colombian cinema which often explored the legacy of the country’s devastating civil conflict, as in Moreno’s follow-up “Todos Tus Muertos” (All Your Dead Ones) which also played Sundance.

Moreno has gone on to direct “Que Viva la Musica!”which was also seen at Sundance, TV series “Escobar el patrón del mal,” a massive hit in Colombia and international sales breakout, also produced for Ramírez, and “El Chapo” for Netflix.

In a deal announced at this year’s Cannes Festival, Latido already represents the 64-A Films-produced “Matar a Jesús” (Killing Jesus), the feature debut of Colombia’s Laura Mora, and a social thriller about a university student who, after her university lecturer father is gunned down before her eyes, hits Medellin’s downtown dives and no-go barrios to befriend and kill his sicario assassin.

Written by actor Harold De Vasten, co-star of both “Dog Eat Dog” and “All Your Dead Ones,” Moreno and Alonso Torres, “Lost Wolves” examples the genre gristle which ever more Latin American movies are taking on as they attempt to meld entertainment and social issues, a romantic thriller with touches of black comedy and echoes of a Western. It turns on two hit-men — a vet and a teen — dispatched to a humble, remote village who suffer a terrible car accident, are cared for by local villagers and discover human values — solidarity, compassion, even love — alien to them. But they still have a target — a human rights lawyer — to kill.

“The film explores what the older hit-man could have become and the younger can still be, if they hadn’t become hired assassins,” Ramirez said.

Written by Pilar Quintana and Antonio Garcia, and to shoot, like “Lost Wolves,” in and around Colombia’s Cali, “Dogwashers,” like “Lost Wolves” and “Dog Eat Dog,” are “film noir, ‘tropical thrillers,’ with lashings of black humor: about small-time delinquents, whose days are numbered, trapped in absurd situations narrated with the acid tone and provocation which Moreno has made his hallmark,” Latido Film and 64-A Films said in a statement.

Struck on behalf of Latido by the Colombia-born Juan Torres, the 64-A Films deal marks the first time Latido has boarded two movies from the same production house, and indeed director, so early in their making, Torres said. Early entry offers advantages, however, he argues.

“We try to board the project of filmmakers we like early on to tie them down. It’s also more gratifying to accompany them from their origins,” Torres said.

He added: “We loved the screenplays, are fans of Carlos Moreno, particularly ‘Dog Eat Dog,’ and are very comfortable working with 64-A Films having already worked together on ‘Killing Jesus.’ We also share Diego and Carlos’ fascination with Tarantino.”

“Lost Wolves” and “Dogwashers” could well be the first time too that a director, producer and sales agent, all born in Colombia’s Cali, join forces on the same film, Torres said, describing Cali as “a city where, curiously, Colombian cinema has really taken off.” It is now gaining more international industry heft.

Get more from Variety and Variety411: Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Newsletter