Chile’s Quijote Films, behind Un Certain Regard winner “The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo” and Madre Content – co-run by much-courted emerging filmmaker Francisca Alegría, director of Sundance title “The Cow Who Sang a Song Into the Future” and FilmNation/Prime Video’s upcoming series “The House of the Spirits” –  will be joining forces on Alegría’s sophomore pic “Nacimiento” (“Nativity”). 

The writer-director and Quijote Films producer Giancarlo Nasi will pitch the project for the first time to international co-producers and financiers June 10 at the ECAM Forum Co-Production Market in Madrid.
Quijote Films will serve as lead producer, with Madre Content due to formally enter the project, which is in early development, at a later stage. “We will see what gaps in the financing we can fill with Madre,” said Alegría who set up her production shingle in 2023 with partners Fernanda Urrejola, Gabriela Rosés and Cristóbal Güell.

Based on Alegría’s original script, “Nativity” is a tale of transformation and redemption of a violent man, told through the prism of magical realism. 

After disappearing during a dive at sea, Cristián, a Chilean fisherman trapped in his own violence and guilt, returns months later to his village, physically and spiritually changed, runs the synopsis. Suspected of not being himself and haunted by visions and secrets from the past, he begins a surreal journey towards redemption with Marisol, a woman marked by her own trauma. In this world where the boundaries between the human and the mythical are blurred, both must face their deepest scars to be reborn or lost forever.

Alegría said the inspiration for the story came to her in 2014, when she visited a small fishing town in Chile and met a fisherman on the beach. “I thought he would be the typical macho guy as he comes from a part of my country that is not very progressive, but then it turned out that he was a very sensitive and tender man,” recalled the filmmaker. “This guy was always on my mind, then one day a first image came to me, the one of a fisherman taking seaweed from the depth of the ocean when a metaphysical energy suddenly strikes and gives him a second chance in life. That image was both frightening and beautiful. From there I started writing the story,” she said.

Truthful to Latin America’s famed literary tradition of magical realism, made famous by Gabriel García Márquez and embodied in Chile by Isabel Allende’s “The House of the Spirits,” Alegria said she will use the genre to denounce violence against women, a storytelling device applied earlier in her Sundance selected debut “The Cows Who Sang a Song Into the Future” to highlight climate change.

“I’m one of many women who has experienced an abusive relationship with a man,” Alegría confessed. “I was ready to take up the subject, not via a realistic approach but a subtly allegorical one. Violence against women has always existed and the more you read about it the more you realise how many women are in that situation. Some are in worse places than others, and although we have made progress and are now living in a more loving place, it’s shocking to see how feminicide figures keep creeping up,” she said.  

Picking up on the subject, Nasi said it’s critical to keep the topic of violence against women, LGBTQ rights in the headlines. “We need to keep on with the fight.”

Co-Producing to Exist

Nasi,Quijote’s L.A.-based CEO said he is looking forward to attending ECAM Forum to initiate discussions with like-minded partners. “Co-production is our speciality,” said the seasoned professional who staged Diego Céspedes’ “The Mysterious Gaze of a Flamingo” as a five-country co-production and formed part of 2023 Cannes hit “The Settlers” as an eight-country endeavor.

“As a kid, I used to look at the map of Chile and think what the fuck is that very long and narrow country! We are stuck between a huge ocean and gigantic mountains, we are isolated, which has been a source for melancholy, poetry and our wealth of talent is vast. But to exist as an industry, we just need to connect to the world and at Quijote Films, we produce for the world,” said Nasi who also praised the Chilean cash incentives that offer foreign producers up to 40% rebates.

Nasi who served as a minority co-producer on the Brazilian Berlin Silver Bear winning pic “The Blue Trail,” has projects with Peru and South Africa on his desk: “‘the further away and the weirdest co-productions the more fun I have.”’ He will also reunite with the multi-awarded Theo Court (“White on White”) on his next project “Three Dark Nights”, and María Paz González (“Lina from Lima”) on “To Die on Your Feet.”
As for Alegría, she will attend ECAM Forum also as a co-producer for Madre Content on Nadine Luque’s work in progress “A Decorous Woman,” produced by Parina Films.