'Perez,' 'Martes,' 'Amapolas play Primer Corte

MADRID -- Alvaro Viguera's "Perez," Gustavo Trevino's "De martes a martes" and Juan Carlos Melo's "Field of Amapolas" unspool at Primer Corte, a films in first cut showcase at December's Ventana Sur. From 4-year-old Buenos Aires shingle Carrousel Films, which produced Natalia Smirnoff's Berlin 2010 Competition player and sales hit "Puzzle," "Martes," an ethical drama, turns on a lumbering factory worker who witnesses a rape. The most socially-charged of Primer Corte pics, "Amapolas" is also the first feature to shoot in the Colombian region of helmer Melo's Narino, the high plains near the Ecuatorian border. Maja Zimmermann, whose "Porfirio" played Cannes' Directors' Fortnight, produces with Chirimoya Films' Alexandra Yepes. Presented in a 15-minute cut at Locarno's Carte Blanche this August, "Amapolas" turns on a boy and a girl who romp in Colombia's beautiful countryside with puppy Rufino. The question "Amapolas" poses is how long that can last. The boy's already been displaced from his home village by paramilitaries. His father now toils for a drug baron; his uncle plans to use him for a scam. "Amapolas" is not a film about war," said Melo. "The war is only a stage on which life, dreams and hopes can and will continue." But if there is a dominant issue in Corte pics this year, it's of younger generations of Latin Americans whose parents have failed them, and -- the grand theme of Latin American cinema -- the insidious impact of macro events on innocent lives. Co-produced by Gregorio Gonzalez at Chile's Forastero, whose credits include Golden Globe-nominated "The Maid," "Perez" turns, for instance, on a father's strained re-encounter with the 22-year-old daughter he's ignored. Actress Elisa Zulueta penned "Perez," adapting her own stage play. Helmed by Juan Sebastian Jacome, "Ruta de la luna" has an albino son travelling from Costa Rica to Panama for a bowling tourney, accompanied by his estranged father. "An Invisible Collection," from France-born but Brazil-based Bernard Attal, transfers Stefan Zweig's 1926 short story, a moving account of the effects of Germany's depression, to the south of Bahia, among ruined cocoa plantations. In Uruguayan Guillermo Rocamora's "Solo," an Armed Forces trumpeter is abandoned by his wife, then flies to the Antarctic, a trip which will change his life for ever. Co-financed by the Hubert Bals, Ibermedia and Icau funds, "Solo," at $1 million, is the biggest-budgeted of Corte pics. Screened at first cut, Corte titles vie for a Haciendo Cine award, ensuring post-prod services through to a 35mm print, and a new award, Copia 0. As part of Copia 0, U.S. exhibitor Cinemark will open the winning title in Argentina, Chile and Peru. "Latin American cinema has difficulties with exhibition all over the region. We have to find answers," said Liliana Mazure, prexy of Argentina's Incaa Film Institute. Organized by Incaa and Cannes' Marche du Film, Ventana Sur runs Dec. 2-5. Contact the Variety newsroom at news@variety.com