13-05-2025
Chile Launches New Perks, Asian Outreach as It Debuts Oscar-Winning Sebastián Lelio's ‘The Wave' at Cannes
Chile marks a standout year at Cannes with 'The Wave' from Oscar and Berlinale winner Sebastián Lelio ('A Fantastic Woman,' 'Gloria') playing in the Cannes Premiere sidebar and 'The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo' from Cannes Cinéfondation winner Diego Cespedes, world premiering at Un Certain Regard.
'The Wave' is a musical inspired by the 2018 feminist protests in Chile while 'Flamingo' is an LGBTQ-themed drama set in a mining town. They highlight the diversity of Chilean cinema—ranging from an Oscar-winning veteran to a debut feature director—as Chile moves forward with collaboration agreements in Asia and aims to attract international shoots through new tax incentives, leveraging its rich talent pool and diverse locations.
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Both films quickly secured sales agents ahead of their Cannes showings, with FilmNation Entertainment boarding 'The Wave' and Charades snagging Diego Céspedes' pic, which is lead produced by Chile's Quijote Films and Les Valseurs, France.
'La Ola's selection at Cannes is an immense joy. It's a film born in a country and region with no real tradition in musical cinema, which pushed us to invent our own way of working within the genre—blending spectacle with politics, trying to reflect the political cacophony we're living through, and using song, movement and dance to speak about urgent issues that affect us all,' said Lelio.
'Making this film was a major challenge for the Chilean film industry—a demanding co-creation effort from every angle, and one from which we learned immensely. I'm especially proud to introduce a whole new generation of over 100 young Chilean artists, making their debut here with incredible talent and passion,' he added.
Meanwhile, 'Flamingo' was shot in Chile's Atacama Desert, the driest nonpolar desert in the world, of which Quijote's Giancarlo Nasi remarked: 'We love shooting in the extreme locations of Chile, our last pic, 'The Settlers,' was filmed in the frigid Tiera de Fuego.'
'I feel that, both narratively and cinematically, stories set in remote, inhospitable places heighten every emotion and challenge. It's not the same to tell a story in a city as it is in an extreme location—everything is amplified. That's something deeply Chilean, something we at Quijote are drawn to: exploring realities that feel emotionally familiar, even if they're geographically distant,' he said.
'Atacama's heat can still be intense but my cast and crew were incredible, and we overcame every challenge together,' said Cespedes, adding: 'Cannes has been my school—I've shown both my short films there, joined the residence, and now I'm in Un Certain Regard. I'm deeply grateful for the chance to share my work.'
Quijote has been the first to tap Chile's revived tax incentives, with Rodrigo Susarte's 'Invunche' in post and Bruno Fatumbi's 'Colmeia,' a co-production with Brazil's Dezenove, in preproduction.
'Chile's High-Impact Audiovisual Investment Support Program (IFI Audiovisual) was suspended from 2019 until its reactivation in 2024,' noted producer Gabriela Sandoval, president of producers org, APCT.
The program was relaunched with new conditions, including a reimbursement of up to 30% of qualified expenses in Chile, and up to 40% for productions carried out entirely in regions outside the Metropolitan Region, she explained.
'Chile holds every landscape imaginable—one of the richest countries in the world in natural diversity,' said Nasi, who was among the delegations that visited China and India as part of Chile's drive to attract more Asian collaborations and location shoots in Chile.
APCT vice president and CinemaChile co-director Alexandra Galvis views the path that Chile is opening, particularly in India, as a major opportunity for its audiovisual industry, which has always relied on international co-productions. 'Recent awards from Asia show our cinema can build meaningful collaborations in the region. Our work with India has already been valuable, exposing us to new models and production scales. We're hopeful about what this could lead to in the medium term. It's also promising that our Ministry of Culture is supporting co-production agreements with India, China and Japan, laying the groundwork for long-term partnerships,' she said.
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