IFF Panama opens with Panama’s ‘beloved Tropic’
The Panama Int’l Film Festival (IFF Panama) presented a short opening ceremony on April 4, where IFF Panama chairman Pituka Orega Heilbron designated the return of documentary maker Ana Endara to the festival with her fiction function debut ‘beloved Tropic’. (“Querido Trópico”).
Said Endara: “” Beloved Tropic ‘has traveled, but no screening will ever be as special as this one, because it is a return home, and at home Panama means, and at home the Panama International Film Festival means.”
“It is also special because I am here with two incredible women who are my creative core, [producer] Isabela Gálvez and [co-writer] Pilar Moreno. And especially because the actresses with whom I had the honor to work with are here, and because so many people have contributed to making this film. Making a movie costs a lot of people, and that’s what I love the most – collaboration. In this room there are so many people who helped bring this film to life, “she added.
Participants in Endara on stage were her main actresses, Chile’s Paulina García (“Gloria”) who plays a rich woman who suffers from early dementia and Jenny Navarrete, who plays her caregiver, as well as their supporting cast Juliette Roy, Syddia Oepina and Marisol Salazar.
Festival director Karla Quintero pointed out that the accreditation numbers were up. “It’s great to know that the festival is slowly but surely coming back to the numbers we had before the pandemic. I just want to tell you that this edition was made with a lot of love, as always. We are a small team, but we love what we do. Every detail – I think you have been carefully thought.
The festival opening was preceded by an intense “industrial day” on 3 April, full of master classes, conversations and panels, and a six-day workshop for directors, Tres Puertos, led by Australab founder Erick Gonzalez, a scoop for Panama.
Participants in the workshop were Enrique Castro (“December”) and his documentary “Just” Cuz “and Kattia Gonzalez (” Las Niñas “) with her project” Hermosa No Es Como Antes “and Ana Elena Tejera, winner of the Iiff Panama Su Mirada award, with her Docada Award, Hombres. ”
“This new crop shows filmmakers who find their own voices, with works that are more radical, more personal,” Gonzalez noted.
A first for IFF Panama is also a workshop by the six -day producers, who started on 4 April with the award -winning Colombian producer Diana Bustamante (“Memory”, “Land and Shade”) also guidance.
