Ventana Sur Rio de la Plata 2025: Buzz Titles, Microdramas, Genre

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Back to Buenos Aires after a 2024 edition in Uruguay, Ventana Sur Rio de la Plata 2025 looks set to command the biggest industry attendance of any film-TV market in Latin America, with accreditations standing at a bullish 2,4o0 and counting on Thursday. The final delegate head count could be near to 3,000.

“At this stage, registrations are excellent, slightly ahead of last year, which is a very positive sign with several hundred accredited participants coming from across Latin America and key international markets players and decision makers. Ventana Sur is definitely a central meeting point for business and project circulation in Latin America,” says the Cannes Marché du Film’s Guillaume Esmiol, Ventana Sur co-director. 

“The decision to alternate between Uruguay and Argentina has generated renewed interest and widened the market’s influence across the Río de la Plata region,” he adds.

Delegates will find a new venue: central Buenos Aires’ Palacio Libertad, an imposing neo-classical white marble mole where Eva Perón once ran her Foundation. “It’s an emblematic space with better facilities for screenings, pitches and professional meetings,” says Esmiol.

Launched in 2009 by Cannes Festival-Marché du Film and Argentina’s INCAA state film-TV agency, joined from last year by Uruguay’s ACAU agency, Ventana Sur was first buoyed by bullishly building national cinemas across Latin America. Then it caught another tailwind a decade later by soaring peak TV. Now it’s another story. 

“These days, films cost double compared to before the pandemic and half the number of people go to theaters and streaming services pay less,” says Ventana Sur executive director Ralph Haiek.

All the more reason for Ventana Sur. “This challenge perfectly illustrates why markets like Ventana Sur are so essential. It remains a traditional market supporting international sales for theatrical releases (but also serving streamers),” notes Esmiol. 

Unspooling over Dec. 1-5, the major narrative of Ventana Sur looks set to be how companies are navigating this headwind, as well as dramatic and often exciting high-tech turbulence. 

10 takes on the 2025 Ventana Sur Río de la Plata: 

The Pivot

Once, Ventana Sur’s crowning achievement was to have a film chosen for a major festival, sparking multiple territory deals if it played well at the event. 

That can still happen, especially if a title is selected for Cannes. Oliver Laxe’s “Sirât,” a Cannes competition winner and one of this year’s most challenging and exciting movies, not only sparked rave reviews but sold pretty much worldwide. At Berlin, “Deaf” (“Sorda”), a first feature about challenged hearing impaired maternity, drew great reviews, won the Panorama Audience Award and proved one of Latido’s biggest 2025 sales drivers. Some sales agents’ exquisitely curated slates – Spain’s Bendita Film Sales lineup for instance – can still make a business out of acquiring true-arrow art films. But the stars have to align and such films are breakouts. Ever more,  sales agents are selling across a broad gamut of titles including genre fair, thrillers, animation and even comedies. That reality will be seen at Ventana Sur, as directors themselves essay genre mixes. Screenings or sneak peaks take in Catalan Fernando Trullols’ “Balandrau,” a real-facts-based snowstorm survival tragedy; Uruguayan Lucia Garibaldi’s Tribeca winner “A Bright Future” a touching sci-fi retro futuristic put-down of soul-destroying capitalism, and Argentine Santiago Esteves’ “The Reborn,” a propulsive action thriller take on how crime threatens bedrock family bonds.  

Rolling Out Abroad a Company Base

Another reaction, which will be seen at Ventana Sur. A decade ago, government support for film industries was pretty much assured in any major territory in Europe and Latin America. Asia worked much more like the U.S. Now, state support is much more volatile. So companies are spreading the risk, establishing beach-heads in other countries with easier access to soft moneys, whether tax incentives for shoots or straight subsidies, or both such as in Spain. Over the last year or so, Argentina’s Rei Pictures, Chile’s Clara Films and Peru’s Tondero have set up shot in Spain. Expect more to be announced at Ventana Sur or soon afterwards. 

Genre, a Ventana Sur Market Driver  

Genre looks set to make a significant part of Ventana Sur’s market going. Some potential sales drivers: Gustavo Hernández’s Mórbido Fest winner “The Whisper,” a polished genre blender already sold to getting on to half the world off the AFM. Likewise “The Awakening,” also from Latido, a deep-jungle, mystical last film of the late Jaime Osorio (“The Squad”) from Rhayuela Films, is closing key markets. At Ventana Sur, there is large expectation around Lucila Las Heras’ long-awaited debut “El Muglur” and “The Braid,” from rated helmer Gonzalo Calzada (“Nocturna”), both in VS – Fantastic! Screenings. Fantastic! Lab frames new projects from “She Wolf” director Tamae Garateguy (“Match”), “Piacere,” co-directed by producer Ignacio Cucucovich, “Alijuna” from Gisberg Bermúdez at Anaga Media, whose partners include Elizabeth Avellán, and “The Escape” from Paul Urkijo whose folk-horror “The Night” was a major draw at October’s Sitges Festival.    

Buzz Titles 

There’s good word on “The Devil’s Well,” not genre but a water-shortage exposé, and also on climate change impact drama “Braided,” from Puerto Rico, and gender abuse tale “Low Lights,” all in Primer Corte/Copia Final which also frames the latest from Colombia’s Juan Carlos Arango, Dominican Natalia Cabral and Mexico’s Kenya Márquez. Ana Elena Tejera’s “Culebra Cut,” Theo Montoya’s “False Positive” and Roxana Stroe’s “Houses Are Silent” are potential standouts at project platform Proyecta, backed by the Marché and the San Sebastián Festival; Brazil’s “The March of the Sunflowers,” Chile’s “Anita Froggy” and Colombia’s “Noa” are likewise arresting projects at Ventana Sur Animation! The lineup for the dazzling high-tech Ibermedia Next 2.0 includes Sofía Carrillo’s stop motion “Insectario: Despertar,” potentially one of  the most exciting animation projects from anywhere in 2026. 

The Good and Great in Market Terms at Ventana Sur

“Ventana Sur” is a market, not a festival,” says Haeik. Its speakers in an intense conference strand will feature producers who have seen large market success. In VS Tech, Letitia Cristi and Matías Mosteirín at Argentina’s K&S Films will drill down on pioneering virtual VFX work on Netflix hit “The Eternaut”; Globalgate Ent. co-founder Paul Pressburger talks about financing Hispanic films in an age of reduced content budgets at  major streamers, a highly relevant issue; Maria Luisa Gutiérrez drills down on the “Bowfinger Method” behind not only the movies of Santiago Segura but also the 2024 mother of Spanish breakouts, ETA infiltrator edge-of-the-seat tale “Undercover.” 

The Low-Down on High-Tech

Once, high-tech was for geeks. Now, for film and TV, it’s everybody’s business. Whether YouTube, in production VFX, Led walls, AI or Unreal Engine, new tech is game changing the industry, Mipcom underscored. In it biggest innovation, and in timely fashion, Ventana Sur will launch VS Tech, whose panels will discuss Argentine virtual production, the use of AI, and in one highlight, on Dec. 3, Humans + IA: In Action, 10 short films, some VR, made with AI by studios and filmmakers across Latin America. “What’s most exciting about Ventana Sur this year is the number 0f innovative contents from all over the region,” said Gisella Previtali, head of Acau, the Uruguayan film-TV agency.

Plus Ça Change….

All Proyecta, Primer Corte and Copia Final projects and work-in-progress will benefit from expanded one-to-one professional matchmaking: personalized schedules with targeted decision-makers, an approach introduced last year that has proved extremely effective, says Esmiol. The film library will be powered by Cinando, allowing for additional online visibility. “What stays the same,” however, Esmiol adds, “is the core DNA of Ventana Sur: a curated selection of projects and work-in-progress with strong artistic identity and international commercial potential such as Proyecta, Primer Corte and Copia Final.”

Spanish Screenings on Tour

At Ventana Sur in 2022, Rome’s MIA in 2023 and last year’s AFM, the Spanish Screening on Tour, an international platform organized this year by the Malaga Festival returns to Argentina for an intense near all-day event in Buenos Aires. Events weigh in as a succinct exposition in its panel subjects of many of the drivers these days of international business: New talent (next gen creators at Málaga Hack), theatrical success (María Luisa Gutiérrez), sales (Spain’s top sales agents sneak peeking clips of very recent and upcoming titles for 2026), co-production (a mano a mano between Gutierrez and Agustín Bossi at Buenos Aires’ Pampa Films, which has co-produced 2025’s top grossing local pics in Argentina (“Homo sapiens?”) and Mexico (“Mesa de Regalos”). Two presentations on IP protection (Francisco Menéndez) and development (Sydney Borjas) precede the traditional unveil at Ventana Sur of Málaga’s MAFF projects lineup. 

The Real Drama About Microdramas

What do Colombinas watch most, linear TV, powered by telenovelas, or global streaming services, led by Netflix? The answer, Spanish analyst Geca announced at October’s Iberseries & Platino Industria, is neither. In viewing figures, both have been overtaken by microdramas. A Dec. 2 workshop will deliver a grounding in vertical formats. How can smaller companies cash in, however? “The challenge is the global competition. It’s not enough to create an App, you need to invest heavily in technology and acquisition and retention of users,” says Haeik. A Dec. 3 panel will feature trad production houses discussing their production strategies with microdramas.

Uruguay 

“A Bright Future,” from Lucía Garibaldi (“The Sharks”), won at Tribeca . Another Uruguayan, Daniel Hendler, opened San Sebastián with . Meanwhile, Cimarrón, Uruguay’s industry leader, has set up shop in Colombia. Though one of Latin America’s smallest nations, Uruguay will pack one of the biggest delegations at Ventana Sur, from any country in Latin America , made up of about 80 participants. That’s up on 2023, the last time Ventana Sur was in Buenos Aires, reflecting “how Uruguay has an active, growing presence in principal international markets,” says Gisella Previtali, head of ACAU, which also co-hosted Ventana Sur in Montevideo last year. “The experience strengthened professional networking, opened up new opportunities and enriched creative interchange,” she adds. Uruguay’s rise has two drivers: its international shoot scene and local subsidies which allowed Uruguay to make more films (29) last year than Chile (24).