Film Yo y las Bestias sparked interest

Venezuelan Nico Manzano’s film competed in the Primer Corte (First Cut) category in the recent edition of Ventana Sur. It was their first time in this market, and the producers of Yo y las Bestias won three awards – sound mixing, color post-production and DCP (digital cinema package) – which will allow them to finish the film that has already sparked the interest of sales agents and programmers.

The film tells the story of a musician after splitting his alternative rock band. While he looks for inspiration, the crisis in Venezuela increases, and Las Bestias shows up, two masked and mysterious beings. A mix of drama, comedy and fantasy.

“We enter Ventana Sur with this film that we made independently with a lot of sacrifice. Then people who liked the film approached us and wanted to distribute it, sales agents, festival programmers. We were not so aware of the impact it could have,” says Manzano from CDMX. As a market, Ventana Sur made screenings of selected films for industry professionals in São Paulo, Madrid, Santiago de Chile, CDMX, as well as Buenos Aires.

It is the first film made by the production company Linterna Studio, founded in 2008 in Caracas by Manzano, Ricardo Espinoza and Alan Ohep. They are currently based in Spain and Mexico. The company started making video clips and stop motion animations, but they were interested in making movies and after the successful experience with Yo y las bestias, they are working on a couple of script ideas to shoot in 2022.