The oldest film festival in the world, Venice Film Festival, has just launched its 73th edition. As the only film in the festival’s prestigious main competition with a Danish influence, Amat Escalantes film "La Región Salvaje" is among the selected competitors.
Last year Copenhagen Film Fund invested 100.700 euro in the talented Mexican director's film and we’re now very proud to see it competing for the Golden Lion in Venice.
"La Region Salvaje" mixes realism and fantasy and makes great use of visual effects. The Fund’s investment secured Danish creative labour in the film, why it’s visual and digital effects were created by Peter Hjort (Lars von Trier's VFX supervisor) and developed by the Danish VFX companies The Gentleman Broncos and Ghost VFX. In addition, part of the main team behind the camera are also from Denmark.
The fund has great confidence in the film and wishes the team behind congratulations and the best of luck in the competition.
It is second time the Fund has had the pleasure of attending Venice Film Festival. Last year it was the US blockbuster "The Danish Girl", which the Fund has invested six million in, that were selected for the main competition. We hope it is a pattern that will repeat itself in the future.
Danes in central positions
"La Region Salvaje” is financed as a Mexican-Danish-French-Norwegian-German co-production with Katrin Pors from Snowglobe and Katja Adomeit from Adomeit Film as Danish co-producers. In addition, a number of other key positions in production are also held by Danes - including Manuel Alberto Claro as photographer, Jacob Schulsinger as editor, Peter Hjort as visual effects supervisor, while Ghost VFX and The Gentlemen Broncos have been responsible for the film's visual effects.
In 2013 Amat Escalante won for best director at Cannes Film Festival's main competition for his previous film "Heli".
Setting
"La Region Salvaje" is set in a small village in the Mexican lowlands, where a young couple struggles to hold together their relationship. When a mysterious woman turns up, their reality changed forever.
In addition to Copenhagen Film Fund’s investment the film has acquired Danish funding from the Danish Film Institute.
Read more about "La Region Salvaje" here.
