Sanfic-Morbido Lab Launches Southern Cone WomanInFan Alliance

Chile's Santiago Film Festival (Sanfic), scheduled to run from November 2 to November 6, is celebrating the seventh iteration of its genre-focused Sanfic-Morbido Lab. This year's event marks a significant expansion with the launch of the WomanInFan Southern Cone alliance. This new initiative is a collaborative effort with the renowned Sitges Film Festival, a leading international festival for fantastic cinema, and introduces a new "pix-in-post" section named Fantastic WIP. The Sanfic-Morbido Lab, initially conceived as an ambitious experiment seven years ago, has established itself as a crucial platform for emerging talent in the genre film space.

The WomanInFan Southern Cone alliance aims to provide dedicated support and visibility for female filmmakers working within the genre cinema landscape across the Southern Cone region of South America. This partnership with the Sitges Film Festival, which has a long-standing commitment to showcasing diverse voices in fantastic film, is expected to leverage Sitges' international network and expertise. The alliance will focus on fostering opportunities for development, production, and distribution for women in the genre film industry, addressing a notable underrepresentation in the field. The inclusion of Fantastic WIP as a "pix-in-post" section signifies a commitment to supporting projects in their final stages of production, offering them a pathway to completion and exhibition.

Sanfic, the host festival, is a prominent cultural event in Chile, dedicated to showcasing a wide range of cinematic works and fostering dialogue within the film community. The Sanfic-Morbido Lab, as its genre-specific arm, has been instrumental in nurturing projects that explore horror, science fiction, fantasy, and other speculative fiction genres. The "Morbido" aspect of the lab's name is derived from the Mexican genre film festival Mórbido Fest, indicating a strong connection to the broader Latin American genre film circuit. The expansion into a Southern Cone alliance underscores a strategic effort to create a more robust and interconnected ecosystem for genre filmmaking in the region, with a particular emphasis on empowering female creators.

The launch of the WomanInFan Southern Cone alliance and the Fantastic WIP section at the seventh Sanfic-Morbido Lab represents a significant step forward in promoting gender equality and supporting emerging talent within the international genre film community. By forging strong partnerships with established institutions like the Sitges Film Festival, Sanfic is amplifying its impact and creating new avenues for success for filmmakers. The initiative is poised to become a vital resource for women in the Southern Cone looking to break into and thrive in the competitive world of genre cinema, offering crucial development and networking opportunities.