In this section, Latin America takes centre stage, as the Americana Competition enters into dialogue with the Carte Blanche dedicated to Argentina’s BAFICI festival. Across a wide range of countries and perspectives, these films reveal the richness and diversity of cinematic voices emerging from the continent. With a discreet camera and a sensitive gaze, Niña Chilapa immerses us in the daily life of a young Colombian woman who becomes a mother far too soon, capturing with tenderness a fragile intimacy. Straddling the line between ethnographic documentary and experimental essay, A donde nos lleva la fe, directed by José Gerónimo, explores the singular coexistence of religions and beliefs in the agricultural heartlands of the Dominican Republic. Fiction takes on a darker tone in Mamita Lidia, which follows a Chilean healer endowed with a divine gift for breaking curses. The fierce energy of Galilea transports us to a juvenile detention centre in Mexico, where sisterhood becomes a matter of survival. In Compraventa, the laws of the streets in Buenos Aires dictate the pace and choices of two young men caught in the turbulence of urban life. Meanwhile, in Boulevard Arrudas, the residents of Belo Horizonte confront the worst flood in the city’s history, a crisis so devastating that any form of escape, however fleeting, becomes a necessity. Between social realities, faith, struggle, and solidarity, these films portray a Latin America shaped by contradictory forces, a place where filmmakers continually reinvent themselves through the stories they choose to tell.

* Screened in a double feature with Carte Blanche: BAFICI