Women in Fan LatAm Program Launches at Costa Rica Media Market

Women in Fan LatAm, a program to promote women filmmakers working in fantastic cinema across Latin America, launches at the Costa Rica Media Market on July 14-15. Variety reported that the initiative was created by the partners behind the first edition of Fantastic Lab Central America & Caribbean.

Those partners are the Fantastic Pavilion at the Marché du Film, the Costa Rica Media Market, and Grupo Mórbido.

The program serves as the Latin American extension of WomanInFan, which was started by the Sitges Fantastic Film Festival. It broadens the scope beyond Central America and the Caribbean to include women creators from across Latin America and Hispanic communities in the Americas.

“Latin American women filmmakers bring a perspective that exists nowhere else in the world — our cosmovision, our myths, our creatures, our Holy Virgins, our local curanderas, parteras and brujas, the syncretism between indigenous cultures and Catholicism, our colonial past, our present as developing nations,” said Pablo Guisa Koestinger, executive director of the Fantastic Pavilion and CEO of Morbido Group.

Mónica García Massagué, director general of the Sitges Film Festival, said WomanInFan began with the view that fantastic cinema strengthens through equality and diverse voices, and that Women in Fan LatAm builds a permanent bridge to the international genre industry.

Marysela Zamora, Costa Rica Film Commissioner and director of the Costa Rica Media Market, said the initiative reflects a commitment to creating opportunities inside the region so creators do not have to leave Latin America for connections and recognition.