‘Beloved Tropic,’ Led by ‘Gloria’ Star Paulina Garcia, Opens IFF Panama

The Panama Int’l Film Festival (IFF Panama) presented a brief opening ceremony April 4, where IFF Panama board president Pituka Ortega-Heilbron heralded the return of documentary filmmaker Ana Endara to the festival with her fiction feature debut “Beloved Tropic.” (“Querido trópico”).

Said Endara: “’Beloved Tropic’ ‘has been traveling, but no screening will ever be as special as this one, because it’s a homecoming, and home means Panama, and home means the Panama International Film Festival.”

“It’s also special because I’m here with two incredible women who are my creative core, [producer] Isabela Gálvez and [co-writer] Pilar Moreno. And especially because the actresses I had the honor of working with are here, and because so many people contributed to making this film. Making a film takes a lot of people, and that’s what I love most—collaboration. In this room, there are so many people who helped bring this film to life,” she added.

Joining Endara on stage were her lead actresses, Chile’s Paulina García (“Gloria”) who plays a wealthy woman suffering from early onset dementia and Jenny Navarrete, who plays her caregiver, as well as their supporting cast Juliette Roy, Syddia Ospina and Marisol Salazar.

Festival director Karla Quintero pointed out that accreditation numbers were up. “It’s wonderful to know that the festival is slowly but surely getting back to the numbers we had before the pandemic. I just want to tell you that this edition has been created with a lot of love, as always. We’re a small team, but we love what we do. Every detail – I think you’ve noticed – has been carefully thought out. Nothing is accidental, nothing is improvised. This year, we worked with much more time on the design and curation of all the festival activities,” she said.

The festival opening was preceded by an intense “industry day” on April 3, packed with master classes, talks and panels, and a six-day workshop for directors, Tres Puertos, led by Australab founder-director Erick Gonzalez, a first for Panama.

Participants in the workshop included Enrique Castro (“December”) and his documentary “Just ‘Cuz” and Kattia Gonzalez (“Las Niñas”) with her project “Hermosa no es como antes” and Ana Elena Tejera, winner of last year’s IFF Panama Su Mirada award, with her docu-fiction hybrid “Una mas de esos hombres.”

“This new crop shows filmmakers who are finding their own voices, with works that are more radical, more personal,” Gonzalez observed.

Also a first for IFF Panama is a six-day producers workshop, which kicked off April 4 with award-winning Colombian producer Diana Bustamante (“Memory,” “Land and Shade”) also mentoring.