M-Appeal likes 'Verano'

MADRID -- Within the run-as much as next week's Venice Film Festival, Berlin-based M-Appeal has nabbed worldwide privileges to Chilean helmer Jose Luis Torres Leiva's "Verano." Torres Leiva's second fiction-feature world preems in Venice's cutting-edge Horizons sidebar. The result is his 2008 debut "Heaven, our planet and also the Rain," which won the Fipresci worldwide critics' prize at Rotterdam film fest. Compiled by Torres Leiva, and shot at Chile's Cauquenes thermal baths, "Verano" is really a choral drama unfolding more than one day, and focusing on two parallel tales: A few wish to have a young child meanwhile, an Argentine tourist -- performed by singer Rosario Blefari, observed in Martin Rejtman's "Silva Prieto" -- finds out she's pregnant. Torres Leiva tried to capture the nice and cozy grainy home-movie tonality of his reminiscences of childhood holidays put in Cauquenes together with his grandma and grandpa. He and cinematographer Inti Briones, who had been accountable for "Sky's" painterly images, shot in Handycam H18, then re-shot digital images forecasted against different skills. The vidcam lensing permitted for a lot greater improvisation with stars compared to "Sky," based on Torres Leiva, who states "Verano" is all about "landscapes of figures." A "sunny, contemplative" picture, stated M-Appeal sales director Anne Wiedlack, "Verano" may be the second Chilean pick-up from M-Appeal, after Julio Jorquera's "My Last Round." For Wiedlack, "During the last years, there is almost a boom in new Chilean films from the fresh, new generation that's not scared to experiment. There's still lots of talent to become discovered." Verano" is professional created by Chilean director Alicia Scherson ("Play" "Vacationers"), who's shooting "The Near FutureInch with Rutger Hauer. Contact the range newsroom at news@variety.com