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PRODUCTION / FUNDING France / Germany / Chile / USA

Cinéma Defacto wagers on The Cow Who Sang A Song Into The Future

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- The French firm steered production on Francisca Alegría’s movie, which will compete in the Sundance Film Festival’s World Cinema Dramatic section

Cinéma Defacto wagers on The Cow Who Sang A Song Into The Future
The Cow Who Sang A Song Into The Future by Francisca Alegría

39% produced by France, 31% by Germany and 30% by Chile, Francisca Alegría’s debut feature film The Cow Who Sang A Song Into The Future [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
will enjoy its world premiere at the 38th Sundance Film Festival (unspooling online 20 – 30 January) within the World Cinema Dramatic competition.

Written by the director herself, alongside Manuela Infante and Fernanda Urrejola, the story revolves around the fish which are dying in a river in Southern Chile on account of pollution emanating from a nearby cellulose factory. Amidst their floating bodies, long-deceased Magdalena (Mia Maestro) rises back up to the surface, gasping for air and bringing old wounds and a tide of family secrets in her wake. The shock of seeing Magdalena sends her widowed husband (Alfredo Castro) into disarray and prompts their daughter Cecilia (Leonor Varela) to return home to the family’s dairy farm. There, Magdalena’s presence has repercussions for every member of the family, bringing about laughter and despair in equal measure for everyone but Cecilia’s eldest child, who seeks her grandmother’s unconditional love and understanding at a time of transition.

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The Cow Who Sang A Song Into The Future is produced by Tom Dercourt on behalf of Parisian firm Cinéma Defacto and by Alejandra Garcia for Chile’s Wood Producciones, in co-production with Germany’s Match Factory Production. American outfits Persona Entertainment and Dialectic also weighed in on executive production. The feature film enjoyed the backing of Eurimages, the CNC’s Aide aux Cinémas du Monde Fund, the German Federal Film Fund and the World Cinema Fund, with further support hailing from ZDF/Arte, Switzerland’s Bord Cadre Films, English firm Sovereign Films, the Fondo de Fomento Audiovisual, Ciné Reach and the Sundance Institute. International sales are entrusted to The Match Factory.

Recent works put forth by Cinéma Defacto include Olga [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Elie Grappe
film profile
]
by Elie Grappe (awarded the SACD Prize during Cannes’ Critics’ Week last year) and Costa Brava, Lebanon [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Mounia Akl (unveiled in 2021 in Venice’s Orizzonti Extra line-up). The company is also steering animated movie Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Pierre Földes
film profile
]
by Pierre Földes, which is nearing the end of production, while gearing itself up for the première of the co-production Rabiye Kurnaz vs. George W. Bush [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Andreas Dresen
interview: Meltem Kaptan
film profile
]
by Germany’s Andreas Dresen (which is produced by Pandora Filmproduktion, and also co-produced by Iskremas Filmproduktion, with backing from the Grand Accord Arte and the French-German Co-Production Fund).

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(Translated from French)

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