Chile Picks Manuela Martelli's 'The Meltdown' for 2027 Oscar Race
Chile has chosen Manuela Martelli's The Meltdown as its submission for the Best International Feature Film category at the 99th Academy Awards, the Chilean Film Academy announced on Wednesday. The news lands barely a week before the film opens in Chilean cinemas on September 3. (The Hollywood Reporter)
The film is Martelli's sophomore feature as writer-director, following her Pinochet-era political thriller Chile '76. Set in 1992 — two years after the end of Augusto Pinochet's regime — The Meltdown follows nine-year-old Inés, who befriends Hanna, a German teenager training as a competitive skier. When Hanna vanishes, the story tilts into mystery. The cast includes Maya O'Rourke, Maia Rae Domagala, Saskia Rosendahl, Jakub Gierszal, Paulina Urrutia and Mauricio Pešutić.
The Meltdown had its world premiere in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, a sidebar that showcases distinctive voices outside the main competition. From Cannes, it picks up further festival momentum with a screening at the San Sebastian Film Festival, after which the streaming platform Mubi will make it available to subscribers. Mubi acquired streaming rights to the film, adding it to a slate that has increasingly prioritised festival acquisitions. (Variety)
On the distribution side, Kino Lorber picked up U.S. rights and plans a theatrical release in early 2027, followed by digital, educational and home video windows. The order matters in the independent film world: a theatrical run before streaming and home video is the path that keeps a film eligible for awards consideration and visible to industry voters.
The production spans three continents. Producers include Alejandra García for Chile's Ronda Cine, Alex C. Lo for U.S.-based Cinema Inutile, and Andrés Wood for Chile's Wood Producciones. Co-producers are María Zamora for Spain's Elastica Films, Julio Chavezmontes for Mexico's Piano, and Pablo Díaz for Chile's Fundación Río — a structure common in international co-production, where partners from multiple countries pool resources and tax incentives to finance a single film.
Chile's Oscar history in this category is brief but notable. The country has won once: Sebastián Lelio's A Fantastic Woman took the prize at the 90th Academy Awards in 2018. Pablo Larraín's No earned a nomination in 2013. Both films, like The Meltdown, engage with Chile's political landscape — though each from a different vantage point and era.
What makes this submission stand out is the speed of it all. The Meltdown premiered at Cannes in May, streams on Mubi after San Sebastian, opens in Chile in September, and will reach U.S. cinemas via Kino Lorber in early 2027 — all within the same awards cycle. That tight, visible pipeline from festival premiere to Oscar submission is exactly the kind of trajectory that keeps a film on voters' radar through the long Academy season.
