Chile brings 188-title slate to San Sebastián as catalogue grows
Chile has arrived at the San Sebastián Festival with 188 films to sell and eight already booked on screen.
CinemaChile, the agency that promotes Chilean screen work abroad, unveiled its 2026-2027 catalogue on Sept. 21, according to Variety. Eight Chilean titles play across seven festival sections this year in the Spanish city.
The numbers are sharp. The catalogue grew 20.5% on the 2025-2026 period, up from 156 titles to 188. In 2021, the count stood at 139.
That is steady growth. Five years on, the slate holds 49 more titles than it did in 2021.
Two details shape the current list. Sixty-six of the 188 films are directed or co-directed by women. More than 80% are international co-productions, meaning they were made and financed with partners from outside Chile, linking Chilean producers with 23 countries.
The headline title is Pablo Larraín's "My Sad Dead." It competes for the Golden Shell, the festival's top prize. The project began life as a four-part Netflix series and has been combined into a feature of about three hours.
Festival listings put the exact runtime at 187 minutes and list it as an Argentina-Chile co-production centred on Ema, a recently retired doctor, according to the San Sebastián Festival.
Elsewhere in the programme, Thomas Woodroffe's debut "Erratics" ("Bloques erráticos") plays in New Directors, the section for first- and second-time filmmakers. Horizontes Latinos, the strand dedicated to Latin American cinema, includes Manuela Martelli's "The Meltdown" ("El deshielo") and Dominga Sotomayor's "The Dog" ("La perra").
Zabaltegi, the festival's open section with no fixed rules on length or form, features Felipe Luis' short "For the Opponents" ("Para los contrincantes"). Perlak, which gathers acclaimed titles already seen at other festivals, presents "Wild Horse Nine," led by John Malkovich and shot on Easter Island.
What makes this stand out is the spread. One national slate covers a Golden Shell contender, new directors, shorts and a large-scale location shoot. For fans, this means more routes for these stories to reach cinemas and streaming after San Sebastián.
CinemaChile is the body that takes Chilean film and television to international markets, according to CinemaChile. Its catalogue is the sales list buyers, festival programmers and distributors work from for the year ahead.
