M-Appeal enjoys 'Verano'

MADRID -- In the run-up to next week's Venice Film Festival, Berlin-based M-Appeal has nabbed worldwide rights to Chilean helmer Jose Luis Torres Leiva's "Verano." Torres Leiva's second fiction-feature world preems in Venice's cutting-edge Horizons sidebar. It follows his 2008 debut "The Sky, the Earth and the Rain," which won the Fipresci international critics' prize at Rotterdam film fest. Written by Torres Leiva, and shot at Chile's Cauquenes thermal baths, "Verano" is a choral drama unfolding over one day, and centering on two parallel stories: A couple want to have a child; meanwhile, an Argentine tourist -- played by singer Rosario Blefari, seen in Martin Rejtman's "Silva Prieto" -- discovers she's pregnant. Torres Leiva attempted to capture the warm grainy home-movie tonality of his memories of childhood vacations spent in Cauquenes with his grandparents. He and cinematographer Inti Briones, who was responsible for "Sky's" painterly images, shot in Handycam H18, then re-shot the digital images projected against different backgrounds. The vidcam lensing allowed for far greater improvisation with actors than in "Sky," according to Torres Leiva, who says "Verano" is about "landscapes of characters." A "sunny, contemplative" picture, said M-Appeal sales manager Anne Wiedlack, "Verano" is the second Chilean pick-up from M-Appeal, after Julio Jorquera's "My Last Round." For Wiedlack, "Over the last years, there's been almost a boom in new Chilean films from a fresh, new generation that is not afraid to experiment. There's still a lot of talent to be discovered." Verano" is exec produced by Chilean director Alicia Scherson ("Play" "Tourists"), who is shooting "The Future" with Rutger Hauer. Contact the Variety newsroom at news@variety.com