New Latin American cinema

Since their first edition in 2014, the Platino Awards —sponsored by Iberia— have given visibility and recognition to a new generation of Latin American filmmakers. These are the filmmakers poised to take the reins from Argentinian Juan José Campanella, Brazilians Fernando Meirelles and Walter Salles, and Mexicans Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuarón, and Alejandro González Iñárritu —directors who transcended their national borders to conquer the world. In fact, they opened the doors of Hollywood to other directors from these regions, such as Argentinian Andy Muschietti (Mama, It and The Flash), Chilean Pablo Larraín (Jackie) and Uruguayan Fede Álvarez (Evil Dead, Don’t Breathe, and Alien: Romulus). Sometimes, you don’t even need to leave your homeland or switch to English to succeed, as Kleber Mendonça Filho demonstrated this year with The Secret Agent, nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. The Platino Awards have also witnessed how this new wave of talent has been nurtured by women, whose few role models were the Argentinian Lucrecia Martel or the Venezuelan Mariana Rondón, nominated this year for It Would be Night in Caracas. At that very first Platino Awards ceremony, Argentinian Lucía Puenzo was a leading figure with The German Doctor, which received five nominations. Later came others, whom we will introduce throughout this article, along with other colleagues, to create a portrait of new Latin American cinema.

Dolores Fonzi

Argentina

Actress Dolores Fonzi (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1978) made her directorial debut in 2023 with Blondi, a comedy about motherhood that didn’t shy away from drama. Praised by critics, it also garnered attention at the Platino Awards with three nominations: Best Actress (for Fonzi herself), Best Original Score, and Best First Feature Film. Her breakthrough came with the politically charged and combative Belén, the most nominated film at this year’s Platino Awards, along with Sundays. Its eleven nominations include two for Dolores: Best Director and Best Actress. And she has just won the Goya Award for Best Ibero-American Film. Thus, to her already solid career as an actress —The Aura, Truman and Paulina— she has added another facet as a director, becoming a central figure in contemporary Argentine cinema.

Jayro Bustamante

Guatemala

The debut film by Jayro Bustamante (Guatemala City, Guatemala, 1977) revolutionised the second edition of the Platino Awards. Ixcanul, a furious condemnation of machismo through the story of a young Mayan woman who rebels against an arranged marriage, garnered five nominations —including Best Film— rubbing shoulders with names such as Pablo Larraín, Ciro Guerra and Alberto Rodríguez. It also won the Audience Platino Award. He received this recognition again in 2021 for La Llorona, a drama with supernatural elements about the Guatemalan genocide, which also became the most nominated film of the year, along with Forgotten We’ll Be. Its eleven nominations resulted in three awards: cinematography, film editing and sound.

‘The Eternal Memory’ by Maite Alberdi won the Best Documentary Platino Award in 2024. © Micromundo / Fabula

Maite Alberdi

Chile

Following in the footsteps of the most important documentary filmmaker in Latin American cinema, the Chilean Patricio Guzmán, is Maite Alberdi (Santiago, Chile, 1983). With The Mole Agent, an unusual story starring an unlikely 83-year-old spy infiltrated in a nursing home, she won the award for Best Documentary at the 2021 Platino Awards. Three years later, she repeated the feat with The Eternal Memory, a beautiful yet heartbreaking exploration of the reality of Alzheimer’s through the eyes of a couple. It also won the Goya Award for Best Ibero-American Film, the first of its kind to achieve this. Both films were also nominated for Best Documentary at the Oscars, which gives a sense of the impact of this filmmaker’s work.

Laura Mora

Colombia

The name Laura Mora (Medellín, Colombia, 1981) is intricately linked to the San Sebastián Film Festival. After receiving the Youth Award in 2017 for Killing Jesus, she won the Golden Shell in 2022 for The Kings of the World. The film, which told the story of five orphaned boys in Medellín, also received four Platino Award nominations. But her connection to these awards is more closely linked to television series… This Colombian actress was part of the directing team that brought the immortal One Hundred Years of Solitude to the screen, and the miniseries became the big winner at the 2025 edition. A few years earlier, in 2020, she had also worked on The Heist of the Century, which was nominated for Best Series or Miniseries.

‘Utama’, filmed on the high plateau in Bolivia, was one of the revelations of the 2023 Platino Awards. © Alma Films

Alejandro Loayza

Bolivia

The youngest in this selection is Alejandro Loayza (La Paz, Bolivia, 1985), who has only one film to his name: Utama. More than enough. In 2022, this film won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, in addition to receiving standing ovations at festivals around the world: BFI London, Karlovy Vary, Hong Kong, Cairo, Sydney, San Francisco, Málaga, Gothenburg… The story of an elderly couple who, due to an unusually long drought, must decide whether to abandon their home in the Bolivian highlands or resist, moved audiences wherever it was screened. At the 2023 Platino Awards, it won two out of five nominations: original score and cinematography. Are we eagerly awaiting this Bolivian director’s next project? Absolutely!

Lila Avilés

México

Director Lila Avilés (Mexico City, Mexico, 1982) has become one of the most singular voices in Latin American cinema, a fact recognised at the Platino Awards. In 2020, she won the Platino Award for Best First Feature Film for The Chambermaid, a portrait of labour exploitation through the eyes of an invisible woman. Just four years later, after taking the Ariel Awards —the Mexican Academy Awards— by storm with five wins, she earned nominations for Best Film and Best Director at the Platino Awards for Totem. Starring Sol, a seven-year-old girl immersed in family chaos, the film garnered critical acclaim for its beauty, delicacy, naturalness, sensitivity and emotional power.

Latin American cinema boasts dozens of filmmakers worth following. Some are more established, others more emerging. Shall we continue our journey? We begin our tour in Colombia, home to the breakout star of the 2026 Platino Awards: Simón Mesa Soto, director of A poet. From that country also comes one of the most acclaimed filmmakers in recent years: Ciro Guerra, who swept the Platino Awards by storm in 2016 with Embrace of the Serpent. He nearly repeated his success in 2019 with Birds of Passage. In Argentina, we are joined by Santiago Mitre, director of Argentina, 1985—a winner at the Platino Awards in 2023 with five awards—, as well as Pablo Trapero —director of Lion’s Den, Carancho and The Clan, with six Platino nominations in 2016—, Damián Szifron, creator of Wild Tales —the film with the most Platino Awards in history with eight in 2015—, and Luis Ortega—director of El Angel and Kill the Jockey, with nine Platino nominations in 2025. Across the Río de la Plata, in Uruguay, we find Álvaro Brechner: Bad Day to Go Fishing or A Twelve-Year Night —six nominations at the 2019 Platino Awards.

Another great filmmaker lives in Chile: Sebastián Lelio, winner of the 2017 Academy Award for Best International Feature Film for A Fantastic Woman. This film also received the Platino Award for Best Film, an honour he had already won at the first edition of the awards with Gloria. And while in Peru we find Claudia Llosa —The Milk of Sorrow or Fever Dream— in El Salvador we find Tatiana Huezo, who came remarkably close to winning at the 2022 Platino Awards with Prayers for the Stolen. This trip wouldn’t be complete without a visit to Mexico, where Fernanda Valadez —nominated for Best First Feature Film at the 2022 Platino Awards for Identifying Features—, Alonso Ruizpalacios —nominated for Best Director at the 2016 Platino Awards for Güeros—, and Michel Franco —nominated for Best Director at the 2021 Platino Awards for New Order— are ensuring the next generation of filmmakers. And, switching from Spanish to Portuguese, we encounter a Brazilian filmmaker who has garnered attention at this year’s Platino Awards with Manas: Marianna Brennand Fortes. Remember her name!