FINCI - Festival Internacional De Nuevo Cine Independiente (2)

Festival start: 20 September 2025      Festival end: 18 October 2025

In this second edition, FINCI becomes Hybrid.

This 2025, the International Festival of New Independent Cinema (FINCI) calls on the international audiovisual industry to register their audiovisual projects, which will be held online from September 20 to October 18, 2025, and in person during June and November in Buenos Aires, Mar del Plata, Mexico, and Spain.

MDM Film Distribution invites new independent filmmakers to submit their projects with the aim of having a new exhibition window for their projects and thus fostering the creative, negotiation, and distribution space. MDM gives new projects, new independent filmmakers the opportunity to be seen and for new audiovisual proposals to circulate within the audiovisual industry.

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS:

The call opens on January 30, 2025 and closes on April 20 at 11:59 p.m. (Argentina).

A total of 80 projects will be selected.

The projects can be seen through the festival's website, only during the festival period for those who access the FINCI online. Those who are in Mexico, Buenos Aires, Mar del Plata and Spain can enjoy the Finci in person.

On May 1st, the selected Mexican, Spanish, Buenos Aires and Mar del Plata projects can be seen on the Web and you can start buying tickets and access them in person. From May 2nd to July 18th, all the selected projects will be available online and you will be able to buy the content with a 20% Off. Those who access the Pre Finci will be sent the content starting on August 12th. Starting on August 20th, general FINCI ONLINE sales begin.


CATEGORIES:

FINCI#2 will have the following 8 categories:
- Feature films (up to 90 minutes - fiction)
- Short films (Fiction/Documentary up to 20 minutes)
- FINCI DOC (Feature films up to 90 minutes)
- FINCI pilot chapter (Fiction up to 50 minutes)
- FINCI female (Short films up to 20 minutes)
- FINCI LGBTQ+ (short films up to 25 minutes)
- FINCI fantastic (Short films up to 20 minutes) - science fiction-horror genre
- FINCI COAST (short films of 20 minutes feature films up to 90 minutes) - Mar del Plata


JURY:

The FINCI 2025 Jury is made up of those directors who won with their projects at FINCI 2024 with the aim of giving each of them more visibility and their projects more reach to the public and a community can be achieved in the audiovisual field. Also, that there are possibilities of connection. The objective of FINCI is to be able to understand that if there is a connection, between the juries, the selected ones, the spectators and me, we can all grow together since it is a festival that is made by everyone.

Feature Film Category:

Alejandro Gerber Bicecci
Graduate in Cinematography from the Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica. He has written, directed and produced three fiction feature films: Vaho (2009), Viento aparte (2014) and Arillo de hombre muerto (2024).

She has been part of the writing teams of numerous series: The Cassez-Vallarta Case: A Crime Novel (Netflix), Stories of a Crime: Colosio Case (Netflix/Dynamo), María Félix, la doña (Televisa) Deep Drainage, The Lieutenant (TV Azteca), Cesar, the Story of an Idol (Disney / BTF Media); and the television series: The Eighth Commandment, Fortune, Camelia the Texan and The Traps of Desire (Argos TV), among others.

Vaho (2009) won the Jury Prize at the 10th Marrakech International Film Festival and Special Mention of the Jury at the 7th Morelia International Film Festival. Viento aparte (2014), premiered at the 29th Guadalajara International Film Festival; and screened at the festivals of Warsaw, Calcutta, Havana and Edinburgh. Won the Audience Award at the 18th Austin Film Festival Cine Las Américas.

Short Film Category:

Raul A Rodriguez

Born in Mexico City in 1996. He studied a degree in Communication with a specialization in Film at the Universidad Iberoamericana. His first short film, “Albatros” premiered at the 50th Huesca International Film Festival. His next short film, “Todavía te transformaré”, will premiere at the New York Latino Film Festival in 2024. He has been part of various independent projects, including short and feature films in Mexico. He participated in the inaugural residency of Bendfilm Basecamp 2024, where he was mentored by director Bing Liu, producers Christine Vachon and Effie Brown. He is currently in pre-production on his next short film: “Una fábula en el fin de los tiempos”. He is also developing a feature film script with his production company Antitrama.


Documentary Category:

Rod Ugalde De Haene

Rod is a director and writer interested in portraying the mystery that exists between the mind, nature and our bodies. He graduated from the Visual Communication degree at the Tec de Monterrey Campus Mexico City, his first opera, the documentary feature film "La voz arcana del corazón", premiered at the DocsMX 2023 festival and won the award for best documentary at the International Festival of New Independent Cinema (FINCI) 2024. His documentary piece "Para el Recuerdo" won the FILmamos contest within the framework of FILm, the European film festival of the FIL, Guadalajara 2023. He has premiered numerous short films at various festivals, highlighting "Ansiedad y Deseo" at the Morelia International Film Festival in 2021, and "Camellos en la Arena", at the Shorts Mexico and Fotogenia 2020 festivals. Some of the projects he has directed for television are "La vengancia de las juanas" for Netflix, "La Bandida" for Amazon prime, and "Verne: La isla misterio" for Disney +. He is currently working on the documentary "El descent a lo inexplicable”, a film selected for “Habitar el campo”, an Ambulante program for the development of projects led by Christiane Butchart. He is also developing the horror project “Peligro de muerte”, which was part of the “Feratum” residency for the development of fantastic scripts 2023. His poem “No es bastante tarde” was published by Casa País magazine and his short story “El gato, la araña y la cosa” by La sombra del Maderito publishing house. He is currently the founder of “Espíritu”, a publishing house for independent voices specialized in poetry, short stories and illustration. Since 2023 he has been practicing Butoh, a discipline he learned from the teachers Natsu Nakajima and Raquel Salgado. He teaches at the Tecnológico de Monterrey.

TV Pilot Chapter:

Sergio Sosa (Flixxo)

Sergio Sosa is a graduate of the Image and Sound Design degree (UBA). Since 2018 he has been part of the video platform and audiovisual production company Flixxo. He currently works as General Coordinator, managing the acquisition and production of content and Flixxo's participation in festivals and markets.

Category Female Cinema:

Sady Barrios

Producer certified by the National Institute of Paraguayan Audiovisual (INAP). Master of Distribution and Business in the Audiovisual Industry from the School of Cinematography and Audiovisual of the Community of Madrid - ECAM, Diploma in Cinematographic Production from the Ibero-American Center for Photo and Film Studies - CIBEF, Degree in Audiovisual Communication from the Autonomous University of Asunción. She was a Professor of the Higher Technical Degree in Cinematography at the Institute of Arts and Sciences of Communication (IPAC).

She has been working in the film, art and culture, media and advertising industry since 2006, supporting the development, production and dissemination of audiovisual projects. For several years she has participated in international film festivals and markets such as Oberá en Cortos, Ventana Sur, MAFIZ Málaga, Berlinale EFM, Series Manía, Cannes MDF, among others. She is the producer and director of the short film Hijas de Púa (2024), Producer of the short films Historias de Sudamérica (Oberhausen Selection, 2024), Otra Mano (Babel Film Festival Award, 2021), Production Coordinator of the TV Series Pequeñas Esperanzas II (2021), Production Assistant in Ejercicios de Memoria (2016), Art Producer at Mangoré, for the love of art (2014), AD of the feature film Libertad, la lucha por la Independencia (2011), Producer of the documentary Jesareko, for the international co-production series Parcerias entre Fronteras (2010). She was part of the Staff of the International Film, Art & Culture Festival of Paraguay, (2012, 2013, 2018) and the National Audiovisual Congress of Paraguay Tesape (2013), and of the programming department of Public TV Paraguay (2012).

LGBTQ+ Category

Nicolás Alvarez.

He graduated as a film director from the Universidad del Cine (Buenos Aires, Argentina). He directed “Violeta” (Best short film at BAFICI 2001 and Venice Film Festival). He premiered his first feature film as director “Lo Nuestro no funciona” (Bangkok Film Festival) at the Mar del Plata Film Festival in 2004.

Joaquín Ostrovsky. National actor graduated from IUNA (Buenos Aires, Argentina). He debuted with “Goce Artificial” (Buenos Aires, 1999). He acted in “Cerca” by Eduardo Pavlovsky (Madrid, 2002). In Spain he wrote and directed “Beautiful People” (2001), “Proyecto Aldo Pastur” (2003). She also directed “Kafka Kabaret” by Alfonso Pindado (Scena Contemporánea Festival, Madrid, 2002) and acted in “Silencio Banana y otros caprichos del Japón” (Scena Contemporánea Festival, Madrid, 2003).

In 2004 they met and began working together in film and theatre. In October 2024 they premiered “Yo nunca quise ser famosos” (I never wanted to be famous) a feature-length documentary at the Asterisco Festival, Buenos Aires (also selected in the ABC BAFICI Postproduction laboratory). They are currently developing a fiction film with which they have participated in the Queer Cine Lab in Malaga, PROMERCAT in Valencia and Residencia in Extremadura, Spain)

Category Fantastic Film

Macarena Dandrea Mohr

She studied film direction at the University of Cinema and graduated in 2013. She did her first job in film as a production assistant on the film Fermín, glorias del tango by Hernán Findling and Oliver Kolker. After the feature film, she was hired as a production assistant for her production company Función y Kuenta.

During that same year, she took a film direction course at the New York Film Academy film school. In 2015, she created alliances with the production company Magenta Films, which gave her the opportunity to work on her second feature film “Corazon Negro” by Juan Ribelli, covering the production area, and the series “Sofía” by Nicolás Tete. She also studies audiovisual TV production and scriptwriting with Pablo Culell and Jorge Maestro.

In 2016, she began working at the Lahaye post production company of Gabriel Lahaye developing content for Ibermedia. She worked as a production assistant for the Rebecca Films production company, placing audiovisual material at film festivals and created MDM films distribution, a production company that works nationally and internationally providing production services by placing audiovisual material at film festivals and seeking financing, film and TV markets, laboratories and pitch competitions for projects that are in the development, production and post-production phase. MDM aims to create different alliances and work networks that allow it to have access to participation in different projects.
In 2022, MDM created its academy section, giving group and personalized advice at a national and international level where it teaches the tools needed to be able to present projects at film festivals, financing funds, markets and pitch competitions and shows how the industry works from different sectors so that projects can be developed, enhanced and sold.

In 2023, he participated in the 24th edition of BAFICI, Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival in the industry section, within the framework of Professional Meetings, giving a talk on the Development of Audiovisual Pitch Projects. In October, he traveled to the city of Montevideo, Montevideo to give his 6-week course on the presentation of audiovisual projects in person and gave a talk on Project Development and Pitch for university students at Dodeca.

In 2024, he continued to offer courses and created his first film festival FINCI, an international festival of new independent cinema, and the industry section FIINCI CINE CLUB, giving visibility to new filmmakers so that they can exhibit their projects by creating new meeting modalities and work possibilities. The first edition of the Cine Club took place on April 6. FINCI had its online version from July 30 to August 18. Now FINCI is going to be in-person, having its first edition in Buenos Aires from August 30 to September 15. FINCI plans to travel throughout Latin America to present the directors and projects of each country.

Coastal Cinema Category

Natalia Lódolo Cuenca

Argentinean audio-visual communicator and actress. She trained through seminars on acting in front of the camera, casting and self-casting, and specialized in the area of ​​audiovisual production with professionals from both sides of the industry. She worked in the press in international relations for the Mar del Plata Film Festival (2022 and 2023). She also works in the production of music videos, both independent and for large productions, in documentaries and advertising.

MDM FILM FESTIVAL has different awards

- MDM Award: Laurel for the best project according to its category.

-Jury Prize

- Lahaye Media Award: Gabriel Lahaye's production company Lahaye media offers the DCP mastering for the Documentary and Female Film category

- Flixxo Award: The selected short films will be exhibited on the Flixxo platform.

- The selected Mexican projects will be interviewed by Estudio Cinema Podcast.

REGISTRATION AND SELECTION:

To be considered, projects must be registered in the following way:

Through the Festhome website or www.mdmfilm.com Fill out the registration form available on the website www.mdmfilm.com

Send a private link with a password with the final cut for online viewing, along with a dossier of your project, through the registration form.

The dossier must have:

- Poster
- Title
- Logline
- Technical sheet
- Synopsis
- Director's biofilmography
- Producer's biofilmography
- Director's motivation
- Producer's motivation
- Personal data

The selected projects can be viewed through the Festival Website, where they will have access only during the festival period. They can buy tickets to view the projects that interest them.

All projects will be evaluated by a jury made up of professionals from the audiovisual industry

The results will be announced in May 2025.

Any film that is not originally in Spanish must be duly subtitled in Spanish or english for the selection period. If the film is selected, it must be subtitled into Spanish by the applicant.