NewFilmmakers Los Angeles Sets Partnership With Mar Del Plata International Film Festival

EXCLUSIVE: NewFilmmakers Los Angeles (NFMLA) has announced an inaugural partnership with the Mar del Plata International Film Festival in Argentina.

Under the collaboration, NFMLA will bring a selection of eight short films by its alumni to the festival in November, and participate in an industry panel exploring the role that film festivals, markets and creative organizations play in building sustainable careers for emerging storytellers.

The showcase includes coming-of-age comedy The Almost Adults by Brazilian director Rafaella Buzzi, who is currently developing her first feature film Large Land Crisis, as well as Mexican writer, director and producer Alan Maldonado’s Lobo: Christmas Special, about a seven-year-old boy who receives a Polly Pocket toy and must defend both his treasured gift and his emerging sense of identity against his older brother’s bullying.

Further titles include Los Angeles-based Brazilian writer and director Rodrigo Carvalhedo’s Musings, following an uninspired poet whose encounter with her Muse sparks a journey into the nature of creativity and inspiration; Korean-American filmmaker, writer and cinematographer Yohahn Ko’s intimate and psychologically tense family drama Earboy, and writer, director and AFI Conservatory graduate Gianfranco Fernández-Ruiz’s When Big People Lie which premiered at Telluride and received Best Short Film Drama at NFMLA’s Annual Awards.

The selection also features Venezuelan screenwriter and filmmaker Bettina López Mendoza’s Más Allá, following a young girl navigating the dangerous Darién Gap between Colombia and Panama; folk horror Haint by Jahmil Eady, who was raised between New York City and South Carolina’s Gullah Geechee community; and Is It Like, A Date?!? by Los Angeles-based writer, filmmaker and playwright Eliana Pipes.

The eight short films be showcased in a special out of competition event on November 8, combining screenings and filmmaker Q&As to providing audiences and attending industry members with an opportunity to engage directly with participating artists and explore the inspirations, creative decisions and experiences behind their work.

The new partnership builds on a relationship which strengthened last year when NFMLA Executive Director Larry Laboe attended the 2025 Mar del Plata International Film Festival as a jury member.

NFMLA said it represented an important milestone in its international programming and commitment to connecting independent filmmakers with audiences, industry professionals and cultural institutions around the world.

The creative and curatorial framework for the partnership was developed by Mar del Plata Co-Artistic Directors Gabriel Lerman and Jorge Stamariano, whose vision helped shape the collaboration’s emphasis on discovering distinctive cinematic voices and strengthening connections between filmmaking communities across borders.

The agreement was formally executed by NFMLA Executive Director Larry Laboe and Carlos Luis Pirovano, President of Argentina’s National Film Board, the Instituto Nacional de Cine y Artes Audiovisuales (INCAA), and supported its International Affairs and Film Commission Manager Diego Marambio Avaria.

NFMLA said its aim and that of the festival was to expand access to global exhibition opportunities while encouraging meaningful dialogue between established and emerging film communities.