EXCLUSIVE: NewFilmmakers Los Angeles (NFMLA) has revealed a new first-time collaboration with Argentina’s Mar del Plata International Film Festival.
Under the arrangement, NFMLA will present a curated program of eight short films made by its alumni at the festival this November. In addition to the screenings, NFMLA representatives will take part in an industry panel that will examine how film festivals, markets and creative organizations contribute to building long-term careers for early-career storytellers.
The shorts slate features Brazilian director Rafaella Buzzi’s coming-of-age comedy The Almost Adults. Buzzi, who is now working on her debut feature titled Large Land Crisis, joins the lineup alongside Mexican writer-director-producer Alan Maldonado with Lobo: Christmas Special, a story about a seven-year-old who gets a Polly Pocket and must protect both the toy and his developing sense of self from his older brother’s bullying.
Also included is Musings by Brazilian writer-director Rodrigo Carvalhedo, based in Los Angeles, which follows a creatively stalled poet whose meeting with her Muse sets off a probing journey into inspiration and the creative process. Korean-American filmmaker, writer and cinematographer Yohahn Ko contributes the intimate, psychologically charged family drama Earboy. From AFI Conservatory alumnus Gianfranco Fernández-Ruiz comes When Big People Lie, a short that premiered at Telluride and won Best Short Film Drama at NFMLA’s Annual Awards.
The program further showcases Venezuelan writer-filmmaker Bettina López Mendoza’s Más Allá, which tracks a young girl’s perilous trek through the Darién Gap between Colombia and Panama; Jahmil Eady’s Haint, a piece of folk horror informed by his upbringing split between New York City and the Gullah Geechee community of South Carolina; and Is It Like, A Date?!? by Los Angeles-based writer, filmmaker and playwright Eliana Pipes.
These eight films will be presented in a special out-of-competition showcase on November 8, pairing screenings with filmmaker Q&A sessions so both audiences and attending industry professionals can engage directly with the artists and learn about the ideas, choices and experiences behind each work.
The collaboration builds on ties that were strengthened when NFMLA executive director Larry Laboe served as a jury member at the 2025 Mar del Plata festival. NFMLA described the new partnership as a significant step for its international programming and as part of its mission to connect independent filmmakers with audiences, industry figures and cultural institutions worldwide.
Mar del Plata’s co-artistic directors Gabriel Lerman and Jorge Stamariano crafted the creative and curatorial approach for the collaboration, shaping its focus on unearthing distinctive cinematic voices and reinforcing relationships between filmmaking communities across borders.
The formal agreement was signed by Laboe and Carlos Luis Pirovano, president of Argentina’s National Film Board (Instituto Nacional de Cine y Artes Audiovisuales), with support from the festival’s International Affairs and Film Commission manager Diego Marambio Avaria.
Both NFMLA and the Mar del Plata festival said the partnership aims to broaden access to international exhibition platforms while fostering substantive exchange between established and emerging film communities.
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