LOCARNO, Switzerland — Cross ocean love story “Spring Story” and miracle comedy “El Suburi,” at Locarno’s 2026 pix-in-post First Look focus on Uruguay, sharing two prizes a piece at a Sunday evening prize ceremony.
The industry awards went to two of its most substantial offerings, underscoring the range of productions on offer from a offbeat crime thriller (“Maltrato Animal”) to kids’ adventure (““Our Little Band Of Justice”) and two doc-features tracing family relations (“Perkal,” “The Other Side of the Net”).
For director-producers Gabriela Guillermo and Irina Raffo, based out of L’Avventura Cine, “Spring Story” is a case of fourth time lucky: the film No. 4 in a series of four movies, each set in a different season, scooping both First Look’s Bright Side of the Moon prize of complete colour grading
Germán Ormaechea’s Animista Cine co-produces.
The most extensive of First Look’s six titles, weighing in at a rough cut of over two hours, “El Surubí” won La Mayor Cine Award, consisting of total sound post-production, and a Music Library &SFX/Acorde Award, made up of music supervision services at Music Library & SFX’s labs to a value of €45,000. The film also snagged a third prize, the Jannuzzi Smith Award, offering The design of an international poster worth €10,000 ($11,500),
Kicking off like an Ealing or Luis Berlanga comedy, “The Surubí” is set in the rural town of El Surubí, devastated by the closure of the local Pezur plant in the 1980s, now on its last legs.
When 70 chickens at a local farm lay 128 eggs in just one night, after the arrival of a red helmet biker Emanuel, the event is described as a miracle and Emanuel hailed by the local priest as a prophet of divine powers. Whether this is tie or the so called miracles can halt El Surubí’’s terminal decline is another matter.
“El Surubí” marks director Lorenzo Tocco’s feature debut, behind “The Anniversary” (2019), a best Ibero-American short film at Guadalajara. Prominent Uruguayan prod co Monteloni produces.
“’El Surubí’ is an ensemble story featuring a distinguished Uruguayan-Brazilian cast; that with humor and sensitivity, it portrays a hopeless community clinging to an illusory hope out of a need to survive,” producer Pancho Magnou Arnabal told Variety.
