Chile’s Roberto Doveris, director of 2016 Berlinale Generation14+ best film winner “Plants” and 2022 Rotterdam Tiger Competition contender “Phantom Project,” is bringing to market at mid-August’s Sanfic Industria his third and most ambitious feature: “Blood Red Nails” (“Uñas Rojo Sangre”)

Set up at Doveris’ Niño Niña Films, the feature is produced by Doveris, lead Ingrid Isensee and Rodrigo Silva and Chile’s Perla Estudio.

Also written by Doveris, “Blood Red Nails” turns on Paola, the cosseted wife of former soccer player Nacho, who returns to Chile after two decades in Germany.
One night, Paola is savagely bitten by Nacho in an argument. Her physical and internal transformation drive her to find out the real truth behind her best friend Sofi’s death 20 years before, just before she left Chile.

A psychological thriller played out with genre tropes – body horror, shape shifting, “through the story of Paola, a 48-year-old woman in the midst of a marital crisis, I set out to reclaim the insult ‘bitch’ as a narrative of empowerment, placing it within a male-dominated world such as soccer and sports journalism,” Doveris told Variety.

Ingrid Isensee (“Voice Over,” “Karadima Forest), star of “Las Plantas” and “Phantom Project,” plays Paola.

In addition, many members of the cast and creative team from Roberto Doveris’ films participate in ‘Blood Red Nails,’ such as Violeta Castillo and Natalia Grez, Ernesto Meléndez and Claudio Ravanal, as well as DP Patricio Alfaro and a creative team that functions as an artistic collective from Niña Niño Films, Silva noted.

Niña Niño Films proposes “a model of artistic collaboration with a sensitive approach to issues of gender and identity,” he added. Credits include “The Prince “(2019), “Outsider Girls” (2023), and “(Im)Patient” (2021), as Camila José Donoso’s, upcoming “Antitropical.”

Sanfic Industria runs Aug. 18-22, as part of the Sanfic Festival, which unspools Aug. 17-24.
Variety chatted to Doveris on the eve of the presentation on Tuesday of the lineup of this year’s Sanfic Industria:

You talk about “empowerment.” This cuts several ways: Physical, a reawakening of desire and above all Paola’s rebellion against a soccer machismo where she is kept in the dark about her husband’s economic affairs, her own physical change and the true circumstances of her best friend’s death. Could you comment?
I believe the character’s liberation is present on all those levels, but what interests me most is not the resolution: it’s the point of departure. I wanted to tell the story of the “typical soccer player’s wife” by asking whether feminism truly reaches or includes identities that are problematic, even from a gender perspective.

She also evolves….
Yes, at first glance, the protagonist might seem like a “trophy wife” or a complicit figure within patriarchy; she elicits little to no empathy from the more liberal value systems we live in (myself included, of course). The challenge was to imagine what empowerment might look like for her, how she could come to realize she’s been part of this system, occupying a privileged role both economically and symbolically, and what costs she’s paid without even realizing it.

Why the genre tropes?
The werewolf genre allowed me to orchestrate this journey in the most unexpected ways. Is there domestic violence in the bite? She doesn’t want to see herself as a victim, and there’s power in that, because she’s seeking answers. She’s willing to dismantle the lie her marriage is built on, even if she still loves her husband or has been happy. Her situation isn’t black or white; we move through gray areas and that’s what makes storytelling so compelling.

The physical change aslo takes in menopause…..
I like that her empowerment is physical. Once a beauty queen, she now has hair, physical discomforts, she’s turning into a monster. But we still don’t know how she’ll use that power. There’s also a deeper feminine dimension, brought by Ingrid Isensee, related to menopause, one of the most significant transformations in a woman’s body. The changes in Pao’s body are a vital and empowered metaphor for this process, which is so often portrayed merely as decline. 

What were your guidelines in directing the film?
I wanted to embrace the genre more directly with physical transformation, visual effects, an emphasis on red, blood, and so on. I set out to tell a story that felt creepy, without sacrificing a more auteur-driven approach to mise-en-scène. When I was writing the script, it was, on a personal level, a “post break-up” project, almost like a dedication to my ex-boyfriend. That feeling of heartbreak also led me to films from modern cinema, especially Godard’s “Le Mépris.” But I couldn’t allow her to die like Brigitte Bardot! So the film became a kind of revenge… mine, on behalf of Brigitte, and also on behalf of all the footballers’ ex-wives who’ve been humiliated in public.

Do you see genre auteur cinema as a way forward for Latin American cinema – as a way of retaining distinctive voices and social concerns but mixed with the high entertainment values of genre?
Yes. However, more than a strategy to connect with entertainment or attract audiences, for me it’s a kind of cinephile confession. I love “Le Mépris” by Godard just as much as I love werewolf films. In a way, my brain lives in an in-between space where it’s also possible to tell stories about women and queer people. I’m not sure if that answers your question, but I definitely think it’s something very interesting that’s happening in Latin American cinema and I believe that, in time, we’ll be able to see where it’s leading us.