Latido Films and the Fantastic Pavilion announced during the Marché du Film in Cannes that the supernatural witchcraft drama Ancestral, directed by Marta Cabrera and Pablo Aragüés, won the 2024 Fantastic Latido Award.
A Redwood Films and Extended Reality Films production, Ancestral will now receive 10,000 euros from Latido in exchange for international distribution rights. This comes after the success of Leticia Tonos’ IFFR-selected Aire: Just Breathe (2024), winner of the inaugural Fantastic Latido Award in 2023.
Ancestral was shot in Aragon, Spain with the support of the Government of Aragon and the Teruel Investment Fund, and the participation of Aragon Television.
Ancestral follows Carla when she returns to her hometown to give birth. There she reunites with her own mother and a singular group of women who seem to be the only inhabitants of the place, apart from a presence that retains them, perpetuating an ancestral curse over the valley. Ancestral stars new Spanish scream queen Almudena Amor (Sister Death, The Grandmother), Emma Suárez, Luisa Gavasa, Ana Fernández, and Consuelo Trujillo.
For Cabrera, producer and co-director of Ancestral, “the fact that it has an all-female cast, representing different generations, is one of its strongest elements.” According to co-director Aragüés, “Ancestral is a thriller, a psychological horror film and a family drama. It contains fantastic elements within a real situation, in the style of films like Hereditary (2018) or It Follows (2014).”
Pablo Guisa, Fantastic Pavilion’s Executive Director, added that “we’re very happy to see an incredibly potent representation from Spain in the second edition the Fantastic Latido Award. Spain is a country with a long tradition in great genre filmmaking that continues to impress audiences worldwide. We’re also very proud that the film benefited from an international collaboration (with Costa Rica’s Atómica Films) born during the first edition of the Fantastic Pavilion.”