Berlin-based ArtHood Entertainment has picked up worldwide sales rights to Dominican drama “No salgas” (“Stay Quiet”) ahead of its Berlinale Generation premiere.
The queer coming-of-age horror pic, which stars Camila Issa (seen in Nickelodeon’s “Are You Afraid of the Dark”), Cecile van Welie (San Sebastian’s New Directors Award winner “Carajita”) and Camila Santana (“Ramona”), follows Liz (Van Welie), a college Med student who is struggling with her sexual identity in a highly conservative Dominican Republic. An evil supernatural force begins to target people close to her.
The story begins with two teens fleeing into the night where one is killed by her possessed mother. Liz secretly loves Wendy, who is murdered by her crazed brother. A year later, grief and desire resurface on a memorial trip as the force turns friends violent. Liz escapes, knowing that whatever was unleashed has not been fully crushed.
“No salgas” marks the directorial fiction feature debut for Victoria Linares, known for her neo-realist docu-fiction hybrid, “Ramona,” which also world premiered at the Berlinale’s Generation sidebar. It went on to win the Grand Prix Documentaire at Cinélatino 2024 and land at indie streaming platform Mubi.
“The dynamics of coexistence and power have always favored a heteronormative society. The Dominican Republic is highly conservative, which only highlights the inadequacy of the concept of an ‘ally,’ an idea that in ‘No salgas’ is more performative than supportive, and often does not stem from genuine understanding, but from reflexive tolerance,” said Linares in her director’s statement. “The ally can be understanding and, at the same time, contribute, out of ignorance, to oppressive social environments.”
“We are truly excited to work on ‘No salgas,’ it is such an impressive film that haunted us for a while after watching it, not what we would expect from Generation. Victoria is a very talented director with a brilliant future ahead and with her powerful and gripping film she managed to combine artistic qualities with festival and commercial potential. She is extremely smart in using horror to elaborate on the conservative Dominican society. It is definitely a film that cannot be missed at Berlinale: entertaining, relevant and universal,” said Arthood’s Manola Novelli.
The LGBTQ-themed horror pic brings to mind a similar Latin American film that employed the horror genre to comment on the realities of a society: Jayro Bustamante’s “La Llorona.” In this acclaimed Guatemalan drama, Bustamante interweaves a fictional horror format to shed light on the atrocities committed by the local military in the 1980s.
“No salgas” is produced by writer-producer Carlos Marranzini, José Jiménez and Linares. El Perro de Argento, the Dominican Republic-based production company founded by Linares and Carlos Marranzini, holds the sales rights to the Dominican Republic.
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