Directing
José Manuel Ortiz, 32, has had a great interest and sensitivity towards music since he was very young. He grows up listening to the anecdotes of his great-grandfather Carlos Amable Ortiz who was the first academic musician in Ecuador. After the death of Carlos Amable Ortiz, his fame begins to fade, but his 237 scores have managed to survive time. Upon recovering the works, José Manuel's interest in studying and deepening the music found is awakened.
After a breast cancer diagnosis, the director dives into a healing journey with delicate sensitivity. Moving beyond the repair of her broken body, she progresses to a deeper, more vulnerable soul healing as she grapples with memories, family dynamics and love.
Starting her senior year in high school, Sara doesn't have many friends and is caught between an overbearing mother, and a more understanding father. With uneasiness at school and tension in the household, Sara escapes to smoke in a little alley alone – that is – until Andrea, a new classmate, arrives. A close friendship develops to all that can see, but behind closed doors, an intimate relationship unfolds, which, when discovered, throws everything into disarray.
Miguel is a 17 year-old boy that sees the future as a distant horizon, immersed in his bubble of friends and a sketchbook full of sentimental poems. 'Saudade' is the portrait of a threshold: the end of high school, which we experience through Miguel. Set amidst the backdrop of the Ecuadorian economic crisis of 1999, 'Saudade' tackles notions of economic dislocation, friendship, family and young love while juxtaposing the crumbling of Miguel's life, against the crumbling of his country.
A young Argentinian woman who works as a museum guide uses her passion - reading - as a means of expression to channel the emotional and working lives of those around her.
