Locarno First Look: ‘The Surubí,’ ‘Spring Story’ Sweep Prizes

LOCARNO, Switzerland —  Cross-ocean love story “Spring Story” and false miracle comedy “The Surubí,” won big at Locarno’s 2026 pix-in-post First Look focus on Uruguay, sharing its top five prizes at a Sunday evening Aug. 9 awards ceremony. 

The industry plaudits went to two of the competition’s most substantial offerings, underscoring the range of productions on offer from Uruguay, also taking in an offbeat crime thriller (“Maltrato Animal”), a historically grounded kids’ adventure (““Our Little Band of Justice”) and two auto doc-features tracing directors’ personal multi-generational family relations (“Perkal,” “The Other Side of the Net”).

For director-producers Gabriela Guillermo and Irina Raffo, based out of Uruguay’s L’Avventura Cine, “Spring Story” is the case of fourth time lucky: the film No. 4 in a series of four movies set in a different season scooped both First Look’s Bright Side of the Moon prize of complete colour grading and Le Film Français Award of advertising work €5,600.  

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 ($51,750). 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 post-industrial town of El Surubí, devastated by the closure of the local Pezur plant in the 1980s and 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 true or the so called miracles can halt El Surubí’’s terminal decline is, however, another matter. 

“El Surubí” marks the feature debut of director Lorenzo Tocco, behind “The Anniversary” (2019), a best Ibero-American short film at Guadalajara. Prominent Uruguayan prod co Monteloni produces. Brazil’s Kocria and Multiverso co-produce. 

“’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.

A closer look at the other four First Look titles:

“Animal Budget” (“Maltrato animal”)

Dir. José Dell’Acqua Postiglione. Prod. José Dell’Acqua Postiglione and Germán Ormaechea (Animista Cine). 81,’ fiction

Shot over four years, one week a year, as a showcase for not only first-time feature director but a new generation of technicians, heading key craft categories. A slow burning thriller with a quirky edge and shocks set against Uruguay’s dramatic economic crunch of 2022, “Animal Budget” turns on Javier, an animal vet drowning in debt as Uruguay’s peso plunges against the dollar and banks are closed to prevent more of a run on their funds. With no cash and literally starving, Javier starts peddling drugs and animals from his clinic. Meanwhile, an unexpected encounter, hints at a new chapter in his life.

“Over eight years, I wrote, directed, and produced the film, seeking to blur the boundaries between fiction and reality. It is also a celebration of the talent of a new generation of Uruguayan filmmakers, many of whom took on leading creative roles in their first feature film,” told Variety.

“The Other Side of the Net” Dir. Maximiliano Martínez Prod. Clara Charlo and Maria Zanocchi (Los Besos Contenidos), co-prod. Shoji Films (Spain) 80,’ documentary

Just before flying from Montevideo to Barcelona to visit his father, Maximiliano Martínez hears him say “I love you” for the first time in 30 years. Filming him over time in Spain, Maximiliano attempts to connect. “He’s so closed,” he laments, but gradually his father opens up to his deep regret of hitting his mother. Through tennis, father and son search for a new way to reach out to each other. 

“The film explores emotional inheritance and the possibility of transformation. What do we do with what we inherit? Are we destined to repeat it, or can we build something different?” Martínez asks, about his debut doc feature. “In this sense, ‘The Other Side of the Net’ brings a perspective that does not dive on the past, but instead seeks to project itself towards the future. It is an attempt to build relationships that are more conscious, honest, and horizontal.”

“Our Little Band of Justice” (“La pequeña Banda de la Justicia”)

Dir. Guillermo Casanova 

Prod. Natacha López Kneit (Lavorágine Films), co-prod. Lagarto Cine (Argentina) 85,’ fiction

A kids & family departure for Casanova, behind Uruguay Oscar submissions “Seawards Journey” and “Another Story of the World,” both produced by López Kneit at their joint label Lavorágine Films, founded in 1999.  

Set in Montevideo, 1983, as Uruguayans push for an end of dictatorship, effervescent Lucía and best friend Ana imagine they’re T-Fly and T-Splash, heroes of an American comic. Then Ana and her family suddenly disappear. Refusing to accept the adults’ silence, Lucía creates with classmates a Little Band for Justice, plastering walls with drawings demanding Ana be brought back and soon joins adults’ call for broader justice and truth. 

“Our Little Band of Justice” tells the story of one of the darkest periods in Uruguay’s history through the eyes of children, where imagination becomes a way of understanding a world they cannot yet explain,” Casanova told Variety. 

“Perkal”

Dir. Paola Perkal

Prod. Valentina Baracco Peña (Monarca Films), co-prod. Sueño Cine (Uruguay) and Insumisa Films (Spain) 75,’ documentary,”

“’Perkal’ is a long-postponed letter to my grandmother Boke, an immigrant and war survivor,” director Paola Perkal begins the film, which tells her grandmother and father Isaac, a he decides to clear out his mother’s flat eight years after her death, taking the stash of home videos shot by Boke and Isaac for Paola. “A portrait of a family steeped in history, tradition and expectations and, says the director, “an intimate story that seeks to resignify inheritance,” said the director. “A film that clings to life and reflects on the many ways we continue to exist, even after we are gone,” added Valentina Baracco Pena, producer at Montana Films, led by Barroco and Eugenia Olascuaga Fierro. Its recent titles include “The Fable of the Turtle and the Flower,” a Sanfic 2025 premiere and “Not to Forget,”a Switzerland–Uruguay France doc-feature bowing at Visions du Réel 2023.