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This year’s Malaga Festival and its industry section’s Latin American Focus are celebrating Peruvian cinema and talent.

A number of Peruvian films are screening in the festival and industry section, including “El Caso Monroy,” by Josué Mendez, and Leonardo Barbuy’s debut feature “Diógenes,” which unspool in the fest’s main section and Zonazine sidebar.

As a meeting point for producers and directors from Latin American and investors from Spain and the rest of Europe, the Malaga Festival Industry Zone (Mafiz) serves as a key hub that promotes the co-production of Latin American projects aimed at the international market.

For Barbuy, the premiere of “Diógenes” in Malaga brings it full circle.

“The project passed through Mafiz in 2019, which opened up a series of opportunities for us,” the director tells Variety. “It was clearly an important showcase for the project. We were able to make contacts that bolstered the project.

Peru as a filming location can be viewed before and after the making of “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” where a good chunk of the seventh iteration in the Paramount Pictures franchise is set in the picturesque country.

Directed by Steven Caple Jr. (“Creed II”), the upcoming “Transformers” is said to have injected an estimated 10 million-plus into Peru’s economy. More importantly, it prompted the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to issue a new artistic production visa that provides special migratory status to visiting crew and talent, which in turn, facilitates the import of equipment and props. More than 30 vehicles, including trucks, high speed cars, motorbikes and Vw classics, were shipped to Peru for the sci-fi movie. In the past, people had to use a journalist visa to work on audiovisual projects in the country, which was cumbersome, says producer Bruno Canale of Apu Prods., which provided production services to the reportedly 200 million pic.

Fantaspoa 2022 Announced: "After two years of successful online editions, the 18th edition of the beloved Brazilian genre festival Fantaspoa will return to the cinemas from April 15th through May 1st. This year, attendees will discover a very different Fantaspoa from its last on-site edition (a very distant 2019): instead of its usual two venues, the fest will take place simultaneously in five cinemas, with part of its program also being available online, geo-blocked for viewers within Brazil.

The poster for this year’s festival was conceived by the festival’s art director Thalles Mourão, with the drawing from local artist Fernanda Moreira. The striking image is a mashup of two centenary anniversaries: The Modern Art Week, one of Brazil’s greatest art movements, and F. W. Murnau’s 1922 masterpiece of cinema, Nosferatu: A Symphony Of Horror.

Nosferatu will also have a very special screening on the opening night of the festival,...

Centenary screening of Nosferatu, world premiere of stoner comedy The Smoke Master bookend event.

Brazil’s Fantaspoa genre festival, billed as the largest of its kind in Latin America, is returning to an in-person event for the first time since 2019 and has unveiled its first wave of titles.

This year’s International Fantastic Film Festival of Porto Alegre will take place in five cinemas around the southern city from April 15-May 1. It is bookended by a special opening night centenary screening of F. W. Murnau’s vampire classic Nosferatu accompanied by a live soundtrack performed by Carlos Ferreira and Brazilian...