Manuela Martelli Selected for Un Certain Regard at Cannes with The Meltdown

Chilean filmmaker Manuela Martelli once again puts national cinema on the international map: her new fiction feature, The Meltdown, has been selected for Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival, one of the sections of the festival’s Official Competition. With this selection, Martelli becomes the first Chilean female director to compete in this prestigious category with a fiction feature.

Martelli previously appeared at Cannes with her debut feature 1976, which premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight in 2022, one of the festival’s most recognized parallel sections. The selection of The Meltdown marks a new milestone in the director’s international trajectory and confirms the growing recognition of Chilean cinema on the global stage.

Last year, Chilean cinema also stood out in Un Certain Regard with La misteriosa mirada del flamenco, by Diego Céspedes, which won the section’s top prize. In recent years, Chilean participation has consolidated with films such as Los colonos (2023), by Felipe Gálvez, reinforcing the country’s presence in one of Cannes’ most prestigious sections.

The Meltdown was filmed in the winter of 2025 in Antillanca, a ski resort near Osorno, and features dialogue in Spanish, English, and German. The film is produced by Alejandra García, with Andrés Wood (Wood Producciones) and Alex C. Lo (Cinema Inutile, USA) as co-producers. Other production companies involved include Elástica (Spain), Piano Films (Mexico), and Río Fundación (Chile). Its sales agent is the renowned French company Les Films du Losange.

Un Certain Regard is part of Cannes’ Official Selection, focusing on films with innovative storytelling or original perspectives in contemporary cinema. The inclusion of The Meltdown in this section highlights both Martelli’s significance and the prominence of Chilean cinema on the international stage.