Films

Criatura

In the depths of her mind, pain takes the form of a creature. A love relationship unleashes the obscurity within, to evoke in the real world, a world of shadows.
Winner of the Pardino d’oro for the Best Auteur Short at the Locarno Film Festival, "Creature" is a sensorial experience, a journey towards what hurts. It is a glimpse into the demons for so many years silenced, that today, are pushing themselves into the surface.


Silvia

Written and Directed by
María Silvia Esteve
Produced by
María Silvia Esteve
Coproduced by
Laura Gabay and Laura
Mara Tablón
Cinematography by
María Silvia Esteve and Andrea Cabrera
VFX and Graphic Design by
Dano Marello
Editing by
María Silvia Esteve
A production of
Hana Films
in coproduction
Ecran Mobile & Rita Cine
Argentina - SwitzerlandRunning time: 16'
2021

• Pardino d’oro winner to the Best Auteur Short Film,
Concorso Corti d’autore, Locarno Film Festival
• Innovation Award, Landshuter Kurzfilmfestival.
• Grand Jury Prize, Castrovillari Film Festival.
• Best Director Winner, Castrovillari Film Festival.

Silvia

SELECTIONS

74º Festival International
del Film Locarno
Switzerland
54º Sitges Festival Internaciona
Cinema Fantastic
Spain
70º Melbourne International
Film Festival (MIFF)
Australia
11º Festival International
de la Roche-sur-Yon.
France
5º El Gouna Film Festival.
Gouna. Egypt
26º Fantasia International Film Festival
Montreal, Canada
26º Bucheon International
Fantastic Film Festival (BIFAN)
South Korea
43º International Cinematographers
Film Festival "Manaki Brothers"
North Macedonia
27º Geneva International Film Festival.
Switzerland
25º International Short Film
Festival Winterthur.
Switzerland
11º Bucharest International
Experimental Film Festival.
Romania
11º Festival de Cine Independiente
de Madrid. Márgenes.
Spain
WomanInFan+CIMA.
Madrid. Spain
23º Festival FILMAR en América Latina.
Switzerland
27º Festival du film lesbien, gay, bi,
trans, queer et ++++ de Paris -
Chéries
Chéris. France
Festival Internacional de
Cortometrajes de Aguilar de Campo.
Spain
39º Festival Cinematográfico
Internacional del Uruguay.
Uruguay
16º Cinemartinique Film Festival.
Martinique
OTRO AMOR • ANOTHER LOVE. CinemaAttic.
Glasgow - Edinburgh - UK
19º ZINEGOAK. Festival Internacional
de Cine y Artes Escénicas Gaylesbitrans.
Bilbao. Spain
35º Semana de Cine
Medina de Campo.
Spain
22º Landshut Short
Film Festival. Munich.
Germany
34º Filmfest Dresden - International
Short Film Festival.
Dresden. Germany
24º Mecal Pro, the
Barcelona International
Short and Animation Festival.
Barcelona. Spain
49º Athens International
Film and Video Festival.
Ohio. USA
24º Pink Apple Short
Film Festival. Zurich
Frauenfeld, Switzerland

Festival La Mujer y El Cine.
Bs. As. Argentina
45º Norwegian Short Film
Festival. Grimstad
Norway
13º KASHISH Mumbai International
Queer Film Festival.
India
13º Leiden Shorts Festival.
Netherlands
23º ShorTS - International Film Festival.
Trieste, Italy
9. Tenerife Shorts - La Laguna
International Short Film Festival
Islas Canarias, Spain
21º Neuchâtel International Fantastic
Film Festival - Screem Queer.
Neuchâtel, Switzerland
8º Festival du Film Insolite
de Rennes le Chateau.
France
45º Festival du Film Court
en Plein Air de Grenoble.
France
4º Visible - Festival de Cine LGBTIQ+
Panama
33º São Paulo International
Short Film Festival - Curta Kinoforum
Brasil
17º Shorts México - Festival Internacional
de Cortometrajes de México
México
33º Lesbisch Schwule Filmtage Hamburg.
Germany
16º Festival Internacional de Cine de Gibara.
Cuba
26º International Short Film Festival Winterthur
- Magic realism/creatures programme.
Switzerland
20º Vancouver Latin American
Film Festival - Queer Pix program.
Canada
4º Castrovillari Film Festival.
Italy
8° Festival de Cine Espacio Queer.
La Plata, Argentina
Festival Internacional de
Cine entre Glaciares.
Argentina
5º Porto Femme - International Film Festival.
Portugal
32º Oslo/Fusion
International Film Festival.
Norway
27º Seattle Queer Film Festival.
USA
10cortos10, Centro
Cultural 25 de Mayo.
Argentina
9º Festival de Cine
Nacional Leonardo Favio.
Argentina
Visible, Festival de Cine
LGBTI+ de Panamá.
Panamá
27º edición de LesGaiCineMad, Festival
Internacional de Cine LGBTI+ de Madrid.
España
30º Festival Mix Brasil de
Cultura da Diversidade.
Sao Paulo, Brasil

PRESS

Silvia

A poetic family chronicle in which a diplomat’s daughter and her two sisters try to come to grips with the great drama of their mother's life. The film deals with all that pulsates beneath the omissions, the deviations that arise from trying to piece together Silvia’s memory.
Part documentary, part re-cut, the pieces of the past are accentuated, blurred, frozen, and played backward until the family chronicle becomes a universal drama, raising questions about memory, truth, illusions and appearances, as well as the nature of parent-child relationships.

Silvia
Silvia

Written and Directed
by María Silvia Esteve
Produced by
María Silvia Esteve and María Fernández Aramburu
Cinematography
by Carlos Esteve, Silvia
Zabaljáuregui, María Alejandra Esteve, María Silvia Esteve
Editing
by María Silvia Esteve
Graphic Design by
Ianko Perea
A production of
Hana Films
in association with Cyan
Argentina - Chile
Running time: 103'
2018

• Artistic Vision Award, Depth of Field Competition, DocAviv
• Best Argentine Documentary, FIDBA.
• Young Jury Award, FIDBA.
• Coral Award, Habana Film Festival.
• Special Mention of the Jury to the Film Editing, Argentine Association of Film Editors - EDA.

Silvia

"Silvia is an essay of heartbreaking rawness, honesty and sensitivity. It is so much more than a mere exercise in found-footage or a complacent home movie, but it is an intimate exploration made by the director - with contributions from her two sisters' memories - of a life marked by intrafamiliar violence, depressions, hospitalizations, and the contradictions of a woman submitted against her wishes to the mandates of others. The film proposes an external and internal journey that is at the same time a complaint against male chauvinism, a love letter, a cathartic exercise and an act of reparation."
Diego Battle

SELECTIONSIDFA, First Appearance Competition, Amsterdam - 2018.DocAviv, Depth of Field Competition, Tel Aviv - 2019.Festival de Cine de Lima PUCP, International Competition - 2019.The Documentary Week DocMontevideo, Montevideo - 2019.14º Festival Tucumán Cine “Gerardo Vallejo”, Tucumán - 2019.Buenos Aires International Documentary Festival FIDBA - 2019.Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente de La Plata - 2019.Déli-Doku, Budapest - 2019.Valladolid International Film Festival SEMINCI, Valladolid - 2019.Family Film Project Porto, Porto - 2019.34° Festival del Cinema Latino Americano di Trieste, Trieste - 2019.EQUIS, Festival de Cine Feminista, Ecuador - 2019.Festival Film Dokumenter, Indonesia - 2019.41 Habana Film Festival, Cuba - 2019.Femcine - Festival Cine de Mujeres, Santiago - 2019.FIM - Women's International Film Festival, Brasil - 2020.EQUIS, Festival de Cine Feminista, Ecuador - 2020.Cine bajo las estrellas/Señoras Directoras, Manzana de las Luces
34ª FICVIÑA - Festival Internacional de Cine de Viña del Mar, Chile

AS A WORK IN PROGRESSPostproduction Coral Award, Habana Film FestivalWalla Collective Award for the Best Project, DocLisboa - ArchéBest Film Project, FemCine WIP.Best Argentine Project, FIDBA
WIP:LAB
FNA - National Fund of Arts AwardBAL - BAFICISelected for the Rough Cut Lab with João Moreira Salles, DocMontevideo

Work in progress

Work in progress

About us

Based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, HANA Films is an audiovisual female collective, focused on the creation of auteur pieces.Founded by María Silvia Esteve in 2018, the collective has produced films that premiered in Cannes, won Locarno, and were shown at the MoMA, International galleries, and at almost more than 300 film festivals, such as IDFA, Hkiff, Sitges, MIFF, etc.HANA also works on different mediums, including the video installations EXISTE EN EL REFLEJO, M, THE QUESTIONS, and CORTEX, which is to be exhibited at La MEP - Paris 2024.

Silvia

Maria Silvia Esteve

Argentine director, scriptwriter, and producer, born in Guatemala. Educated in arts and lyrical singing since her youth, she studied and taught Image and Sound Design at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA). She has been an official jury member at film festivals such as Seminci, Docaviv, and member of the evaluation committee of the Colombian Film Fund, Proimágenes.
Her debut feature film SILVIA had its World Premiere at IDFA 2018, and won at DocAviv, Habana Film Festival, DocLisboa, amongst others.
Her film CRIATURA, won the Pardino d’oro for the Best Auteur Short film at the Locarno Film Festival 2021, and was selected in more than 100 festivals including Sitges, Fantasia, MIFF, Gouna.
Her project MAILIN won the IDFA Bertha Fund, the Brouillon d'un rêve de la Scam, FIDOCS+CONECTA, got selected into the TiDF26 AGORA (Thessaloniki Film Festival) and was double award winner at the Visions du Réel Industry 2022 as the project with the highest international potential.
Her short film THE SPIRAL had its Premiere at the Director’s Fortnight Cannes 2022, and was selected at the New Directors/New Films MoMA, Hong Kong International Film Festival, and IDFA.
Currently, Silvia writes her first fiction feature FAUCES, selected for the TorinoFilmLab, la Cité Internationale des Arts, the CNC Cannes Co-Production Workshop, and won at the Focus COPRO’ 2022 - Cannes.

Silvia

Dano Marello

Dano Marello is a Visual Artist and Graphic Designer from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Graduated from Facultad de Arquitectura, Diseño y Urbanismo, FADU UBA.
She began her professional career as a designer for agencies such as R/GA, then as Art Director at Plenty.tv and Lead Graphic Designer at Google.
Dano Marello has been working in digital collages for 10 years and is currently continuing to deepen her work in 3D, seeking to conceptualize stories and narratives. She enjoys integrating fragments of textures and shapes to different scales in geometric and uninhabited landscapes, one of which can be seen in CRIATURA, by Maria Silvia Esteve, which won the Pardino d'Oro at the Locarno Film Festival.

Silvia

Andrea Emilia Cabrera

Andrea Cabrera is an Image and Sound Designer (UBA), photographer and teacher. Since 2009, she has participated in both fiction and documentary projects, fulfilling the roles of direction, photography, editing and script.
She is the director of photography of the documentary project in development MAILIN and of the short film CRIATURA (both directed by María Silvia Esteve), the latter winning the Pardino d'oro award at the Locarno Film Festival (Switzerland).
She gave seminars on screen acting classes, and has exhibited video installations such as, AHORA Y SIEMPRE, with the participation of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo Association, and M, THE QUESTIONS.
Since 2012, she has been working as a university professor at different national universities and has carried out the Escuela de Cine del Arroyo project for children and adolescents, in the COVI settlement (Quilmes, Buenos Aires province).