Spanish production company Sirimiri Films, led by acclaimed director Estibaliz Urresola, has partnered with Lazona Zinema to produce “La Koreana,” marking a significant entry in Spain’s emerging filmmaking talent. The project represents the feature directorial debut of Basque writer-director Joana Moya, whose work garnered recognition when it won the prestigious Sideral Ikusmira Berriak Prize at a major Spanish development laboratory in 2025.
The production is being presented to potential collaborators at the Locarno Festival’s Match Me! co-production marketplace, scheduled for August 7-9. “La Koreana” unfolds across multiple time periods, centering on a vast iron mining landscape in the Basque region. The narrative follows a woman named Manuela who arrives from southern Spain around 1960 to join her husband at a deteriorating mine, while parallel storylines explore the same location in 1890 when mining operations were at their peak.
Director Moya has described the mountain itself as the film’s central character, exploring themes of memory, exploitation, and environmental transformation. The project draws inspiration from her grandmother’s own experiences migrating to the mining region decades ago. Industry observers have praised the film as conceptually ambitious, with Urresola emphasizing Moya’s distinctive auteurial approach to documenting the region’s industrial heritage and landscape memory.
Originally reported by Variety →
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