Mexican actress Ilse Salas, who won Mexico’s Best Actress Ariel Award for “Good Girls” (“Las niñas bien”), will lead the cast of Quijote Films’ cynical drama “To Die on Your Feet” (“Morir de Pie”), opening this week at Iberseries & Platino Industria in Madrid.
This is the second fiction film by Chilean director María Paz González, who broke out with her first fiction film, “Lina de Lima,” which had its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival and won the FIC Valdivia award. The artist, who is both a journalist and a filmmaker, is also known for his 2011 feature-length documentary “Hija”.
Described as a social critique drama about a profession threatened by artificial intelligence, “To Die on Your Feet” follows Cruz, who works as a simulated patient for medical students. One night, he sees a body falling from his building and moves on with his life instead of helping. Security cameras record their actions. He realizes that his profession has made him insensitive because he cannot explain himself.
Salas is among the most admired Mexican actresses of her generation. In addition to bringing home Mexico’s prestigious Ariel Award for “Good Girls” in 2019, she was also nominated for an Ariel for her performances in Alonso Ruizpalacios’ “Güeros” and Abner Benaim’s “Plaza Catedral,” which was shortlisted for Panama’s 94th International.he Academy Awards.
Salas said, “Latin American cinema is the cinema that I watch, search for, make and dream about. Our voice needs to reach further and we are trying to make it heard.”
The drama comedy’s trajectory has taken it globally through various development and co-production programs at festivals such as Marseille, Toulouse, San Sebastián, Berlinale and Discovery TIFF 2029. It’s already been snapped up by Hulu, HBO and Mubi for various regions.
“To Die on Your Feet” also received support from the Pfeffer del Sur fund of the José Ignacio International Film Festival.
Like many Chilean projects, this project assembled a team of co-producers from various countries. The six-country co-production includes executive producers Quijote Films (Chile), Amore Cine (Spain), Sutor Kolonko (Germany), Tarantula (Luxembourg), Bocacha (Uruguay) and MartFilms (Mexico).
Quijote Film’s Giancarlo Nasi said: “We have spent years developing ‘Morir de Pie’ as an international co-production, and casting Ilse Salas in the title role is a decisive step forward. She is an actress we have long admired, from films by our favorite filmmakers like ‘Güeros’ (Berlinale, Tribeca) to outstanding productions for major streaming platforms. Her career has demonstrated extraordinary diversity, an extraordinary level of acting, and at the same time, she has reached out to audiences.” “A combination of humor, discomfort and emotion is exactly what María Paz Gonzalez was looking for in this story.”
Meanwhile, Chilean production company Quijote, which has the largest number of international co-productions completed to date, including Chile’s first co-production agreements with Ukraine and South Africa, is now preparing for a new milestone: its first Chilean-Moroccan co-production, the feature-length documentary “Don’t Let the Sun Go Up on Me”, co-produced with the French company Haut et Court.
The film will be directed by Moroccan filmmaker Asmae El Moudir, who won the Best Director Award for Un Certain Regard at Cannes 2023 with her movie “The Mother of All Lies”. The project is currently under development and has joined the Venice Production Bridge 2026.
However, the news came amid a separate controversy: The Chilean Ministry of Culture canceled the Audiovisual Minority Co-Production funding given to “The Scent of Apples,” Chile’s first co-production with the African continent, after an administrative observation.
The case is currently being reviewed by Quijote Films’ legal team, which is determining next steps, as the film, directed by John Trengove (“The Wound,” “Manodrome”), made its world premiere in Platform competition at TIFF 2026. The platform is the festival’s only competitive section, and this year’s winning film is also directly in the running for the Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film. Pic was a strong candidate to represent South Africa in this race, but the race went to Devon Delmar and Jason Jacobs’ “Variations on a Theme”.