Basque director Joana Moya’s debut feature, ‘La Koreana’, is being produced by Sirimiri Films and Lazona Zinema and presented to potential partners at Locarno’s Match Me! co-production forum. The project has attracted attention after winning the top Sideral Ikusmira Berriak Prize at a Spanish development lab, positioning it as a notable emerging Spanish film title.

Set around the iron-mining landscape of La Arboleda in Bizkaia across timelines including 1890 and the 1960s, the film follows Manuela, an Andalusian woman joining her husband at a mine already in decline. Inspired by Moya’s grandmother’s migration from Málaga, it explores memory, industrial exploitation and the lasting effects on people and landscape, with the mountain presented as its central character.